Thought Experiments And Thinking Differently

The following thought experiment is attributed to the German Gestalt psychologist Karl Dunker: One morning, exactly at sunrise, a Buddhist monk began to climb a tall mountain. The narrow path, no more than a foot or two wide, spiraled around the mountain to a glittering temple at the summit. The monk ascended the path at

Imagination And Knowledge

An interesting and vivid analogy on the role of imagination in coming up with new ideas and approaches, from the blog of Michael Michalko: Suppose you are watching a mime impersonating a man taking his dog out for a walk. The mime’s arm is outstretched as though holding the dog’s leash. As the mime’s arm

The Trials Of Leadership

Because of excellent reviews, last year I started reading a couple of books on D-Day and the Battle for Normandy eg here. However, even after just a few chapters, the complexity and uncertainty in nearly everything was both daunting and revealing (the famous ‘fog of war’). Directing and managing this must have been a nightmare

Starting From Success

Interesting little story found in a recent post by James Altucher on learning new skills: Tony Robbins told me about when he was scared to death on his first major teaching job. He had to teach a bunch of Marines how to improve their sharpshooting. “I had never shot a gun in my life,” he

Goals And Balanced Conversations

I’ve been thinking once again about personal goals and opportunities. In this context I stumbled across this interesting analogy on the blog of Steve Pavlina: I find goal setting extremely valuable, but even after doing it for about 15 years now, I’m still making new distinctions. When I set the right goal, it works wonders.

Tsundoku

I’m always surprised at what you can learn through casual remarks and asides. I have the habit of taking out far more library books than I ever have the time to read. At the moment I’ve put them in three different piles on the floor of the living room, mainly to goad me to try

Top 20 Reasons Startups Fail

Based on the analysis mentioned here.

Rising Above The OK Plateau

From Brain Pickings: Amateurs are content at some point to let their efforts become bottom-up operations. After about fifty hours of training — whether in skiing or driving — people get to that “good-enough” performance level, where they can go through the motions more or less effortlessly. They no longer feel the need for concentrated

The Rosie Project

I’m a member of a local book club and due to this I come across books I probably wouldn’t read or even hear about otherwise. One such that I liked a lot was The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. It’s written in a simple style but contains lots of humour and insights especially on the

Is Learning From Mistakes Overrated?

I’m currently rereading Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (of 37 Signals) which challenges some of the conventional thinking about setting up and running a small business. It contains the following interesting snippet: Another common misconception: you need to learn from your mistakes. What do you really learn from mistakes? You might learn