Sometimes doing what seems right is counterproductive. When your car skids it seems right to hit the brakes. When you’re on a plane in distress and the oxygen masks drop for everyone to put on, it seems right to place them on your kids first. Both are natural instincts that work completely counter to what…
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The New York Times today ran an article about the famous Encyclopaedia Britanica (EB) going out of print after 244 years. The realities of 21st century information production and consumption made the offline multi-volume editions quaint and immediately out of date. Also, Wikipedia, the eleven year old upstart in the encyclopaedia business made it necessary…
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How many people do you know that are truly passionate about what they do? Probably not many. I know I hadn’t met anyone truly passionate about their work until I was in my late twenties, and when I did I remember being completely blown away by the very concept of being passionate about your work….
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One of the most fundamental human needs is to be heard; to have the feeling that the person looking right at us is also getting what we’re saying. That s/he is really listening to us. Buy why is that experience so rare? Look at talk shows, the American Congress, or just witness people in social…
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As a child I liked many of my teachers. There were those that were funny, autocratic, confused, empathetic etc. I remember them primarily for the funny stories that happened in their classrooms, and whether or not we thought they were cool. As I think back on them I realize that every one of them was…
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If you have kids, one easy way to prepare them for life is to always ask one simple question: What have you learned? Learning isn’t limited to classrooms. If we’re open to learning, we have opportunities to learn all around us, but our kids have to be taught to look for learning everywhere. They won’t…
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That’s an almost quote from Peter Thiel, the Stanford University educated billionaire who started Paypal and went on to invest in other internet successes like YouTube and Facebook. I jazzed it up a little; the actual quote is “Learning is good, credentialing and debt is very bad.” (Click here for the actual ABC interview with…
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