success and failure are fleeting Everything is
What do you think of you?
What do you think of yourself? When something goes wrong, how do you feel about you? When something goes well, how do you feel about you? When things are just going, how do you feel about you? Quite often you’re hard on yourself unnecessarily. It’s rare for another person to judge you as much as you judge yourself. That can…
Don’t overthink it – believe in your body
Growing up my schools had skate nights. I spent most of my time outside of the rink eating junk food and playing the games. When I stepped into to rink, I clinged to the wall and the handrails. I rarely ventured out to the fast lane. And if I did it was never at a fast pace. I vaguely remeber…
How to explain anything
Start with the benefit and work backward. If you’re lost in details it’s because you don’t know what matters and thus can’t naturally orient the material. Having clear benefits helps people relate to what you talk about and it gives you a final destination. That means you just have to help students find their way from where they are to…
Common cause unites
There’s a grumpy old guy at my gym that hates that I spend my rest time between sets on my phone. Like right now as I’m typing this, he’s getting up to complain. There’s another guy from the staff at the gym that thinks it’s a good idea to mop the gym while it’s still open. Including squat racks as…
Emotions are safe not sorry
That’s a blessing and a curse
Estimates become self fulfilling
If we estimate that something is going to take two months to complete, then our mind is wired to believe it should take two months. And out of no malice, we begin to prioritize accordingly. If we think two months is plenty of time then we let other things interrupt us. We also don’t feel compelled to work quickly. We’re…
Point of no return bias
There are about a dozen psychological, subconscious biases that lead to what I like to call the point of no return bias. We have dissonance when we become attached to an idea, especially after we invest in that idea. It’s very hard to change our mind because of the dissonance. Even if we haven’t invested beyond liking the idea, we’re…
Buying more than the initial high
Thinking back about some of the first computers that I had as a kid, I remember the excitement that I had that led up to getting the computers. Especially the ones that I paid for myself. The anticipation of saving up and then finally affording my own desktop computer and eventually my own laptop. The laptop was really exciting. It…
Some things are unsolvable
Some things are unsolvable, you’ll be much happier in life if you don’t insist that everything can and should be changed.