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What’s your pain discount rate?

Poked and prodded I love Persian accents. They’re unique and pleasant to the ear (at least for me). Hard to replicate.  I was at the doctor’s yesterday. Young guy. Friendly. Persian. Four needles were staring back at me. Waiting patiently to fulfill their destinies.  “How do you handle these?” he asks.  “Generally you put the…

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Questioning the ‘five-people’ advice of Jim Rohn

The first time I showed up, he did this thing with his arms across the room. Each one was raised up, horizontal at his side, fingers outstretched. He just left them there. Big smile on his face.

He wanted a hug.

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Builder vs. Artist

The distinction is harder than you think “I’m a builder. I like to build things.” She says this with an impressive resume and a glowing smile. The smile is genuine, but she might as well be the cat who swallowed the canary. I as the interviewer am supposed to like to hear things like this….

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Thought, and other crimes

Martin Sheen and a romantic military trope explain corporate reality 1st Lieutenant Rowan spent eight days on horseback traversing the mountains of Cuba, though I like picturing him in the jungle | Credit: Mike Blank Harvard Business School graduates consider themselves extremely entitled. Or so the reputation goes. Yet the same is said of millennials or,…

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How to play product manager

A primer for the easiest job around (for those who don’t do it) Acting the Part | Credit: Kyle Head A conundrum I tell everyone that product management is common sense. Yet you probably need this guide to do it. Until you can reconcile this, you have much to learn. Step 1: Gird thyself Product management (PM) can…

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How you name products matters

Clowns-as-a-Service is gonna be huge. Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash Clowns-as-a-Service At more than one company, I have been called “the namer of things” or “He who names things.” (Okay, I capitalized “H” myself.) In a recent conversation with a product colleague, we discussed an idea that he and several others had been touting for almost…

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A brainstorming manifesto

Part one — in verse Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash Manifesto scribbling probably comes naturally to some people. Like Luddite serial killers. But I have no idea how to write one. So I’ll start mine like a children’s story. Once there was a project called Bluefin, a code name for sure to keep truth in to thwart…

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The opposite of fear isn’t bravery.

The opposite of fear isn’t bravery. Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash Ever heard of courage porn? I bet you have. It’s the podcast that tells you that all you need is to be brave. It’s the book that tells you to overcome your fears. It’s motivational posters. It’s that TED talk. Let’s be honest. You could…

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Intermittent Fasting and the Placebo Effect

Wolverine. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the X-Men will agree that this Marvel saga would be nothing without Wolverine. The X-Men comic book series was birthed by Stan Lee and his co-creator, Jack Kirby, in 1963. The 1990s cartoon enthralled my brothers and me with its gritty storylines and complex characters. The…

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Squirrels teach us about office manipulators

What squirrels can teach us about office manipulators “highway road photo” by Alexandre Godreau on Unsplash Once I got run over once, the temptation was to become hyperaware of this new reality. I began to see specters where none existed. Toast Protocol An oncoming car approaches. After a moment of frozen panic, a squirrel usually darts towards…

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Two different approaches to uncertainty.

Leprechauns make mayhem. Wizards make a raucous. Photo by Amy Reed on Unsplash Magically delicious. I mean, they’re frosted. So of course they’re going to be fucking delicious. But magical, too? Count this kid in. Fun fact: Lucky the Leprechaun has an alias. His drinking buddies supposedly call him “Sir Charms.” (That’s like believing that other people…

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ENOUGH: Flawed beauty and the portfolio model for hiring.

Eight. That’s how much is enough. When I was a kid, we swam in a pool with Dick Van Patten. Okay, that sounds weird. All of it. The then aging star from the hit TV show “Eight is Enough” was at a resort hotel at Disney World. He was there with his grandchildren. Round, tan, and…

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How to get laid… off.

“A low shot…” by ALP STUDIO on Unsplash A gnat committed suicide in my eye last night. That was in the 5th inning of a playoff baseball game. There were bugs everywhere. The home team was trailing. My son Casey scored the tying run. No, his name’s not actually Casey. They won. They’re the Nationals. The…

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How to navigate the accuracy-precision dilemma

CUTS LIKE A KNIFE…HAND Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash Karate Girl. She’s not a kid. She’s a girl. Who does karate. In the same way that there is an objective answer to the worst two hours of TV ever (Star Wars Holiday Special, 1978), there is a correct conclusion regarding the worst death scene in…

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What shades of gray, gun control, and Kurt Vonnegut can teach you about decisions.

Iraq Shooting Range (US Army) Home on the range A story oft repeated at the Naval Academy was that a single SEAL Team shoots more small-arms ammunition in a single year than the entire U.S. Marine Corps. Whether that technically holds up, the staggering implication is indeed true: The only thing stopping us from shooting more…

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UNVALUE: Saying “no” starts with yourself.

A Soul Half Full Catholic kids tend to have lots of Irish friends. In seventh grade my sister and I changed to a Catholic school named after Saint Brendan the Navigator. That last part is to distinguish him from all the other beatified Brendans you know. In my class there was even a real live…

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CRUNCH: Jack Bauer, hummingbirds, and the future of humanity.

Have you ever seen a dead hummingbird? Neither have I. That’s because hummingbirds don’t die. They’re like Benjamin Button. They just get smaller forever. Eventually they become so small they turn into dark matter. If only this weren’t true. I have a hunch the big crunch will be precipitated by a ballooning in the population…

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SWINTON: Your relationships on AI

The present and future of communication. Rise of Tilda There should be a service that married couples call. They’d use it to communicate. Most of the couple’s conversations would happen normally and in person. But some really important stuff would happen indirectly. Not like an app. Rather, you would have some interlocutor to mediate when you’re…

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