Kottke's post on meritocracy, a concept that I had in my younger days considered infallible, reminded me that even those of us who have worked hard and achieved so-called "success" have much to owe to "luck". Even the smartest, hardest working, most beautiful of us all, would likely have not fared well, had we been born... Continue Reading →
What you do determines what you see
Author's note: This post was originally titled "Déformation Professionnelle", but I had trouble understanding it myself and have renamed it for easier future reference! This post in three words: Profession -> Perception -> Truth The following text is taken from the excellent book The Art of Thinking Clearly, by Rolf Dobelli. A man takes out... Continue Reading →
The number of books one reads is not as important as the number of times one reads a book
The last time I wrote I mentioned that I was reading the book Dedication – The Huawei Philosophy of Human Resource Management, by Huang Weiwei. Well, I've finished, and I must say that it was great. Just thought I'd pen down one more of the passages that I thought made great sense and felt extremely relevant... Continue Reading →
A Chinese perspective on business
I'm currently reading a book called Dedication - The Huawei Philosophy of Human Resource Management, by Huang Weiwei. I'm only in the first chapter, but I'm already in love with it. It's so, so different from the most western-centric business books that I'm used to. I'm just going to leave you with a couple of... Continue Reading →
Great, but incompatible
It's painful how sometimes you can put in lots of effort and sacrifice into a project (or a career) in the hope that it will pay off, only for it to fall through in the last moment. It's worse when the motivation that was used sustain that effort was based on the fact that "there's... Continue Reading →
Claiming my life back
It's been two months since I last updated hasn't it? Quite unbelievable really. I haven't gone this long without an update since... maybe ten years ago? (I always made it a point of one update each month, at least...) But I've been busy. Busiest time of my life perhaps. Work and school have absolutely consumed... Continue Reading →
If it’s not a ‘Hell, yes!’, it’s a ‘No.’
The title of this post, "if it's not a 'Hell, yes!', it's a 'No.'" comes from a Tim Ferriss book I'm currently reading called Tools of Titans, and is one of Ferriss' favourite rules of thumb. Here's a little more context (Ferriss is quoting Derek Sivers here): Because most of us say yes to too... Continue Reading →
Business Experimentation
Imagine for a moment that you want to implement a new sales initiative that you think will transform your business. The problem is, you're not too sure if it'd work. You decide, prudently, that maybe a pilot test would be good: let's roll out the initiative to just a small subset of the company, the... Continue Reading →
What are you doing to help the person next to you?
Was taking a break from my studies (exams next week, people!), having my dinner and watching some YouTube vids on "leadership" (just because) when I came across Simon Sinek and this video. Reminded me of something I knew very well sometime back, but forgotten in the hustle and bustle of corporate life: that we sometimes... Continue Reading →
Forecasts are not predictions
If you have a prediction and it turns out to be wrong, then that's bad. But if you have a forecast and it turns out to be wrong, that's not necessarily bad, and may in fact be good. Let's say that you're the captain of a ship and you see an iceberg one mile out.... Continue Reading →
Donn, fragments 