The thing about entrepreneurship is that you probably want to live in the world of the people who you want to buy your products or services. How else would you be able to determine what your customers want or need? Or might want or need? And I think that’s where I fall short. I live... Continue Reading →
Local Adaptation
I could have sworn that I wrote this before, but I can't seem to find it anywhere! The following is a passage from the book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure by Tim Harford, which had at that time (and still does) a great impact on me because of the scope of my work.... Continue Reading →
The Science of Happiness: Buying Happiness
I’m curious: today I read again about the “science” of happiness, and one of the things mentioned in the article is the oft-quoted “buy experiences, not things”. How many studies, really, have there been done on to prove this? What’s the definition of an “experience”, as opposed to a “thing”? The article provides the example... Continue Reading →
Sour Grapes
I'd recently read a post called It's Not So Easy to be Rich that talked about the difficulties of, you guessed it, being rich. Being one of the un-rich, I couldn't help but feel a little happier reading about the unhappiness that comes with richness. Maybe, I thought, being rich just isn't that great after... Continue Reading →
Normal People Look for Causality
From the book Be Unreasonable by Paul Lemberg: Freedom comes from responsibility. Be completely responsible for your actions and your results. Normal people look for causality, something or someone to blame for the way things turned out. Unreasonably lay claim to every miracle or debacle within your sphere of influence; make them all yours, for that's the only... Continue Reading →
Regrets at not living a fuller life
Imagine you’re 80-years-old, on your rocking chair, looking at your grandchildren running along in the large garden of your beautiful house, acquired almost 40 years ago. At that time, the house cost you a “small fortune” and (at least according to the stories you’d tell anyone who’d cared to listen), though you’re able to afford... Continue Reading →
How to write shorter, better e-mails
Each time I complete writing a lengthy e-mail, I save it in my drafts and let it sit there for a while (sometimes, just a minute or two would do). Then, returning to it, I look at it through the eyes of my recipient, and imagine how I’d read it if I had only ten... Continue Reading →
The Unconsoled (A review): Just like Monkey Island
I recently completed the book The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. The book was borrowed from the library, and was quite a serendipitous find -- I had, in fact, wanted to borrow the book Never Let Me Go by the same author, but it was already on loan. After reading the first ten pages, I knew this... Continue Reading →
Superman
In front, the darkened sky; Below, the quiet street. Close my eyes, prepare to fly; This body now, later, meat.
A Little Less Timid
From The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro: [E]very now and then, he looks back over this life he's led and wonders if he didn't perhaps let certain things slip by. He wonders how things might have been if he'd been, well, a little less timid. A little less timid and a little more passionate.
Donn, fragments 