About six months ago, it was not a great time for the gym I go to. Likely the result of financial difficulties, the quality and consistency of some basic gym amenities started to suffer. Occasionally there would be no soap
Interview Questions
This week Google announced that their famous brainteaser interview questions are actually totally useless for the purposes of evaluating candidates. Intuitively, this announcement makes sense to me. I tried “Google-esque” questions in a few interviews back in 2011 (I also
The Key to Being a Good Coach
Like many life lessons, I learned about how to be a good coach on the athletic field. I was playing in the last lacrosse game of my junior year, an away game vs. Clarkson University. Games at Clarkson were always
Workplace Politics
From my very first experience with a political working environment (at my first job, in fact) I’ve always tried to avoid and diffuse organizational politics. My stance: it’s distracting and a waste of time – the sooner the tension is
The Key to Having Your Message Heard: Simplicity, Repetition, and Analogies
Over the past few years, my most consistent blog theme has been the way that inherent human limitations affect business outcomes. I find it absolutely fascinating. People come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes (mentally, physically, and emotionally)
What does it mean to be an influencer?
One of my priorities for the new year is to really study what it means to be an influencer. The good news is that there doesn’t appear to be any lack of material on the topic. Over the past couple
The Need to be Unique
As a child I felt a very strong need to be unique. I desperately needed to possess likes and ambitions that were distinct from other children in my age group and therefore the views expressed by others dramatically affected the
Duration Neglect
Ordinarily I really enjoy learning about behavioral economics. I find it truly fascinating that there are invisible forces subconsciously affecting our behavior. Here are just a few of my favorite examples: In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely taught me that you
Hurricane Preparedness
Last week I wrote about the presidential race and the efforts being made to avoid the rational evaluation of the candidates. This weekend, I witnessed everyone in New York City prepare for hurricane Sandy by running around, frantically buying all
Thinking Fast and Slow About the Presidential Race
For the past two weeks I’ve been reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. I’ve really found it fascinating. The main premise of the book is that our brains have two gears: a fast gear for intuition and snap judgments,