The Most Respectful Interpretation
Many of us jump to negative conclusions rather than generous ones. Taking the most respectful interpretation of events changes how you see others and how they behave toward you. Consider this …
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A Simple Exercise To Read The Emotions of Others
One of Charles Darwin’s less famous works, his The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, released in 1872, kicked off the idea that emotions carry distinct facial expressions. We read these …
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Art of Living
“I am a person who listens for a living. I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard.” *** Krista Tippett, the host of the compelling podcast On Being, is an incredible …
Principles for an Age of Acceleration
We live in an age where technology is developing at a rate faster than what any individual can keep up with. To survive in an age of acceleration, we need a new way of thinking about technology. *** …
Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
Most great thinkers have speculated about the kind of leadership that might give rise to a better society, analyzing it through what’s sometimes called a “normative” lens: What …
Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot
To get smarter, we need to exercise our cognitive powers – in the same way that we strengthen our bodies by exercising our muscles. To do this, we need to put ourselves in rich and varied …
George Marshall’s 1920 Letter on True Leadership
“I am certain in the belief that the average man who scrupulously follows this course of action is bound to win great success.” *** George Marshall must be one of, if not the most under …
Making a Change: One Small Step
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with the first step.” — Lao Tzu *** Change is hard. But what if we could make it a little easier? As Lao Tzu so eloquently puts it, maybe we just …
The 16 Best Books of 2016
Rewarding reads on love, life, knowledge, history, the future, and tools for thinking. Out of all the books I read this year, here is a list of what I found most worth reading in 2016. 1. The …
Farnam Street’s 2016 Annual Letter to Readers
To the readers of Farnam Street: Most public companies issue an annual letter to shareholders. These letters present an opportunity for the people entrusted to run the company on behalf of the …
The Self-Education of Louis L’Amour
The author Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) was among America’s most prolific and most beloved. He wrote 105 books, most of which were fiction, and at his death in 1988 they were all still in print. Most …
Epistemology: How do you know that you know what you know?
There is no definite way to confirm that we know anything at all. Only from our direct experience can we claim any knowledge about the world. *** The role of perception in knowledge It is hard to …
Leaders and Followers, Planners and Doers
The author Marshall Goldsmith has a gift for taking classic theories and adding to them, or slightly modifying them, to construct something new and interesting. A good example of this is what he does …
Immigration, Extinction, and Island Equilibrium
Equilibrium is an important concept that permeates many disciplines. In chemistry we think about the point where the rate of forward reaction is equal to the rate of backward reaction. In economics we …
Fiction that Influences and Inspires
Reading nonfiction is a fantastic way to expand your mind and give you an edge in this world. It’s especially useful when we have a specific idea or concept that we’d like to learn more about. …
Embrace the Mess: The Upside of Disorder
“We often succumb to the temptation of a tidy-minded approach when we would be better served by embracing a degree of mess.” — Tim Harford *** The breadth and depth of products and …