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Education

Finite and Infinite Games: Two Ways to Play the Game of Life

If life is a game, how do you play it? The answer will have a huge impact on your choices, your satisfaction, and how you achieve success. *** James Carse, the Director of Religious Studies at New …

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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 …

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Henry Ford and the Actual Value of Education

“The object of education is not to fill a man’s mind with facts; it is to teach him how to use his mind in thinking.” — Henry Ford *** In his memoir My Life and Work, written in …

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Richard Feynman on Teaching Math to Kids and the Lessons of Knowledge

Legendary scientist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was famous for his penetrating insight and clarity of thought. Famous for not only the work he did to garner a Nobel Prize, but also for the lucidity of …

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Steven Pinker: What a Broad Education Should Entail

Harvard’s biologist/psychologist Steven Pinker is one of my favorites, even though I’m just starting to get into his work. What makes him great is not just his rational mind, but his …

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Carol Dweck: A Summary of Growth and Fixed Mindsets

There are two main mindsets we can navigate life with: growth and fixed. Having a growth mindset is essential for success. In this post, we explore how to develop the right mindset for improving your …

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Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.” — Confucius *** …

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James T. Mangan: 14 Ways to Acquire Knowledge

Brainpickings put me onto this timeless wisdom from famous eccentric James T. Mangan’s 1936 book You Can Do Anything! PRACTICE Consider the knowledge you already have — the things you really …

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Rethinking the Value of a Business Major

Melissa Korn reporting in the Wall Street Journal: “The biggest complaint,” writes Korn is that “undergraduate degrees focus too much on the nuts and bolts of finance and accounting and don’t …

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Letting Children Fail Is Not A Dereliction Of Duty

Teacher Jessica Lahey reminds parents that the educational benefits of consequences are a gift, not a dereliction of duty. The stories teachers exchange these days reveal a whole new level of …

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Arguments Are For Learning, Not Winning

Despite his best efforts and long hours, Nobel-Prize winning physicist and professor Carl Wieman grew frustrated by his inability to teach and his students’ failure to learn. When I first taught …

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Charlie Munger: How to Teach Business School

Everyone has an opinion on what to teach at business school. Few are as informed or timeless as Charlie Munger, the billionaire business partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway. Here’s …

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Why Can’t Someone Be Taught Until They’re Ready To Learn?

Clay Christensen is best known as the author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. He’s also the author of a new book, How Will You Measure Your Life?, which has some wonderful insights (see …

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What is Deliberate Practice?

Deliberate practice is a method for improving your performance at anything, based on constant feedback and working at the edge of your abilities. Elite people in every field use it to build up their …

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An Algorithm for Solving Problems

“He (Richard Feynman) was always searching for patterns, for connections, for a new way of looking at something, but I suspect his motivation was not so much to understand the world as it was to …

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Make Good Art: One Of The Best Commencement Speeches Ever

Although Neil Gaiman never attended college, he gives one of the best commencement speeches ever. This is right up there with the Steve Jobs and David Foster Wallace commencement speeches. People who …

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