In my last post, I talked about getting the reps to improve oneself on desired skills. But it’s difficult to make the time for practice, especially for deliberate practice where we are always dancing on the edge of failure. And I think that’s where I think Coyle’s observation that coaching is an integral part of […]
Category: journal
Getting the reps
Seen on Twitter: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle Both Drive and The Talent Code make the same point: Becoming a master isn’t about natural talent or improbable achievements – it’s about getting a little bit better every day, and practicing until what is now […]
The Paradox of Self-Discipline
I was listening to the Fresh Air interview with Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, and he mentioned an experiment that seems relevant to me right now. Lehrer describes the experiment in a Wall Street Journal article about New Year’s Resolutions: In one experiment, led by Baba Shiv at Stanford University, several dozen undergraduates […]
Learning from jerks
As usual, it’s been a couple months since I posted, so I’m lowering the standards again, and posting a ramble through some topics that are on my mind this morning. I want to get back into the habit of posting, although that will depend on me actually taking a stand on work-life balance, which I […]
AYE Conference Notes
While it’s still fresh in my mind, I wanted to jot down some passing observations about my experience at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference. From the warm-up tutorial, it was interesting seeing how some of the personality preferences were demonstrated by Don Gray and Steve Smith. I particularly liked the I vs. E demonstration – […]
Jerry Weinberg
As many of you know, I’m off at the AYE conference, and one of the major attractors for me personally was Jerry Weinberg. I’ve read books of his like Becoming a Technical Leader and The Secrets of Consulting, and his systems thinking approach is an inspiration to me (his second “law of consulting” is “No […]
Why am I doing this?
Anybody that’s been following my Twitter feed knows I’ve been working long hours recently. I’m actually working harder now than I was last year when I was working full time while finishing my master’s degree at Columbia. This would come as a surprise to, well, pretty much anybody that’s ever worked with me, given my […]
Tracking
Google has a program called Self-Powered Commuting, where they let employees track the days on which they get to work via self-powered methods (primarily biking or walking). At the end of the year, they tote up the number of days, and donate a proportionate amount to charity. What’s amazing to me is how effective this […]
Buying pants
[Ed: We take a detour from our normal posts about cognition and management to talk about pants. Feel free to skip this post. Really. Just go on your way. It’s a waste of your time anyway. I’m just working out some clothing issues in public.] I recently posted on Twitter, which then posted as my […]
Recording Mahler’s 8th Symphony
In case you were wondering why I didn’t update my blog much in November, it wasn’t just my new job responsibilities at Google. I had also chosen to sing in the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Mahler’s 8th Symphony, which was recorded last weekend. So the rehearsals used a lot of my extra time and […]
