It is a great principle in psychiatry that “all-symptoms are overdetermined. This means that they have more than one cause. I want to scream this from the rooftops: “All symptoms are overdetermined.” Except that I want to expand it way beyond psychiatry. I want to expand it to almost everything. I want to translate it,… Read More There Just May Not Be a Magic Bullet – It’s Practically always “Both-And”
Let’s say that you are not as effective as you would like to be. It does not matter what your deficiency is, but let’s say that you know what your area of weakness, need, deficiency is. If you know where you are weak, if you know what you need to work on, then consider yourself… Read More Here It Is — The Number One Barrier to Personal Success at Work (and in Life)
(Thanks to Dan Weston for putting me onto this New York Times Magazine article). It’s been a while since I quoted from The Black Swan on this blog. I presented this book at the September, 2007 First Friday Book Synopsis. It still pops up in the “let’s discuss” and even some “best-seller” lists. Here’s my… Read More It Can’t Happen, Because It’s Never Happened Before – This Is A Bad, Bad Way To Think (w/update)
The Rise of the “Stupider” The Rise of Substitute Intellectual Activity – a Plague! Roger Ebert has written a column, The quest for frisson, in which he describes some of the ways we function differently with the arrival of the Web. One way: we read full, actual books less often. We are too easily distracted.… Read More The Rise of the “Stupider”
Yesterday, Bob Morris and I both weighed in on this blog with our “best business books” list from 2009. (Our lists were very different – mine here, Bob’s here). So I started thinking about which books I have read that have had true, lasting impact on my thinking, and even occasionally my behavior. I keep… Read More “Life is difficult; don’t be lazy” – 2 great lessons from M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled, maybe the best book I have ever read
What got us into this mess? First, an admission. I, like all of you, have too many books on my “I should read this” list that I simply will never get to. In my case, I prepare a minimum of two new book synopsis presentations a month, and that means that there are other books… Read More What went Wrong? How do We Fix It? — The Two Questions of our era
“It is a great principle in psychiatry that ‘all symptoms are overdetermined.’ This means that they have more than one cause…. I want to scream this from the rooftops: ‘All symptoms are overdetermined.’” M. Scott Peck, In Search of Stones Malcolm Gladwell has a new article out. Gladwell fans wait for these with great anticipation. … Read More Malcolm Gladwell has a New Article (on the Financial Meltdown) — and People are Already Disagreeing
First Friday Book Synopsis 