Are you open-minded? If so, when was the last time you changed your mind about a long-held belief? When was the last time you publicly admitted you were wrong? When was the last time you acknowledged that another person could look at the exact same thing and come to an equally valid — but opposite —…

“One of the most important disciplines in the twenty-first will be no discipline at all,” writes Frank Moss in his new book, The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices—a new book about MIT’s Media Lab. So does this mean the hard disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering can be abandoned? Absolutely not. Instead, the school—whose stated mission…

One of my favorite authors, Seth Godin, recently had an insightful post entitled "The Hard Part (One of Them)." I'll repeat it below for your reading enjoyment: A guy asked his friend, the writer David Foster Wallace, "Say, Dave, how'd y'get t'be so dang smart?" His answer: "I did the reading." No one said the preparation…

That's not possible. It's a dumb idea. We've already tried that. That won't work. We need more resources. We need more money. We need more time. I'm not skilled — or smart — enough. There are a million reasons why we shouldn't try or do new things. Don't believe any of them until you answer…

I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, which discusses the value of heeding your intuition. It's a powerful idea. Unfortunately, it is incomplete. Often our intuition is wrong. The problem with Gladwell's book is that it never provides a counter narrative. That is he never tells those stories of people who trusted…

What do you do if you want to sell more carrots? One thing, apparently, is to begin viewing the world from a different perspective. Recently, Fast Company, published this insightful article describing how the creative team at Crispin (an advertising firm) helped BoltHouse Farms increase sales of its pre-cut baby carrots. How did they do…

If you have ever rented a video/DVD just because it has won an obscure award from some international film festival, I think you'll appreciate the image (and the saying) to the right. It's easy to laugh at the truth of the statement but I believe we do the same with people. Did you know, for…

By sheer luck, my family and I walked up the steps of the Eiffel Tower on the evening of March 19, 2011 — the night of the “Super Moon.” The view was spectacular as a large red orb arose over the Parisian skyline. If you would have asked me whether the moon was closer to…

"Do you have any other questions?" It is a common question. Usually, many of us answer "no." Sometimes this is because we really don't have any other questions but, other times, it is because we don't want to display our ignorance. In my quest to unlearn, however, I have recently been turning around the question…

The IQ test, the SAT, the LSAT and countless other tests all serve a limited purpose but each is a remarkably poor predictor of long-term success. Why? It is not because of what they measure, it is because of what they don't measure–and they don't measure characteristics such as curiosity, self-control, grit, and risk-taking. Remember,…