Job Hunting
Beginner’s Mind: A Better Way to Solve Problems
I first read about the idea of the “beginner’s mind” — a buiddhist conception — while reading one of my favorite books — The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. Josh was a chess prodigy at a young age and eventually became a world champion. He eventually took a break from chess, but re-focused his efforts on Taiwanese Push Hands — a martial ... Read more
Getting Reps: High-Performance and The Patriots
As a lifelong Patriots fan and admirer of any high-perfoming organization it would be hard to not comment on the Patriots win last night. Tom Brady has played in 34 playoff games with Bill Belichick. Thats over 33 hours of high-pressure experience. Matt Ryan has only played in 8 games and this was his first ... Read more
Skill building as a career strategy
Versatility is imperative in today’s world My goal has always been to be versatile and have flexibility in my career. In today’s economy it’s the only way I know how to prepare for the future. Many jobs that people have today didn’t exist ten years ago. My last three jobs didn’t exist before I had the ... Read more
Beware of the Default Path
The mistake that is holding back the working world I spend a lot of time mentoring and coaching college students. I was having a conversation with a student a couple months ago and he asked me “people that take this job don’t typically do X after, will this limit my options?” I get some version of ... Read more
How to hire the best
Hint: Hiring the right people is too hard Yesterday I read about Naval Ravikant’s approach to hiring the right people — it has nothing to do with hiring and selecting the right people. It is about one thing — making sure you fire the wrong people fast. Two great reads — Malcolm Gladwell’s The Talent Myth and a book, The Halo Effect — made ... Read more
Why You Should Stop Consuming The News & My Media Diet (August 2019)
The internet has dramatically changed what is possible in terms of both content creation and content consumption. The near zero-marginal costs of digital creation means that there is more content created than you could ever consume in a lifetime. Mobile phones and desktop knowledge jobs enable us non-stop access to this content and many people ... Read more
RIP: Is The Performance Review Dead?
Over the past few years, many companies have eliminated or overhauled the annual performance review. These decisions have often been categorically celebrated — there is no large constituency arguing for more annual performance reviews. The research firm CEB found that “95 percent of managers are dissatisfied with the way their companies conduct performance reviews.”[1] However, ... Read more
Conquering Chronic Illness & Learning How to Live
In June 2012, I was on top of the world. I just graduated from MIT, with a masters in engineering and MBA — something I had secretly been working toward for years. I was about to embark on the most transformational period in my life — but not in the way I thought. I. Getting Sick ... Read more
So You’re Getting an MBA… Now What?
You landed great jobs out of college, you had success, you studied for the GMATs, you put tons of time into your application essays and you got through the stress of waiting to hear back from a mysterious admissions committee. One or two crazy schools said, “Sure, let’s give this guy a shot.” You were ... Read more
Beyond the Feedback Sandwich: Delivering World-Class Feedback
As much as we accept that feedback and coaching are good, most people still feel awkward when giving and receiving feedback. I was talking with fellow alumni from my grad school program and the conversation turned to performance management and feedback. These were people working at great companies. I was startled by how many questions ... Read more