EMBA的小眼睛

"Don't touch it, you might break it."

This is, of course, the opposite of,

"Touch it, you can make it better."

What's the default where you work?

No one knows

No one knows the right answer, no one knows precisely what will happen, no one can produce the desired future, on demand.

Some people are better at guessing than others, but not by much.

The people who are supposed to know rejected Harry Potter, Tracy Chapman and the Beatles. The people who are supposed to know sell stocks just before they go up, and give us rules of thumb that don't pan out.

If you mistakenly believe that there's someone who knows, you're likely to decide that whoever that person it is, it's not you.

SUSDAT

Abbey Ryan has painted a new painting every day for 8 years.

Isaac Asimov published 400 books, by typing every day.

This is post #6000 on this blog.

Writer's block is a myth, a recent invention, a cultural malady.

On feeling like a failure

Feeling like a failure has little correlation with actually failing.

There are people who have failed more times than you and I can count, who are happily continuing in their work.

There are others who have achieved more than most of us can imagine, who go to work each day feeling inadequate, behind, and yes, like failures and frauds.

These are not cases of extraordinary outliers. In fact, external data is almost useless in figuring out whether or not someone is going to adopt the narrative of being a failure.

Going to the edges

The best restaurant in Omaha doesn't serve steak. And it's not a chain.

The Kitchen Table is run by two people who care. Colin and Jessica aren't trying to copy what's come before and they're not trying to please everyone.

When they first opened, people wanted to know why everything wasn't $5. (You can get a large dinner for two for $30 here). Instead of dumbing down the menu and averaging down on quality, they went the other way. There might be other restaurants in Nebraska that serve homemade dukkah on their salads and homemade sourdough bread with their sandwiches, but I don't know of any. And I think homemade watermelon rind pickles are scarce even in New York.

It helps that the rent is (really) cheap on the big city rent scale. It helps that the two people behind the restaurant live upstairs and are willing to put their hearts into it.

Parents, taxpayers, citizens, let's not waste another year. What happens if every teacher and school board member starts discussing what school is for? Please share with four people... that's all it would take to start the conversation.

One last thing to think about: What would happen to our society if we spent twice as much time and money on education as we do now? And not just on the wealthy, but on everyone, especially on everyone.

What if every six-year-old was reading, if math and science were treated as opportunities, not chores, if community service and leadership got as much space in the local paper and on TV as sports do?

The real win is creating a generation that actually delights in learning. Once people want to learn, there are more self-directed avenues open than ever before.

I wonder how many people will have to speak up before we end up redefining what 'good enough' looks like when it came to the single most important thing we do for our future and our kids.