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The bad joke phenomenon
When you get promoted, other people will laugh harder at your jokes and seem to excuse your tardiness. The feedback signals that had previously guided your behavior will seem distorted because you’ve gained power and status. Daniel Shapero calls this the “bad joke” phenomenon (via Rohan Rajiv), and he suggests three ways to accommodate this:…
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Your chance to change a life
My good friend Faiz is a pro basketball coach. Yao Ming hired him to coach China’s national team. He has also personally coached NBA champion Lu Dort. You can see him briefly in Netflix’s doc Court of Gold. He’s gotten a lot of other coaching experience too. You’d never guess: he’s been doing all of…
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The facade of a lottery
Seth Godin recently wrote about seeing lottery elements in schools, sports, and on social media. Actually seeing lotteries is actually more difficult than it sounds. For starters, lotteries are well disguised. If you bluntly told an Olympian that they were effectively a lottery winner, they might think you’re telling them their efforts didn’t matter, and…
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Hell’s Kitchen
A year ago, my partner and I watched a musical called Hell’s Kitchen. It was created by Alicia Keys, with a storyline loosely based on her life and anchored by her songs. The musical made a really strong impression on me. Even though I was already familiar with her music, the characters, the screenplay, and…
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When a detour is the best route
You are on a road trip. The fastest path to your destination has no fuel stations, and your car is running low. An alternate path has several fuel stations, and it requires a detour—taking you an extra hour or two. Which path will you take? Sometimes, it’s most useful to go directly towards your goal.…
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Perpetual beginner
This month, Grant Snider is writing one Haiku and making a drawing with it every day. He posts them at his website. At his Substack, he dives into the creative process, and shares the stories behind the scenes. “Maybe when it comes to art, I’m not a master. I’m a perpetual beginner,” he writes. This…