There’s often a conflict between choosing the quick, easy fix or solving a problem the right way. I’ve spent the last few days gutting my basement because the previous homeowner took shortcuts when addressing mold issues. Rather than properly cleaning up the mold and addressing the root cause, they used a band-aid. They sprayed some …
The first step in solving a problem in the engineering world is to define the requirements. Simply put, the goal is to systematically determine what the solution will do. Take a Roomba for example. When someone had the idea of deploying an autonomous vacuum cleaner indoors, the engineers likely first defined exactly what they expected …
Manually watering the grass is boring. It isn’t physically tasking, and it takes almost no mental effort. Yet I find a remarkable sense of peace and clear thinking while working that makes it quite enjoyable. It’s similar to the feeling I get when I’m chopping up vegetables or doing manual work in an Excel spreadsheet. …
In the sales world, there’s immense pressure to close. Companies, and employees, want to win the business they’re pursuing and sometimes they’re willing to bring it in at any cost. For the traditional salesman, it’s considered a compliment to be called a “shark” or a “wolf.” It’s even said that the ABCs of sales is Always Be Closing. …
When I first moved from Detroit to Charleston a few years ago, the heat was seemingly unbearable. I arrived in mid-July, and I didn’t experience anything other than blistering heat for almost three months. Fast forward to the next year in Charleston, and it was a different story. The heat was the same, but suddenly, …
There’s an obviously dangerous intersection right outside my work. Cars come whizzing over a hill at 55 mph+, and I have to try to quickly merge across three lanes to make a turn. Even with the obvious danger, let’s say that the odds of getting in an accident on a given morning are something like …
I recently went for a jog for the first time in awhile and I had a peculiar thought: I wonder how fast I could run a mile? To some extent, it was stupid considering that I’ve had close to zero dedicated cardio training for the past year or so and I haven’t run consistently since …
There’s an old question that’s often used to illustrate our lack of financial maturity: Would you rather have $100 today or $200 a year from now? And the lesson that follows is the surprising fact that more than a few people tend to choose the cash now rather than doubling their money in a year. …
Simplicity can come from mastery, or it can come from ignorance. On the surface, the two situations might seem similar, but they’re very different. When we begin learning a new skill or trying to understand a new subject, it seems simple because we can’t comprehend all of the things that we don’t yet know. You’ve …
In seemingly every statistics class, the topic of the lottery comes up eventually. And almost inevitably, the teacher and the textbook agree that the lottery is fueled by irrational people who don’t understand how statistics work. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. I certainly agree that people who play the lottery as a …