Someone tells you your work is not good enough. Your first instinct is not to consider whether they might be right. Your first instinct is to survive. Your jaw tightens. Your brain starts assembling a defense. You are no longer a rational adult weighing feedback. You are a six year old who just got told […]
How to Accept Criticism Like a Philosopher, Not a Child: Lessons from Marcus Aurelius Read More »
There is a particular kind of moral comfort in working on what you are bad at. It feels responsible. It feels mature. Your parents probably told you to do it. Your teachers almost certainly did. The entire self improvement industry has built a cathedral on the foundation of this single idea: find your weaknesses, then
Why You Should Stop Trying to Improve Your Weaknesses Read More »
Most people misunderstand strength. They think the goal is to become stronger than whatever stands in their way. Lift more. Push harder. Outmuscle the obstacle. Miyamoto Musashi, the most legendary swordsman in Japanese history, thought this was a fine way to die young. Musashi won over sixty duels before the age of thirty. He killed
Once, Gary Becker was running late to a student’s oral exam. He needed to park. The legal lot was far away. The illegal spot was right there. So he did what any rational person might do. He weighed the fine, the probability of getting caught, and the time he would save. Then he parked illegally.
Marcus Tullius Cicero did not have a LinkedIn profile. He did not attend leadership seminars. He never posted an inspirational quote over a sunrise photo, though he certainly produced enough quotes to fill a lifetime of them. What he did have was a front row seat to the slow, spectacular collapse of the Roman Republic.
Cicero’s Guide to Surviving a Toxic Workplace (or a Dying Republic) Read More »
In 1977, Richard Nelson asked a question so simple it was almost embarrassing. If we can put a man on the moon, why can we not fix the ghetto? The question was not rhetorical. Nelson, an economist at Columbia, genuinely wanted to understand why a society capable of extraordinary technical feats seemed incapable of solving
The Moon and the Ghetto Paradox: Why Tech Advances While Society Stagnates Read More »
Somewhere right now, in a conference room with bad lighting and worse coffee, someone is saying the phrase “let us leverage our synergies to move the needle on our core competencies.” And somewhere in that same room, someone else is nodding along while having absolutely no idea what was just said. This is not a
Beyond the Buzzwords: How Wittgenstein Can Save Your Office from “Meaningless” Jargon Read More »
There is a book written 2,400 years ago that most business leaders have never read. It is not about business. It contains no frameworks, no case studies, no actionable takeaways. And yet it remains the most accurate diagnosis of why powerful organizations destroy themselves ever put to paper. The book is The History of the
Thucydides for CEOs: The High Cost of Corporate Hubris Read More »
In 1784, Immanuel Kant wrote a short essay that would become one of the most quoted texts in Western philosophy. “What is Enlightenment?” he asked, and then answered with a phrase that still echoes through university hallways and coffee shop arguments: Sapere aude. Dare to know. Have the courage to use your own understanding. Two
Why Conspiracy Theories Are the Ultimate Failure of Enlightenment Read More »
There is a strange moment in every finance textbook where the author quietly asks you to believe in something you cannot see, touch, or verify. It usually arrives around chapter three. You are told that markets are efficient, that prices reflect all available information, and that rational agents make optimal decisions under uncertainty. No evidence
Is Modern Finance a Branch of Metaphysics? Alfred North Whitehead Makes the Case Read More »