Normal people hate working. We are paid to do something that benefits other people rather than doing something we enjoy. One of the main incentives for people in their thirties and forties to work is simply escaping the home. Kids, cleaning and other daily activities can be even less fun than working. Yet, people who …
How smart people fight compensate negative self image
Not all of us have a positive perception of ourselves. Maybe this is one of the best motivations to take classes in self-improvement. Fortunately, it seems that high IQ can balance off some disadvantages we may have. This is a complex subject, and it certainly deserves several articles on this blog. You can find more …
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Six unexpected ways perfectionism makes you less productive
While perfectionism might have been encouraged when I was a child, today we know better. The risks of burnout are evident. There are some other issues which I seldom discuss: the compulsive thought patterns and reduced creativity, being unable to delegate and progress the career ladder, the risk of choosing confrontation over collaboration and reduced socialization, the …
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Ditch control to find resilience and motivation
Resilience and motivation are closely connected. When we lose resilience, we get stressed and negative, with lower energy and motivation. Being highly motivated, we recruit people around us to help us, we make sure our body is up for the challenge, we feel pleasure and purpose in what we do. I suggest reading further here, here, …
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Prepare for a new job
My mother worked two jobs in her entire life: one in Russian and one in Israel. My father had about 12 jobs in his entire life, which was a lot in his social circuit. I had more jobs than I would like to count. I left in my CV about 12 of these jobs, and …
Weathering cycles of positive thinking and burnout
By now, I have been working in the same disciplines for decades. The experience is highlighting previously hidden connections and new patterns start to emerge. One of the things that strike me is the strength and depth of positive thinking and burnout in my own life. I do not want you to repeat my mistakes, …
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Compulsive productivity and bad choices.
People who are vulnerable or emotionally hurt tend to make poor decisions. Addiction, depression, social status, criticism and some other things can influence individuals and whole societies to choose a path of self-destruction. We live in a society that drives us to be productive beyond our capabilities, so this article is relevant for most of …
New era of job relations
New era job relations is about to dawn. There has been a fair number of industrial revolutions, yet each such revolution is fundamentally different from the previous one. And while we wait for machines to be smarter than people, we experience a small revolution in job relations. Today I suggest reading here, here, here, here, …
Man and machine working together
Man invented tools at the dawn of history. For millennia these tools were improved and redesigned, until today, for the first time in human history, these tools might be smarter than us. Super-smart computers are scary and unpredictable. There are reasons both for concern and for optimism. You are welcome to read more here, here, …
Misconceptions and ethics
Our misconceptions are used by master manipulators in ways that will not make us proud. It takes a special type of knowledge and mindfulness to resist. For more please read here, here, here, here, here, and here. Convincing people and con artists In 2002 a startup I worked in was acquired by a bigger company. …