When I first finished reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch in my early twenties, I resolved to live by her concluding insight that even unhistoric acts, small… Read More »Patricia Fara on cumulative unhistoric acts
The best kind of not-at-your-best-ness is when you’re learning something. You’re not at your best yet, because you’re going to (rapidly?) get better. It’s exciting… Read More »Not at your best (2): Not yet
By definition, you will spend most of your time not at your best. This is true on all dimensions: how you feel, how fast you… Read More »Not at your best (1)
When two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, if (other circumstances being equal) the one tribe included a great… Read More »Charles Darwin on teamwork and cooperation
I’m a big believer in grace and second (and third) chances; I wouldn’t, couldn’t live without them. In the absence of enough information to make… Read More »Grace and mistakes
These sound too obvious to be worth spending time on. No-one sets out to be the opposite, and pretty much everyone would say they’re a… Read More »Friendly. Supportive.
“Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it’s a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the… Read More »Neil Gaiman on reading fiction, empathy and changing the world
This might be your life’s work. It might be a side project. But as you work – doing something to help, perhaps hiring people to… Read More »Commitment: their actual lives
A while ago a friend helpfully pointed out to me that laws and rules can only ever specify the minimum behaviour acceptable in a given… Read More »Organisational culture: specifying minimums, modelling maximums
Rule 12. Be Kind – everyone is in a battle We go through life judging others. I’ve often wondered if one of the reasons we… Read More »Bark less, wag more