The 1994 Winter Olympics. Lillehammer, Norway. Dan Jensen, a man regarded by many as the best speed skater alive, was about to compete in his final event: the 1,000-meter. In the event prior, Dan finished eighth in the 500-meter after slipping, costing him his chance of Olympic Gold in what he considered his strongest event. […]
Words Into Works #061 | Single-Tasking
On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 1st, 2014, Belgium snatched victory from the United States with a 2-1 defeat, knocking the underdog team out of the World Cup. In the following days, while Belgium celebrated its victory and advanced in the tournament (they would eventually lose to Argentina in the quarter-finals), football pundits couldn’t stop […]
Words Into Works #059 | The Four Burners Theory
David Sedaris, a journalist, working for The New Yorker, was sitting in the back of a car, watching the seemingly endless suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, pass by, when Pat, his friend, and guide while in Australia, proposed to him a thought experiment. [1] “Imagine a four-burner stove,” she started, recounting an idea she learned having […]
Words Into Works #058 | Less, But Better
Before the Covid-19 Pandemic, Southwest Airlines was profitable for forty-seven consecutive years. A rare and astonishing feat, given the volatility of the aviation industry. According to the late Herb Kelleher, the company’s former CEO, one of the many reasons for Southwest’s success was its deliberateness in making strategic trade-offs. Greg Mckeown summarizes Kelleher’s approach in […]
My Notion Note-Taking System (Or How I Read Online)
I love learning from online content as much as I do from books. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an article, an email newsletter, or a tweetstorm—if there’s a lesson I can gleam related to an area of interest, I want to write it down. Up until recently, I didn’t have a good system for reading […]