Dharma Teachings Everywhere
Thai Buddhist monk Ajahn Chah quoted in Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield’s Living Dharma: Teachings and Meditation Instructions from Twelve Theravada Masters (2010): The Dharma of the Buddha is not to be found in books. If you want to really see for yourself what the Buddha was talking about you don’t need to bother with books. […]
15 Most Beautiful Villages in Spain
Lori Zaino of The Points Guy lists some of Spain’s best charming villages: Altea, Comunidad Valenciana Albarracín, Aragon Cadaqués, Catalonia Alcalá del Júcar, Castilla de la Mancha Tejada, Gran Canaria 6.San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Rioja Potes, Cantabria Combarro, Galicia Setenil de las Bodegas, Andalusia Hondarribia, Basque Country Cudillero, Asturias Deia, Mallorca Guadalupe, Extremadura Olite, […]
Lucky Break In Hollywood: Lana Turner
Nathan Kontny cites this star-got-lucky-in-Hollywood story on Signal v. Noise Lana Turner, one of the most glamorous and popular female stars of Hollywood during the 40s and 50s is a great example. She was 16, ditching a high-school typing class and drinking a Coke at a soda shop in Hollywood, when someone spotted how attractive […]
Ideas are Worthless, Execution is Everything
David Berube writes, If you’re thinking of having someone sign an NDA before you share your idea with them, please read this first. I don’t mean this post to be an insult; I only hope that it helps founders refocus on what’s truly important: doing everything you can to execute.
Designing a Successful Customer-Loyalty Program
Jess Huang of McKinsey on how customer experience is key for designing loyalty programs: The first thing you need to do is define success, so you have objectives to measure your effectiveness. It cannot be as loosey-goosey as just wanting to drive loyalty with all consumers. You have to know which consumers you’re targeting and […]
Why We Underestimate Plants
Michael Pollan in the foreword to Jane Goodall’s Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants, I suspect the habit of underestimating [plants] has its roots in our self-centered definition of what constitutes complexity or sophistication. We prize things like self-consciousness or abstract reasoning or language simply because these have been the […]
Gift Wrapping and Expectations
People will love a gift more if it’s poorly wrapped: While gift‐givers typically wrap gifts prior to presenting them, little is known about the effect of how the gift is wrapped on recipients’ expectations and attitudes toward the gift inside. We propose that when recipients open a gift from a friend, they like it less […]
Where Do Entrepreneurship Opportunities Begin?
Lessons on entrepreneurship from Theresia Gouw, founding partner of Aspect Ventures: All the great entrepreneurs I know don’t start out to create a business. They start out to create something they think is missing in the world. But scaling a startup from idea to impact means resources, and it often takes the support of a […]
Small World
Gary Jennings from Personalities of Language (1965) There is just one spot on earth from which, in an hour’s driving time or less, a motoring tourist can reach either Athens, Belfast, Belgrade, Bremen, China, Denmark, Dresden, Frankfort, Limerick, Lisbon, Madrid, Mexico, Naples, Norway, Oxford, Palermo, Paris, Peru, Poland or Vienna. The spot is situated at […]
Rest in The Present Moment
Jack Kornfield writes in A Path with Heart: A guide to the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life (1993,) When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and end of spiritual practice. Only in […]