Contrarian Thinking
Seth Klarman’s extraordinary and mysterious book Margin of Safety, Risk Averse Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor has sold for $700 for used varieties with newer copies going for $2,500 to $4,000. His foremost investing premise is risk mitigation. He writes, Investors may find it difficult to act as contrarians for they can never be […]
Christopher Hitchens on Comedian Bob Bope
The Writer’s Almanac notes, A few days after Hope’s death, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens called him “paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny” in Slate. He skewered the comedian and his fans, saying, “This is comedy for people who have no sense of humor and who come determined to be entertained and laugh to show that they […]
Joseph M. Juran’s Quality Control Handbook
Quality Pioneer Joseph M. Juran’s career took off when he published Quality Control Handbook in 1951. The book established his reputation worldwide. He later said of this book, The Handbook became the ‘bible’ of managing for quality and has increasingly served as the international reference book for professionals and managers in the field. It has […]
Moving Towards Awareness
From The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness written by Mark Williams, et al., The intention in mindfulness practice is not to forcibly control the mind but to perceive clearly its healthy and harmful patterns. It is to approach our minds and bodies with a sense of curiosity, openness, and acceptance so […]
God’s Cloud Temple
Charles Kingsley from His Letters and Memoires of His Life, I am not fond, you know, of going into churches to pray. We must go up into the chase in the evenings, and pray there with nothing but God’s cloud temple between us and His heaven! And His choir of small birds and night crickets […]
Calves on the Way to the Slaughterhouse: The Most Miserable Animals on the Planet
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Immediately after birth the calf is separated from its mother and locked inside a tiny cage not much bigger than the calf’s own body. There the calf spends its entire life—about four months on average. It never leaves its […]
Beware the Irrational
Christopher Hitchens writes in Letters to a Young Contrarian, Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a […]
Zingerman’s Servant Leadership Credo
At the Zingerman’s group of businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a successful leader is a Servant Leader who effectively designs, manages and teaches the components of the Zingerman’s Business Perspective Chart in order to attain agreed-upon performance results. Responsibilities of a servant leader: Provide vision Give great service to staff Manage in an ethical manner […]
Why Leonardo Da Vinci Was a Genius
From the biography Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, What made Leonardo a genius, what set him apart from people who are merely extraordinarily smart, was creativity, the ability to apply imagination to intellect. His facility for combining observation with fantasy allowed him, like other creative geniuses, to make unexpected leaps that related things seen […]
Relating to Our Emotions
Joy and sorrow can materialize only after you register physical changes in the body writes Joseph Goldstein in If There Is No Self, Who Is Born, Who Dies, Who Meditates?, When anger arises, or sorrow or love or joy, it is just anger angering, sorrow sorrowing, love loving, joy joying. Different feelings arise and pass, […]