On being anti-social...........

 

.............................in the best possible way.

This is known...................

 

.....................................as hitting a home run.

from Chris Lynch's substack.  Well done today my friend, well done.

Asking questions [or not]......................

 

Questions are useful.  Entrepreneurs and innovators usually start their search for something new and better by asking, "What if?" or "Why not?"

Questions are how we avoid disasters.  Groupthink is nothing more than people not asking the questions they know they should.

So why is it so hard for companies [and people] to embrace the art of asking good questions?

-Alan M. Webber, Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self

Asking......................

 I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

or not wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even ok if I don't paragraph my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows where she picked that up

what I'm telling you is 

Yes Yes Yes

-Kaylin Haught, God Says Yes To Me

wisdom..........................

. . . getting another opinion seldom is a lengthy process and not getting extra insight may wind up gobbling massive amounts of time.

-Michael Wade, from here

Monsters................

 Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, ready to believe and to act without asking questions.

-Primo Levi, from here

Basics..............................

"In the development of intelligence nothing can be more 'basic' than learning how to ask productive questions.'

-Neil Postman, as quoted in this book

If you doubt the truth of this...................

......ask an adult family member what they want for Christmas:

What do people want?

If you ask them, you probably won't find what you're looking for.  You certainly won't find a breakthrough.  It's our job to watch people, figure out what they dream of, and then create a transaction that can deliver that feeling.

-Seth Godin, as extracted from This Is Marketing:  You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn To See

Want much....................................?

Asking the right questions helps..........

Funny, I can remember when this was true...

thanks hugh

On fathoming the unfathomable.......

      I have this nagging suspicion that for the past fifty-odd years I have been dismissing Heidegger's question as total twaddle without ever really trying it on for size.  Martin Heidegger was a twentieth-century German existentialist who focused - if hundreds of pages of dense, enigmatic prose can be called a focus - on the concept of being.  As much as I can grasp his question, I gather that he is not asking why some things exist and others do not, or even asking what is is that causes something to exist and what constitutes its existence.  No, he is after even bigger game than that.  Heidegger is asking us to confront the idea that existence itself can be called into question, and this, he believes, is the ultimate philosophical question.  He writes, "To philosophize is to ask 'Why are there things that are rather than nothing?'  Really to ask this question signifies: a daring attempt to fathom this unfathomable question by disclosing what it summons us to ask, to push our questioning to the very end.  Where such an attempt occurs there is philosophy."

-Daniel Klein, as excerpted from Travels with Epicurus:  A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life

Ed. note:  Heidegger's quote and question come from his Introduction to Metaphysics, where in he also apparently says,  "It is absolutely correct and proper to say that `You can't do anything with philosophy.' ... For the rejoinder imposes itself: granted that WE cannot do anything with philosophy, might not philosophy, if we concern ourselves with it, do something WITH US?" 

It all gets so confusing............................

cartoon via

Playing requests................................

Lessons learned along the way.................Part 3

I have never met a great person who did not earn and learn their greatness.  They have weaknesses like everyone else—they have just learned how to deal with them so that they aren’t impediments to getting what they want. In addition, the amounts of knowledge and the capabilities that anyone does not have, and that could be used to make the best possible decisions, are vastly greater than that which anyone (no matter how great) could have within them.

This explains why people who are interested in making the best possible decisions rarely are confident that they have the best possible answers. So they seek to learn more (often by exploring the thinking of other believable people, especially those who disagree with them) and they are eager to identify their weaknesses so that they don’t let these weaknesses stand in the way of them achieving their goals. 

-Ray Dalio, as excerpted from Principles

Fortune cookie wisdom..........................

Taking requests...................

via