Category Archives: human nature

260. Trust

Do you trust me?  That’s a hard call, isn’t it. With­out trust life is not easy. Oxy­tocin is the brain chem­i­cal  which gives the  feel­ing of trust. Some peo­ple, and maybe some cul­tures seem more hooked on it than oth­ers. … Con­tinue read­ing

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259. What is Your Greatest Weakness?

A favourite ques­tion in job inter­views is “what is your great­est weak­ness?” I always find the ques­tion puz­zling. It is puz­zling because nowa­days the per­son who inter­views you is rarely, say, a hard drink­ing build­ing super­vi­sor who wants to know … Con­tinue read­ing

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258. From Small Beginnings …

Habits are effi­cient (.. decide daily which side to part your hair on?). Habits are restrict­ing (.. do you really need to check Face Book every ten min­utes?). Har­vest­ing the ten­sion between effi­ciency and restric­tion gives life pur­pose and direc­tion … Con­tinue read­ing

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256. You Want Me to Explain? You must be kidding.

There is an expla­na­tion for every­thing. You know that’s true because some­body always has an expla­na­tion. The world was surely cre­ated in seven days because some­body impor­tant wrote that in a book. Last week a young woman of twenty was … Con­tinue read­ing

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255. Age, Ambition and Secret Knowledge

He used to be a fac­tory man­ager. They booted him out, “too old” at 40. Some­one with an MBA said he wasn’t fol­low­ing best prac­tice. Best prac­tice was what a text book said it was, appar­ently. Actu­ally it wasn’t. The … Con­tinue read­ing

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254. Life’s Big Tests and Petty Minded Creeps

Life’s big tests are mostly less about fight­ing real mon­sters than find­ing a way past petty minded creeps: their shadow mon­sters are built from stu­pid­ity, igno­rance, greed, incom­pe­tence, jeal­ousy and cow­ardice. Some­times the tough­est part is not being a petty … Con­tinue read­ing

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251. The Customer is Always Stupid

The cus­tomer is always right” or “the cus­tomer is always stu­pid” – which one is true? Well, it is a bit like hav­ing two sets of account­ing books, one for the tax office and one for pri­vate profit. Any smart … Con­tinue read­ing

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