Common Place – Dan Cook

Reframing when someone learns something new

Ten Thousand or XKCD 1053 brings up a great point about how we handle when someone learns something for the first time. This is an exciting opportunity we should celebrate! I often fail at it, but this is how I want to react.

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.

-Wit

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1

XKCD: Grownups

I think this might be my favorite XKCD of all time. What will being a grownup mean to you today?

No matter the circumstance you can always improve.
You can always start improving with yourself.
You can always start improving today.

– Kent Beck from the preface to Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2nd Edition

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.

-Mark Twain

Culture trumps strategy, every time.

-Nilofer Merchant