ow To Stop Making Excuses And Use Fear To Your Advantage

How To Stop Making Excuses And Use Fear To Your Advantage

SCOTT CHRIST, ENTREPRENEUR
58 MINUTES AGO 452

Imagine the following scenario: you’re in a classroom taking a test — one that’s quite easy. The professor then approaches you and offers you a choice: you can either take a “performance-enhancing drug” or a drug that inhibits your performance. Which would you choose? Read more of this post

How the best athletes overcome less-than-ideal physiques for their sports

2014 Sochi Olympics: Imperfect Bodies, Seeking Olympic Perfection

How the best athletes overcome less-than-ideal physiques for their sports

MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

Feb. 6, 2014 7:24 p.m. ET

Yuna Kim is 5-foot-5, tall for a figure skater, but her technique makes up for it, and her height gives her a commanding presence on the ice. European Pressphoto Agency

When hurdling star Lolo Jones first raised her hand for U.S. bobsled duty in 2012, coach Todd Hays looked at her 135-pound frame and thought she should stick with her day job. Read more of this post

Get a PhD-but leave academia as soon as you graduate

Get a PhD—but leave academia as soon as you graduate

By Allison Schrager 2 hours ago

Allison Schrager is an economist with a focus on pension issues.

Enrolling in a PhD program is, from an economic perspective, a terrible decision. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Just don’t let it ruin your life. Read more of this post

CUHK on hiring spree for rising stars; The Chinese University of Hong Kong has been on a headhunting mission in advance of the possible retirement of 200 to 250 teaching staff

CUHK on hiring spree for rising stars
Friday, February 07, 2014
The Chinese University of Hong Kong has been on a headhunting mission in advance of the possible retirement of 200 to 250 teaching staff.

Provost Benjamin Wah Wan-sang said recruitment began last November and the university plans to hire between 30 and 40 professors and associate professors in total. Read more of this post

Business schools are better at analysing disruptive innovation than at dealing with it

Those who can’t, teach

Business schools are better at analysing disruptive innovation than at dealing with it

Feb 8th 2014 | From the print edition

IN EVERY profession there are people who fail to practise what they preach: dentists with mouths full of rotten teeth, doctors who smoke 40 a day, accountants who forget to file their tax returns. But it is a rare profession where failure to obey its own rules is practically a condition of entry. Business schools exist to teach the value of management. They impart some basic principles—like setting clear goals and managing risk. They also teach how dangerous the business world has become. The most fashionable phrase today is “disruptive innovation”: professors solemnly warn people that entire industries face powerful new forces and that comfortable incumbents are at the mercy of swift-footed challengers. But when it comes to their own affairs, business schools flout their own rules and ignore their own warnings. Read more of this post

‘It’s so unnecessary’: Heenan Blaikie co-founder blames internal rivalries for law firm’s demise; The once-venerable law firm of Heenan Blaikie LLP, started with handshakes in 1973, has ended because of squabbling

‘It’s so unnecessary’: Heenan Blaikie co-founder blames internal rivalries for law firm’s demise

Allison Lampert, Postmedia News | February 6, 2014 | Last Updated: Feb 6 7:30 PM ET
MONTREAL — The once-venerable law firm of Heenan Blaikie LLP, started with handshakes in 1973, has ended because of squabbling, Roy Heenan said Thursday. Read more of this post

Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t know how to be happy

Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t know how to be happy

By Lauren Alix Brown @laurenalixb February 6, 2014

Back in December 2012, Philip Seymour Hoffman sat down with philosopher Simon Critchley at the Rubin Museum to talk about happiness. Days after reeling from the actor’s death, much has been made of the singular pain of addiction and the lonely descent into acting in a difficult role. But the interview touches on something universal, a base human inability to simply be happy. Within the first two minutes of the interview, Hoffman declares, “I really don’t know what it means to be happy.” Read more of this post

Book Review: Tiger Mom’s Superiority Complex; The book is racism masquerading as social science, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all wrong

Book Review: Tiger Mom’s Superiority Complex

By Jessica Grose February 06, 2014

Yale law professor Amy Chua gained fame—and stoked fires in the mommy wars—in 2011 with a Wall Street Journal piece called “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” The essay introduced Chua’s provocative book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which embraced cultural stereotypes about Asian moms having academically successful offspring because they don’t let their kids watch TV, get out of playing the piano or violin, or “not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama.” Three years later, Tiger Mom is back, with her claws only slightly retracted, and a co-author, her husband, fellow Yale law professor, and novelist Jed Rubenfeld. Their book, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America, has no problem with absolutes, either. Read more of this post

Charlie Rose Talks to Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio

Charlie Rose Talks to Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio

By Charlie Rose February 06, 2014

Your animated film, How the Economic Machine Works, has 750,000 hits on YouTube. Explain what it’s about and what compelled you to make it.
It’s a 30-minute description of how I believe the economy works like a machine, a very simple explanation. I’m a global macroeconomic investor, so it’s from a very practical perspective. I’m 64 years old. I’ve reflected back on what I’ve learned, and I felt it was important to get it out there. Many economists … they’re not living in the world of markets every day. They’re not putting money on the line. So they don’t have to engage in the kind of hardheaded analysis you do because you are managing $150 billion. Read more of this post

Other People’s Views: When should you care about what your peers and friends think and when should you not

Other People’s Views

FEB. 6, 2014

David Brooks

Let’s say you’re turning 40 and you realize you want to leave accounting and become a hip-hop artist. People will say you’re having a pathetic midlife crisis, but should you do it anyway?

Let’s say you’re on the phone in a crowded place and you want to tell your buddy a dirty joke, which may offend the people around you. Should you tell it? Read more of this post

Jeremy Grantham on Tesla, Fertilizer Wars; GMO’s famed investor also discusses peak oil and fracking. Plus, investing lessons learned over 47 years

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Jeremy Grantham on Tesla, Fertilizer Wars

By JEREMY GRANTHAM | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

GMO’s famed investor also discusses peak oil and fracking. Plus, investing lessons learned over 47 years.

Fossil Fuels: Is Tesla a Tease or a Triumph? 
In an earlier report, “The Race of Our Lives,” I finished on the unusually optimistic point (for me) that a combination of declining fertility and eventual declining population combined with unexpectedly strong progress in renewable energy might just save our modern civilization from a slow and, no doubt, irregular descent into dystopia. More recently, while still believing we are in this critical race, I have become increasingly impressed with the potential for a revolution in energy, which will make it extremely unlikely that a lack of energy will be the issue that brings us to our knees. Even in the expected event that there are no important breakthroughs in the cost of nuclear power, the potential for alternative energy sources, mainly solar and wind power, to completely replace coal and gas for utility generation globally is, I think, certain. The question is only whether it takes 30 years or 70 years. That we will replace oil for land transportation with electricity or fuel cells derived indirectly from electricity is also certain, and there, perhaps, the timing question is whether this will take 20 or 40 years. To my eyes, the progress in these areas is accelerating rapidly and will surprise almost everybody, I hope including me. Read more of this post