You may not know this, but I’m actually a full-time professor of mechanical engineering at one of the major universities in the Philadelphia, PA area. However, I don’t hold the typical professor position. I don’t have tenure. I never will. I have an annual contract, […]
Tag: career
Fear is a powerful (de)motivator
Fear is a powerful motivator. Maybe it’s better to say that fear is a powerful DEmotivator. How many great ideas have we left undone because we were too scared to start? We’re wired this way. Nature serves us example after example of the safety that […]
Absolute Belief is the Cure for Fear
Failure is overrated. We’ve created a featureless monster that lives in our brains, just out of sight, that has us convinced that the worst thing in the world is failure. We can’t quite put our finger on why, but we’re certain that there are few […]
New ways to make money as a student
One of the scariest things we can do is step out on our own. It’s much more comfortable to follow the pack, to take advantage of the same opportunities that we’ve been taking advantage of for years. Let me ask a question to drive home […]
How to succeed by making mistakes
You may recall my post from a few weeks ago that talked about changing your goal: define success as learning and you can always succeed. In rock climber jargon, “If I send, I send. My goal is to learn to climb better.” *“sending” means completing […]
In the Black
In the black. Today, for the first time in our lives (that’s my wife and I), our net worth is a positive number! What does that mean? It means that if you took everything of value that we own (a car, a retirement fund, the […]
The shortcut to Loser-ville
Last week I talked about cars, and how to own one without damaging your future. I received several responses that sounded like: “I deserve to drive a nice car. I work hard.” I hate to break it to you, but working hard doesn’t grant you […]
A Generous Life
What comes to your mind when you hear the word, “generosity”? Giving money to a person in need? Maybe a donation to a ministry or a nonprofit? Giving a hungry person some food? Is there more to generosity than pity, than seeing someone as worse […]
Two lessons from a haircut
I finally did it. After two years of experimenting with growing my hair and beard longer, I cut them back to my original look. Here are the two lessons I learned. (1) You can’t live your life according to people’s expectations. Two years ago, I […]
After trying every app, I use a piece of paper for my todo list
As I wrap up my prep week, I double check that my four systems are in place that keep me productive, low-stress, and balanced. So far we’ve talked about three of them – my morning routine, my time budget, and my Ideal Week schedule. The […]
