Rural Japan is arguably one of the worst places in the world to invest in the housing market. Buildings are said to lose their value completely after 20 years, and then you're only left with the land it's on for anything worth anything. In many cases I've seen this is true at least to some […]

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell introduced me to the concept of the holy fool. It's a Russian concept whereby someone without a care of their social status, such as an outcast, calls out a societal wrong. One example given was the famous Hans Christian Andersen story where the little boy calls out the emperor's […]

Sorry, for the past couple of days my new posts weren't being sent out. I'm not exactly sure why, but it was something to do with Jetpack... anyway, here are the posts from the past few days:

Never claim or even think to be the best. This is a losing strategy. To be the best, you have to be the best continually. This means a constant effort to, well, be the best, and that's not easy. If you claim to be the best, you have to live up to what are pretty […]

It's not enough to just have a good idea. You have to have the means to share it too. That means you know how to communicate it, and it also means you know how to put it into action. Only then can you rely on the network effect to see your idea spread. Part of […]

Your reputation lessens with the people you associate yourself with, so if you feel the people you associate yourself with aren’t up to scratch, either find a way to change those people, or find other people to associate yourself with. This is quite obvious when you teach a big range of students. There are some […]

When we see other people doing well, it can be easy to feel discouraged about our own endeavours. And when we see people similar to us doing well, it can be heartbreaking. The reason for this is because it can be hard to separate ourselves from the situation, especially if the situation is similar to […]