by Gary Mintchell | Sep 15, 2025 | News, Personal Development
I’ve given this topic a lot of thought. An eclectic reader, I read wisdom literature wherever I can uncover it. I found this teaching from the Christian New Testament. The intersection of technology and ethics (or lack thereof) concerns me. Everyone I’ve met working within manufacturing/industrial technology has presented as reasonably ethical. But some technologists are so competitively pragmatic as to be amoral.
Wisdom from my friend James (the Apostle) who writes words of wisdom.
“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;”
And again,
“How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
I have read much and thought long about the event and aftermath of the shooting of political influencer Charley Kirk. I had no idea who he was having decided not to follow these political influencers of any ideology. I understand what happens inside me when my emotions are stirred. I prefer a broad and reasoned approach to learning.
Two people whose works I read published blurbs about a side of Kirk not aligned with his public persona. But it’s the public persona that counts. I have learned through study of history and through observation that people who exist by inciting base emotions in followers seldom end well.
But today we have something previous decades, centuries, and indeed millennia didn’t—the ability to spread opinions and videos widely and almost instantaneously.
Cal New port earned a PhD in computer science, has written several best selling books found on my bookcase (Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, Slow Productivity), and is faculty co-founder of the Georgetown University Center for Digital Ethics. He’s been writing on this topic for several years.
His recently released a newsletter addressed many concerns that many have (including me).
Many of you have been asking me about the assassination of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk earlier this week during a campus event at Utah Valley University. At the time of this writing, little is yet known about the shooter’s motives, but there have been enough cases of political violence over the past year that I think I can say what I’m about to with conviction…
This isn’t a one-off. It’s a situation encompassing some time.
Those of us who study online culture like to use the phrase, “Twitter is not real life.” But as we saw yet again this week, when the digital discourses fostered on services like Twitter (and Bluesky, and TikTok) do intersect with the real world, whether they originate from the left or the right, the results are often horrific.
He’s not pulling his punches here. And what do we learn?
This should tell us all we need to know about these platforms: they are toxic and dehumanizing. They are responsible, as much as any other force, for the unravelling of civil society that seems to be accelerating.
Since we know the evils of these platforms, why do they remain popular?
They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.
But the reality is…
But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths.
What can we do?
After troubling national events, there’s often a public conversation about the appropriate way to respond. Here’s one option to consider: Quit using these social platforms. Find other ways to keep up with the news, or spread ideas, or be entertained. Be a responsible grown-up who does useful things; someone who serves real people in the real world.
To save civil society, we need to end our decade-long experiment with global social platforms. We tried them. They became dark and awful. It’s time to move on.
Enough is enough.
Arnold Newsletter
One of my sources for fitness and nutrition coaching comes from a team Arnold Schwarzenegger has assembled following his term as California’s governor. They publish the Pump Club newsletter and have an app. I use the app to track resistance training and nutrition.
Germane to this topic of social media is the carrier of said media—the smartphone.
They head one of the articles on this newsletter:
Having your smartphone nearby—even if you’re not using it—can reduce your brainpower.
Think that evil little thing is innocuous just lying on your desk?
Researchers examined if our phones drain more than just our attention when they buzz or light up. To test this, they conducted two experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users. Participants were asked to complete tests that required full attention and cognitive capacity—like problem-solving and memory tasks. The twist? Some participants had their phones placed on the desk, some had them in their pocket or bag, and others had them in another room.
I like the newsletter and app partly due to their reliance on real science.
Scientists found that the closer the phone was, the worse the performance. Those with their phones on the desk showed significantly reduced cognitive capacity compared to those whose phones were in another room. Even having the phone turned off and face down was not enough to prevent the drop.
It’s time for all of us, one-by-one, to leave the (un)social media behind. I deleted my Facebook and X (Twitter) apps a few years ago. I visit Facebook one time per day on my computer to wish friends a happy birthday and to see what’s happening in my community. I deleted the LinkedIn app. It’s getting almost as bad. I visit it once a day just to check in briefly—also on my computer.
We can all also be aware of the consequences of what we say—perhaps being a little kinder, more understanding, less vicious in our remarks.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 12, 2025 | Personal Development
I recently reviewed Adam Grant’s latest book, Think Again, about the value of taking a second (or third) look at what you’ve thought before. This book, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, takes a look at achievement. Grant’s talent consists of looking at research bringing its relevance into our lives. Read this book and pass it on.
From the blurb on Bookshop.org, Admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.
He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess—it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.
Curious about Grant’s thoughts about character? I should add in this context that Barry Diller in his podcast interview with Guy Kawasaki that I referenced recently observed that tech leaders tended to be so pragmatic as to be amoral, perhaps even lacking character. Check out this list:
Build Character Skills
1. Unleash hidden potential through character skills. They strive to make themselves and others smarter.
2. Don’t be afraid to try a new style.
3. Seek discomfort.
4. Increase your absorptive capacity.
5. Seek advice, not feedback.
6. Strive for excellence, not perfection.
7. Turn practice into play.
8. Turn the daily grind into a source for daily joy.
9. Teach what you want to learn.
10. Build confidence by coaching others.
11. Open doors for people who are underrated and overlooked.
12. Choose leaders based on prosocial skills.
I also offer some of the highlighted notes from my reading:
That motivation wasn’t innate, it tended to begin with a coach or teacher who made learning fun.
What look like differences in natural ability are often differences in opportunity and motivation.
This book is not about ambition. It’s about aspiration. Aspiration is the person you hope to become.
Proactive: How often did they take initiative to ask questions, volunteer answers, seek information from… Think about how surprising that is if you want to project the earning potential of fourth graders. And although many people see those behaviors as innate, they were taught in kindergarten.
Character is more than just having principles. It’s a learned capacity to live by your principles.
Character skills do more than help you perform at your peak—They propel you to higher peaks. As the Nobel laureate economist James Heckman concluded in a review of the research, character skills predict and produce success in life.
They weren’t worried about being the smartest player in the room—they were aiming to make the room smarter.
Character is the capacity to prioritize your values over instincts.
There is just one small problem with learning styles—they’re a myth.
Procrastination is a common problem whenever you are pushing yourself past your comfort zone.
Writing is more that a tool for communication—it is a tool for learning.
In the words of the great psychologist, Ted Lasso, “If you’re comfortable, you’re doin’ it wrong.”
Becker and Woessmann argued that the engine for the Protestant Reformation wasn’t work ethic as much as literacy.
Absorptive capacity is the ability to recognize, value, assimilate, and apply new information. It hinges on two key habits. The first is how you acquire information: do you react to what enters your field of vision, or are you proactive in seeking new knowledge, skills, and perspectives? The second is the goal you’re pursuing when you filter information: do you focus on feeding your ego or fueling your growth?
Being polite is withholding feedback in order to make someone feel good today. Being kind is being candid about how they can get better tomorrow.
It’s easy to get people to be cheerleaders or critics. It’s harder to get them to be coaches.
Instead of seeking feedback, you’re better off asking for advice.
When speaking—Open with a personal story, it humanizes you.
In a meta-analysis, the correlation between perfectionism and performance at work was zero.
The people who go on to become masters of their fields often start out with imperfect transcripts at school.
Perfectionists tend to get three things wrong: 1. They obsess about details that don’t matter; 2. They avoid unfamiliar situations and difficult tasks that might lead to failure; 3. They berate themselves for making mistakes, which makes it harder to learn from them.
According to legend, a young man sought out a master to teach him the Japanese tea ceremony. The master tested him by asking him to clean up a garden. The young man removed weeds and raked leaves until the garden was pristine. As he reviewed his flawless work, he realized that something was missing. He walked over to a cherry tree and shook it until a few flower petals fell to the ground. By finding beauty in imperfection, he proved that he was ready to become a master.
Wabi-sabi is the art of honoring beauty in imperfection. It’s about accepting that flaws are inevitable—and recognizing they don’t stop something from being sublime.
Extensive evidence shows that it’s having high personal standards and not pursuing perfection that fuels growth.
Elite musicians are rarely driven by obsessive compulsion. They’re usually fueled by what psychologists call harmonious passion. Harmonious passion is taking joy in a process rather than feeling pressure to achieve an outcome.
Chetty’s team discovered that one of the advantages kids got in wealthy families was more exposure to innovators in their homes and neighborhoods. They had more guides available to provide a compass and drop pins. They got to dream bigger, aim higher, and travel farther.
Students who did better didn’t have better teachers, they just had the same teacher for two years in a row.
A culture of opportunity only succeeds when students are motivated to take advantage of those opportunities.
Teams—collective intelligence depends less on people’s cognitive skills and more on their prosocial skills.
When they have prosocial skills, team members are able to bring out the best in one another.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 12, 2025 | Personal Development
Twice yesterday I was introduced to the idea of curiosity as the guiding principle. Curiosity has certainly been my constant companion for as long as memory goes.
Barry Diller described curiosity as the cornerstone for a successful career on Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast.
Then I found this gem of advice from the remarkable essayist, Paul Graham. If you’ve not come across his writing, click the link and then bask your intellect in his well-thought-out essays.
Graham focused this essay on choosing work.
When in doubt, follow your curiosity. It never lies, and it knows more than you do about what’s worth paying attention to.
I couldn’t agree with this thought more.
I found most of his other insights either something I’ve experienced and agree with or something where the opposite happened much to my chagrin. Check them out and ponder each as you think about your career—or for wisdom to pass along to the next generation.
- Choose work you have a natural aptitude for and a deep interest in.
- Develop a habit of working on your own projects; it doesn’t matter what they are so long as you find them excitingly ambitious.
- Work as hard as you can without burning out, and this will eventually bring you to one of the frontiers of knowledge.
- These look smooth from a distance, but up close they’re full of gaps. Notice and explore such gaps, and if you’re lucky one will expand into a whole new field.
- Take as much risk as you can afford; if you’re not failing occasionally you’re probably being too conservative.
- Seek out the best colleagues.
- Develop good taste and learn from the best examples.
- Be honest, especially with yourself.
- Exercise and eat and sleep well and avoid the more dangerous drugs.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 12, 2025 | Personal Development
WordPress Engine threw a curve ball that I didn’t see coming. A setting buried deep switched off. I started to post something and, what (??!!), no website. Took some digging since several years had passed from the time I set up the latest DNS and such. After updating, it took some period of time for the update to work its way through the network.
All this searching while in the car (my wife driving, mobile phone as a hot spot) on the way to a swim meet. Our granddaughter’s first as a varsity swimmer at a high school with a top program.
Got the updates started. She won the 100 yard backstroke. Dinner and home. Website back up.
At the same time filling the last big opening for a referee for Saturday’s high school soccer games.
Busy Thursday.
<whew>
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 5, 2025 | Personal Development, Productivity, Workforce
I have had some good bosses and a bunch of bad ones. I tried to be a good boss, but I bet there are some people who worked “for” me that would dispute that. As a soccer referee assigner, I try hard to be fair while also putting officials on the games where they would be most likely to succeed.
From Seth Godin, who talked about being the type of person that a good boss will appreciate. Hopefully you have one of those. If not, I wish you luck in leaving and finding a good one.
He compiled a list of attributes. I would suggest not looking at this like a check list. It’s more of a description of a type of person.
Are you now, or can you develop into, this type of person? I try…
- Ask useful questions
- Show up before you’re expected
- Make big promises and keep them
- Identify errors and flaws and self-correct
- Default to optimism
- Do work worth doing
- Build a useful network worth outsourcing work to
- Show your work
- Develop good taste
- Generously invite feedback
- Make productive decisions
- Communicate with precision
- It’s easy to claim these skills, but not easy to commit to being quite good at them.
Seth concludes, “Most bosses don’t deserve this level of effort. I hope you can find one that does.”
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 29, 2025 | Personal Development
The Myers-Briggs Types Indicator suggests that I am an ENTP—extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceptive. A key takeaway indicates that I think about new information coming my way and that I’m willing to change my mind if the new information is strong.
What about you? How willing are you to change your mind on something based on new data?
In manufacturing, that situation arises often. Those unwilling to change can face adverse events.
Catching up reporting on some of my past reading, I am visiting Adam Grant’s Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know.
What about you. Can you revisit past decisions and assumptions? How afraid would you be to rethink long-held beliefs? Can you let go of knowledge that no longer serves you well?
I remember a time as a marketing manager of a computer peripheral in the 80s. I had a model of how to distribute and sell that product. The reality had shifted. By the time I figured it out, even though it was only a few months, it was too late. I left the company for something ultimately better. The two people I left behind had negative 10 sales over the following few months (they accepted a return of 10 units from a distributor).
Sometimes we must think again quickly.
Charles Darwin suggested ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. This sounds like the Dunning-Kruger effect—in many situations those who can’t don’t know they can’t. When we lack competence we are most likely to be brimming with overconfidence.
The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.
Tim Urban has noted that arrogance is ignorance plus conviction. We see that played out in myriad ways frequently.
What we all lack is this crucial nutrient for the mind—humility.
Nobel Laureate Danny Kahneman said that he refuses to let his beliefs become part of his identity. “I change my mind at a speed that drives my collaborators crazy.”
This is an outline of the 31 skills Grant identified in his research.
Individual
Develop the Habit of Thinking Again
Think like a scientist
Define your identity in terms of values, not opinions
Seek out information that goes agains your views
Calibrate your Confidence
Beware of getting stranded at the summit of Mt. Stupid
Harness the benefits of doubt
Embrace the joy of being wrong
Invite others to question your thinking
Learn something new from each person you meet
Build a challenge network, not a support network
Don’t shy away from constructive conflict
Interpersonal
Ask better Questions
Practice the art of persuasive listening
Question how rather than why
Ask “What evidence would change your mind?”
Ask how people originally formed an opinion
Approach Disagreements as Dances, not Battles
Acknowledge common ground
Remember less is often more
Reinforce freedom of choice
Have a conversation about the conversation
Collective Rethinking
Have more Nuanced Conversations
Complexify contentious topics
Don’t shy away from caveats and contingencies
Expand your emotional range
Teach Kids to Think Again
Have a weekly myth-busting discussion at dinner
Invite kids to do multiple drafts and seek input from others
Stop asking kids what they want to be when they grow up
Create Learning Organizations
Abandon best practices
Establish psychological safety
Keep a rethinking scoreboard
Stay Open To Rethinking Your Future
Throw out the ten-year plan
Rethink your actions, not just your surroundings
Schedule a life checkup
Make time to think again
