The Employee Who Was Excellent Until He Wanted More A few years ago, I worked with an employee whose personnel file told a very clear story. Year after year, his performance reviews described him as exceptional. He exceeded expectations. He was dependable. He produced strong results. He was exactly the kind of employee management said
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How Does the Biggest Song Get Nothing? There are moments in music when you look at an awards show and wonder how the numbers and the nominations can possibly belong to the same universe. One of the clearest examples came with The Weekend and Blinding Lights. The song became one of the biggest records in
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Go Back to the Civil War Do you know how far back absentee voting goes in American history? To understand the modern argument, it helps to go all the way back to the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was running for reelection in 1864 while hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers were away from their homes
Mail-In Voting Is Older Than Most Americans Realize Read More »
Questioning Is Part of Education If you really want to grow intellectually, you have to become willing to question what you believe. You have to question the status quo. You have to question the assumptions underneath the questions you are already asking. Sometimes education means going down the rabbit hole and following an idea farther
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Butterfly in the Sky “Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.” If you grew up with Reading Rainbow, I probably do not even have to finish the rest because your mind already did it for me. There are certain sounds from childhood that can transport you back before you even realize what
LeVar Burton: Take a Bow, These Flowers Are Yours Read More »
The Sinbad I Remember There are entertainers you remember discovering, and then there are people like Sinbad who somehow seem as though they were always there. I do not remember the first time I saw him because by the time I became aware of him, he already felt familiar. I remember A Different World. I
Sinbad: Give Him His Flowers While He Is Still Here Read More »
When Pain Changes the Way You See Yourself There comes a point when you realize the relationship did more than hurt you. It confused you. It changed the way you saw yourself, the way you trusted your judgment, and sometimes the way you imagined your future. You may have entered the relationship feeling confident and
When You Leave the Relationship but the Pattern Stays Read More »
The Future Is Supposed to Be Unclear There are times when I wish I could see exactly what is waiting for me down the road. I think most of us have felt that way at one time or another. We want to know whether the relationship will last, whether the plan will work, whether the
Not Knowing What Comes Next Read More »
A Ritual We Learned Before We Knew What Ritual Meant There is something millions of American children have done so many times that most of us probably never stopped to think about it. We stood up in school, faced the American flag, placed our right hand over our heart, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance: Tradition, Ritual, and the Meaning We Give It Read More »
The Belief That Helps Create Its Own Proof Sometimes we think a belief is just a private thought sitting quietly in our minds. We may assume it cannot do any harm unless we choose to act on it. Sociologist Robert K. Merton showed why that is not always true. He used the term self-fulfilling prophecy
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