Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Raptitude.com
Just as your eyeballs are, your mind is always pointed at something, and it matters what it is. If you spent most of your day preoccupied with thoughts about a past failed relationship, for example, that makes for a different kind of day than one in which you’re preoccupied with solving a computer programming problem. Your mood, your actions, and […]
Seneca pointed out that people tend to be reflexively stingy with their money, but almost comically wasteful with their time. There are at least two ways to take this. One is that Seneca thought he used his time better than you and I do, and maybe he did. Another interpretation is that everyday life, for most people, is an untapped […]
Say you’re walking through Death Valley, trying to find your way back to the highway. Luckily you’ve got a good paper map. As you walk, you scan the territory around you for landmarks. You see some large-scale details: hills, rock formations, and gullies. Also some minute ones: pebbles, gangly plants, trails through the dust where snakes have been. These smaller […]
The other day I replaced an old, cracked mirror in my bathroom. When I took the existing one down, suddenly the room seemed to lose half its size. Turns out it’s just a claustrophobic little room with a toilet, sink, and tub. The sense that there’s open space in front of me while I brush my teeth is an illusion, […]
More in life
In the end, judgment comes first. And that means hiring is a gut decision. As much science as people want to try to pour into the hiring process, art always floats to the top. This is especially true when hiring at the executive level. The people who make the final calls — the ones who are judged on outcome, not effort — are ultimately hired based on experience and judgement. Two traits that are qualities, not quantities. They are tasked with setting direction, evaluating situations, and making decisions with limited information. All day long they are making judgment calls. That's what you hire them to do, and that's how you decide who to hire. Presented with a few finalists, you decide who you *think* will do a better job when they have to *think* about what to do in uncertain situations. This is where their experience and judgment come in. It's the only thing they have that separates them from someone else. Embrace the situation. You don't know, they don't know, everyone's guessing, some guess better than others. You can't measure how well someone's going to guess next time, you can only make assumptions based on other assumptions. Certainty is a mirage. In the art of people, everything is subjective. In the end, it's not about qualifications — it's about who you trust to make the right call when it matters most. Ultimately, the only thing that was objective was your decision. The reasons were not. -Jason
This post is in the Notebook - my digital workshop for anecdotes, links, excerpts, sketches, lists, and anything else I want to explore in brief, revisit later, or post for reference.
Or why we need less math in music theory
In the latest part of my retrospective essay on ten years of The Acorn, which I edit, I look back on its content in 2019.
