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Human Behavior Life Lessons

Why We Buy Overpriced Things and “Like” Things We Don’t Really Like

In economics we learn that as prices rise, demand falls. This happens because we assume that rational customers are looking to buy things that provide the most value for the least expense. But there’s a class of goods that don’t behave this way: Velben goods.

Veblen goods defy classical economics. Named after Thorstein Veblen, an American economist, these products become more desirable as they become more expensive. These goods are more desired not from the needs they fulfill but from their ability to signal status, exclusivity, and wealth.

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Life Lessons

Being a Better Person is Easier Than You Think

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. In many ways, Rosh Hashanah is like the day after the secular New Year—when we think about the previous year and make resolutions for how to be better. Making resolutions can feel overwhelming. It’s exhausting to examine an entire year and think about how to live a better life, but our Rabbi reminded us that growth doesn’t have to happen all at once—it can be a gradual, steady process.

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Adventures Life Lessons

How a Conversation is Like a Rainbow

I used to think that conversations were about what two people say to each other. Recently I’ve come to think of them as an improv game where each person adds something unique to the mix. One person might introduce a surprising idea, while another runs with it in an unexpected direction. After it’s over, we can try to untangle where an idea came from but often we can’t do it because the conversation has taken on a life of its own. It grows, shifts, and moves in ways that even the participants might not anticipate. It’s like a river that follows its own course taking everyone along with it.

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Life Lessons

The Art of Asking: Collaborative Creation

How does a leader create things? I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that a leader can have an idea and then get a group of people together and create something new. Something didn’t exist, and then magically it does. In 2006 there wasn’t an iPhone and then, magically, in 2007 there was. How does that happen? In this post, I’ll look at different models of leadership and how the best leaders don’t seem to be leading at all.

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Adventures Life Lessons

How I Learned to Appreciate the Sunrise

As I was sitting on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas, one of the world’s most luxurious cruise ships, I found myself immersed in the stillness of the morning. I like to meditate in the morning and wait for the world to wake up. The peacefulness of that time is transcendental, and it’s during these moments that I’ve come to appreciate the sunrise.

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Life Lessons

Exploiting Addiction for Profit

The Times magazine had a great piece on New York’s marijuana problem. The piece centers around the problem of how the industry should be regulated. On the one hand, having too much regulation allows illegal shops to pop up. However, the author points out that regulation is important when talking about addictive and harmful products.

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Life Lessons Product Management

The Perils of Magical Thinking

It’s tempting to want something so bad that you believe you can will it to happen. Instead of examining risks and continually examining and reducing them, projects just forge ahead. This happens at work all the time. But most interestingly, there are some things that humans want so bad, like peace, that we also think that our prayers might make this happen, even when complete peace is impossible.

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Adventures Life Lessons

High and Low Culture: Pastry Fork vs. Spork

London, April 27, 2024, 7 PM

At first, I thought I was stepping into a world of high culture, of high tea, which many of us think of as posh and elite. But in reality, high tea is a working-class meal, hearty and robust, eaten at the end of the workday. It turns out I was going for afternoon tea. Afternoon tea is the high culture one. It’s all about elegance and light bites—think scones and tiny sandwiches, eaten in the late afternoon.

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Adventures Life Lessons

Human Universals at Stonehenge

London, April 26, 2024, 7 PM

I enjoyed Stonehenge far more than I expected. When I first glimpsed it from the highway, it didn’t strike me as anything special—just a cluster of old stones set against the vast, open landscape of Salisbury Plain. But as I walked closer, my perspective shifted dramatically. The site wasn’t just a collection of rocks; it was a portal to a deep and ancient world.

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Adventures Life Lessons Meditation

A Meditation on Skiing

We just got back from a skiing vacation. Skiing is a bit of a non-intuitive vacation. Why would a person want to spend their hard-earned money and vacation time in a cold, physically punishing environment? For the challenge. The challenge in skiing is commonly thought to be pushing your body to its limits in harsh conditions, but the real challenge is to ignore all of the distractions and mindfully focus on the mountain.