Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! Apples are coming in. My father has a whole bunch of fruit trees, but it was a rough year for fruit. The weird weather we had in the spring caused many of our flowering trees not to flower and no flowers, no fruit. Some of the above pictured apples went on to greatness as part of the below apple crisp. I recommend this recipe - quick and easy. A little ice cream and caramel to finish it off and you are in for a treat!
The fall semester is off and running and I always forget how busy it is to teach four classes, run two conferences, and try to get other things done. The new podcast launch is coming, for those of you waiting. I’m hoping by the end of the month to release it. I’m also planning to bring back the Health Leader Forge after a year in hiatus.
I’ll be wrapping up the 3 Justices series this weekend - I hope you are finding that interesting. See you Sunday with the last installment. As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: Evil HR Lady, How to fire anyone without legal repercussions
https://resources.workable.com/tutorial/how-to-fire-anyone-without-legal-repercussions
Why: The Evil HR Lady is back and encouraging supervisors, well you supervisors, I don’t supervise anyone except myself these days, to get down to the dirty business of firing people. Her advice is pretty straightforward, but it’s a good reminder that the basics work.
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What: Human Progress, We Will Never Run Out of Resources
https://humanprogress.org/we-will-never-run-out-of-resources-2/
Why: Economics is often called the “dismal science”, but it is my study of economics, especially innovation that makes me an optimist. I used to teach a course on innovation and creativity and I would talk about “peak oil” - the idea that sooner or later we are going to hit the peak of oil production and then oil production would begin to decline and boy, wouldn’t we be in trouble then? But then I would say, yeah, I’m really worried about when the whales run out. And since about half of the class didn’t realize that whale oil used to be the way we lit our homes in the 19th century, I’d have to explain that. We did indeed hit peak whale oil, but voluntarily. Hardly anyone (except the Japanese) hunt whales anymore. We innovated away from whale oil, first with kerosene, then electrification. We’re constantly finding ways to meet our current needs with different, cheaper, methods. This is a nice editorial if you want to feel good about the future.
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Watch
What: HBR, How to Think Strategically About a Career Transition (34 min)
https://hbr.org/2023/09/how-to-think-strategically-about-a-career-transition
Why: Herminia Ibarra is a world famous scholar of careers and career transitions. Her book Working Identity is a classic. In this video she talks about changing careers and reinventing ourselves. Definitely worth a listen.
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What: Chase Jarvis LIVE, Why Your Mindset Matters: Amy Edmondson on Building Resilience (2 min)
Why: The resilience of the growth mindset.
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Listen
What: The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie, Ilya Somin: Should Libertarians Support the Prosecutions of Trump? (74 min)
Why: Somin is a constitutional law professor at George Mason Law School. He offers a third party perspective on Trump’s prosecution. Since people are mostly lining up by party on the justice of the Trump prosecutions, with Democrats sure he’s guilty as charged, and Republicans sure it’s all a witch hunt, it’s nice to hear from a third party. Spoiler: Somin thinks he’s guilty and should be punished. But it’s worth listening to why.