Clever People Rarely Fail. They Just Stay in the Hallway Too Long (An MIT Game Showed Why)

The Sunday night that started it

It was the last Sunday in October, the kitchen dark except for the laptop, and I was counting tabs. Twenty-two.

A novel stuck two chapters from the end. A spreadsheet for a product I’d sketched in August. Half an essay. Something about sourdough I can’t account for.… Read the rest “Clever People Rarely Fail. They Just Stay in the Hallway Too Long (An MIT Game Showed Why)”

Why Your Best Ideas Keep Dying in the Feed — And the Cognitive Trap Behind It

Reading time: ~12 minutes

In 1990, a Stanford PhD student named Elizabeth Newton ran an experiment that should have permanently humbled every smart person on the internet.

She had volunteers tap out the rhythm of well-known songs on a table — Happy Birthday, The Star-Spangled Banner, songs everyone knows.… Read the rest “Why Your Best Ideas Keep Dying in the Feed — And the Cognitive Trap Behind It”

Reading time: ~12 minutes

In 1990, a Stanford PhD student named Elizabeth Newton ran an experiment that should have permanently humbled every smart person on the internet.

She had volunteers tap out the rhythm of well-known songs on a table — Happy Birthday, The Star-Spangled Banner, songs everyone knows.… Read the rest “Why Your Best Ideas Keep Dying in the Feed — And the Cognitive Trap Behind It”

The 6 Emotional States Most Likely to Distort Your Professional Judgement — And Specific Protocols for Each

↗ This post draws from the full taxonomy in: Emotional Granularity: The Evidence-Based Alternative to Emotional Intelligence Training — which covers all 27 states and includes the downloadable PDF reference.

Why Emotional States Distort Professional Judgement

The six emotional states most likely to distort professional judgement are not random. They appear at the same hinge points, across industries, across roles, across decades.… Read the rest “The 6 Emotional States Most Likely to Distort Your Professional Judgement — And Specific Protocols for Each”

What Emotional Granularity Is — And Why It’s More Useful Than EQ

What this post provides that the Medium article does not: the complete 27-emotion taxonomy table with physiological profiles and risk ratings; eight specific decision protocols for the high-risk states; a downloadable PDF reference; and curated reading recommendations with rationale.
… Read the rest “What Emotional Granularity Is — And Why It’s More Useful Than EQ”

The Three-Layer Career Framework: How Mid-Career Professionals Choose Their Next Move

If you’ve arrived here from the Medium article — The Thirty-Minute Conversation That Cost Me Everything I’d Spent a Decade Building — you already have the story. This is the framework.

If you’ve arrived here directly: the short version is that a senior professional made an unilateral decision in a domain they knew extremely well, without seeking authorisation, because they had enough experience that seeking authorisation didn’t feel necessary.… Read the rest “The Three-Layer Career Framework: How Mid-Career Professionals Choose Their Next Move”