I think a lot about leadership – what makes a great leader?  What ruins one?  Are leaders born, made, or some combination of the two?  Often over the course of my life I have been handed the compliment of being told I have leadership qualities.  But what does that really mean?  Since as far [...]

In part 1 of this series, I posed the question: is it really possible to be neutral on subjects like religion, politics & belief?  In that post, I briefly discussed the odd paradox that we endure daily as a result of the influence that relativism and logical positivism have had on our culture.  All belief [...]

Is it really possible to be neutral?  When it comes to belief, science, religion, politics – does neutral ground really exist?  Our culture holds up the idea of neutrality as a paragon of virtue.  We indulge the idea so much, that we wish against hope that our politicians are telling us the truth when they [...]

I’ve mentioned Robert Cooper’s book “Get Out of Your Own Way” a few times in my recent blog entries.  I love the title of chapter 13: “Constructive Discontent Drives Growth”.  I don’t think any other chapter title could describe my life so well.  “Constructive discontent” means that you’re not satisfied to simply repeat past successes; [...]

Imagine soup lines stretching city blocks, spanning streets.  Americans – hungry, malnourished and without work.
Imagine the Department of Agriculture (DoA) – obviously worried about the situation – releasing information on four sample diets: a liberal, moderate,  minimum and emergency diet. 
Imagine the government announcing to the nation: “Figures show we cannot produce enough food for [...]

In my last post I discussed Benjamin Bloom and how Bloom’s Taxonomy can be a guide to helping us determine if we’ve truly learned something, as well as give us objectives in helping others learn concepts in such a way that they can understand, apply, analyze and improvise them.  Throughout Bloom’s career he sought [...]

How do we learn?  What constitutes comprehension of a particular subject?  What about mastery and the ability to improvise?  These kinds of questions trail about behind me constantly like the wake of a high speed boat.  I love to learn, and I discover more every day about how I best acquire certain types of skills.  [...]

At the inception of this blog, I had in my mind the kinds of things I wanted to write about – life, philosophy, economics, history, government, science, religion, being a dad, relationships – maybe even fashion.  No, really, NOT fashion.  Anyone in their right mind would see some of those topics and say “Jim, stay [...]