It's hard to forget Liam Neeson's legendary words in the movie "Taken": "I don't have money. But what I do have is a very particular set of skills". Cartoonist Scott Adams shares that description... and guess what? you too: Adams started cartooning while working at what we would assume a very boring job. After being repeatedly passed over for promotion, his frustration piled up. “The day you realize that your efforts and rewards are not related, it really frees up your calendar”, he'd say. But 'free up your calendar' is an euphemism, as he had to draw his cartoons at ... [keep reading...]

Have you heard the expression "It is not enough to succeed... others must fail, too!" Yeah, it's mean, makes (sometimes) zero sense, but it always manages to get me a chuckle. Especially because sometimes, some people absolutely deserve to fail. Take for example the nice success of the Super Mario Bros' movie opening weekend. Broke the record for animated films. Nintendo and Universal Studios are ready to take a dip in Scrooge McDuck's vault. Who's the big loser here? Disney and Pixar, and with good reason. They have embarrassed themselves over and over again in the last few years just pouring ... [keep reading...]

One of our greatest struggles is defining what we truly want for our life versus what our peers define as 'the right wants'. A way to illustrate it is Captain Willian Jones' anecdote working at the steel mill: Jones worked for multimillionaire Andrew Carnegie not only as an engineer but also as a manager. He had proven himself extremely valuable for the steel mill business. If he wasn't creating useful inventions, he was pushing to create an environment of healthy competition. The complex role of engineer, manager and leader made him an integral part of the business, and because that, Carnegie ... [keep reading...]

We're not supposed to know absolutely everything, so it's always a good idea to ask for help if we need it. However, the way Samuel L. Jackson filters his true fans will help you know the right way to do it: Jackson was asked, "What's the thing your fans always tell you when they meet you?" And he replied, "Do you know what they call the quarter pounder with cheese in Paris?" It's a reference to one of his lines with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Here's the catch: When any of his fans asks that question, Jackson answers exactly like ... [keep reading...]

We almost forget that we usually don't know who could be listening to us... and the actual impact of our words. Henry Cavill has a funny anecdote about that, when he got the right words at the right time: Cavill was an awkward teen in high school, to the point of being called 'Fat Cavill'. Yeah. Hard to imagine, right? but bear with me with this one. One day the school was the location for a Hollywood production, and there was this famous actor in the premises. By a strange turn of destiny, Cavill managed to talk to the A-lister. — ... [keep reading...]

It’s perfectly normal to face adversity and not know how to react. (Maybe we don’t even know how to define how we feel about it) Ludwig Wittgenstein wants to help us: Wittgenstein was a disciple of Bertrand Russell, who pushed login into him with the same subtlety of Pulp Fiction’s adrenaline injection. (And Ludwig’s reaction was similar): Language is made of * propositions *. For example, “Lasagna makes you fat”. There is a problem: Wittgenstein argued that only the propositions that we can verify empirically (through our experience) as ‘true’ or ‘false’ are valid. Therefore, concepts such as moral, ethics and ... [keep reading...]

How many rules should we obey on a daily basis? Hundreds; Maybe thousands. They are necessary to live together, but which ones do we impose ourselves? Nietzsche has a couple of things to say about it: We can rest assured that this philosopher had a poster of Schopenhauer in his room, much like having one of Ozzy Osbourne. Of course, he studied in depth that “Will and Representation”, that the famous pessimist wrote; The duality of our world. Then he noticed a pattern: Plato spoke of a ‘real’ world (which we could only grasp with our intellect) and an ‘apparent’ world, which ... [keep reading...]

"There is no destiny, only the one we forge." Sarah Connor's statement has fascinated me since 1991 when she engraved it with a knife like a bored teenager in class. However, certain terms and conditions apply: Sometimes, take bold actions does not mean exactly what we imagine. An example: Reviewing the assignments of our courses, I noticed the anecdote of one of our participants in an airport. In this particular case, an immigration official was reluctant to accept his transit through the country, despite having his documents in order. If it was Sarah Connor, things would have escalated... rather quickly. But ... [keep reading...]