Feeling Stuck or Stymied?
When people feel that their career progress is frustratingly slow or has sputtered out, they can become dangerously demoralized. Without a clear understanding of what constitutes a reasonable pace for advancement or why peers are outachieving them, they write off promising paths, downscale their ambitions, or quit altogether. But often, these people are simply not giving themselves enough time to succeed.
^ADJ: Recently, Isobel and I sat down with Philip Morgan QC to ask about his career one of the quotes that I took away from the conversation was "time is a great teacher" - this article has some useful tips and good reminders; especially around patience.
What I have been reading: Empire of Pain
Empire of Pain is the story of the Sackler family, and Purdue Pharma. Purdue marketed OxyContin as a painkiller, it became a best seller with reported sales of $31 billion - however, it became abused, was misrepresented by the company in its marketing and to the FDA as to its efficacy, and was highly profitable. The drug soon started wreaking havoc across the USA - so this is a story of deception, family infighting, succession and greed, with a hefty dose of philanthropy.
Some wider lessons:
- Be careful what you wish for
- Loyalty has a price; if you are not willing to have people challenge you
- Failure to diversify and management of risk
- The value of different / independently sourced data points to correlate facts
- Importance of company culture (but not to the extent it becomes a cult - recent example WeWork)
- Advisors being and remaining independent
Product Design with Psychology in Mind
Bad meeting? We've all been there. Meetings are hard to get right — but Miter, an early-stage startup, is committed to improving them through thoughtful design. Informed by behavioral science, organizational behavior, and human psychology, Miter is developing software to help people organize and lead better meetings.
^ADJ: Some great thinking on meetings, sometime nudges are the most powerful things!
Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee: #291 Tim Spector: The Latest Science on Gut Health (and How To Find The Right Diet For You)
Tim is a professor of genetic epidemiology and Head of the Department of Twin Research at King’s College London. He’s a world-leader when it comes to the gut microbiome – and Director of the British Gut Project – whose research has transformed what we know about food and health. Tim is author of two excellent books, The Diet Myth and Spoonfed: Why Everything You Know About Food Is Wrong.
^ADJ: This conversation will bring you up to date with all Tim’s most recent findings and practical advice that can be easily implmented.
Tesla turns to California to build "world’s largest virtual power plant"
^ADJ: How Tesla are re-defining the Grid