My 10 Favorite Books of 2019

By Sean P. Murray

December 17, 2019

8 Min read

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As the year comes to a close, it’s helpful to look back on what you’ve read and take stock of the learning.  Here are my favorite books of 2019.  Note, not all of these books were published this year, some were published in 2018 and I only got around to reading this this year.  In no particular order, here is the best of what I read: 1. Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living A Better Life by Ryan Patrick Hanley.  This book has the most “wisdom per page” of any book I read this...

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Steve Jobs’ Most Important Decision Making Tip

By Sean P. Murray

November 8, 2019

4 Min read

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Our lives are defined by our decisions.  Try this thought experiment: consider your life as separate from the decisions you have made.  You can’t.  They are one in the same. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and the author of the book Principles, put it eloquently: “The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our decisions.” If Dalio is right, and I believe he is, then the study of decision making should take up a much larger percentage of our education and...

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Life is a Single-Player Game

By Sean P. Murray

May 21, 2019

4 Min read

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The Silicon Valley investor and free-thinker Naval Ravinkant has a saying: “Life is a single player game.”   It’s a good reminder because so much of what we’re exposed to by our culture reinforces the view that life is a multi-player game.  We feel strong social pressure to constantly compare ourselves to others.  We’re programmed, at an early age, to check the score – what college we attend, how much money we make, the size of our house, the car we drive, the vacations we take – and when...

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7 Leadership Lessons from Winston Churchill

By Sean P. Murray

April 9, 2019

13 Min read

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Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was a soldier, writer and statesman who led England and the Allies to victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. His life spanned from the Victorian Age to the Space Age. He authored 37 books, producing more words than Shakespeare and Dickens combined. When Western Civilization was threatened by the ominous expansion of totalitarianism, Churchill defended liberty against tyranny, exuded a confidence in victory and provided something freedom-loving people across...

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What you are Willing to Tolerate becomes the Standard

By Sean P. Murray

March 26, 2019

3 Min read

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Jeff Bezos refers to Amazon’s customers as “divinely discontent.” Ten years ago Amazon customers were satisfied with 3-5 days shipping. At some point expectations shifted to 2-day shipping. Now many demand Same Day delivery. How long before Same Hour delivery is the norm? In his 2017 Letter to Shareholders Bezos had this to say about Amazon customers: “Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature.” One of the ways great leaders stay ahead of ever-rising...

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Vision is Fixed, Strategy is Flexible

By Sean P. Murray

February 28, 2019

4 Min read

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The movie “Lincoln” (2012) focuses on a critical period during the Civil War – January 1865 – when President Lincoln makes a high-stakes attempt to pass the Thirteenth Amendment through the House of Representatives. It was clear by this time in the war that the Union would prevail. Lincoln thought it imperative that the U.S. Constitution abolish slavery once and for all, so that as southern states were readmitted to the Union, there was no question about the status of African...

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When Technology Meets Community

By Sean P. Murray

January 31, 2019

4 Min read

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A co-op grocery chain in Seattle began dismantling their self-checkout kiosks this month. After considerable investment in the technology over the past few years, the PCC Community Market, made the decision to remove the automated stations.  Here is how the store describes the reasoning behind the decision: “A kiosk doesn’t create community or connections. So we wanted to take those out so that when someone comes into our stores, they have a human connection with someone and an interaction...

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The Power of We versus Me

By Sean P. Murray

December 19, 2018

7 Min read

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At the age of twenty, Art Unruh flew 50 missions into enemy territory in the European theater of World War II. The first six missions he served as a tail gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress. Protecting the B-17 from all threats behind the plane was a dangerous assignment, but it wasn’t the most dangerous – that belonged to the waist gunners. The waist gunner had to stand, which exposed them to more enemy fire. For the next 46 missions, Army Staff Sgt. Art Unruh served as a waste gunner, and...

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In Search of the Good Life

By Sean P. Murray

November 16, 2018

5 Min read

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“Happiness is what you get right before you want more happiness.” – Don Draper, Mad Men As humans, we are not very good at predicting how future events will impact our life. We tend to overestimate the degree to which misfortune (divorce, loss of a job, death of a loved one) will set us back. However, when you talk with someone who has lived through such experiences, you’ll find they came through the ordeal intact. Humans have a tremendous capacity for adaptation. It’s a survival mechanism...

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Jeff Bezos and the Role of Intuition in Decision Making

By Sean P. Murray

October 9, 2018

7 Min read

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When it comes to decision making, Jeff Bezos is quite comfortable relying on his intuition. This may come as a surprise given Amazon’s reputation for data analytics. Bezos has said in the past, “Our success at Amazon is a function of how many experiments we do per year, per month, per week, per day.” Judging from this quote alone one might imagine that employees at Amazon are like scientist in the lab, carefully tracking results from experiments and analyzing the date to make each decision...

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