Career Decisions

After 6 and a half years of advising MBA students on their job searches, I finally decided to take a new job myself, with an executive search firm. I was genuinely torn about this decision, but hope that sharing my thought process here will help others in their own career decisions. I evaluated the offers…

Change, Growth, and Two Papacies

I am a lawyer by training. In the U.S., this implies a certain belief in (or at least acceptance of) the value of precedent: that evaluations of disputes (and even of the meaning of the text of laws) should take into consideration how previous courts have interpreted those same texts, or held in related disputes.…

The Ex-Economist’s Lament

Every hour has its costIn roads not taken, jobs not doneInfinities of options lost,Of time not spent on work or fun. Comparative advantage freesThe insect just to play one roleIt’s fine for ants or honeybees,But humans need more to be whole. To test ourselves, with brawn and brainTo make what we could well afford—I’ll treasure…

Interlude: In Defense of Books

Three years ago I set out to read one book from every aisle in the stacks of Cornell University’s Olin library. 60 books later (and nearly halfway through the third floor) I am certain that I would not have requested or sought out more than two of those books from other libraries, but I am…

Life Lessons from Pull-ups

Another year, another intention to write more/read more/work out more to become more of the intellectual/Renaissance man I aspire to be. I completed one of my resolutions last year, however, which was to do pull-ups on 100 days in the year (I fell laughably short on two others: to read 50 pages/day and to blog…