Math and Science Made Simple at Khan’s (Free Virtual) Academy!

I didn’t choose a business or a science field because I couldn’t make sense of what I should have learned in high school; but from this day forward, I’m saying “Adios!” to my math and science phobias!  

If you can relate, welcome aboard.  Check out Kahn Academy, where YouTube’s ‘professor’ Sal Khan make both basic and seemingly difficult concepts — from addition to calculus, chemistry to physics — a walk in the park!

Khan’s lessons are free, 10 minutes or less, simple, visual, and self-paced — start and pause as we please!  If I can learn, you can, too!

These testimonials say it all:

• “I learned more about calculus in the last few hours than in the whole of the last semester at university.  I was almost ready to change majors because I wasn’t understanding much of the content but am now up to speed.” (Derek Hoy/ Geophysics Major at University of Queensland, Australia)
• “I think he rocks.  I’m studying pre-algebra and I love it!”  (Felix Thibodeau, 11, Wilmington, N.C.) (Full Story)

Happy learning! 🙂

How to Live the Life We Were Meant to Live

Focus on our passion with every ounce of our being!  Yeah, yeah, much easier said than done … maybe not …

Dan, a bright young man, considered following his father’s passion and profession.  Becoming an engineer seemed safe, the path least likely to lead to mistakes.

Dan earned his engineering degree but didn’t want to use it.  He flirted with the idea of becoming a chef, but came to feel that, although he was fascinated by the inner workings of restaurants, food itself didn’t hold his interest.  Great — now he had a degree he wasn’t using and some work experience he didn’t care to follow up on.  Mistakes and more mistakes!

Meanwhile, working in restaurant kitchens, Dan found himself thinking like an engineer.  He saw each kitchen as a kind of factory, each appliance and tool as a cog in a production process.  How could the factory be made to work most efficiently?  How could time and energy be saved?  How could safety be improved, how could kitchen staff be best protected against burned fingers and sore backs?

Dan came to realize his false starts and meanderings had given him a fairly rare and useful skill set.  He could make schematic drawings; he understood the science of heat and materials.  He knew firsthand how heavy commercial saucepans were, how crucial the spacing of a kitchen line.

Dan became an industrial designer, specializing in commercial kitchens.  He had blundered his way to exactly where he was meant to be. (Full Story)

I’m still searching … a cause which I can immerse myself in with every inch of my being.  My passion and my heart, I know, will guide me.

How about you?  What do you want to be when you grow up? 🙂

 

The Path of Least Resistance or the Path of Greatest Satisfaction

“At the start of life, randomness rules.  No one deserves to be rich or poor, privileged or oppressed, healthy or challenged.  No one deserves good or bad parents.  These are things that happen randomly to the life that has just begun.  They are neither fair nor unfair; they simply are.”

So true, so simple, yet equally profound — spoken with conviction by Peter Buffet, an Emmy Award-winning composer and producer, cochairman of the NoVo Foundation, and the son of a billionaire investor, Warren Buffet.

Peter Buffet continues, “Secular advantages [and gifts] such as loving, nurturing parents and economic security become meaningful — truly our own — only by virtue of what we do with it, by how we return it to the world.”

Which do we truly appreciate — what we’ve earned through hard work or a gift?  Gratitude or entitlement? 

“Self-respect comes only from earning one’s own reward … My father’s plan was to give [all of his] wealth back to the world that had produced it in the first place.” (Full Story)

Work ethic or wealth ethic?  Self respect of status?  Process or payoff?  Passion or monotony?  Adventure or security?

We have one life to live.  The choice is ours. 🙂

How Will You Spend Your Billions?

If you’re like me, this question will never cross your mind.  What billions … or better yet, what thousands?!

But if we were blessed (or cursed) with large amounts of money, what will we do?  Give the money to our kids or to favorite charities?  What about accountability?  How would we make sure our hard-earned dough (or mad money) will be used wisely?

Billionaire, Warren Buffet, shares his wisdom:

“Give enough [to your children] but not enough to do nothing,” “You’re not entitled to a free ride in life,” “Money or life?  I chose life.” “Life is what you make it .”

Son, Peter Buffett reminds us, it’s not enough to know what you want to do; that the pain of action is a challenge we must take on. And that we must open our arms to the mysteries of vocation as much as the well-delineated parts; that work is not all about following a predictable path but also about doubts, mistakes, uncertainties and embracing opportunities.(Full Story)

Great lessons!  Empower, not enable!