Finding your Passion and Purpose for Learning and Sharing Knowledge | Blue Sky Talk

How does culture influence who you are? Does it influence who you are at all? What exactly is culture? Loosely, culture refers to the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time. But how much of an influence on how you and I live, learn, and behave does culture have? Is someone from the U.S. completely different from someone who was born in Italy just because they grew up in different cultures? It is impossible to say how many cultures exist in the world. Using languages as an indicator, you could assume that there exist around 5,000-6,000 distinct cultures worldwide. In Europe alone, you can find more than 160 different cultures, and that doesn’t even account for regional cultural differences. But are we all that different just because we were born in different places? My life has taught me about the impact that birthplace or place of residence has on our lives: I am a German living in the United States. I have traveled...

 What is the secret? This is an ambitious title for a 900-word article, with an equally ambitious opening question. But upon deeper reflection, we realize that the answer is simpler than what we may expect. Indeed, it seems fair to encapsulate the secret to productivity, success, and happiness in two words: minimal expectations. To be sure, this is no one-size-fits-all secret. You may find some of the attitudes below counterproductive or incompatible with your lifestyles, and that is fine. As we know, most enduring questions have multiple answers and pretending that they don’t seem unfair to the millions of people who approach them differently from us. Nevertheless, what we’re about to explore comes up frequently in business podcasts, articles, and conferences. It is not universal, but it has universal elements. Let’s look at some examples. Expect Less, Do More When you’re getting ready to start a new project, you will probably be thinking of ways to be more productive so you can ...