focused reflection creates useful reality

In 2003 LEGO was $800m in debt. But by 2015 they had $1billion+ in sales. What was at the heart of such a crazy comeback?

Patterns.

LEGO did a mountain of research... and found patterns in how children play.

As their then-CEO said - "If you want to understand how animals live, you don’t go to the zoo, you go to the jungle."

So they talked to Lego fans.... See more

“We could wind up with networks that have the principal effect of fostering addiction to a new generation of electronic narcotics ... their principal themes revolving around instant gratification ... their uses and content determined by mega-corporations pushing mindless consumption of things we don’t need and aren’t good for us.”

--Mitchell Kapor, ... See more

"Suffering is a moment of clarity, when you can no longer deny the truth of a situation and are forced into uncomfortable change. I’m lucky that I didn’t get everything I wanted in my life, or I’d be happy with my first good job, my college sweetheart, my college town. Being poor… Show more

When you see people clearly, you see the transcript of their conversation with reality up until that moment of your meeting, and you glimpse the horizon that stretches out ahead of them. And then sometimes you can help them overhear themselves and overhear what the world wants from them, whether or not that includes working in the role that you had... See more

Comparing and contrasting that tendency to make generalizations can very easily devalue the experiences of humans who sense the world in very different ways.