I am an Intentional Learner. I see a gap between what I learn in school and what I need to succeed. I don’t wait for the system to fix itself, I leverage its strengths and overcome its weaknesses. I believe that my life is my […]
Author: Tony
Hi, I’m Tony. I am an engineering professor, family man, and rock climber living in Las Vegas, NV. I write for students, educators, and early-career professionals about how to live a fulfilling life.
The easy way make people do what you want
Systems engineering is interested in the way that seemingly simple components interact to create complex behaviors. A car driving down the street is fairly simple. Put a bunch of them near each other and complex behaviors arise. I’m about to pick at the system called […]
Don’t fear fear
Fear is used, often unintentionally, to motivate and control people far too often. Do you study because you love to learn and can’t wait to add something new to your world, or do you study because you’re afraid of failing an exam? Do you go […]
I’m not afraid of losing my job
You may not know this, but I’m actually a full-time professor of mechanical engineering at one of the major universities in the Philadelphia, PA area. However, I don’t hold the typical professor position. I don’t have tenure. I never will. I have an annual contract, […]
Fear is a powerful (de)motivator
Fear is a powerful motivator. Maybe it’s better to say that fear is a powerful DEmotivator. How many great ideas have we left undone because we were too scared to start? We’re wired this way. Nature serves us example after example of the safety that […]
Absolute Belief is the Cure for Fear
Failure is overrated. We’ve created a featureless monster that lives in our brains, just out of sight, that has us convinced that the worst thing in the world is failure. We can’t quite put our finger on why, but we’re certain that there are few […]
New ways to make money as a student
One of the scariest things we can do is step out on our own. It’s much more comfortable to follow the pack, to take advantage of the same opportunities that we’ve been taking advantage of for years. Let me ask a question to drive home […]
How to succeed by making mistakes
You may recall my post from a few weeks ago that talked about changing your goal: define success as learning and you can always succeed. In rock climber jargon, “If I send, I send. My goal is to learn to climb better.” *“sending” means completing […]
In the Black
In the black. Today, for the first time in our lives (that’s my wife and I), our net worth is a positive number! What does that mean? It means that if you took everything of value that we own (a car, a retirement fund, the […]
The shortcut to Loser-ville
Last week I talked about cars, and how to own one without damaging your future. I received several responses that sounded like: “I deserve to drive a nice car. I work hard.” I hate to break it to you, but working hard doesn’t grant you […]
