by Brooks Mendell | Jun 24, 2026 | Communication Skills, Books, Leading/Managing, Learning, Sports, Thinking/Analysis
We rush. We are quick to react or respond. Unless on Jeopardy, why hurry? My football coach at San Mateo High School, Buz Williams, used to tell the quarterbacks to “set, look, throw.” This meant, first, get your feet set. Next, look and mentally “see” or...
by Brooks Mendell | Apr 19, 2026 | Thinking/Analysis, Books, Leading/Managing, Learning
Over the years, I’ve given dozens of Rotary talks, usually about the MIT baseball team or forestry, and often leave with a keepsake, like a mug or a pen. On one occasion, I received a coin with the “Four-Way Test of the things we think, say or do” used and recited by...
by Brooks Mendell | Mar 30, 2026 | Thinking/Analysis, Books, Leading/Managing, Learning
Cornell University in Ithaca currently has an exhibit – “Fashioning Justice: Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 and the Power of Presence” – which celebrates fashion trends and legal decisions influenced by the former Supreme Court Justice (aka RBG). What links fashion to the...
by Brooks Mendell | Feb 28, 2026 | Books, Communication Skills, Leading/Managing, Learning, Thinking/Analysis
In 1999, while in business school, I interned with the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) at Point Reyes National Seashore, living in employee housing about 90 minutes from where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds, now considered one of the great horror...
by Brooks Mendell | Jun 16, 2025 | Leading/Managing, Books, Communication Skills, Learning, Thinking/Analysis, Writing
I can basically do one round of creative work each day. Maybe two. No more. The attention, capacity, and focus required to write, research, and develop ideas are limited to a few hours daily, especially when life includes a spouse, children, bills, bowel movements,...
by Brooks Mendell | May 31, 2025 | Leading/Managing, Books, Communication Skills, Forestry, Learning, Sports, Thinking/Analysis
As a kid, I learned that the “knee bone connected to the thigh bone” thanks to the School House Rock song “Them Not So Dry Bones.” The lyrics remind us how things “really fit” and “it’s a framework… holding you together.” This idea, that we are combinations of...
