by Brooks Mendell | Apr 27, 2025 | Thinking/Analysis, Communication Skills, Learning
How to Load a Dishwasher Take a break from fixing the world via social media to consider the art of loading silverware into a dishwasher. Dishwasher manufacturers recommend putting knives point down and spoons and forks tongs up (though there exists a minor kerfuffle...
by Brooks Mendell | Mar 31, 2025 | Learning, Leading/Managing, Thinking/Analysis
Years before getting married, I went on a date to a forgotten restaurant for an unremarkable meal. However, I remember the moment when my companion was rude and dismissive to our waitress, and thinking, “nope, this is not going to work out.” Everyone has bad days, but...
by Brooks Mendell | Jan 15, 2025 | Thinking/Analysis, Learning
I am passionate about learning and logical, rational thinking. If something does not make sense or fails to explain how things work, then it doesn’t make sense or explain. At a minimum, it is incomplete. Perhaps it answers a different question. Or, simply, it is...
by Brooks Mendell | Dec 22, 2024 | Learning, Sports
Beaverball, my book about a season with the MIT baseball team, includes stories about how we sometimes shared a word or fact “of the day” while stretching at the start of practice. At my high school in California, when the baseball and football teams warmed-up, we...
by Brooks Mendell | Oct 31, 2024 | Books, Learning, Thinking/Analysis
In 1935, Eleanor Roosevelt published an article in The Saturday Evening Post titled “In Defense of Curiosity.” In describing the benefits of being curious, she wrote: I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most...
by Brooks Mendell | Sep 11, 2024 | Learning
My Dad is the dream dental patient. He role models superb oral hygiene. I remember, as a kid, our dentist saying, “Your Dad is the best patient we’ve had. He’s a poster child, an all-star for orthodontal self-care.” Growing up, I watched him floss, brush, and then...
