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 | Jan 16, 2026 | Leading/Managing, Communication Skills, Forestry, Learning, Sports, Thinking/Analysis, Writing
Daily Habits and Practice As a second grader in Cockeysville, Maryland, I came home from school nursing a bruised ego the first time we took a physical fitness test. That day, I had barely managed one chin-up after watching my friends crank out four, six and more. My...
by Brooks Mendell | Dec 14, 2025 | Thinking/Analysis, Communication Skills, Forestry, Leading/Managing
Introduction My late friend Danny Hamsley once told me, “The web of life on Earth is complex.” Danny and I often discussed the challenges of being human and raising children, long before I married or had children of my own. Danny called this the “curse of the big...
by Brooks Mendell | Nov 28, 2025 | Leading/Managing, Communication Skills, Learning, Thinking/Analysis
Introduction I have been thinking about processes, habits, and routines after, once again, incinerating hours of my life watching videos online. Two situations account for most of why or when I get offtrack and surrender my attention. Fatigue. I’m tired and sit at the...
by Brooks Mendell | Sep 28, 2025 | Thinking/Analysis, Forestry, Learning
How important is new information? How do we know? Often, we don’t, according to a study in a September 2024 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Professors Eben Lazarus, Ned Augenblick, and Michael Thaler found evidence in sports betting, financials markets,...
