by Brooks Mendell | Mar 26, 2022 | Communication Skills, Learning, Thinking/Analysis, Writing
Introduction Deciding to leverage your lived moments into wisdom, insight, and appreciation rather than choosing the passive habit of regurgitating op-eds or puffery means engaging directly with people and ideas. Forwarding a link or liking a post differs from...
by Brooks Mendell | Dec 23, 2021 | Learning, Sports, Thinking/Analysis
The poet Robinson Jeffers[1] worried that people increasingly failed to engage with the world or to appreciate nature, that we had become blind to the “astonishing beauty of things” around us. When I read Jeffers or Wendell Berry, or watch a baseball game or...
by Brooks Mendell | Nov 16, 2021 | Leading/Managing, Learning, Thinking/Analysis
Growing up, I enjoyed the science fiction movies Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars, and television shows such as Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers. The stories combined space travel, advanced technologies and humor with themes that demonstrated a...
by Brooks Mendell | Sep 29, 2021 | Thinking/Analysis
Four years ago, in September 2017, spacesuit technician Joseph Schmitt passed away at 101. The Economist magazine reported how, at NASA, Schmitt helped design and fit spacesuits during the years when Alan Shepard made America’s first manned space flight (1961), John...
by Brooks Mendell | Jul 24, 2021 | Communication Skills, Forestry, Thinking/Analysis
In 2012, the Forest History Society published “Wood for Bioenergy: Forests as a Resource for Biomass and Biofuels,” a book I co-authored with Amanda Lang. It serves as a primer on the markets, policies and technologies associated with wood pellets, liquid...
by Brooks Mendell | Apr 26, 2021 | Books, Learning, Thinking/Analysis
When reading anything, we want to prepare our mind. Mindless reading is like mindless eating. Be intentional and discerning in reading and application. Consider this simple approach for assessing the quality, credibility and relevance of what we...
