Current Oct 2023 refreshed version
OVER HERE for refreshed version. I continue to refresh my 12 favorite problems. The problems over the past years have, as a majority, been the same. I have updated or replaced a few problems, and I added the first word that came to mind that is part characteristic of the problem.
UpdateS listed below
Sharing bits and pieces of my second time around* (since the September 2020 Cohort 11) of the Forte Labs cohort-based course Building a Second Brain. Origin of this exercise listed below, as well.
I’ve been emailing my friend and Ikigai Tribe Coach colleague, Caitlin Kight, about my experience. Going this route - breathing life back into my blog, so I’m sharing out loud here.
Assignment: What are the driving questions that will likely interest you over the coming years, that can serve as open-ended guides for learning and research?
These are hard problems and they don’t have simple answers. They are the questions that will drive your learning. They don’t have to be precisely the top 12, or be in any particular order. Think of it this way: what problems would you want to “assign” your knowledge management system to help you solve? If you’re going to have a “slow burn” simmering, what do you want to be cooking?
My 12 Favorite Problems
How can trust and transparency be cultivated among the interplay of community, government, and businesses toward environmental justice (EJ)?
How can I self-regulate my reactions to those who are dishonest and hurtful to others?
How can I help people discover their ikigai or ikigai-kan through self-reflection/mental fitness, habits formation, applied improv, and movements and choices in life?
How can workspaces shift toward cultures of belonging and fruitfulness so that "check-box" training courses, performative behaviors inconsistent with past behaviors, and dissonance around DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) become obsolete?
How can I continue to infuse my personal ethos throughout my work + leisure interactions, shared as my legacy PKM?
How can behavior design and habit formation be used in human-centered/human performance EH&S practices to improve workspace culture?
How can I become a philanthropist in the service of others, as I also plan for retirement?
How can my end-of-the-day reflection include a healthy dose of discomfort, smiling, and wonder for continued personal growth?
How can creating/having an improv habits mindset shape cultural shifts in workspaces?
What can emerge when I navigate mindfully my roles as daughter, solopreneur, mentor, friend, pet owner 😃, personal assistant, and future caregiver?
What can emerge in a community of practice for food security, air quality/climate change, and philanthropy?
How can people's creative expression (for me - sketch comedy, improv, personal essays, storytelling) be used as discourse mediums for race, bias, and colorism?
Share your 12, or maybe 2 or 3, favorites.
* The Second Time Around . . . time for an old school music break from Shalamar, circa 1979.
descending time
Updated April 17 - 1 change: How can trust and transparency be cultivated among the interplay of public community, government, and businesses toward environmental justice (EJ)?
3 change: How can I help people discover their ikigai or ikigai-kan through self-reflection/mental fitness, habits formation, applied improv, and movements and choices in life?
4 change: How can workspaces shift toward cultures of belonging and fruitfulness so that "check-box" training courses, performative behaviors inconsistent with past behaviors, and dissonance around on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) become obsolete?
6 change: How can behavior design and habit formation be used in human-centered/human performance EH&S practices to improve workspaces culture?
12 change: How can people's creative expression (for me - sketch comedy, improv, personal essays, storytelling) be used as discourse mediums for race, bias, and colorism?
Updated Oct 12 - 5 change. How can I continue to infuse my personal ethos throughout my work + leisure interactions, shared as my legacy PKM?
Updated Oct 5 - 3 change: How can I help people discover their ikigai as part of their through self-reflection/mental fitness, habits formation, applied improv, and movements and choices in life?
10 change: What can emerge when I How can I best navigate mindfully my roles as daughter, solopreneur, mentor, friend, pet owner 😃, personal assistant, and future caregiver?
Updated Aug 22 - 10 change: How can I best navigate my roles as daughter, entresolopreneur, mentor, friend, future pet owner 😃, personal assistant, and future caregiver?
Other ORIGIN references
In posing and keeping favorite questions or problems, regularly attributed to Richard Feynman, others share include -
Gian-Carlo Rota, Ten Lessons I Wish I had Been Taught
“Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, 'How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
Richard Hamming, You and Your Research
“Most great scientists know many important problems. They have something between 10 and 20 important problems for which they are looking for an attack. And when they see a new idea come up, one hears them say ``Well that bears on this problem.'' They drop all the other things and get after it. Now I can tell you a horror story that was told to me but I can't vouch for the truth of it. I was sitting in an airport talking to a friend of mine from Los Alamos about how it was lucky that the fission experiment occurred over in Europe when it did because that got us working on the atomic bomb here in the US. He said ``No; at Berkeley we had gathered a bunch of data; we didn't get around to reducing it because we were building some more equipment, but if we had reduced that data we would have found fission.'' They had it in their hands and they didn't pursue it. They came in second!”