David Lidsky's Blog, page 297

Exceeding expectations: lessons from Disney’s Pixie Dust

A college internship at Disney led to an important business principle that carries forward.

Indulge me as I walk down memory lane—or, more appropriately, Main Street USA. For a summer during college in the early 1990s, I joined hundreds of eager students and walked through the gates of Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom Park.

Why too much optimism can derail your goals

A lot of people believe that being positive will lead to success. But too much optimism can have an unfortunate downside.

A positive attitude can help you navigate challenges, and a can-do approach often propels you forward in life. We know that having the right mindset is an important piece of the success puzzle, but focusing solely on positivity can backfire if you want to deliver results, says Caroline Adams Miller, author of Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life.

The deadly 2024 Atlantic hurricane season as seen in 6 visuals

With Beryl and Milton, 2024 was the first Atlantic hurricane season since 2019 with two Category 5 storms.

With the calendar turned to December, we now close the book on the unusually deadly and destructive Atlantic hurricane season of 2024. There were 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and five major hurricanes. An average season has 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, and three major hurricanes. The season’s accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) reached 162 (33% above average), which officially qualifies 2024 as a hyperactive season, according to the definition used by the Colorado State University seasonal forecast group—and that’s in spite of a month-long pause in activity at the climatological peak of hurricane season.

The overlooked strategy that makes leadership most rewarding

“When we look for what we can give to one another, we all come out so much farther ahead.”

Dan and I have been friends for three decades. Since he moved to Cleveland, we made a point of phoning once a year to keep in touch. 

Supreme Court could make it easier for projects to ignore environmental impact

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in ‘Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado’—the first major NEPA dispute before the court in 20 years.

In the 1993 movie Jurassic Park, Dr. Ian Malcolm, a fictional math genius specializing in chaos theory, explains the “butterfly effect,” which holds that tiny actions can lead to big outcomes. “A butterfly flaps its wings in Peking,” Malcolm posits, “and you get rain in Central Park instead of sunshine.”

Beer rules pro sports. Liquor brands like Grey Goose and Diageo want in

From branded cocktails at stadiums to high-profile ad campaigns, spirits companies are rewriting the rules of sports sponsorships.

Sports and spirits have long been sideline companions, but beer has traditionally dominated the game-day menu. That’s changing as liquor brands make strategic plays to win over sports fans, expanding their influence from stadium bars to Instagram feeds.

3 investment strategies that will help you afford (and enjoy) that dream vacation

Your upcoming vacation to Baja may seem to have nothing in common with your 401(k)—but you’ll get more out of your travel plans if you treat them like an investment.

We often treat vacations as a kind of free time outside of our normal lives. When we’re traveling, we feel free to ignore finances, schedules, and the low cholesterol diet the doctor recommended. After all, travel is supposed to be fun, relaxing, delicious, and enriching.

TikTok ban: 5 essential reads on the case and its concerns

How much influence does the Chinese government have at TikTok?

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on December 6, 2024, upheld a law requiring TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the video app by January 19, 2025, or face a nationwide ban on the app. The court rebuffed TikTok’s claim that the law violates its First Amendment rights.

Jaguar’s head of design on the company’s viral rebrand, its new EV, and why that Musk tweet was actually a good thing

Richard Stevens, Jaguar’s director of design, sits down to discuss the drama.

Four years ago, Jaguar’s chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, sent a creative brief to his team: “Understand and obsess where we’ve come from, but don’t be harnessed by it,” he wrote. “Be bold, be brave.”

Why Dion Harris believes Nvidia’s energy-intensive chips could actually help the climate

He’s trying to convince the world to believe it, too.

It takes a ton of energy to train the most advanced AI. According to one estimate, by the year 2027, AI electricity needs could be comparable to the energy use of all of Argentina.