Jim Nowakowski

Have you ever read a book, become so frustrated that you wanted to throw it against the wall, and then picked it up again? That's one way to approach Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea. Its central character, Antoine Roquentin, begins to experience the world in ways that most of us rarely stop to consider. Things exist. The objects around us exist. We exist. We go about our lives accepting that reality without thinking very much about it. But what happens when we begin thinking about existence itself? That's where Sartre takes us. And perhaps that's why his writing can be so unsettling. He forces us to confront something we usually take for granted. I wrote about this some years ago in an essay titled All Men (and Women) Think Like Roquentin, Only They Tend to Forget It. Might be worth revisiting your own existence. :) jamesnowakowski.com/all-men-… #Sartre #Existentialism #Literature #Philosophy #CriticalThinking

Do children understand guilt differently from adults? Or do adults simply become better at explaining away their own behavior? Frank O'Connor's First Confession is funny. But beneath the humor is a wonderful examination of childhood, fear, guilt, and the strange ways adults teach children about right and wrong. It's a short story that rewards a look. Come read it with me. I'm Jimmy, and I read the classics with you. Not to you. readingwithjimmy.com/first-c… #FrankOConnor #ShortStories #ReadingWithJimmy

Here's a question: Can you study something objectively if you've already decided what you're going to find? Apparently, some academics believe you can. Earlier this year, I read an analysis of nearly 100 articles published in American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association. According to that analysis, 80% of the articles were critical of America, 20% were neutral, and not one was positive. Not one. Now, I have no objection to criticizing America. We have plenty to criticize. But we also have plenty to admire. And that's the point. If you approach your subject having already decided that everything about it is bad, are you studying it? Or are you simply gathering evidence to support a conclusion you've already reached? There's a difference between criticism and contempt. One can lead to knowledge. The other can prevent it. I wrote about this in Propaganda with Footnotes: When American Studies Can't Stand America. Check it out when you have time. jamesnowakowski.com/propagan… #Education #CriticalThinking #AmericanStudies #Scholarship #Culture

77 Biggest Challenges in Business Today. Seventy-seven. That's how many challenges we identified when we examined what businesses said they were facing. Seems like a lot, doesn't it? But here's what interests me about lists like these. Everybody has problems. The difficult part isn't necessarily identifying them. It's deciding which ones deserve your attention first. Because while you're busy solving problem number 47, problem number three might be putting you out of business. How do you decide? interlinegroup.com/mix/77-bi… #BusinessStrategy #Leadership #MarketResearch #DecisionMaking

Does illness explain behavior? Certainly. Does it excuse everything someone does? That's another question. In Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, it's tempting to explain what happens by pointing to the condition of the characters. But explanation and responsibility aren't necessarily the same thing. That's what I explore in this analysis. And it's one reason I think Poe deserves more than a quick reading. Come, read with Jimmy. I'm waiting for you. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/il… #EdgarAllanPoe #TheFallOfTheHouseOfUsher #ReadingWithJimmy

I don't read the classics because somebody told me they're important. I read them because they make me think. Sometimes I finish a story convinced I understand it. Then I look at one sentence, one decision, or one conversation again. And suddenly, I see something I missed. That's what two teachers taught me years ago...what my Mom taught me when she read aloud with me. The more you look, the more you see. And the more you see, the better you know where to look. That's why I started Reading With Jimmy. One minute if you're curious. Ten minutes if you're interested. The whole work if you're hooked. What are you waiting for? Take a peek and subscribe to my YouTube channel for ongoing new classic content. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/wh… #ClassicLiterature #CriticalThinking #ReadingWithJimmy

I've always been fascinated by what happens when you read a story again, especially one you think you already understand. Take the Book of Ruth. Most people interpret it as a beautiful story about Ruth's loyalty, her relationship with Boaz, and God's providence. But when I reread it, I came to a different conclusion. Perhaps it should have been called the Book of Naomi. Think about it. Naomi loses her husband and both sons. She's left with two daughters-in-law in a world dominated by men. She returns to Bethlehem with Ruth, and then begins orchestrating events that eventually restore her family's position. Naomi tells Ruth what to do. Ruth does it. Boaz responds. And the entire story moves toward its conclusion. Who set everything in motion? Naomi. And here's something else. At the end of the story, the women celebrate Naomi, not Boaz. Ruth's love, they tell her, is better than seven sons. Perhaps this isn't primarily a love story after all. Perhaps it's a story about survival, the power of women, and what happens when we stop bringing our assumptions to a text and start paying attention to what the narrator actually tells us. Whose Baby Was It? An Interpretation of the Book of Ruth. Come, read my analysis and tell me what you think. jamesnowakowski.com/whose-ba… #BookOfRuth #Literature #BiblicalInterpretation #CriticalThinking

No Pain. No Gain. Remain the Same. Everybody wants improvement. More sales. Better margins. New customers. Greater productivity. Wonderful. Then somebody suggests changing how things are done. Suddenly, improvement doesn't sound quite so attractive. Too risky. Too expensive. Too disruptive. Let's study it some more. Of course, studying something isn't the same as doing something. And doing nothing has consequences too. Perhaps that's why they call it growing pains. Some pain, some gain, and no longer the same. That's a better formula I think. interlinegroup.com/mix/no-pa… #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #Strategy #Change

How much of what we see in another person is real? And how much is what that person wants us to see? Guy de Maupassant understood that appearances can be deceiving. But he also understood something more disturbing: sometimes people become so attached to the image they create that they lose sight of themselves. His short story The Mask raises questions about identity, appearance, and the lengths people will go to preserve an illusion. It's one of several Maupassant stories you can explore at Reading With Jimmy. So what are you waiting for? Come, join me. readingwithjimmy.com/the-mas… #GuyDeMaupassant #ClassicLiterature #ReadingWithJimmy

Pick a Word. Any Word. Words are dangerous things. They can clarify. Confuse. Persuade. Inspire. Mislead. Sometimes all in the same conversation. In business, we spend enormous amounts of time choosing the right words to describe what we do. Innovative. Leading. Unique. Quality. Service. Sound familiar? Here's a thought: If everybody is using the same words, what exactly makes anybody different? Maybe the problem isn't finding the right words. Maybe it's having something worth saying. Go ahead...pick a word...any word. Read my post. interlinegroup.com/mix/pick-… #Marketing #Communication #Branding #BusinessStrategy

Harvard Has Just Discovered Something Dangerous: Students Who Want to Think for Themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, one of Harvard's most sought-after courses requires freshmen to read a demanding book every week, write essays and defend their interpretations in discussions with other students. No easy grades. No digital shortcuts. And students are competing to get in. Go figure. What took them so long? For years, we've been hearing that young people don't read, can't concentrate and would rather watch a screen than open a book. Perhaps we've been asking the wrong questions. Perhaps the problem isn't that young people can't think. Perhaps we haven't given them enough reasons to think! That's what interested me about the Harvard story. Not the university. Not the prestige. Not even the reading list. It's the possibility that young people are beginning to recognize something important: Having access to unlimited information isn't the same thing as knowing how to think. I created Reading With Jimmy because I believe great literature offers something that no summary, algorithm or artificial intelligence can replace: the experience of confronting another human being's imagination and exercising your own judgment about what you encounter. Classical Literature. You don't need Harvard for that. You need a story worth reading, the willingness to pay attention and the courage to question what you think you know. And that is what you will find on my channels: plenty of classics waiting for you. Check out my channels. readingwithjimmy.com and youtube.com/@ReadingWithJimm… #ReadingWithJimmy #Harvard #Humanities #GenZ #Reading

Have you ever read a book, become so frustrated that you wanted to throw it against the wall, and then picked it up again? That's one way to approach Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea. Its central character, Antoine Roquentin, begins to experience the world in ways that most of us rarely stop to consider. Things exist. The objects around us exist. We exist. We go about our lives accepting that reality without thinking very much about it. But what happens when we begin thinking about existence itself? That's where Sartre takes us. And perhaps that's why his writing can be so unsettling. He forces us to confront something we usually take for granted. I wrote about this some years ago in an essay titled All Men (and Women) Think Like Roquentin, Only They Tend to Forget It. Might be worth revisiting your own existence. :) jamesnowakowski.com/all-men-… #Sartre #Existentialism #Literature #Philosophy #CriticalThinking

What happens when management falls in love with a shiny new object? KFC is switching from Pepsi to Coca-Cola. Apparently, this is supposed to help turn the business around. Really? KFC sells chicken. Not soda. While competitors continue to take market share, KFC management has decided to change something that made it different from everyone else. And in the process, they're introducing all kinds of operational disruption. I wrote about this because I've seen the same thinking in other industries. Sales decline. Management panics. Consultants arrive. And suddenly changing something becomes a substitute for solving the problem. My question is simple: Who is thinking about the customer? Read "Let's All Play Who Is the Biggest Idiot: How KFC Lost Its Way." interlinegroup.com/mix/how-k… #Branding #MarketingStrategy #Leadership #BusinessStrategy

Remember social distancing? We got very good at staying apart. Then something interesting happened. Business learned that physical distance and business distance weren't necessarily the same thing. Zoom. Teams. Email. Social. Search. The tools changed. The need to stay close to customers didn't. Maybe that's the lesson worth keeping. When is the last time you talked to your customers? interlinegroup.com/mix/socia… #CustomerRelationships #Business #Marketing #Communication

Do children understand guilt differently from adults? Or do adults simply become better at explaining away their own behavior? Frank O'Connor's First Confession is funny. But beneath the humor is a wonderful examination of childhood, fear, guilt, and the strange ways adults teach children about right and wrong. It's a short story that rewards a look. Come read it with me. I'm Jimmy, and I read the classics with you. Not to you. readingwithjimmy.com/first-c… #FrankOConnor #ShortStories #ReadingWithJimmy

Here's a question: Can you study something objectively if you've already decided what you're going to find? Apparently, some academics believe you can. Earlier this year, I read an analysis of nearly 100 articles published in American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association. According to that analysis, 80% of the articles were critical of America, 20% were neutral, and not one was positive. Not one. Now, I have no objection to criticizing America. We have plenty to criticize. But we also have plenty to admire. And that's the point. If you approach your subject having already decided that everything about it is bad, are you studying it? Or are you simply gathering evidence to support a conclusion you've already reached? There's a difference between criticism and contempt. One can lead to knowledge. The other can prevent it. I wrote about this in Propaganda with Footnotes: When American Studies Can't Stand America. Check it out when you have time. jamesnowakowski.com/propagan… #Education #CriticalThinking #AmericanStudies #Scholarship #Culture

77 Biggest Challenges in Business Today. Seventy-seven. That's how many challenges we identified when we examined what businesses said they were facing. Seems like a lot, doesn't it? But here's what interests me about lists like these. Everybody has problems. The difficult part isn't necessarily identifying them. It's deciding which ones deserve your attention first. Because while you're busy solving problem number 47, problem number three might be putting you out of business. How do you decide? interlinegroup.com/mix/77-bi… #BusinessStrategy #Leadership #MarketResearch #DecisionMaking

You Don't Need a Harvard Education to Read Homer. You Just Need Homer. There's something amusing about the excitement surrounding Harvard's Humanities 10 course. Students are lining up to read the classics. They're discovering that great literature requires concentration, patience and thought. Imagine that! The Wall Street Journal reports that students are even resisting the temptation to let artificial intelligence do the reading for them. Good for them. But I have a question: When did we start believing that the serious examination of great literature belonged primarily to universities? Homer wasn't writing (reciting) for Harvard. Shakespeare wasn't writing (acting) for English departments. Poe wasn't writing for literary critics. They were telling stories. Stories about people. Their ambitions, weaknesses, fears, contradictions and choices. And those stories belong to anyone willing to read them. At Reading With Jimmy, I read classic literature aloud and then examine what the authors are doing, what their characters reveal and what questions the stories leave unanswered. You can agree with my interpretations. You can disagree with them. But read the story first. Pay attention to the words. Consider the evidence. Then make up your own mind. That's how you read the classics properly. Not by memorizing someone else's interpretation, but by developing your own judgment. No admission application required. Check out my channels. readingwithjimmy.com and youtube.com/@ReadingWithJimm… #ReadingWithJimmy #GreatBooks #Homer #Literature #CriticalThinking

Does illness explain behavior? Certainly. Does it excuse everything someone does? That's another question. In Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, it's tempting to explain what happens by pointing to the condition of the characters. But explanation and responsibility aren't necessarily the same thing. That's what I explore in this analysis. And it's one reason I think Poe deserves more than a quick reading. Come, read with Jimmy. I'm waiting for you. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/il… #EdgarAllanPoe #TheFallOfTheHouseOfUsher #ReadingWithJimmy

I've always been fascinated by what happens when you read a story again, especially one you think you already understand. Take the Book of Ruth. Most people interpret it as a beautiful story about Ruth's loyalty, her relationship with Boaz, and God's providence. But when I reread it, I came to a different conclusion. Perhaps it should have been called the Book of Naomi. Think about it. Naomi loses her husband and both sons. She's left with two daughters-in-law in a world dominated by men. She returns to Bethlehem with Ruth, and then begins orchestrating events that eventually restore her family's position. Naomi tells Ruth what to do. Ruth does it. Boaz responds. And the entire story moves toward its conclusion. Who set everything in motion? Naomi. And here's something else. At the end of the story, the women celebrate Naomi, not Boaz. Ruth's love, they tell her, is better than seven sons. Perhaps this isn't primarily a love story after all. Perhaps it's a story about survival, the power of women, and what happens when we stop bringing our assumptions to a text and start paying attention to what the narrator actually tells us. Whose Baby Was It? An Interpretation of the Book of Ruth. Come, read my analysis and tell me what you think. jamesnowakowski.com/whose-ba… #BookOfRuth #Literature #BiblicalInterpretation #CriticalThinking