There’s a lot of different lenses you can use to view any situation. Say you’re trying to get in better shape, improve your career, find a good relationship or just want to be happier with your life. You could see these through a lens of effort: the problem is simply that you haven’t tried hard […]
Is Mastery More Like a Wedge or a Knife?
There’s two main ways to think about becoming really good at something. The first I call the knife model. This is where you get better and better at a very narrow range of skills, movements and patterns. Olympic sprinters, archers and many artisans master like a knife—getting extremely good at one thing. The second I […]
How to Stop Feeling Like an Imposter
Imposter syndrome is the feeling that your achievements don’t matter. That you only scraped by because of luck or by fooling others into believing in you. You feel deep insecurity about your work and accomplishments, always anxious that you’ll be exposed as a fraud. While arrogance isn’t good, I think impostor syndrome is far more […]
What is Quantum Mechanics? (An Incomplete and Amateur Summary)
In case you missed it, I spent last month learning MIT’s quantum mechanics. I’ve written a bit about how the project went, what I did and why I did it here. Today, I’d like to talk about what I’ve learned and try to explain, without using math, what picture of reality quantum mechanics gives us […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.