Every person earns a living by making stuff people will pay for. If you’re an entrepreneur, artist or programmer, that reality may be obvious. You create products, pieces or code and sell them to people who need them. But accountants, janitors and teachers are also makers. Accountants create understanding of financial flows for their clients. […]
Building Up Your Intellectual Immune System
Ideas are like viruses. They can hijack your mind and cause you to do dangerous things. Consider Ted Kaczynski. Despite being a brilliant math prodigy, he became convinced that the world was heading towards self-annihilation. The only solution was to return to a pre-technological, agrarian society. When his own exile from society failed, he started […]
Does It Matter Whether Advice is Authentic?
For the last few years, I’ve been having an interest in Buddhist philosophy. The unique perspective on life often feels like it balances out some of the excesses of our achievement-driven self-improvement culture. Does that feeling change, however, if instead of being an ancient, Indian religion discovered by an ascetic named Gotama, it was instead […]
How to Figure Out Which Skills You Need to Learn to Improve Your Career
In my course I teach with Cal Newport, we encourage students to cultivate rare and valuable skills in order to improve your career. Among the countless ways you could potentially improve your career, we focus on this approach for a few key reasons. First, actually increasing the value you provide employers, clients and customers directly […]
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.