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 […]
Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools
Most people think being smart is about having more facts. Trivia-shows like Jeopardy! epitomize this view of knowledge. The smartest people are the people with the most names, dates and places stored away inside their mind. This is probably the least important and useful part of learning though. Instead of facts, I’d prefer to focus […]
How to Learn English
I’ve written a lot about my approach to learning languages. Currently I can speak Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Portuguese, Korean and some Macedonian. And of course, I can speak English, which is my native tongue. Although I’ve often written from the perspective of an English-speaking person learning another language, today I’d like to flip it. […]
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.