I recently finished Walter Isaacson’s biography of Albert Einstein. The biography covers not just Einstein’s intellectual achievements, but also his anti-war activism, marital difficulties and celebrity. However, I wanted to share just the one part I found most interesting: how did Einstein learn? Wanting to understand how Einstein learned physics may, at first, seem as […]
Some Useful Distinctions When Thinking About Your Career
I recently had a call with someone trying to start a blogging business. They asked me a lot of insightful questions, as I walked through my own history in the career and what I thought about it. As a follow-up, I was interested in knowing what kinds of conclusions this person had drawn from our […]
Book Review: The Wisdom of Insecurity
A few friends recommended I read this book, because of my budding interest in Buddhism and Eastern religions. Alan Watts was one of the big popularizers of Zen and other Asian spiritual philosophies in the 50s and 60s, and I greatly enjoyed his television program. I’ve become interested in these sorts of ideas because, for […]
Should You Set Deadlines for Your Goals?
Say you have a personal goal: you want to build a business, lose weight or learn a language. Does it make more sense to set a deadline for that goal (i.e. I want to speak conversational French in 9 months) or should you ignore it? I think this is an interesting question because, on the […]
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.