What would you think of someone you noticed cheating during an exam? My guess is you’d say he was a dishonest person. He would be more willing to lie to get what he wants or steal something if he couldn’t get caught. After all, dishonesty is a part of personality, and honest people don’t cheat. […]
The Empathy Problem
I made a mistake in empathy that cost me tens of thousands of dollars. It wasn’t a case of bad customer service or a botched partnership. It was something a lot simpler: I didn’t understand how people read blogs. I thought people read blogs as I did, subscribed to only a few, with the queue […]
Asking the Right Questions
School is mostly about giving the right answers to questions. Life, in contrast, is mostly about asking the right questions to begin with. Growing a business while attending university let me see some of the differences between the two worlds as I stepped through them in parallel. More than anything, I feel the biggest difference […]
Day Jobs vs Side Projects
Somehow I feel the expression, “Don’t quit your day job,” may be truer than people realize. Not in the disparaging sense, but in an optimistic one. Optimistic because, I believe, side projects have many strong advantages over having a “real job” and that being a person who regularly tackles side projects is a likely heuristic […]
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.