The perfect plan, poorly executed, will fail. A lousy plan, well executed, is often successful. It may seem obvious, but way to fix a failure is often simple: work harder. If you fail to lose weight on a diet, is your diet the problem? Or is the problem that you didn’t follow it consistently enough? […]
Don’t Swim in the Shallow Waters
Most people learn how to swim in shallow water. Does this make sense in other areas of life? Or would it make more sense to throw yourself into the deep end?
Ask the Readers: Advice for Learning a Foreign Language
I recently got accepted into an international exchange program through my university. It seems I’ll be living in Montpellier, France, for one year starting in early September. There’s only one problem: I don’t speak French. I’ve taken some basic classes, but I’m far from fluent. I understand many of my readers are multilingual, so I […]
Honest Self-Evaluation
Few skills are more important to self-improvement than being able to take a step back and honestly evaluate yourself. Self-reflection allows you to expose problems early, before they become too painful to ignore. Unfortunately, honest self-evaluation is one of the hardest skills to master. People tend to be self-serving in their thoughts. For most people, […]
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.