If you were given a room of 200 people, and only had time to ask one question about each person, which question would you ask to guess whether or not they would be wildly successful in life? The obvious candidate questions would be, “are you smart?”, “are you ambitious?”, “hard-working?” But, as I think about […]
The Effort Threshold
Last week, I wrote about how a major cause of failure is simple: not working hard enough. If you’re only spending 30 minutes per week at the gym, your specific exercise plan doesn’t really matter. You aren’t reaching the minimum effort threshold needed for success. The idea that all goals have a minimum effort threshold […]
The Power of Overkill
If you want to finish a 10km race, be able to run 20km. If you want to earn $5000 per month from your business, work as hard as you would need to earn $7500. If you want to be able to do 50 push-ups, train yourself to do 100. The power of overkill is that […]
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.