If you need people to support your goals and ideas, you won’t reach many of them. This doesn’t mean encouragement is bad. Having people who do support you is great. However, needing those people to support you often guarantees failure. The first reason for this is that, unfortunately, people often aren’t supportive. If you rely […]
Know Your Burn Rate, and Why it Sabotages You Before You Begin
A burn rate is a term used by new companies. It’s the amount of money that they must spend every month to keep operating. Once the money runs out, the company goes bankrupt. So, in many start-ups, the race is to start earning money before they run out of money. I think the idea of […]
Show Up, Every Day
It’s easy to look at the moments of key progress. When your income is growing, when you’re finally losing weight, or when you ace that difficult final exam. But I think it’s more important to focus on the moments of zero growth. Where you’ve gone to the gym for months without seeing improvements, studied for […]
Is More Commitment Always a Good Thing?
Last week I wrote two articles about measuring and building your persistence levels. I started on the idea that your level of persistence is your ability to keep going without any positive feedback. Ideally, your persistence would be unlimited, and you wouldn’t quit, even in the face of a complete lack of reinforcement. While more […]
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.