Living in a foreign culture for one year, what struck me most was how many things were the same as at home. Not just cultural similarities, although between France and Canada there are many, but similarities in my life. I remember one night in Paris, the girl I had been seeing for a few weeks […]
Building Cool Things
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 […]
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 […]
Should You Plan to Retire?
“I’m not planning to retire.” This came up in a conversation with a friend of mine. He gets paid upwards of a few thousand dollars per hour to speak, often being flown into exotic locations to run workshops for corporate clients. On top of that he recently self-published a book, with the proceeds going to […]
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.