All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 20 of 457 in total
How Old Will You Be If You Don’t?
Last week, I wrote a piece about reinvention. Specifically, the myth of too late and how to reinvent your life at any age or life stage.It clearly struck a chord.I r...
The Cobra Effects of Life
In colonial India, a bounty on cobras was supposed to reduce the snake population. Instead, people started breeding cobras for profit — and when the policy ended, they...
The Life-Changing Magic of Active Optimism
There’s an old children’s fable I recently retold to my son about a farmer whose wagon wheel gets stuck in the mud.He calls on Hercules to come to his aid. Hercules ap...
How to Reinvent Your Life in 30 Days
Every single week, I invariably get a handful of emails from readers around the world with a similar general message.Stuck on a path. Living a life they didn’t really ...
The Frog Pond Effect
Have you ever noticed that growth feels like destruction?That getting better feels like getting worse?You're not doing something wrong. You're just experiencing someth...
Why Are You In Such A Rush?
There’s a beautiful Zen parable that goes something like this:A man is walking across a field when a tiger leaps out from the trees and runs toward him.Fearing for his...
The Zipper Test: How to Stop Fooling Yourself
My son just turned four. One of the things I love most about the age is the unbridled curiosity with which he explores the world.He's deep in the classic "why" phase, ...
7 Lies I Finally Stopped Telling Myself
A few years ago, as part of the research for my first book, I asked a group of centenarians for the advice they'd most like to give to their younger selves.One of th...
The Helsinki Bus Station Theory
In 2004, a Finnish-American photographer named Arno Minkkinen gave the commencement speech at the New England School of Photography.In the speech, he offered a powerfu...
The 2 Types of Knowledge: Real vs. Surface
In 1918, German theoretical physicist Max Planck won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of energy quanta.After winning the prize, he went on a tour, giving lectures at ...
Winner's Game vs. Loser's Game
"No unforced errors."At a recent speaking event, I was asked by an audience member to share one piece of advice I wish I could tell my younger self.Specifically, they ...
The 4 Types of Professional Time
Most people end the day exhausted but can't point to a single thing they meaningfully moved forward.The problem isn't how much you're working -- it's the type of work ...
The Goal Gradient Hypothesis
105.5.That's how many laps you have to run around the first lane of a regulation outdoor track to cover the 26.2 miles of a marathon.And, when I arrived at my local hi...
The ABC Goal System
"Just be consistent."By now, you've undoubtedly heard this advice countless times. So much so that it may even induce an eye roll or sigh.Yes, it’s true, consistency i...
The Pratfall Effect
In 1966, a University of Texas psychologist named Elliot Aronson ran an experiment to examine the role of imperfection on human connection.Aronson recruited 48 college...
5 Life Learnings From 5 Years of The Curiosity Chronicle
A few days ago, I was reminded by a reader that May 14 was the five year anniversary of my first Curiosity Chronicle newsletter.Sending that first newsletter, which we...
The Eject Button Mentality
In 2002, Harvard psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Jane Ebert designed a series of studies to test the role of optionality on happiness and human satisfaction.In the fi...
The Most Powerful Decision Making Razors
A razor is a rule of thumb that simplifies decision making.The term comes from philosophy. A principle that let you quickly cut away unlikely explanations or unnecessa...
The Powerful Art of Negative Capability
In 1902, a 19-year-old cadet in an Austrian military academy was silently becoming a bystander in his own life.Franz Xaver Kappus felt trapped. On the track for a life...
Dear Son - A Letter to My Son on His 4th Birthday
My son turns four years old this week.And if I'm being honest, I don't know where the time went.Everyone says this, and I spent most of my life rolling my eyes at it, ...