All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 30 of 339 in total
A Simple Question for True Mastery
Robert Caro is widely considered to be one of the greatest biographers of our time. His list of accolades is long and includes two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography, two N...
How to Stop Procrastinating
In 1789, philosopher Jeremy Bentham mused on the two forces that control our lives:"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and p...
The Trap of Success (& How to Escape It)
I have a close friend—we'll call him Ben.Ben is very successful. He's in his 30s, sold a company for $100 million, and earns over $10 million per year in his current r...
The Obstacle or the Goal
I recently came across a quote that hit me hard:"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." — Henry FordEvery meaningful path...
The Hidden Mindset That Shapes Your Entire Life
Want the key to success? As crazy as it sounds, I might actually be able to give it to you in the next 3 minutes...You see, I spend a lot of time thinking about common...
The Best Advice From Your Father
In honor of Father’s Day, I asked over 1 million readers a simple question:What was the single best piece of advice you ever received from your father?I got thousands ...
How to Survive Hard Times
When life gets hard, most people retreat to one of two worlds:Naive Optimism: This is the world of pure positivity. It is marked by an unwillingness to confront the ha...
7 Lessons from Steve Jobs’ Legendary Speech
It’s commencement speech season.I recently shared a series of powerful lessons from David Foster Wallace’s This Is Water commencement speech on its 20th anniversary....
Feeling Stuck? Ask These 8 Questions
According to a famous legend, the ancient land of Phrygia (in what is now modern-day Turkey) was without a king. An oracle proclaimed that the next man to enter the ci...
AI and the Tragedy of the Commons
In 1968, an ecologist named Garrett Hardin published an essay that described the perils of individual short-term thinking on shared resources:"Picture a pasture open...
The Dangers of Blind Consistency
I recently came across a quote I can't stop thinking about:"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..." – Ralph Waldo EmersonWe live in a world that cel...
The Paradox of Mastery
In 1921, an Austrian philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein concluded his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with the following passage:“My propositions are elucidatory in ...
7 Reflections from a “Think Week” Retreat
Last week, I went on my first “Think Week” retreat.Three days. Limited connectivity. No meetings. Just reading, deep conversations, journaling, and thinking.I typicall...
The Perspective Shift That Changes Everything
One of my favorite quotes comes from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse:“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed ma...
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: The Psychology of Overconfidence
Have you ever grown frustrated by the observation that the people who know the least seem to be the most confident in their knowledge?You're not crazy. It's a very rea...
The Speech That Changed How I See the World
Exactly 20 years ago, on May 21, 2005, author David Foster Wallace stood before the graduating class at Kenyon College and delivered the annual commencement address.Th...
The Say-Do Gap: A Question to Reset Your Life
Here's a question I like to ask myself when I feel stuck:If an outside observer watched me for a week, how serious would they say I am about achieving my goals?Think a...
The Hidden Bias Keeping You Stuck
We all do it.We stay in jobs that drain us. We cling to relationships that no longer bring us energy. We hold onto possessions, identities, and goals that don’t serve ...
A Letter to My Son on His 3rd Birthday
My son turns three years old this week.Over the last few months, I've grown increasingly excited by the idea of writing him a series of letters he can read as he grows...
The Question That May Change Your Life
There’s a story about Apple founder Steve Jobs that I love:When he was 12 years old, he cold-called Bill Hewlett—co-founder of the pioneering technology company Hewlet...
3 Reasons to "Sell" in Life
Last week, investor Bill Ackman hosted a fireside chat conversation in Omaha in front of a standing room only crowd of 500+ investors.Ackman was joined onstage by Ryan...
11 Uncommon Lessons from Uncommon Minds
Last week, I had the rare opportunity to spend one-on-one time with some of the most uncommon minds in the world while attending the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting ...
The Hidden Cost of Comfort
Your entire life will change when you realize that growth feeds on meaningful struggle.When you avoid that struggle, you literally starve your growth of the oxygen it ...
The Statistical Oddity That May Save Your Life
If you're reading this newsletter, chances are you self-identify as an ambitious, high-achieving individual. Or, at a minimum, you aspire to be one.You probably take p...
The Most Powerful Asymmetries in Life
I define an asymmetry as something where the risk is limited but the reward is potentially significant. It's an action with an asymmetric return profile: If it doesn't...
The Hidden Tax Holding You Back
There are certain taxes of life that we must happily pay:Periods of loneliness are a tax on personal transformation. To achieve the growth we want, we need to accept t...
The Paradox of Routines
Morning routines have been a hot topic of discussion lately, mostly prompted by a mega-viral video of an Instagram influencer running through his elaborate minute-by-m...
My Honest Advice on How to Stand Out
In a world that values sameness, standing out is never free. But those who endure unlock the door to the most extraordinary lives.This is a brutally honest list of the...
Question of the Week: The Mountain or the Pebble
Here's a quote I often think about:"It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe." - Muhammad AliOver the years, it's sparked ...
The IKEA Effect: Do Hard Things
Everyone tells you to do hard things, but no one tells you why it's so important.First, it's because life is hard. And when you take on voluntary struggle, you're bett...