All Episodes
Displaying 21 - 40 of 469 in total
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 power...
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 a...
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, t...
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 loca...
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, consisten...
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 colle...
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 ...
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 ...
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 unneces...
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 li...
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 ...
The Styrofoam Cup Theory
Last weekend, I had the joy of catching up for a quiet dinner in Omaha with a mentor and friend, Apple CEO Tim Cook. He recently announced that he would be transition...
How to Be More Magnetic
Over the weekend, I made what has become an annual pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. The event, which is nominally a busi...
The Streetlight Effect: Why Smart People Look In The Wrong Places
We all fall into the same trap: measuring what's easy instead of what's meaningful, clinging to routines we know instead of adapting ones that work, and asking the que...
The High Shoulders Theory
When I was 12 years old, I tried out for a baseball all-star team in our area. I really wanted to make this team. The tryouts were my first adventure beyond the confi...
The Michelangelo Phenomenon
The most famous sculpture in history was almost never created… In 1464, the Opera del Duomo—the committee overseeing the cathedral in Florence—commissioned a massive ...
The New Opportunity Razor
A few weeks ago, I had the unique opportunity to attend a small author’s retreat hosted by Atomic Habits author James Clear. To be honest, it was a bit of a ”pinch-me...
The Tinkerer's Mindset: How to Win More
A group of kindergarteners outperformed the CEOs, lawyers, and MBAs. The way they did it has a lesson I've never been able to forget. While in college over a decade ...
The Real Price of Success
My entire life changed when I realized that I would never want to trade lives with the people I read books about. Allow me to explain with a story about the richest m...