I’m in the middle of reading The Count of Monte Cristo, when I stumbled onto an interesting paragraph. The book, for those of you who aren’t aware, is about Edmond Dantes a young man who is falsely imprisoned in a dungeon for fourteen years before escaping and plotting his revenge on the men who took […]
Why You Should Be a Geek
Several weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing an unusual motivational speech. It wasn’t in a seminar, but in a computer science class. The speaker wasn’t Tony Robbins, but a professor Michael Zapp. Zapp interrupted a lecture on heap-sorting to share a valuable life lesson: the virtue of being a geek. Geeks are people […]
Are You a Maximizer or a Simplifier?
I feel there are two main strategies to get more from life: maximizing and simplifying. Although you can do both, it seems that most people tend to pick on strategy or the other. Both of these strategies work, but I think they produce different outlooks on the same challenges. Maximizers tend to solve problems by […]
Don’t Analyze The Anecdotes When You Need Data
In statistics, one of the first things you learn is the importance of n. The variable n, represents the size of the sample you’re studying. And the size of n has a huge impact on whether your results are significant or just a fluke. Unfortunately it’s easy to forget this lesson outside the classroom and […]
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.