Confidence in social situations is hard to build when you’re an introvert. How do you feel confident when socializing doesn’t come naturally to you? Here are some tips: 1. Join Toastmasters Public speaking and having conversations are different things. However, a lot of the same skills exist in both. Knowing how to tell stories. Knowing […]
Fear Fizzle More Than Failure
Most people don’t fail that much. They may not always succeed, but genuine, fall-flat-on-your-face failure is quite rare. Instead, most efforts fizzle long before someone could call it failure. Our plans don’t explode, but fizzle out and are forgotten. Instead of detonating and needing to pick up the pieces, they get pushed to the back […]
Useful Mental Model: Evolution by Natural Selection
Some ideas are so powerful and general, that once you learn them you start seeing them everywhere. Today I’d like to discuss one of those ideas: evolution by natural selection. Evolution by natural selection was one of the greatest intellectual triumphs of the last thousand years. The great diversity of life, including human beings, is […]
Most Books Won’t Change Your Life (But You Should Read Them Anyways)
“If you only put into action half of what you read, you’d already be a millionaire.” I’ve heard many variations of this advice, all making the point that the problem isn’t that we don’t have good ideas, but that we implement little of it and therefore our lives don’t change, we don’t lose weight, grow […]
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.