“Focus on your strengths,” is now standard advice. Along with “be yourself” and “follow your passions”, it is one of those snippets of wisdom we rarely question. Unfortunately, it’s also wrong in enough cases to be worth questioning. A better question to ask would be: when should you focus on your strengths? If you understand […]
Staying in School Forever
As a species, our incubation period is getting longer. Just a few hundred years ago, finishing twelve years of education was uncommon. Today it’s difficult to get a job above minimum wage without a high-school diploma. Teenagers were once miniature adults. Fifteen year-old girls got married. Sixteen year-old boys went to work. Today teenagers are […]
Don’t Know What You Want?
Bunker Hunt supposedly had a two-step policy for success: Figure out what you want, and the price you’ll have to pay to get it. Resolve to pay that price. I guess his philosophy is a bit more nuanced in implementation, but taps on a common theme in life-advice, that the first step to achieving anything […]
Does Dreaming Smaller Result in Living Happier?
How much is enough? What level of monthly income is enough? What level of fitness is enough? How good a relationship is enough? How much success and impact on the world is enough? We, as a culture, rarely ask these questions. The dominant viewpoint is always maximization: don’t ask what’s enough, but ask how to […]
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.