Most people miss this step when making a decision
Back in 2010, I made a life-altering decision. At the time, I was a practicing lawyer at a litigation firm in San Francisco. I loved living in the Bay Area and working with a great group of lawyers, but I had grown tired [...]
How to be remarkable
John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963 made headlines across the globe. Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? Why didn’t Jackie Kennedy take off her blood-stained pink suit for the rest of the day? What role did communists play in the plot? What [...]
How success stories mislead us
If a mathematician hadn’t followed his contrarian instincts, World War II may have turned out differently. Abraham Wald was born in Hungary, got his Ph.D in mathematics from the University of Vienna, and immigrated to the United States after the Nazis invaded Austria. [...]
How we fool ourselves (and what to do about it)
My battery is low and it’s getting dark. Those were the final words of the Martian rover Opportunity as reported by numerous media outlets. The rover, lovingly nicknamed Oppy, fell silent in June 2018 after it was stuck in a massive dust storm. [...]
Why laziness is underrated
Busy. But good busy. This was my go-to response to the “How’s life?” question. For the vast majority of my life, I wore busy as a status symbol. The word lazy reminded me of my pot-smoking, Halo-playing college friends who would cut class [...]
Making a big decision? Don’t forget to ask this question
For several years, I’ve asked myself the same question before making an important decision: What’s the worst that can happen? (And no, this isn’t the question I mentioned in the title of this post. We’ll get to that in a minute). The “worst [...]
How professionals make it look easy
I recently gave a keynote speech to a crowd of roughly 3,000 people. I had to catch a flight back home right after it ended, so I bolted out of the conference center to take a Lyft to the airport. As I was [...]
Be more like a fly and less like a bee
Imagine a glass bottle with its base pointed toward a light. If you put half a dozen bees and flies into the bottle, which species would find their way out first? Most people assume the answer is bees. After all, bees are known [...]
How to get ahead by diversifying your identity
When it comes to financial instruments, we’re told to diversify. Don’t put all of your money in real estate. Buy stocks from different industries so you’re not ravaged when the tech bubble bursts. But we don’t do the same for our personal identity. [...]
This strategy revolutionized a field. Here’s how you can use it.
When Steve Martin first started performing stand-up comedy, there was a proven formula for telling jokes. Each joke came with its own cringeworthy punchline. Here’s an example: How does NASA organize their company parties? They planet. But Martin wasn’t satisfied with the standard [...]