There’s a lot of woo-woo and hoo-hah out there that veils one of Life’s Great Truths. “If you want to have a meaningful life, make life meaningful for other people.” There are lots of ways to do this. Steve Jobs wanted to put a computer in the palm of everyone’s hand in 1976. That was […]
Change the world
Oh, didn’t we all dream to change the world. I wanted to be king of the galaxy. You may laugh, but there’s still time. One of the most frustrating things about becoming an adult was realizing how little power I had over the world. I didn’t like the world the way it was. And the […]
Showing up is enough
Sometimes, we don’t need an encyclopedia to understand. Often, things don’t take as long as we think they will. And always, showing up is better than not showing up at all.
Making bad good
Some blokes smell powerful. It’s like they have so much mass that it leaks into the air around them. Jocko Willink is one of those blokes. He was a Navy SEAL officer for many years in the Middle East, and he told me this trick to flip the switch on adversity. And when Jocko tells […]
Fail at what you love
Jim Carrey is the guy who wrote a $10 million cheque to himself and it became true. Some people think he’s weird because he’d go to work with Limburger cheese in his pockets and hug everyone. But that’s what you get when you hire a method actor. Other people think Jim is strange because he’s […]
Something Special
There’s something special that we all take for granted a little too often. It seems trite, but the best ideas are always obvious. There will never be a single person like you. Nobody in history has seen, heard, or felt the things you have. Nobody in the next hundred billion years will get to experience […]
Just wait a bit
Time is a great nurse but an even better comedian. As we know, the real reason ‘they who laughs last, laughs loudest’ is that they didn’t get the joke. But all they need is time. It might only be a little time: on the drive back it clicks, and they’re howling all the way home. […]
Endless probability
Here’s something they don’t teach you in school because it would undermine everything. It’s as factual as science can be, but it’s tough to wrap our little brains around — like the fact you’re moving at 67,000 miles an hour. Here are some more facts they won’t tell you: We don’t know what makes up […]
What have you done?
You might think you’re powerless but that’s the easy excuse. Nobody is powerless. Even just setting an example by the way you live could have a bigger impact than you realize. It’s so easy to point at other people and complain, “They should be doing such and such a thing.” Or whine, “Why aren’t they […]
Everybody is beautiful
One winter evening my sister and I were smoking weed out her bedroom window when she said something that still rings in my ears. She was even a little embarrassed to say it. “I think everyone’s beautiful, in their own way. At first, maybe they’re not beautiful, and then you look a bit closer and […]