3-2-1: On the surprising path to success, the value of downtime, and how parenting changes you

Resting is as important as working. There are a few examples of successful people who violate this, but they are not our role models. They succeed in spite of how they rest and renew—not because of it.

Leisure, or active contemplation, is one of the most important things in life, There are many ways to make money, and when an obvious path emerges, there is often a more interesting path not showing itself. Finding the work that matters to us is the real work of our lives.

This life is a marathon, not a sprint. In fact, each day is a marathon. Most of us don’t go to work for twenty minutes a day, run as fast as we can, and then rest until the next race. We go to work early in the morning, run as fast as we can for eight, ten, twelve hours, then come home and run hard again with personal obligations and sometimes more

As I rode the bus back to my cramped East Village apartment, I thought about how important it was for me to occasionally and deliberately separate from my normal routine. The meaningful connections I’d had over the previous few days didn’t happen when I was staring at my computer, banging out emails, but when I focused on being present with the peo

The nonstop onslaught of email, texts, bills to pay—life’s “full catastrophe”—throws us into a brain state antithetical to the open focus where serendipitous discoveries thrive. In the tumult of our daily distractions and to-do lists, innovation dead-ends; in open times it flourishes. That’s why the annals of discovery are rife with tales of a bril

Hobbies: use decompression. Hobbies, remember those? Running, hockey, perusing the used bookstore for first editions . . . those fun things you used to have time for? When you return from your run, take your skates off, or put down your new favorite book, you feel refreshed. Your face shows it, and so does your attitude. Your hobbies aren’t just fo