Things that made me stop and think

When you choose what to watch or read, you are choosing your future thoughts and perspectives. Consume what you’d like to become.

For care, though, it doesn’t get bigger and better. If your goal is to educate the world, you can look for ways to educate thousands or millions. If you want to inspire the world, the billions await. But if your goal is to care for the world, and in a given moment you’re deeply caring for one person, you’re doing the best it’s possible to do.

Taking the leap is not some irrational act that is driven by the passions. When you understand the asymmetrical nature of manageable concerns vs. unimaginable benefits, taking the leap is no longer an emotional jump, but a logical next step toward the life you want to lead.

Be really sure of the time commitment you ask from someone. Do you really need that much? “If your outreach is just, ‘Can I take you to lunch?’ that’s a big ask for a lot of people versus, ‘Hey, just thought I’d share with you this quick update about what I’m doing. No need to respond.’ The ‘no need to respond’ is a powerful tool. It sounds... See more

Here’s what has worked for me over the years to stave off boreout :

• Leaning into digressions: Passion projects (like this very one) and side hustles, whether they’re directly related to your work or completely unrelated, create the crackle of energy that boreout can stamp out; rather than be afraid of these things taking time away from your team’s

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When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular I’ll remember everything better; everything

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This brings us to the deeper point: the value of reading lies less in retention than in integration. A good book tweaks your internal models and you begin to see a familiar problem in a new frame. You revise the assumptions behind a mental shortcut or you absorb a phrase that becomes part of your vocabulary of thought.

These changes are easy to... See more

Kurt Cobain once reminisced that if he could do it all over again, he would go back to those moments before they became big. When they were touring in a van and they could feel things starting to happen for them. That was the most gratifying moment in his memory. If he had his choice, they would have stayed there forever.

Believe him. Celebrate... See more

Likability is evaluated before confidence.