The best way to get a powerful person’s attention: offer to help them.

As chief of staff, I reviewed thousands of requests for Reid’s time/attention/money. It was stunning how few requesters actually offered to help him on something. Amusingly, many requests were framed as if the asking party were doing Reid a favor by giving him the opportunity to... See more

My observation is that most people expect learning to decelerate. It’s not uncommon to see this attitude among fresh college grads.

Think-in-bio is the new link-in-bio

A lot of what I collect on Sublime I do privately.

But everything I make public lives on sublime.app/sari.

My very own think-in-bio.

A think-in-bio is like giving others an API for your mind. 

To be able to follow people like Packy McCormick, Rob Hardy, Natalie Audelo, Steve Schlafman and see what they’re saving to th... See more

It’s a rather simple question that quickly gets to the core of someone’s sense of well-being and legitimacy: did your childhood leave you feeling that you were – on balance – OK as you were? Or did you somewhere along the way derive an impression that you needed to be extraordinary in order to deserve a place on the earth? And, to raise an associat... See more

Writing is a lagging indicator of observation. Those who do not observe have very little to say. Writing is the act of interpreting what you've observed. Trying to make sense of it. The reason I call them "atomic units of thought" are because observations are, in and of themselves, not a thought. Instead, thoughts have to be molded together from th... See more

I’d like to keep my family together and raise my boys into adults who are “publicly useful and privately happy.” Anything else is gravy.

“I don’t believe in limiting a child’s screen time; I believe kids should learn to manage their phones themselves” Esther’s advice: Sit down with your child and let them come up with their own screen time policy (this way, they’re more likely to stick to it)

I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses.

To sit alone without any electric light is curiously crea... See more

Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception of it. An example I love that is not mentioned in the book: for years, few people bought “death insurance.” Then some genius changed the name to life insurance and grew the industry by many billions of dollars. After all, life insurance sounds so much better than death insurance.