Tag: self-improvement

  • The Check‑List Effect – Turning Overwhelming Projects into Addictive Progress

    The Check‑List Effect – Turning Overwhelming Projects into Addictive Progress

    Why “Willpower” Isn’t the Engine You Need

    Chris Williamson has talked about the differences between discipline, motivation, and obsession. Discipline takes high effort. Motivation takes some effort. Obsession takes almost none. The takeaway for me: since discipline is expensive, it helps to stack as many small dopamine hits as possible along the way — which is exactly what a good checklist does. The idea is simple: don’t just write down your big, overarching tasks. Break them into small, manageable steps you can actually knock out.

    Willpower is a finite but renewable resource. When I’m handed a very large task, my first instinct is often to see it as too much work — and it’s easy to do nothing instead. Gritting your teeth and forcing it rarely holds up as a long-term strategy.

    What works best for me is taking a task and breaking it down into the smallest measurable output, just to get points on the scoreboard. I’ll take a task, put it on a checklist, and split it into small action items. Every time I cross one off, it’s a small dopamine hit — a point on the scoreboard, a nudge toward the end goal. Those points accumulate, and momentum builds.

    Where the Idea Comes From

    I’d like to say these are my own ideas. They’re not.

    Adam Savage, one of the hosts of MythBusters, wrote a book called Every Tool’s a Hammer, with a whole chapter dedicated to to-do lists. He breaks down taking a big task and splitting it into its smaller steps.

    Admiral William McRaven has a viral commencement speech where he talks about making your bed each morning. Creating a small, guaranteed win proves to yourself that you can follow through, and that builds momentum.

    David Goggins, the retired Navy SEAL, talks a lot about focusing on one task at a time. We’re all easily distracted, and I find the smaller the task, the easier it is to execute. It’s fine to have big dreams and large goals — I just find those are easier to reach once you’ve broken them into small, manageable tasks. Goggins runs a genuinely ridiculous amount, but I’d bet his task list looks something like:

    1. Get out of bed.
    2. Put on running clothes and shoes.
    3. Go outside.
    4. Start running.
    5. Keep going for another 10 seconds.
    6. Repeat step 5 as many times as possible.

    It’s a simple list — brutally hard to execute at his level, but every step on it is manageable.

    James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, writes about small wins compounding into massive results over time. Every small thing crossed off the list is a point on the scoreboard, and every point is one small step closer to the win.

    How to Build Your Do-able To-Do List

    1. Deconstruct Until It Feels Ridiculous

    Take any goal — learning a language, cleaning the garage, writing an article — and keep splitting it until you can say, “I could do that while waiting for my coffee.” If a step still feels big, split it again.

    Example — listing an item on eBay:

    1. Locate the item.
    2. Look up similar sold listings to confirm it’s worth selling.
    3. Take pictures of the item.
    4. Measure weight and dimensions for shipping.
    5. Calculate shipping cost.
    6. Pull up the similar sold listing from step 2 and use it as a template for your own listing.
    7. Upload pictures of the item.
    8. Edit the title and description to fit the item.
    9. Enter the shipping cost.
    10. List the item.

    That’s 10 manageable steps and 10 points on the scoreboard — no “I’m stuck” feeling required.

    2. Keep the List Short & Visible

    I like writing my lists physically on paper so I can cross items out easily, and I keep the list on my desk, right next to where I work.

    You could keep a digital list instead, but for me, a list that’s always physically present beats having to open an app or program to check it. Plus, I like being able to physically cross things off.

    3. Cross Off Immediately — The Dopamine Hit

    The moment you cross an item off the list, your brain releases dopamine. That tiny reward tells your subconscious, “We’re making progress.” It’s far more reliable than trying to summon motivation out of thin air.

    4. Batch Identical Micro-Steps (Avoid Task Switching)

    Instead of “weigh item 1 → photograph item 1 → weigh item 2 → photograph item 2,” try “weigh all items” then “photograph all items.” Staying in the same mental mode speeds up each step and cuts down on friction.

    Alternatively, you can batch and still get frequent wins: “weigh item 1 → weigh item 2 → photograph item 1 → photograph item 2.” You keep the efficiency of batching while getting the added dopamine hit of crossing off more items, more often.

    5. Review & Iterate (The “Margin of Mastery”)

    At the end of each day or week, glance at your scoreboard:

    • Which steps consistently took longer than five minutes?
    • Which steps did you breeze through?

    Adjust your future micro-steps accordingly — combine two quick actions into one, or break a stubborn step down further. The data comes from your own progress, not guesswork.

    The Psychology Behind the Points

    1. Progress Principle — Small wins are one of the most powerful motivators for creativity and performance. Every crossed off item is proof of movement, which keeps you coming back to the list.
    2. Compound Effect — Tiny improvements add up exponentially when repeated consistently. A five-minute task today looks trivial, but 20 of them finish a project.
    3. Cognitive Load Theory — Writing tasks down frees up working memory, so you can focus on doing the next step instead of trying to remember it.

    By turning every micro-action into a visible point, you give your brain exactly the feedback loop it craves.

    Final Thought

    Getting big things done usually doesn’t happen with a sudden flash of inspiration. It’s a chain reaction of tiny completions you can see, feel, and measure over a long period of time. By turning every micro-action into an item crossed off your list, you stop fighting your brain and start coaching it. That’s the real trick behind Williamson’s obsession/motivation/discipline framing — obsession works because it doesn’t feel like effort. A checklist gets you closer to the same effortless-feeling momentum, on demand, without needing to be obsessed with anything.

    The result? Projects that once felt impossible become a series of satisfying, repeatable wins — minimal willpower required.

    Give it a try today. Pick one lingering task, slice it into five-minute bites, and watch the scoreboard fill up. Let me know what you think, and if this resonates, feel free to share it with a friend.

  • Never Split the Difference: It’s Not About Negotiation , It’s About Communication

    Never Split the Difference: It’s Not About Negotiation , It’s About Communication

    Most people hear “negotiation book” and picture a slick guy in a suit haggling over a car price. That’s not this. Chris Voss spent over two decades as the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator — the person they called when someone’s life was literally on the line. Never Split the Difference is what he learned from that, distilled into something you can actually use at work, at home, and in every conversation where something matters to you.

    But here’s the thing: the more I read it, the more I realised this isn’t really a book about getting what you want. It’s a book about becoming someone people actually feel heard by. And that turns out to be the most effective negotiating strategy there is.

    The FBI Doesn’t Do “Win-Win”

    For years, the gold standard in negotiation was a Harvard framework built on rational problem-solving — separate emotion from the problem, find mutual interests, reach a logical agreement. It’s tidy, sensible, and according to Voss, almost completely wrong.

    When FBI negotiators surveyed their own experience, not one of them could recall a situation where calm, rational problem-solving was the right tool. Every single one had dealt with emotionally volatile, high-pressure, deeply irrational situations. Real negotiation — the kind that actually happens between real people — isn’t a logic puzzle. It’s an emotional one.

    That’s the foundation the whole book is built on, and once you accept it, everything else follows naturally.

    Listening Is the Job

    The first and most important tool Voss teaches is something most of us think we already do: listen. We don’t. Not really. What we mostly do is wait for our turn to talk, mentally rehearsing our next point while the other person is still speaking.

    Voss calls the alternative tactical empathy — genuinely understanding the feelings and perspective of the other person, and then showing them you understand. Not agreeing with them. Not giving in to them. Just demonstrating that you’ve actually heard what they said. He’s clear that empathy is not sympathy. It’s not about being soft. It’s about being accurate — about understanding the situation as the other person experiences it, so you can actually influence it. It’s about getting the other person to say, “That’s right.” so they know you’re both on the same page.

    Psychotherapy research backs this up: when people feel genuinely listened to, they become less defensive, more open, and more willing to consider other points of view. Voss didn’t invent this dynamic — he just figured out how to use it deliberately.

    The Tools That Actually Work

    The book is full of practical techniques, and a few of them have genuinely stuck with me.

    Mirroring is the simplest and probably the most immediately useful. You repeat the last few words of what someone just said back to them. That’s it. It sounds almost too simple to work, but it triggers a natural human instinct to elaborate — people feel heard, they keep talking, and you keep learning. In one study, waiters who mirrored their customers’ orders back to them received 70% more in tips than those who responded with enthusiastic affirmations like “great choice!” Something to think about.

    Labelling goes one step further. You name what you think the other person is feeling — “It seems like you’re frustrated with how this has gone” — and let it land. Voss describes this as a shortcut to intimacy. What’s fascinating is the neuroscience behind it: putting a name to an emotion moves brain activity away from the fear-generating amygdala and toward the rational prefrontal cortex. You’re literally calming someone down by acknowledging what they feel, not by telling them not to feel it.

    Calibrated questions are open-ended questions — usually starting with “how” or “what” — designed to give the other person the feeling of control while actually guiding the conversation. “How am I supposed to do that?” is Voss’s favourite example. It’s not aggressive. It’s not a demand. But it puts the problem squarely in the other person’s lap and invites them to solve it with you. “How” and “what” do the work. “Why,” Voss warns, almost always sounds like an accusation, in any language.

    The “No” Reframe

    One of the most counterintuitive ideas in the book is Voss’s argument that “No” is often more valuable than “Yes.” We’ve been conditioned to treat “No” as failure — the door closing, the deal dying. But Voss argues the opposite: “No” gives people a sense of safety and control. It’s a pause, not an ending. It often means “I’m not ready yet” or “I need more information” or “something about this doesn’t feel right.”

    Pushing hard for “Yes” makes people defensive. Inviting “No” makes them feel secure enough to actually engage. The negotiation, he says, doesn’t begin until someone says “No.”

    And the goal isn’t “Yes” anyway — it’s “That’s right.” That’s the phrase Voss says signals a genuine breakthrough: the moment your counterpart feels so understood that they stop defending their position and start working with you. “You’re right” is what people say to get you to stop talking. “That’s right” is what they say when they actually mean it.

    Never Split the Difference (Seriously, Don’t)

    The title comes from Voss’s argument against compromise as a default strategy. Splitting the difference sounds fair, but it’s not — it’s lazy. He uses a brilliant image: a woman wants her husband to wear black shoes, he wants to wear brown. They compromise. He wears one of each. Nobody wins. The compromise produced the worst possible outcome.

    Real deals, he argues, come from creativity — from understanding what someone actually needs underneath what they’re asking for, and finding a solution that gets you both there. That only happens if you’ve done the work of listening well enough to know what’s really going on.

    This Is Really a Book About How to Talk to People

    I want to come back to this, because I think it’s easy to pick up Never Split the Difference looking for tactics and miss the bigger point entirely.

    What Voss is really teaching is a way of being present with another person. The mirroring, the labelling, the calibrated questions — they only work if you’re genuinely paying attention. You can’t fake tactical empathy any more than you can fake listening. People feel it when you’re not really there.

    The skills in this book will make you a better negotiator, yes. But they’ll also make you a better colleague, a better partner, and — honestly — a more interesting person to talk to. Because most people move through conversations focused almost entirely on what they want to say next. Learning to actually hear someone is rarer than it should be, and people notice.

    Get the Book

    I’ve pulled out the ideas that landed hardest for me, but there’s a lot more in Never Split the Difference that I haven’t touched — the Ackerman bargaining system, Black Swans (the negotiating kind, not the Nassim Taleb kind), how to read liars, and the full framework for preparing for any high-stakes conversation. Voss also tells genuinely gripping stories from his FBI career that make all of this feel real rather than theoretical.

    If any of what I’ve covered here resonated with you, the book is absolutely worth your time. It’s one of those rare reads where you finish it and immediately start seeing your conversations differently — not as things that happen to you, but as things you can actually shape. Pick up a copy of Never Split the Difference and see for yourself.

  • If You Want to Be Good at Something, Do it for an Unreasonable Amount of Time

    If You Want to Be Good at Something, Do it for an Unreasonable Amount of Time

    Most people who are genuinely good at something don’t look like they’re working that hard.

    The martial artist who casually neutralizes an aggressive attack. The disc golfer who throws 400 feet down a wooded tunnel like it’s nothing. The bartender who runs five tickets at once without breaking a sweat. From the outside, it looks like a gift. From the inside, it’s just a lot of accumulated hours that nobody watched you put in.

    That’s the game. And the entry fee is being willing to be bad at something for long enough that you eventually run out of room to stay bad at it.

    Feed the Hot Coal

    Here’s the thing about passion: it doesn’t wait for you.

    When something new lights you up — a skill, a topic, an idea — that energy is a hot coal. It’s bright, it’s intense, and if you feed it, it can sustain a fire for years. But if you set it down and walk away, it cools. And a cold coal is a lot harder to relight than a hot one is to keep burning.

    This is why when you’re passionate at the beginning of learning anything is actually the most important window. Not because you’re doing it well — you’re not — but because you’re feeding the fire. The passion is there. The curiosity is alive. The worst thing you can do is wait until you feel “ready” to go all in, because by then the coal may have already cooled.

    Embrace the suck while it still excites you. Volume while the fire is burning.

    Do It Badly, at First

    Every skill I’ve ever built started with the same feeling: slow, heavy, and deeply aware of how much I didn’t know.

    In the restaurant, I started as an expeditor on a Friday during the dinner rush. If you’ve never been in a high-volume kitchen mid-service, picture a wall of noise, heat, and tickets — and me just trying not to drown. I wasn’t in any zone. I was just surviving.

    In the homebrew shop, I started as the new guy who was useful primarily because he could move heavy kegs. That was my whole value proposition for a while.

    In martial arts, I was the awkward white belt who telegraphed every move.

    In disc golf, right now, I’m the guy hitting trees on holes I should be navigating cleanly. I record my rounds. I study my form. I throw and it doesn’t look how I want it to look yet.

    The temptation at this stage is to either quit or go looking for a shortcut. A hack, a magic technique, the one drill that will skip the uncomfortable part. There is no such thing. The only move that works is to keep showing up while the coal is hot and let the volume do its job.

    You Will Notice Patterns

    If you stay in the room long enough, the chaos begins to make sense.

    The restaurant kitchen that nearly broke me in week one eventually became readable and eventually easy. I went from Expeditor to prep cook to line cook to server to bartender. Not because someone handed me a promotion — because I kept showing up and paying attention until the whole operation became transparent to me. I became the person they called when someone didn’t show. The Swiss Army knife of the place.

    The homebrew shop followed the same arc. I came in as muscle. Years later, after employees left for better opportunities — I was the person handling purchasing for both kegs and bottles, doing what had previously been two full-time management roles. I saved the owner real money because by that point I had absorbed the supply chains, the supplier relationships, the purchasing rhythms. The work had become systemic in my brain.

    Martial arts did the same thing, just more slowly and more physically. What looks like instinct from the outside is just a brain that has seen the same template — an off-balance hip, a sloppy punch, a telegraphed takedown — enough times that it recognizes the pattern before the conscious mind catches up. I’m not reacting faster. I just know where the movie ends.

    This is the compounding return on volume. You don’t feel it happening. And then one day you realize you’re not fighting the current anymore — you’re reading it.

    The “He’s a Natural” Illusion

    At some point, people start calling you gifted.

    It happened in the restaurant. It happens on the mats. It’ll happen in disc golf eventually — some beginner will watch me throw a clean hyzer around a tree and assume I just have a knack for it. I won’t correct them, but I’ll know what it actually was: a few hundred rounds of hitting that same type of tree and figuring out what I did wrong.

    The “natural” label is almost always just what accumulated competence looks like from the outside when you weren’t there to watch the boring middle part.

    Where I Am Right Now

    I’m at the beginning of something new again — working on getting into data analytics.

    It has that familiar Phase 1 feeling. A lot of information I don’t have yet. A lot of tools I’m still figuring out. The gap between where I am and where I want to be feels wide. But I’ve been here before — in a kitchen, in a keg room, on a mat, on a disc golf course — and I know what the physics of this process actually looks like. The gap closes. It always closes. Not through luck or some sudden breakthrough, but through showing up enough times that staying bad at it becomes unreasonable.

    The coal is hot right now. That’s the whole advantage. So I’m going to feed it.

  • Loneliness is the New Smoking: How to Re-Enter the Physical World

    Loneliness is the New Smoking: How to Re-Enter the Physical World

    In a world where you can connect with nearly any type of person — from any walk of life, any worldview, any corner of the globe — it sounds almost absurd that loneliness and depression are at an all-time high. If you can find hundreds of like-minded people in an online space in minutes, how could you still feel profoundly alone?

    The answer, I think, is this: digital connection is not a sufficient replacement for physical connection. The quantity of connection has never been higher, but the quality is severely lacking — particularly in the things that matter most: body language, tone of voice, and the kind of shared energy that only exists when people are physically present with one another. And yet, the algorithm keeps pulling us deeper in.

    Reclaiming the “Third Place”

    As a former Starbucks employee, I was introduced early on to one of the core philosophies behind the brand: the concept of the “Third Place.” This idea, popularized by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, defines a vital gathering space that is neither your home nor your workplace — the informal anchor of a healthy community. Whether or not a coffee shop is your ideal version of it, the philosophy behind the third place points directly at what so many of us are missing.

    The good news is that third places don’t have to cost much, or anything at all. The question worth asking yourself is: what genuinely interests you? Can that interest become a group activity? And how much time or money are you willing to invest in it?

    Low Cost, Low Effort Ways to Meet People in Real Life

    The lowest-barrier option is simply going outside. Find a local park and walk there regularly. If you already walk plenty (and there’s a good chance you don’t), try the public library. These are what you might call passive social activities — being alone among others — and they’re a surprisingly low-stress way to re-enter the physical world.

    Low Cost, Slightly More Effort

    With a bit more initiative, you could join a local walking or running club, which adds the dimension of a shared purpose. Pickup sports at parks — basketball, pickleball, disc golf — offer similar benefits. Community centers often host hobby-based groups for things like knitting, board games, or gardening that are free or low-cost and surprisingly welcoming to newcomers.

    Higher Cost, Still More Effort

    If you’re willing to invest more, you move into spaces that demand consistency but tend to forge deeper community bonds. Boutique fitness studios — CrossFit, Pilates, Orange Theory — are built around the group experience as much as the workout itself. Skill-based pursuits like martial arts, art classes, or a long-term cooking course create relationships through shared growth. Collaborative groups like theater or improv, or enthusiast clubs around cars, motorcycles, or other specialized interests, develop the kind of tight-knit community that’s hard to find anywhere else.

    None of these options is uniquely special. What makes any of them work is simply showing up consistently — a lesson that applies to almost every area of life worth building.

    The Ultimate Long-Term Cost

    There’s also a deeper cost to a life lived primarily online — beyond the well-documented downsides of algorithmic content and digital tribalism. The ultimate price is your physical and mental health.

    Social isolation and chronic loneliness are linked to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, and cognitive decline. The body keeps score in ways we often ignore — and loneliness is no exception. Per a 2023 advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General, loneliness has become a full-blown public health crisis, with a mortality impact comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

    Some people say sitting is the new smoking. Maybe loneliness is the new sitting.

    Ultimately, the choice is ours. We can let screens redirect our attention toward global digital communities that offer quantity without substance — or we can make the intentional choice to invest in local, tangible spaces that actually nourish us. True wealth, after all, isn’t just financial. Find your third place. Show up regularly. Invest in the human connections that can’t be replicated through a screen.

  • Feel Good Productivity: When Willpower Fades

    Feel Good Productivity: When Willpower Fades

    Most productivity advice is secretly just guilt in a better font. Do more. Wake up earlier. Grind harder. And for a while, it works — until it doesn’t. I’ve had stretches where I was technically “doing everything right” and still felt completely drained, like I was pushing a boulder uphill just to keep up.

    That’s what made Ali Abdaal‘s Feel-Good Productivity land differently for me. The argument at its core is disarmingly simple: feeling good isn’t the reward for being productive — it’s the engine of it. When you feel better, you naturally achieve more. Not because you’re trying harder, but because the resistance is lower.

    Who is Ali Abdaal?

    Ali is a doctor-turned-creator who built a massive online following while still in medical school. He spent years obsessing over productivity tips and tricks before eventually arriving at a conclusion that cuts against most of the advice in that space: discipline-first thinking is fragile, and mood-first thinking is what actually lasts. If you’re more of a visual learner, his YouTube channel is worth bookmarking — he goes deep into the science behind these ideas and has a way of making dense research feel genuinely watchable. I’ve come back to his videos more than once.

    1. Energise: Turning Work into Play

    The first section of the book is about energy — specifically, how play is one of the most underrated ways to generate it.

    The idea that stuck with me most is deceptively simple: ask yourself, what would this look like if it were fun? Not every task can be made exciting, but most can be made slightly more tolerable with a small shift. One idea I use often is when doing a boring task, have good background music, but nothing with lyrics, he recommends Harry Potter movie scores. Abdaal also talks about confidence not as something you either have or don’t, but as a skill you practise — acting as if you’re confident in a task until the belief catches up with the behaviour. I’ve found this more useful than any pep talk.

    He also pushes back on the idea that success is zero-sum. Treating the people around you as teammates rather than competition doesn’t just feel better — it creates a support network that keeps you going when motivation runs dry.

    2. Unblock: Overcoming Fear and Inertia

    Procrastination, Abdaal argues, is rarely laziness. It’s usually an emotional signal — uncertainty, fear, or just the weight of inertia when you haven’t started yet.

    His answer to vague, overwhelming goals is what he calls NICE goals: Near-term, Input-based, Controllable, and Energising. The distinction matters because abstract goals (“get fit,” “finish the project”) give you nowhere to put your energy. Concrete, near-term inputs do.

    Two other tools I keep coming back to from this section: the Batman Effect, where you adopt an alter ego to distance yourself from anxiety — Beyoncé famously used “Sasha Fierce” for this — and the five-minute rule, where you commit to just five minutes on something you’ve been avoiding. It sounds too simple, but breaking the initial inertia really is most of the battle.

    3. Sustain: Preventing Burnout Through Alignment

    The third section is the one I think gets overlooked most in conversations about this book, and it might be the most important.

    Abdaal’s point here is that burning out isn’t just about doing too much — it’s often about doing too much of the wrong things. The “Hell Yeah or No” rule is essentially a filter: if you’re not genuinely excited about a commitment, the answer is no. Every yes is a no to something else you actually care about. It’s the same insight at the heart of Greg McKeown’s Essentialism — saying no isn’t about being difficult, it’s about protecting what matters.

    He also makes a distinction I found genuinely useful about rest. Not all rest is restorative. The activities that actually recharge you tend to make you feel Competent, Autonomous, Liberated, and Mellow — what he calls the CALM framework. Passively scrolling doesn’t meet that bar. A walk, a creative hobby, or time with people you like usually does.

    The section closes with a simple daily practice he calls Alignment Quests — each morning, pick one small action for health, one for work, and one for relationships that moves you toward the life you want a year from now. It’s a way of keeping daily effort connected to something larger than the to-do list.

    Think Like a Scientist

    The throughline of the whole book is this: there’s no single right way to work, and the people who figure out how to work well treat themselves like an ongoing experiment. Try things. Notice what actually makes you feel better. Adjust.

    That framing has changed how I approach my own habits more than any specific tip in the book. If you’ve ever felt like the traditional “push through it” approach to productivity just isn’t sustainable for you, this book makes a compelling case that you’re not wrong — and offers a better way forward. If you want to go even deeper on working sustainably, Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity makes a powerful companion read.

    If any of this resonates, I’d genuinely recommend picking up a copy of Feel-Good Productivity. And if you want to go deeper on the science behind it, Ali’s YouTube channel is the place to start. It was the reason I picked up the book in the first place.

  • Beyond the Bank Account: Redefining Success Through the 5 Types of Wealth

    Beyond the Bank Account: Redefining Success Through the 5 Types of Wealth

    Most of us are tracking one number — money — while quietly losing ground everywhere else. Time evaporates. Friendships go into maintenance mode. Health gets deprioritized until it forces its way back onto the list. And the money number, even when it goes up, somehow never feels like enough.

    Sahil Bloom’s book The 5 Types of Wealth puts a name to this problem and offers a more useful framework. The argument is simple: financial wealth is one piece of a much larger picture, and optimizing only for it is a good way to win the wrong game.

    Here’s how he breaks it down.

    Time

    This is the one you can’t get back. Bloom points out something genuinely uncomfortable: by the time most of us are adults, we’ve already spent the majority of the time we’ll ever have with our parents and siblings. It’s a rough piece of math. The goal isn’t to have more time — it’s to have control over how you use it.

    Relationships

    The Harvard Study of Adult Development tracked people for decades and landed on a clear finding: the quality of your relationships is the single biggest predictor of health and happiness as you age. Not income, not status — relationships. Bloom’s useful framing here is the “front-row people” — the ones who show up when it actually matters. Those are the relationships worth protecting.

    Mental Wealth

    This is about staying curious and having a sense of purpose rather than settling into a comfortable but flat routine. High curiosity correlates with better cognitive health, lower anxiety, and higher life satisfaction. It also means having a growth mindset — believing your abilities are something you develop, not something fixed.

    Physical Health

    Bloom’s line here is worth keeping: treat your body like a house you have to live in for another seventy years. Exercise is the most powerful single thing we have to slow physical decline. You don’t need a complicated protocol — consistent movement, decent food most of the time, and enough sleep covers most of it.

    Money

    It’s still in the framework, but it’s in its proper place — as an enabler, not the destination. The useful concept here is defining your “enough” — figuring out what level of financial stability actually lets you live the life you want, instead of just chasing more indefinitely. Lifestyle creep is real, compounding is real, and the gap between the two matters a lot.

    The point isn’t that money doesn’t matter. It’s that a life where you’re winning financially but losing everywhere else isn’t actually a win. I’ve seen it and I suspect you have too.

    The book goes deeper on each of these with practical exercises for figuring out where you actually stand. Worth reading if this framing resonates with you.

  • What Learning a Backflip Taught Me About Learning Anything

    What Learning a Backflip Taught Me About Learning Anything

    Most skills worth having are uncomfortable at first.

    I was a kid obsessed with tricking — an aesthetic blend of martial arts, gymnastics, and breakdancing. In pursuit of getting better at tricking, a backflip was essential. My trampoline became the training ground, and eventually I developed something that, resembled one — it was a bit more over the shoulder than straight back but it was a start. After a while and a lot of trial and error I got a pretty good looking backflip on the trampoline.

    After building up the courage, the next step was solid ground.

    It did not go well at first. My landings were bad — on all fours — it looked more like a poorly executed back hand spring. After my class ended my parents were waiting to pick me up. I showed them my progress, then asked if I could stay for a bit longer to keep working on it. They said yes, which tells you something about how convincing I was or how patient they were. Either way I stayed an extra two hours working with the sole goal of landing on my feet.

    What followed was a long morning of bad backflips. By the end of the day, I had landed a few of them on my feet, so it was a great success in my book.

    The technique was not textbook. A proper back tuck is about jumping up, tucking, and rotating with your shoulders as the axis. My version involved jumping backward while looking up, throwing my shoulders back, getting minimal height, and rotating around my hips — which works, technically, but is not great. I was young and I was just happy to have landed a few on my feet.

    The next day, it felt like every muscle in my body was sore, and that lasted for about a week.

    What That Day Actually Taught Me

    Almost two decades later, the backflip is still in my muscle memory. So are the lessons from learning it.

    You have to believe it’s possible before you can do it. The first barrier wasn’t physical — it was deciding that this was something my body could actually do. That sounds simple, but it’s real. You cannot commit to a back rotation if part of your brain is still negotiating an exit. Whatever you’re trying to learn, the mental piece comes first. Doubt bleeds into execution.

    When you have an intense burning desire for something, lean into it. I had this desire to learn a backflip. When you stumble upon something new, a skill, a topic, that ignites that same kind of burning passion within you – lean into it. Fuel that fire as long as you can because desires like that don’t last. I could have called it quits after those initial clumsy attempts. I would have eventually learned the backflip, but not with the same speed and intensity. That day, fueled by pure desire, I landed a backflip.

    You have to put in bad reps to get to good ones. There’s a version of “work smarter, not harder” that is actually useful, and a version that is just an excuse not to do the uncomfortable early work. The bad backflips weren’t wasted — they gave me the body awareness to start adjusting. You often need to do the hard work before you know what the smart work looks like.

    Feedback accelerates everything. I didn’t have a coach. I figured it out through trial and error, which worked but was slower and harder on my body than it needed to be. When someone who’s already done what you’re trying to do gives you real feedback, it compresses the timeline significantly. That’s worth seeking out, and in later years I did find a group of like-minded individuals that helped me on my tricking journey.

    Iterations matter more than hours. Naval Ravikant has a line: “It’s not 10,000 hours, it’s 10,000 iterations.” That’s what a two-hour backflip session actually is — not two hours of doing the same thing, but dozens of small experiments and small adjustments. Try something, feel what happened, adjust, go again. The feedback loop is the work.

    The Bottom Line

    The backflip itself wasn’t the point. What stuck with me was the process: identify something you want, accept that the early attempts will be rough, stay in the reps long enough to get real feedback, and keep adjusting until you get it right.

    That applies to most things worth learning.

  • The Art of Being Seen: Lessons from Show Your Work!

    The Art of Being Seen: Lessons from Show Your Work!

    In a world where we often feel pressured to be “experts” before we share anything, Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work! offers a liberating alternative. The core message is that creativity isn’t a mysterious talent reserved for a few — it’s a way of operating that requires being open about what you’re learning and doing. Here are the most meaningful takeaways for anyone looking to find their voice and build an audience. This book was also a big reason I made this website.

    Embrace the Amateur Advantage

    One of the most powerful mindset shifts is realizing you don’t have to be a master to contribute. Being an amateur — someone who does things for the love of it — can actually be an advantage. Amateurs are willing to experiment, take risks, and share their mistakes. As Kleon puts it, the real gap isn’t between good and great; it’s between doing nothing and doing something. By learning in public and wearing your amateurism on your sleeve, you invite the right people to find you and grow alongside you.

    Think Process, Not Product

    We’re often so focused on the final result that we hide the most interesting part: the work itself. Kleon encourages us to document our process. Whether you share it or not, recording your progress helps you see your own growth. When you’re ready to share, don’t wait for a masterpiece — share something small every day. Bits of your methods, your influences, even the scraps from the cutting-room floor add up to a substantial body of work over time.

    The Power of “Scenius”

    The myth of the lone genius is just that — a myth. Kleon introduces the concept of “scenius”: an ecology of talent where great ideas emerge from a group of connected minds, not a single visionary. To tap into this, you need to become an open node — someone who listens, notices others, and acts as a connector rather than simply broadcasting your own work. By teaching what you know and sharing your inspirations freely, you build a network that feeds your creativity as much as your own.

    Become a Better Storyteller

    Human beings are wired for stories. Kleon argues that our work doesn’t speak for itself — people want to know where things came from and who made them. You can make your work more compelling by telling the story behind it: where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you’re headed. This doesn’t mean embellishing. Stick to the truth of your journey. Honesty, it turns out, is more than enough.

    Learn to Take a Punch — and Stick Around

    Sharing your work publicly requires vulnerability. But as Kleon notes, compulsively avoiding embarrassment becomes its own kind of defeat. The antidote is volume: put out enough work that no single bad review can define you. More than talent, more than timing, the people who succeed are often simply the ones who stick around long enough. That idea echoes a line from Richard Strozzi-Heckler that has always been particularly meaningful to me: “The path of the Warrior is lifelong, and mastery is often simply staying on the path.”

    The Choice to Be Seen

    Ultimately, showing your work is about reclaiming agency in how you connect with the world. Generosity with your ideas and consistency in your effort create opportunities that secrecy never could.

    There are plenty more gems in this book for anyone who feels stuck or invisible. If these ideas on sharing and creativity resonate with you, I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of Show Your Work!

  • The Antidote to Burnout: Finding Meaning in Slow Productivity

    The Antidote to Burnout: Finding Meaning in Slow Productivity

    If you’ve ever ended a packed workday feeling like you somehow got nothing done, you’re not imagining things. The modern workplace keeps raising the bar — more emails, more meetings, more pings — while the actual meaningful work keeps getting squeezed out. Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity is a direct response to that problem. It lays out a practical philosophy for getting important things done without running yourself into the ground. Here’s a look at the ideas that matter most.

    A quiet workspace representing slow, intentional productivity

    The Problem: Busyness Isn’t the Same as Productivity

    One of the most useful ideas in the book is the concept of “pseudo-productivity” — the habit of using visible busyness as a stand-in for actual results. Because knowledge work is hard to measure, we often default to the things that look like work: answering emails quickly, keeping our calendars full, always being “on.”

    The problem is that all of this activity gets in the way of the deeper, more focused work that actually moves things forward. Newport calls it “jittery busyness” — and argues that escaping it is the first step toward doing work that genuinely matters. It’s the same trap that Ali Abdaal tackles in Feel-Good Productivity — the idea that looking busy and actually producing something meaningful are very different things.

    Principle 1: Do Fewer Things

    The first principle sounds almost too simple: cut down on your commitments until you can actually imagine finishing them. Newport’s argument is that when your plate is overflowing, everything suffers — you’re always context-switching, nothing gets your full attention, and the quality of your work drops. By focusing on a small number of projects that genuinely matter, you paradoxically get more done in the long run.

    One practical tool Newport suggests is this simple system for managing requests:

    ·The Holding Tank: When a new project request comes in, it goes on a list — no commitment yet, just a place to park it.

    ·The Active List: You work on no more than three projects at a time. That’s it.

    ·The Pull System: When one project wraps up, you pull the next one from the holding tank. Not before.

    ·Be Transparent: Let colleagues know roughly where their request sits in the queue and when you realistically expect to get to it.

    This system won’t win you any “most responsive” awards, but it’s the kind of structure that lets you actually do good work instead of just staying busy. It pairs well with the thinking in Greg McKeown’s Essentialism — both books make the case that protecting your attention is one of the most important things you can do.

    Principle 2: Work at a Sustainable Pace

    Newport’s second principle pushes back against the idea that grinding harder is always the answer. He argues that working at full intensity all the time is not natural — and not sustainable. Think of how seasons work in nature: periods of high activity followed by rest. Our best work tends to happen when we build that kind of rhythm into our lives.

    A simple but surprisingly powerful suggestion: double your timeline estimates. If you think a project will take two weeks, budget a month. This isn’t about lowering your standards — it’s about being honest with yourself and creating space for the kind of careful, thoughtful work that leads to results you’re proud of.

    Newport also makes a case for building small breaks into your routine — a Monday with no meetings, or an occasional afternoon away from your desk. These aren’t indulgences. They’re what it takes to keep your brain from getting stuck in a reactive loop where you’re always putting out fires instead of making real progress.

    Principle 3: Care Deeply About Quality

    The third principle is about raising your own bar — not in the sense of working more hours, but in caring genuinely about how good your work is. When you’re truly committed to producing something excellent, busyness starts to feel like what it is: a threat to the thing you care about. Saying no becomes easier. Cutting shallow commitments becomes easier. Quality becomes its own filter.

    Think of a craftsperson who takes pride in their work. They don’t rush a piece just because someone’s asking. They know that the reputation they build through consistently excellent work is worth more than any short-term win they’d get from saying yes to everything. Newport argues the same logic applies in knowledge work. Over time, doing fewer things — but doing them really well — earns you more professional freedom, not less.

    A Different Kind of Success

    Slow Productivity isn’t a book about doing less for its own sake. It’s about stepping off the treadmill long enough to ask: is all this activity actually getting me anywhere? Newport’s answer is that where you end up matters more than how fast you run. By steadily putting in meaningful effort — rather than constantly reacting and scrambling — you can build a body of work you’re proud of, without burning out along the way. That kind of intentionality extends beyond work too — it’s the same reframe behind Sahil Bloom’s 5 Types of Wealth: success means more than one number going up.

    If any of this rings true for how you’ve been feeling about your work, the book is well worth a read. It’s full of concrete strategies and real-world examples that make these ideas easy to start putting into practice.

  • The Disciplined Pursuit of Less… But Better

    The Disciplined Pursuit of Less… But Better

    In a world that constantly pulls at our time, energy, and attention, Greg McKeown’s Essentialism offers a simple but powerful idea: do less, but do it better. The book isn’t about cramming more into your day — it’s about doing only the right things so you can give them the time and focus they deserve. Here are the themes that stuck with me most.

    You Always Have a Choice

    One of the biggest wake-up calls in the book is this: choice is something we do, not something that just happens to us. When we stop owning our choices, we slowly hand control of our lives over to other people’s priorities. The bottom line? If you don’t decide what matters most in your life, someone else will do it for you. A simple mindset shift — from “I have to” to “I choose to” — can be the first step toward a life that actually feels like yours.

    Why Success Can Work Against You

    McKeown describes what he calls the “Success Paradox,” and it’s surprisingly easy to relate to. When you do well, people notice. You become the go-to person, and more opportunities start coming your way. Sounds great, right? But here’s the catch — those opportunities are really just more demands on your time. Before long, you’re stretched so thin that you can’t do anything well, including the thing that made you successful in the first place. Cal Newport calls this same trap “jittery busyness” in Slow Productivity — worth reading alongside this one.

    Saying Yes to Less

    Not every opportunity is worth your time. In fact, most aren’t. The book argues that only a small handful of choices will ever truly move the needle in your life. To find those, McKeown suggests a simple gut-check: if an opportunity doesn’t feel like a clear, enthusiastic “yes,” treat it as a “no.” A good rule of thumb he offers — if you wouldn’t rate it 90% or higher, rate it zero and walk away.

    Getting Good at Saying No

    Saying yes to what matters means getting comfortable saying no to what doesn’t. The book compares this to editing a film — a great editor doesn’t just cut bad footage, they cut anything that doesn’t make the story stronger. The same goes for your life. Trimming the non-essentials isn’t about being selfish or harsh; it’s about making room for the people and goals that matter most to you. Ali Abdaal makes a nearly identical point in Feel-Good Productivity — his “Hell Yeah or No” rule is Essentialism in a different frame.

    Take Care of Your Most Important Tool — You

    McKeown makes a strong case that your most valuable asset isn’t your job, your network, or your skills — it’s you. And the most basic way to protect that asset is often the most overlooked: sleep. Getting enough rest isn’t a sign of laziness. It’s what keeps your mind sharp and your creativity alive so you can actually show up at your best.

    A Life That Feels Worth It

    At its heart, Essentialism is about avoiding the trap of being busy but never feeling fulfilled. By getting clear on what truly matters — and cutting out everything that doesn’t — you can stop just going through the motions and start building a life with real meaning and joy in it. If that bigger-picture reframe resonates, Sahil Bloom’s 5 Types of Wealth takes it even further — arguing that financial success is just one of five areas that actually make a life feel full.

    There are plenty more insights packed into this book, and I’d absolutely recommend picking it up if any of this clicked for you.