It's time for us to move beyond minimalism. If we want a dynamic world, we should splash our buildings with enthusiastic colors, bold patterns, and visions of a better tomorrow. | Continue reading
Creatives have two ways of working: beer mode and coffee mode. Beer mode is a state of unfocused play where you discover new ideas. In contrast, coffee mode is a state of focus where you work towards a specific outcome. The problem with traditional productivity advice is that i … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Li Jin, the founder and managing partner at an early-stage venture capital firm called Atelier. Before recording this introduction, I didn’t know what an atelier was, so I looked it up and it’s right on brand for Li: it’s … | Continue reading
Every city changes you. San Francisco tells you to be powerful, LA tells you to be famous, Boston tells you to be smarter, and New York tells you to be richer. In the words of Paul Graham, “every city whispers something.” So when you choose to live in a city, you’re also choosin … | Continue reading
As Yuval Noah Harari knows, intellectual progress has always been combinatorial. | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Zena Hitz, a tutor at St John’s and the author of an excellent book called Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Her book explores the meaning and the value of learning for its own sake, through i … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY I have two guests today: Tiago Forte and Will Mannon. Tiago is my business partner and the creator of an online course called Building a Second Brain. The two of us record a podcast like this every year to reflect on what we’ve learned abo … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Gagan Biyani, the current CEO of an education startup (where I’m both an investor and an advisor) that helps teachers run Cohort-Based Courses on the Internet and has students from around the world. Gagan also founded a m … | Continue reading
Writing and editing should be separate activities. When I’m in this creation mode, I shoot for a flow state. I keep my fingertips on the keyboard and measure progress by how many words I put on the page. My physical environment helps me be generative too. If I’m sitting down at … | Continue reading
Information abundance, like all markets of abundance, is bad for the average person but great for a small number of people. Abundance is a paradox. Environments of abundance are bad for the median consumer but extremely good for a small number of conscious ones. Average consumers … | Continue reading
This is a collection of the most popular ideas I shared in 2020. | Continue reading
There are two kinds of fame: Celebrity-Fame and Niche-Fame. | Continue reading
If you want to improve your writing, match your punctuation to the mood. Punctuation is to writing as music is to movies. In The Joker, the renowned composer Hildur Guðnadóttir used the cello in the opening scenes to create empathy with the protagonist. But then, as The Joker’s d … | Continue reading
Writing this Annual Review, I realize that I’m incredibly fortunate. While some people spent the quarantine alone, I moved into my childhood home and spent five months with family. While America saw the worst unemployment spike in recent history, my business grew because the pan … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Trevor Bauer, who is arguably the very best pitcher in Major League Baseball. In 2020, he had the lowest Earned Run Average of any pitcher and won the National League Cy Young Award, which goes to the top pitcher in the g … | Continue reading
"All great ages have left a record of themselves in their styles of building. Why should we not try to find a style for ourselves?" — Karl Schinkel Have you noticed how much of the world now looks like an Apple store? Blue Bottle Coffee is the ultimate example. With whi … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Nik Sharma, the founder of Sharma Brands and an advisor to companies like Judy and Cha Cha Matcha. Nik is one of my very best friends and my go-to person for all things commerce. Since we first met, we’ve spent hours expl … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Kevin Kelly, who co-founded Wired Magazine in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor for the first seven years. As one of the most important futurists of our generation, he’s published a number of books including The Ine … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY Will Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of WHOOP, which has developed next-generation wearable technology for optimizing human performance and health. I found him through an excellent interview he hosted with Rory McIlroy, a winner of four major … | Continue reading
Choosing to learn in public is the best career decision I’ve ever made. I started my podcast as a 22-year old. In less than four years, I’ve interviewed astrophysicists like Neil deGrasse Tyson, entrepreneurs like Claire Lehmann, creators like Sara Dietschy, actresses like … | Continue reading
Building a Personal Monopoly is like buying real estate. Whether you’re making an investment in yourself or a home, you want to choose a strategy that will increase in value. When it comes to housing prices, some areas have appreciated in value more than others. For example, real … | Continue reading
Jerry Garcia once said: “You want to be the only person who does what you do.” The ultimate goal of writing online is to build a Personal Monopoly. It’s your unique intersection of skills, interests, and personality traits where you can be known as the best thinker on a topic an … | Continue reading
Nintendo uses a product-development philosophy called “Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology.” It led to the 20th century’s most successful game console: the Game Boy. One day, a gaming engineer named Gunpei Yokoi was commuting home on the train when he saw a man playing with … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Seth Godin, the author of nineteen international bestsellers that have been translated into more than 35 languages. My all-time favorite is Purple Cow, which I discovered in college and became my nickname. This is my seco … | Continue reading
Eliminate weak, wasted, and redundant words. Here’s how Gary Provost, who invented this framework defines them: Redundant words say the same thing twice, wasted ones don’t serve a purpose, and weak ones lack meaning. Weak words are like the difference between high-end sushi rest … | Continue reading
It’s the one-year anniversary of Write of Passage . One year ago, I flew from New York to Mexico City for 10 days of filming and curriculum development. Since then, I’ve taught more than 500 students from more than 40 countries. Here is the story of how I built the course and th … | Continue reading
The most successful creators tend to define their own subculture instead of molding themselves into existing ones. | Continue reading
In my last round of edits, right before I publish an article, I have one focus: writing CLEAR sentences. The acronym CLEAR stands for: Create a rhythm Link your sentences Eliminate anything that adds confusion Add colorful details Remove unnecessary details I’ll describe each in … | Continue reading
Just as cookbooks won’t train somebody to run a restaurant, traditional writing books won’t train people to write online. | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY My guest today is Dave Nemetz, the Founder of Bleacher Report, which was one of my favorite media companies as a kid. During his time there, Dave oversaw video, business development, and business operations. He helped grow the audience to … | Continue reading
English is a combination of two languages. The Anglo-Saxon words come from Northern Germany, and its Latin ones come from France. Most words come in Saxon and Latinate versions. “See” is the Saxon counterpart to the Latin word: “perceive.” Most Saxon words will have one-syllable, … | Continue reading
Every topic expands once you start writing about it. But sometimes, a topic expands so much that it creates writing sprawl where it grows so far that you can’t wrap your head around it anymore. Sprawl leads to confusion, and confusion leads to the kind of writer’s block that prev … | Continue reading
Society has traditionally rewarded people who fit in, but the Internet rewards people who stand out. | Continue reading
You can evaluate every piece of writing with three variables: personal, observational, and playful. The pillars of my POP Writing methodology contrast traditional business writing education. In the office, people think they should use a heap of buzzwords and machine-gun fire of s … | Continue reading
Creativity is serendipitous, but that doesn’t make it magic. “Thinking harder” is not a recipe for creativity. More effort won’t necessarily lead to better ideas. Instead, creativity tends to arise in states of relaxation which are preceded by a long period of focused thinking. A … | Continue reading
School trains people to write slowly. Students who receive a syllabus at the beginning of the semester know exactly what they need to accomplish by the end of it. Teachers allocate time during the semester for outlines, first drafts, and final ones too. Students only begin writi … | Continue reading
Just because you have attention, doesn’t mean you have an audience. An audience isn’t the number of people who know your name. It’s the number of people you can contact at any time. Building one begins with attracting people on public platforms such as Twitter and YouTube. They a … | Continue reading
You should know about Brunello Cucinelli. He’s the billionaire founder of a $450 million fashion brand. His company is valued at more than €1.6 billion, and it’s fueled by his radical approach to business. This is a collection of the best things I’ve learned from him. 1. He donat … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY Newsweek Magazine once called Rabbi Wolpe the most influential rabbi in America. He is the Senior Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and he’s the author of eight books including one about King David and another gem called Why Be Jewish? … | Continue reading
LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | SPOTIFY Tyler Cowen is an economics professor at George Mason University. He runs the Mercatus Center, which bridges the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. He’s published a new post every day for the past 17 years on his … | Continue reading
Here are the 50 ideas that changed my life. These are my guiding principles and the light of my intellectual life. All of them will help you think better, and I hope they inspire curiosity. 1. Inversion: Avoiding stupidity is easier than trying to be brilliant. Instead … | Continue reading
I write a weekly email called the Monday Musings. The most popular part of the newsletter is a section called “Coolest Things I Learned This Week.” It’s fun and eclectic, interesting and intriguing. This is a collection of the most popular insights I shared in 2018. Not … | Continue reading
Here are the 50 ideas that changed my life. These are my guiding principles and the light of my intellectual life. All of them will help you think better, and I hope they inspire curiosity. 1. Inversion: Avoiding stupidity is easier than trying to be brilliant. Instead … | Continue reading
No teacher had a bigger impact on me than Miles Chen. He was my high school advisor, teacher, and golf coach. He was famous for his love of pork buns. Everybody talked about the restaurants he took us to and the Chinese food he brought to school. But people outside our gol … | Continue reading
College students: Don’t go to school this fall. Save your money. Use your time to start an online business instead. Live at home, spend as little money as possible, and find a side job if you need to. How do you start? Build skills, identify a problem, and find a softw … | Continue reading
We live in a society of adult-like children and childish adults. Kids have never had more information at their fingertips, so they’re growing up faster than ever. From a young age, they can watch violent war clips on YouTube, Dan Bilzerian videos on Instagram, and Shakira gettin … | Continue reading