Category: life

• Rugby

  I played rugby in high school. I was never particularly good, or even particularly passionate about it, but playing rugby taught me an important lesson that has stuck with me ever since. Growing up, I wasn’t a traditional geek or a traditional jock or really a traditional anything. I was curious, bookish, a little aloof,…

• “Can I get your take on something?”

  When you face a tough decision and need advice, start by writing a description of your situation. Define the problem, stakes, options, and tradeoffs. Identify questions and risks. Explain what you think is important and why it matters. Read it out loud to yourself. What’s missing? Add it. What’s irrelevant? Cut it. What’s confusing? Clarify…

• Yogurt

  Ten years ago, my wife and I had a quirky neighbor named Dell. He taught us to make our own yogurt and the results were so delicious that we’ve made it weekly ever since and taught friends to do the same. We just found out that Dell passed away two years ago. It’s profoundly bittersweet…

• Magic

  The world is brimming with magic. Summon it by bringing your attention to bear, by following the path into being. The keener your sense of presence, the more miraculous the universe reveals itself to be.… Read the rest

• Bridging the personal and the universal

  A key component in great writing is building bridges between the personal and the universal. Without specific incarnation, universals revert to truisms. The insight you’re trying to articulate may be foundational, but cliché drains it of color and weight. Aphorisms can blaze bright on social media because aspiration is a potent fuel for sharing, but…

• The Path

  The girl entered the Dark Forest. Leaves whispered. Shadows swirled. Bright eyes gleamed. Mud sucked at her boots. She evaded the bandits, won over the fairies, escaped the quicksand, emasculated the creepy lumberjack, survived the poison thorns, defeated the monsters, fed wild carrots to the unicorn, slipped away from the strangling vines, and outsmarted the…

• How to do interesting work

  If you want to do interesting work, a great starting point is to work on things you find interesting. Instead of trying to optimize for what you think others are likely to find interesting—chasing the market is a Sisyphean task—just keep digging deeper into what you find interesting. That way, making your work interesting to others…

• How to make sense of complex ideas

  You know that feeling when someone is explaining an idea and you’re struggling to make sense of it—like peering out into dense fog, hoping to glimpse the outline of an approaching ship? Maybe it’s because they’re using unfamiliar acronyms or taking leaps of logic, or maybe it’s simply not something you have any personal experience…

• Creativity is a choice

  It’s easy to make your creativity dependent on your environment. You can’t write that book until you escape to the perfect cabin in the woods. You can’t produce that song until you find the ideal recording studio. You can’t initiate that difficult conversation until the time is right. When I’m working on the rough draft…

• How to Kill a Dragon

  My friend Derek has a six year old grandson who came for a visit. They were exploring the basement together when the boy pointed to the door on the left and asked, “What’s in there grandpa?””Canned foods and supplies for the kitchen,” said Derek. His grandson pointed to the door ahead of them, “What’s in…