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Not Being a Robot
One of my overarching goals in how I present myself is to be consistent. Although the relationships I have with my family, friends, acquaintances, and random people on the internet is always going to be different, I try to be the same person with all of those groups. I think authenticity is important, and this…
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The Experience the Other Person Wants to Have
I know that I’m more self centered than I should be. It’s something I work on, not by instructing myself to be less self centered, which is too foggy a command to actually obey, but through specifically defined efforts. One of the more useful ones I’ve come up with is to stop and think about…
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Making Rules for Yourself
I don’t notice that I have a million rules for myself until someone hears about one, asks if I have others, and the conversation lasts for hours. I know that even with all of the discipline I’ve built over the years, I’m still susceptible to making impulsive decisions in the moment, so I make rules…
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Why I’ll Be Writing Every Day For Two Years
“Are you kidding me? I’ve been telling everybody that you write a blog post every single day!” Sebastian just learned that I fell off of my writing-every-single-day habit, and became outraged. One thing led to another, and before you know it, we’d shaken hands and a bet was made. Both of us will be writing…
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Make Fewer Decisions to Produce More
I want to produce at a superhuman level. Looking back over a year, I’d like to wonder just how I got so much done in such a short period of time. At my best I can execute to that standard, but I’m not always at my best. It’s possible to have this level of productivity…
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Being Willing to be Neutral
A couple months ago I watched the Wolf of Wall Street with some friends. As the credits began to roll, I started to consolidate my opinion on the move. Did I love it? Did I hate it? I could come up with decent rationale for either. Depending on the second my friends asked my opinion,…
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Principles I Live By
Most of what we do is subconscious, driven by our habits. The rest is conscious, primarily driven by our principles. In addition to dictating our conscious actions, principles also guide which habits we decide to create. If we want to improve ourselves and become more effective, our habits and principles are the places we can…
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Where I’ll Be In 2024
A couple days ago, during a rest period of a workout, Leo asked me if I was different now than I was ten years ago. My gut reaction was to say that, no, I was pretty much exactly the same, but even a quick scan of changes in that time made me realize that I…
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Dealing With the Pain of Breaking Up
One of the things that’s missing from my writing is emotion, and I know it. I’m always trying to correct that by looking for ways to add emotion to my writing, but I rarely find them. The truth is that ninety nine percent of the time the only emotions I feel are some variation on…
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Carry the Weight
[Note: If you’re in San Francisco or Austin, read the bolded part at the very bottom!] For most of my life, at least until my late twenties, I was a slacker. I did almost nothing to help around the house, choosing to procrastinate on things assigned to me until someone else just did it themselves…
