Meditation: The antidote to suffering
Life provides a lot of challenges and opportunities for disappointment and not getting what you want. You get fired. You get dumped. Your business fails. You think you’re fat. You’re diagnosed with an illness. Your kids don’t want to spend... more
Blind certainty
Our interpretations of the world can often be wrong due to bias, optimism, pessimism, or bad information. Yet most of us think we are right and other people are wrong. This can cause us to overlook or dismiss crucial information and lead to bad... more
The company’s most valuable asset
People are the most valuable asset of most companies. Your strategy to attract, hire, and retain talent will have a big impact on the success or failure of your business. To solve hard problems, you need to assemble a team with diverse skills,... more
Be like Ike: Make better decisions, get more done
Dwight Eisenhower was a productive person who is best remembered today as a military leader and two-term U.S. president. In World War II, Eisenhower served as a five-star general in the U.S. Army and supervised the invasion of Normandy as the... more
The most powerful force in the universe
It’s not easy to become great at anything. No one is born a great entrepreneur, artist, or athlete. We have to earn it. One thing I’ve noticed about high achievers is they leverage the compounding principle by designing their life around it. The... more
The advantage of going first
Have you ever had the experience of walking down the street and found yourself smiling at a stranger who smiled at you first? You were practicing mirrored reciprocity, a universal social norm. For the last 20,000 years of recorded human history,... more
Find the root cause
To build something new requires you get good at solving problems, and you need every advantage to solve them. Clearly defining the problem is always the first step in the process. Tease apart the problem and break it down into smaller pieces to... more
Solving problems backward
I want to share one of my favorite mental models called inversion. Mental models provide shortcuts to higher-level thinking, forcing your brain to think about a problem or decision from different perspectives. Inversion helps you flip a problem... more
The advantages of thinking gray
Black-and-white thinking distorts your ability to see reality objectively. Jumping to conclusions too quickly when making important decisions does not serve you well. The stakes are high because your decisions will play a large part in determining... more
Unlocking innovation with wireless power
What if we could power robots, sensors, tools, and all electronic devices wirelessly? Imagine if designers of devices in health care, manufacturing, logistics, and construction were not limited by wires or batteries. Wireless power is going to... more
College is broken. New models can help fix it.
Education provides the foundation of our prosperity as a society. Our chance to improve our quality of life requires transferring knowledge to the next generation to spur innovation and accelerate technology development. To compete in the global... more
Mental models – a secret weapon for startup founders
Mental models help startup founders avoid bias and blind spots, thus making decisions less risky. A mental model is an idea that helps you better understand the reality of the world around you. They provide shortcuts to higher-level thinking by... more
Don’t act like a victim
People who struggle with victim mentality blame other people and their circumstances for their unhappiness. Blaming other people is not productive. Victim mentality robs us of our agency and power. It prevents us from taking responsibility and... more
My search for meaning
What’s the meaning of life? It took me decades to realize I was asking the wrong question. There is no one answer that applies to everyone. Rather, we create meaning through our beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Now, I ask a better question: How... more
Innovation requires the competition of ideas
The advance of knowledge requires the collision of ideas. Good ideas survive deep skepticism and intense competition. Look at the United States Constitution, which is a collection of ideas that were fiercely debated and challenged before it was... more
Avoid blind spots and make smarter decisions
Every problem we face — including war, crime, climate change, and income inequality — can be traced to decisions made by an individual or group of individuals. A company’s success or failure is the result of decisions. Decisions you make about... more
Develop great leaders to grow a great company
People are the most valuable asset of a company. Developing people is the key to building a successful company. Companies gain competitive advantage by investing in leadership development and building a healthy, high-performance culture, on a... more
Hold yourself accountable
Tracking progress and being accountable to my goals is difficult. Work and family responsibilities constantly compete for time. Without building in a method to track progress and hold myself accountable, it’s unlikely I will be able to build... more
How’s the water?
Like a fish in water, we are swimming in our cognitive biases, which are errors in thinking caused by our brain distorting reality. Our biases are pervasive, highly resistant to feedback, and can cause us to overlook or dismiss crucial... more
Make good habits stick
Few things impact the quality of your life more than daily habits. Good habits help you become the person you want to be, whereas bad habits lead to pain, suffering, and self-loathing. Your behavior has a huge impact on the quality of your life.... more
