This is a guest post by Joey the Improvement Geek. Joey is one of the first people I met on Twitter. Since then, he’s become one of my favorite people and someone I’ve learned a lot from. I recommend that you check out his website and follow him on Twitter. And be sure to check … Read more Why You’re Dissatisfied and Unhappy
Here’s a little secret. It’s something we used to know and understand. But as the entitlement culture’s virus has spread, we’ve forgotten it. The secret is this: Life isn’t fair. Some people enjoy shaming others because they were born with some advantage. While others love to play the victim card at every opportunity. All because … Read more You Need to Know Life’s Dirty Little Secret
Humans want to impose their will on the world around them. Sometimes, it works. We’ve blasted tunnels through mountains to make travel easier. We’ve almost eliminated several deadly diseases. All in all, we have a decent track record when it comes to shaping the world to fit us. But there are some things that we … Read more The goal of everything – and why you can’t change it
Strength and Reason Weekend Rubbernecker April 17, 2020 How many times does it seem like the Universe has it in for you? Likethere’s a function in Universe OS whose purpose is to throw the worstjunk at you. And that function is stuck in an endless loop. You keeping smashing the ESC key, but no luck. … Read more Strength and Reason Weekend Rubbernecker: The Universe isn’t out to get you
You’re only as strong as your weakest habit. To that end, you’re setting yourself up to fail if you don’t develop positive habits. But to develop a positive habit, you must know what a habit is. And have some basic strategies to form positive habits. What’s a habit? The definition of a habit is a … Read more Here’s what you need to know about forming habits
Rahm Emanuel said to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” And our politicians, ever on the lookout for reasons to expand their power and spend our hard-earned money, are complying. But so are the hordes of social media fitness gurus. Anyone can set up an Instagram or Twitter account and declare themselves a … Read more Social media fitness gurus are running to this market faster than politicians can give your tax dollars to its cronies.
We love stories of people who bucked conventional wisdom to achieve incredible success. But not accounting for the failures in these stories is an error that distorts our view of reality. So and so dropped out of high school and started a business while working a paper route. Everyone told our intrepid maverick that X … Read more Survivorship Bias: Dropping Out of School Won’t Make You a Billionaire. I Don’t Care Who Did It.
We can look at life as a series of judgments and conclusions. What is that person’s intent? What should I have for lunch? And many other decisions. When we improve our reasoning, we improve our capacity to gather and verify facts as well as update our beliefs. Doing so helps us make sense of the … Read more Logical Fallacy: Denying the Antecedent
How many times have you made what seemed like a great decision only to later realize how wrong you were? Don’t lie. It’s happened to us all. It’s not that you’re stupid or a bad decision-maker. It’s that your brain is trying to simplify your information processing. These cognitive biases serve a purpose in our … Read more The Secret to Better Decision Making
Throughout human history, impostor syndrome has plagued mankind. The first cave painters to modern writers and artists have felt the anxiety-causing bite of impostor syndrome over their great works. While I’m no great writer, I’ve dealt with it as well. In this post, I’m going to discuss my tactics for coping with impostor syndrome. The … Read more How to Cope With Impostor Syndrome