The Dark Side of Grit
Writer and venture capitalist Paul Graham tells the story about his friend, a successful doctor who constantly complained about her job. When she was in high school, she impulsively decided to be a doctor. She let her high school self choose her adult life and, driven solely by ambition, persisted despite it being a dull […]
The Hidden Path to Extraordinary Success
Winning a Nobel Prize is great. Fame has its benefits. But the true masters escaped the adapted self and were driven by something deeper than trophies or money. They wrote because they had to write. They composed because they had to compose. They were compelled by a feeling they neither understood nor could explain but […]
How to Receive a Nobel Prize
Richard Feynman was a physicist who, at one point in his career, was in a bit of a slump. He lamented how he used to enjoy physics because he “used to play with it.” Specifically, he recalls how “it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but […]
You Are Not Your Profession. You Are Not Your Mind. So Who Are You Really?
Many years ago, I woke up at 4 a.m. and a realization hit me all at once. I got out of bed and wrote this down — I’m a writer but I’m not really that. I’m a director of a business but I’m not really that. I’m a runner but I’m not really that. I’m […]
How to Overcome Established Thought Patterns and Think Independently
About 3,000 years ago in China, the board game Go was created, and today it’s one of the most complex games in existence. Two players take turns placing black and white stones on a grid, aiming to capture the most territory by surrounding their opponent’s stones. Early Go computer programs aimed to make the best […]