Curiosity Chronicle

I recently got a message from a 22-year-old reader asking for career advice. Career advice is a topic area that I have always found interesting, probably because I feel it so often misses the mark. I take this as a challenge. I sat down and synthesized the advice I would have wanted to receive early in my career (or what I would tell my own son if he were just starting out). The 7 pieces of career...

Question: Which thorns do you choose? Framework: The Question of Nine.

The Wall Street Journal recently released a visual breaking down how people spend their time in retirement. The visual shows that the majority of a retiree's time is spent on sleeping, relaxing and leisure, and watching television. Most of us create this beautiful image of what retirement will look like, but the reality is (likely) much different. Why? Well, the image we create is based on who we...

Question: What are the boat anchors in your life? Framework: Q1 relationships.

David Brooks first proposed a distinction between Résumé Virtues and Eulogy Virtues. Résumé Virtues are the things you put on your resume. Eulogy Virtues are the things people talk about at your funeral. What I've resolved: We can build both, but only by focusing on the correct directionality. A purposeful focus on Eulogy Virtues will build Résumé Virtues, but a focus on Résumé Virtues will not bu...

Question: The way you treat yourself. Framework: The Shirky Principle.

The Parable of the Two Arrows: "In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional." Victor Frankl, the Austrian philosopher and Holocaust survivor renowned for his contributions to existential psychology, has a brilliant framing for this: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our powe...

I was recently struck by a realization: The people I read books about are very rarely the people I would ever want to trade lives with. Why? The price of their success was not one I would be willing to pay. There is a price tag for anything you want to achieve in life. Every single thing you want is an output that requires certain inputs to buy or earn. There's a "list price" (actual, direct price...

Question: If I repeated this day for 100 days, would my life be better or worse? Framework: The 5 Second Rule.

Welcome to the second half of 2023. If you've kept up your New Year's resolutions and feel on track, great! If not, that's ok, because even if the best time to start was 6 months ago, the second best time is today. Today, I'd like to share a distillation of my 10 favorite ideas from the 52 newsletters I've written so far this year. The ideas covered: Spotlight Effect, 1-1-1 Method, Eisenhower Matr...

Question: What would this look like if it were easy? Framework: The wind and the sun.

A mental model is a way to think about the world. It is a tool—a lens through which you can simplify, evaluate, and make decisions in real time as you walk through life. When faced with any key decision, you effectively choose one of two potential characters: Investor or Borrower. The Investor is a long-term thinker who makes an investment to delay gratification, while the Borrower is a short-term...

This is the first in a new series of shorts that will cover one question and one framework to get you thinking heading into the weekend. Question: What are the elements of your ideal life at 80-years-old? Framework: Self-Handicapping (and how to avoid it). 

What have you changed your mind on recently? Egocentric Bias says that we convince ourselves of the accuracy of our own personal perspective—that we view ourselves as unimpeachable—and therefore struggle to acknowledge any perspectives or data that may alter our understanding of the world. The parable of The Blind Men and The Elephant tells the story of six blind men who examine one part of an ele...

Confession: I am a nervous public speaker. But confident public speaking is a critical skill, so we need a set of strategies to increase our confidence and perform as the best version of ourselves. Prep Strategies: (1) Study the best speakers and learn from them, (2) Create a clear storytelling structure, and (3) Build "lego blocks" but avoid rote memorization. Pre-Stage Strategies: (1) Address th...

In the early 1970s, Stanford psychology researcher Dr. Mark Lepper conducted a study with a group of young children that found those who had received a reward for completing a task experienced lower intrinsic motivation to perform that task in the future. The Passion Paradox: We have a deep desire to chase our passions, but by chasing them, we may actually reduce our passion for them. Three strate...

You're firing on all cylinders personally and professionally—inspired and motivated. Then, suddenly, you aren't. Things become very, very difficult. You're in a rut. I've developed a useful set of principles for managing these swings and working out of them. My three-step method to work out of a rut: (1) Stop digging, (2) Change direction, and (3) Create movement. Ruts will happen. When they do, s...

A Reddit post I shared that read, "PSA: 20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids" sparked a lot of online dialogue last week. Our default setting of work worship may be slowly, methodically robbing us of joyful, fulfilling, comprehensively wealthy lives. Perhaps it’s worth questioning the default setting—to begin living by design, rather than by defau...

In the 1980s, Microsoft founder Bill Gates began an annual tradition he called the Think Week. Gates would seclude himself in a remote location, shut off all of his communication, and spend an entire week dedicated to reading, learning, and thinking. While I knew I didn't have an entire week to dedicate to it (due to early career demands, family priorities, etc.), I figured I could adapt something...

While in Omaha at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, I got into a long conversation with a friend and mentor on one particularly impressive facet of the show: The effortless air about Buffett and Munger's entire performance, the ease and elegance with which they operate in what looks like a pressure-packed situation. The term sprezzatura has come to be defined as a "studied carelessness" in th...

We all struggle with some degree of self-doubt and fear of failure. It's particularly common among ambitious high-achievers, who, by definition, are constantly putting themselves in situations that are on the edge of their current competency level. Character Invention: Create a character in your mind who can show up in the way you want to and teach yourself to "flip the switch" to become this char...

Investor Graham Duncan coined the phrase "Time Billionaire" as someone who has over one billion seconds to live. To me, being a “Time Billionaire” isn’t necessarily about having the actual time, but about the awareness of the precious nature of the time you do have. It is about embracing the shortness of life and finding joy in ordinary daily moments of beauty. Treat time as your ultimate currency...

We live in a culture that endlessly promotes and celebrates the achievement of the extraordinary—of those who accomplished some supreme feat in a single, narrow domain. The Trap of the Extraordinary is that we conflate success with the achievement of the extraordinary. Winners are those who achieve the extraordinary, losers are those who do not. To escape the trap, there are two mindset shifts to...

The Spotlight Effect is a common psychological phenomenon where we overestimate the degree to which other people are noticing or observing our actions, behaviors, appearance, or results. Pre-conditioned fear of placing yourself in "spotlight situations" means you shrink yourself down from your true potential. This is a tremendous drag on growth. To fight back: (1) Develop an awareness of the Spotl...

The Learning Pyramid indicates that teaching is a much more effective driver of retention than reading or lecture. The goal should be to move rapidly to teaching in order to cement new learning. The Feynman Technique is a learning model that leverages teaching and prioritizes simplicity to help you develop a deep understanding of any topic. The four key steps of the Feynman Technique: (1) Set the...