The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you’re not good enough. On occasion some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don’t take it personally when they say “no” – they may not be smart enough to [...]

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
– Oscar Wilde
A while back I read a book called Real-Time Relationships, by Stefan Molyneux. It’s a book about creating relationships that are healthy, enjoyable, loving, and virtuous. The author hosts a philosophy podcast called Freedomain Radio, which deals with everything from overcoming procrastination and [...]

Morten Lund is as entrepreneurial as it gets. He has invested in more than 80 companies around the world, most famously Skype.
The first couple minutes of this video, a speech Lund gave about entrepreneurship at Le Web ‘08 in Paris, are rough going as they get the presentation set up. But the remaining 10 minutes [...]

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
– Aristotle
As Ayn Rand pointed out in her excellent book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, we are all philosophers.
We all have a certain attitude towards life, we all have different hypotheses regarding Flying Spaghetti Monsters, and we all have a standard by which [...]

A common recipe for personal growth is to start with what you have, identify what sucks about it, and try to make it suck less. Software developers call this “fixing bugs.”
“Fixing bugs” may seem like a natural metaphor for personal development, but in most cases this is actually an extremely limited, even harmful, perspective. [...]

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
– Thomas Jefferson
Deception is cancerous. The first mutation of a truth charts a path to colonize its host. One fib demands another, two lies need the proof of two more, until eventually even the most innocent half-truth metastasizes into a falsehood requiring surgery.
A lie is a [...]

It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.
– Author Unknown
If your primary goal in life is to meet an amazing woman, you probably won’t.
Setting out on a mission to find a girlfriend is like starting a company to get rich: It focusses you on the wrong things and [...]

Insist upon yourself. Be original.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Original ideas are like UFOs: They attract attention, the pilots are often assumed to be from another planet, and they usually have rounded corners.
An original idea is just a thought expressed in a way that no one has expressed it before. There is no such thing as an [...]

Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.
– George Lois
Since I started 30 sleeps, I’ve always imagined writing to be just one of several mediums through which I speak to the world. The written word can transport a serious payload, but there’s nothing quite like reaching out to [...]

Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
– Chuang Tzu
95% of everything you’ll ever need to know about meeting women can be summed up in four words: Go with the flow. Instead of trying to meet girls, focus entirely on [...]