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 [...]

Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
– Laurence J. Peter
The World’s Fastest Man in 1980, Allan Wells, would not have made the podium in the 100-metre races at the Beijing Olympics last year. In fact, his winning time of 10.25 would not have even qualified him for the [...]

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 [...]

Earlier this evening, I stumbled on two videos which completely blew me away.
The first is a TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor. She’s a brain scientist who had a massive stroke and lived to tell the tale. In fact, she was fully aware of what was going on for some time after a blood vessel [...]

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 [...]

The first step is to find out what you love–and don’t be practical about it. The second is to start doing what you love immediately, in any small way possible.
– Barbara Sher
There have been three key moments in my life so far that have, more than anything else, shaped who I am today. In every [...]

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
– Henry David Thoreau
We often think of personal growth as being top-down. You start by asking yourself the Big Questions (TM), followed by [...]