Following up yesterday’s post, “The basics: more simple and valuable than you think” about how the masters tend to focus on basics, I found a series of videos made by a great basketball player, Michael Jordan. He’s made few instructional videos. He could do things no one else could and made them look easy. He can teach anything he wants. So what does he teach? Simple basics. Things like getting[…] Keep reading →
Any performance-based skill development follows a similar pattern. I’ll describe it for playing guitar, but it follows for leading, acting, sports, any other musical instrument, singing, etc. The instrument: First you have to learn the instrument. If you don’t know its parts and how it’s assembled, you can’t do anything with it. Your skill: Next you have to learn how to move your fingers. You can’t play music until you[…] Keep reading →
Following up on “Passions, you create,” which I recommend rereading, where I wrote about passion not being something you happen to find, like if you just turned over enough rocks you’d find it… Everyone has the same potential to develop passions, as far as I can tell. If all you do is turn over rocks but never dig in—that is, look at what others do and think about those things[…] Keep reading →
Minutes after posting yesterday “If you have “too much to do†or “not enough time,†you’re not getting more done. You’re annoying.“, I realized I overstated myself. I realized it because I met a friend working on a small number of projects and getting them done, but still busy. I realized I wrongly included him and people like him who know their priorities in the larger group of people who[…] Keep reading →
I first noticed it in the last semester of business school when most students were complaining about having to choose between job offers. All the offers more than met their standards. Dwelling in their decisions instead of choosing and living their lives made them miserable instead of enjoying themselves. What made them miserable wasn’t that they had multiple offers—that is, the problem didn’t come from outside. The problem was their[…] Keep reading →
Why do I talk about my daily habits so much? I was talking to a friend yesterday about them. She told me she didn’t get to exercise as much as she’d like, especially in busy times, and asked how I found time to exercise and write every day. I asked how she got anything done without a daily routine. A daily routine gives you and your day structure. Losing that[…] Keep reading →
You have opinions about race, sex, homosexuality, class, politics, and other controversial topics. You probably only talk about them with people closest to you. Most of us won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, knowing how one public statement can destroy a life. We believe we don’t have that freedom. If you don’t believe you have it, you can’t do it. How about talking about them to the media for[…] Keep reading →
A reader who decided to take on a month of cold showers updated me half way through. Note how the benefits endure for a long time and affect many parts of her life while the discomfort lasts only a few minutes. That’s a great trade if you ask me. Here’s what she wrote: So far, so good. I’m not sure I had any specific expectations regarding the experience to start. […] Keep reading →
[This post is part of a series on Cold Showers. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] I got this email from a reader this morning: This caught my eye this morning. Watched the video. I’m accepting the 30 day challenge which will conveniently end the day before my 46th[…] Keep reading →