Exercise takes mental effort, not just physical effort. Everyone’s mind handles the challenge differently, but some things are common. I find some people feel silly or awkward about their thoughts. More than any other thoughts, I think about fractions of the way finished I am. For example, a lap of Central Park is six miles. I know roughly where each mile is. The first mile is one-sixth, or about sixteen[…] Keep reading →

I just read yet another post of someone saying eating healthy takes more time and money. I can’t believe how wrong that view is, at least by my experience. Living in New York City means I have access to some of the best restaurants in the world. I can afford to eat at them. Yet my past year’s cooking has disillusioned me in them. I find them disappointing. Their food[…] Keep reading →

If this doesn’t sound like leadership and the rest of what I usually write about, it is. It’s about awareness, perception, discovery, and living your life. Increasingly I see food and how you eat as fundamental to leading yourself. Cabbage is delicious! I grew up thinking it was supposed to taste bad. I thought maybe when I grew up I would “acquire the taste for it.” I never bought cabbage[…] Keep reading →

Extra words water down what you say. “Go ahead and…” for example. People with lower status use more words to say the same thing. People who feel insecure keep talking and explaining more than they need. I think people are afraid of implying they’re equal to people they see above them. Is that what you want for yourself? Speak more succinctly and see if weathering the challenge leads you to[…] Keep reading →

My latest Inc.com story “Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker and Most of Academia Got Wrong” begins Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker, and Most of Academia Got Wrong If you want to be resilient, not just know about resilience, research and the media won’t help you. [the story starts with a picture of an athlete covered in mud, struggling to make it] You’re covered in[…] Keep reading →

Everyone says they care about the environment. Talk is cheap. How they behave tells you what they care about. If they choose themselves over something they say they care about, that tells you their priority. I talk a lot about how I try to avoid flying because the pollution it causes hurts people. When people talk about how much more first-worlders pollute more than others, flying contributes a lot. But[…] Keep reading →

School Doing a gratitude exercise recently, writing my undergraduate advisor who helped me figure out how to major in physics starting my second semester junior year. Physics is intense so most of my classmates were younger, having known their major since high school. So academically, I was catching up with classmates from when I chose my major. I just finished the major in my last semester and got into Penn[…] Keep reading →