Year: 2019

  • Think systematically

    An enjoyable heuristic I’ve applied lately is how people have responded to the removal of plastic straws. Removing them is not a panacea for climate change; it’s meant to be a step in the direct direction. People’s habits don’t change overnight, and we know that incremental change is incredibly positive. Ya know, you crawl before…

  • Don’t dismiss someone else’s talents. You have no idea what work behind it

    This seems so obvious, but don’t ever EVER tell someone else “oh it comes easy for you, it’s tough for me.” You have no idea how easy/not easy something is for someone. To say something like that just makes you look like a dismissive knuckleface.

  • You don’t owe anyone anything

    I unfriend people all the time (and block too). I recently unfriended someone who kept ranting ‘liberalism is a disease.’ I can appreciate not agreeing with a point of view, but that kind of reductionist simpleton thinking? Pass. He messaged me asking why I was being passive-aggressive… Just a reminder – you don’t owe anyone…

  • The 2018 Annual Letter to the SJO Family

    The 2018 Annual Letter to the SJO Family

    Unless we take a moment to absorb what has happened to us and distill into knowledge we can apply for ourselves, we’ll be forever doomed to repeat our mistakes. So – I always take a moment to reflect on the past year to see what we did. I give you the third Annual Letter to…

  • This isn’t about you

    Last week was a bit of an explosion. I wrote for Ramit’s site (which he emailed on), I was featured on Nathan Chan’s Foundr Podcast, and it seems like Brian Clark mentioned our unemployable podcast again. This resulted in roughly 50 people contacting me. Most said hi (after joining SJO.com), but about a dozen wanted…