How to Live the Good Life
What does it mean to live a good life? What is true happiness? How much is enough? And how should you spend the time you have remaining? Aristotle asked these important questions more than 2,000 years ago. And he called the answer the golden mean. Aristotle (384 B.C. — 322 B.C.) was…
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How to See Opportunities Where Others See Obstacles
The story of Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg is the story of a central truth of history: that strength often becomes a weakness and weakness can be transformed into strength. The great strategist Saul Alinsky believed that if you “push a negative hard enough and deep enough it will break…
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Why You Should Be Pessimistic
To most people, philosophy is some confusing academic enterprise that’s of little practical use. When they want to make their lives better, they don’t turn to the ancients, they look to self-help gurus and how-to manuals. Which is funny because philosophy, in its truest most classical form, is actually civilization’s…
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4 Steps to Greater Creativity
Three weeks ago, in a majestic timbered lecture hall a few miles north of Big Sur on the Pacific Ocean, Eckhart Tolle held a series of talks during which he outlined the secrets to a life filled with inner peace, joy and an abundance of creativity. Being the author of…
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Don’t Trust Anyone Under 500
To the class of 2016 as you start the year, A lot of advice about how to live your life will be coming your way. Regardless of what anyone tells you, I ask that you do one thing: consider how old it is. I graduated college in 2009 fully intending…
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A Secret from My Past
I recently re-read The Secret. Don’t groan. It is instructive. The copywriting on the book jacket alone was worth the $17 spent on Amazon. But there was much more gold to mine in the content and structure of one of the most successful non-fiction books of this century. More importantly,…
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[History Lesson] The Death of a Man But Not of His Dream
On a morning flight from New York to LA, the reverend poured a stiff drink, took a cigarette from his pocket and lit up. It was 1963 and he was fighting for his life, politically, emotionally, and physically. He once admitted to the folk singer Joan Baez that he was…
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The 3 C’s of the Perfect Day
Your perfect day revolves around the three C’s; Control what you can, conquer the chaos, and concentrate on what really matters.
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How to Buy Happiness
Many times, the things/experiences that give us the greatest joy are free. But oftentimes, money is involved. And when that’s the case, we have to weigh the cost of the thing/experience against the pleasure we will get from it. One example: owning a home… In my book Automatic Wealth, I…
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How to Be as Happy as God’s Right Hand Man
On my last day in Rome, I woke up early in pursuit of a religious experience. I finished my morning readings and set out on a rare run across the Eternal City. My plan was to arrive at the Vatican steps at the same moment as the sunrise, hoping for…
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#1 Most Influential Book in My Life
Big dreams. Goals. Resolutions. Even the most cynical amongst us sets one or two in the back of our mind at this time of year. I don’t blame you. Each year I would sit down and create a laundry list of goals and milestones that I wanted to achieve in…
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Self-Delusion, The Great Disorder: Words of Wisdom from Adam Smith & Russ Roberts
“Self-deception can be more comforting than self-knowledge. We like to fool ourselves.” – Russ Roberts It’s his “other classic”… the one that few in our modern times have ever read, or even heard of. After all, how could Adam Smith, the “Patron Saint of Capitalism” have written a book dealing not with…
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