It’s Wednesday late afternoon. I’m aboard Delta flight 1833 from Cincinnati (actually, Northern Kentucky for what it’s worth) to Los Angeles.
I had a very enjoyable day in Cincinnati meeting many…

“Why?” is the most important question, not asked nearly enough.

Hint: “Because I said so,” is not a valid answer.

Why does it work this way?

Why is that our goal?

Why did you say no?

Why are…

Chad Mureta runs his seven-figure app business from his iPhone. (Photo: Jorge Quinteros).
I first met Chad Mureta in Napa Valley in 2011.
Two years prior, he had been in a horrible car accident. He’d …

Human nature is to reason in certainties. It takes training to rid yourself of that handicap. Nobel-laureate, Richard Feynman, said it best:

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it’s much …

Nit-picky discussion on the use and placement of commas? Yes, please.

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Drew Magary, writing for Deadspin:

If you’re 35 years old and you’re thinking about retaking the SAT as a kind of blog stunt, I would highly recommend you avoid it. In fact, I would recommend…

From The Cardinal Virtues, 1902
By William De Witt Hyde
COURAGE
If man were merely a mind, wisdom to see particular desires in the light of their permanent consequences to self, and justice to weigh…

Instagram. It’s understandably on everybody’s mind these days. Clichés abound about, “You know what would be cool? …”
I’ll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social…

You’re not half as annoyed when you get a $25 parking ticket as you are when the fine is $50.

An investment banker isn’t twice as excited about a $20 million bonus as she is about a $10 million one.
…

Most people in the Western world know how easy it is to send words, pictures, videos, and more across the globe in an instant. You don’t have to do it, and you don’t have to like it, but the…

I loved this comment on Hacker News, especially the last paragraph which I’ll quote here:
The question implicit in your comment is: Could we design a system that offers the ease of accessibility of…

Maybe you’ve seen this short film.

The first thing that made me smile was how willing Caine was to do his art regardless of how the world responded (it didn’t). Caine didn’t care. The goal wasn’t to …

Whenever I bring up the possibility of getting an education without going to school, I quickly get objections:

“Without credentials at the end, a university education is meaningless.”
“You can’t…

I’m very excited for our latest release from A Book Apart available today, Mike Monteiro’s Design Is a Job. I’ve been working in design a while now and good handbooks on how to do it right are few…

It’s easy to join.

There are a million reasons to say no, but few reasons to stand up and say yes.

No requires just one objection, one defensible reason to avoid change. No has many allies–anyone…

Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean we need to pay the slightest bit of attention.

There are two things that disqualify someone from being listened to:

1. Lack of Standing. If you are not a customer, a…

Post written by Leo Babauta.
The habit of meditation is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever learned.
Amazingly, it’s also one of the most simple habits to do — you can do it anywhere, any time, …

This guest post from Corinne is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success or…

jasonfried: Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs’ relentless focus on focus: http://t.co/GU4f2Uyn

This series is brought to you by TurboTax Federal Free Edition. What’s this?

Last month we explored the personal finance wisdom that can be gleaned from the life of Benjamin Franklin. Today we…

Intros. They’re the lifeblood of networking – the currency of mavens. They are your route to angel money. Your entrée to sales meetings.
We couldn’t live without them.
But when misused, overused or…

Did you wake up fresh today, a new start, a blank slate with resources and opportunities… or is today yet another day of living out the narrative you’ve been engaged in for years?

For all of us,…

Executive function means being able to see the big picture and sort through details to arrive at a good decision. You probably have met more than a few people with very poor executive function. This…

Lukas Mathis:

Like any self-respecting UI designer, I have a cheap digital microscope sitting on my desk. Here are some pictures comparing a bunch of different screens.

✚ Permalink

(Photo: watz)
If you’re a white-collar worker, hacking your body isn’t limited to the gym. In fact, what you do outside of the gym might be more important that what you do inside the gym.
Recent…

Mark Willis pitches some interesting solutions to common problems. The hiccup in signal continuity for when the iPhone decides to transition from a dwindling wi-fi signal to 3G drives me nuts as…

richardbranson: Congratulations to @spanx founder Sara Blakely: the youngest self-made Rebel Billionaire http://t.co/HY7VCjXs

Sometimes Apple makes things simple. Sometimes it does not. There are many iPads to choose from today. More than yesterday.I pre-ordered the 32 GB black wi-fi-only ‘iPad’ (third generation) today,…

How to write an email?
What’s next? A post on how to tie your shoes?
I know, I know. Email is such an ubiquitous part of our lives that you might think that people would naturally have it down pat.…

When I played clarinet in high school, I never practiced. I blamed it on my dog, who howled, but basically I was a lousy music student.

At my weekly lesson, though, the teacher would scold me,…

Last week, we explained some of the mechanisms by which individuals, companies, and financial institutions move money across international borders. Such networks are an important part of the global…

There are two kinds of freedom. Freedom from (negative freedom) and freedom to (positive freedom). The splitting of freedom into this binary framework can be traced at least back to Kant, was…

How often have you talked with another guy who never looked you in the eye during the entire length of the conversation? Or perhaps he did meet your gaze a few times, but then his eyes shifted back…

But bravery does.

The challenge of work-life balance is a relatively new one, and it is an artifact of a world where you get paid for showing up, paid for hours spent, paid for working.

In that…

In our first post in this two-part series on eye contact, we discussed the importance of eye contact and some of the reasons we don’t always feel comfortable looking someone in the eye.
But just…

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Tyler Tervooren of Advanced Riskology.
I used to have a lot of bad habits. I still do, but I used to have a lot more. Here’s just a small sampling:

I woke up …

Excitement about goals is often diminished by our fear of failure or the drudgery of work.If you’re short on passion, it might be because your goals are too small or the fear is too big.

Do a job…

We send a lot of mail for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire (and some for Sortfolio, the Jobs Board, Writeboard, and Tadalist). One of the most frequently asked questions we get is about how …

BUILDING CREDIBILITY has been on my mind for a long time. With several hours of time to write as I travel, it seemed a good time to capture and share my thoughts after some reflection.One of the…

Unless someone does, things start to fray around the edges.

Often it’s the CEO or the manager who sets a standard of caring about the details. Even better is a culture where everyone cares, and…

Years ago, my bosses and I needed to finalize the pricing for a new line of software I was launching. In the room we had MBAs from Harvard (2), Stanford, Tuck and, I think, Wharton. We had three…

I’ve always been fascinated by airplane crashes. Unlike car accidents, which are often blamed on driver (and thus human) error, airplane crashes are considered engineering failures, so the…

Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels
Chip Conley is the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, which he began at age 26 and built to more than 30 properties in California alone. In 2010, Joie…

Fascinating well-researched investigative report by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher for the New York Times, on the rise of China as a manufacturing power and the corresponding effect on middle…

Aaron Ricadela, reporting for Bloomberg:

Personal-computer makers are counting on ultrabooks to challenge
the MacBook Air, Apple’s best-selling laptop, which is less than
an inch thick. Still,…

This guest post from Felix is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or…

Five years ago today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone for the first time, completely changing the mobile industry. (If you haven’t watched his keynote lately, you should. It is his best…