Tynan
I’m the creator of CruiseSheet and author of 6 books. Former poker player, one of the main characters in The Game, bought an island, called "King of the Nerds" by Gawker and "Quint...
- Posts
- 720 from 15 Jun 2012 to 29 Sep 2026
- Posting
- monthly (11 in the last year)
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- personal blog
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- https://tynan.com/feed
2026 9
2025 7
2024 8
- The Island Since Covid
- How I Changed My Mind and Ate Less
- Having a Good Marriage
- A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Analog Travel Watches
- Why I Quit Chipotle and What I Eat InsteadI've been eating Chipotle most days that I am home for over 10 years. I travel about 30-50% of the year, but during covid I ordered it so much that Chipotle sent me an email to tell me...
- Ten Year Predictions Checked and MadeTen years ago I wrote a blog post about where I thought I'd be in 2024. We're finally here! Looking back at the blog post now I can remember exactly what my life was like back then, and...
- Two Questions from a Fellow Tea LoverI recently asked for post suggestions and a reader named Ellie had a bunch of questions about tea that I think bring up interesting points. First, a little bit of background— I've been...
- Takussaagut 2023I spent New Year's Eve in London, watching literally thousands of fireworks at once from my friend's high-rise apartment. I know I say the same thing every year, but 2023 was my best ye...
2023 11
- Superhuman 5 Event in March 2024It's been too long! I just did a Tea Time with Tynan video and several people asked if I was going to do any more Superhuman events. I've been wanting to schedule one, but I host it in...
- Gear Post 2024Remember the days when I would actually get the gear post done in time for Black Friday so that you could get better prices? Well, those days are back, at least this year. I'm really ex...
- How I Choose What to Work OnA reader, "Moo", asked me to write about my process for entrepreneurship and how I choose what to write on. Despite being a lifelong entrepreneur and being relatively successful at it,...
- Getting into PinballAlmost exactly a year ago, I began playing pinball at my friend Noah's house. I didn't understand how he could be so interested in Pinball that he bought two machines, but since I was s...
- Pool Fillers and PersistenceWhen I sit in my tea room, I have a decent view out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. I can see the pool, the patio, the cacti that my wife and I planted, and… a really ugly pool...
- Home Automation in 2023I've written about home automation a few times in the past, but so much has changed since last time I wrote about it that I feel like I have much more practical advice to give than in t...
- A Neighborhood With FriendsWhen I first moved to Vegas, it was mostly an accident. I bought a condo because I couldn't pass up the deal, and during the process of renovating it I fell in love with the city and ev...
- The Three Best Tea Houses in the WorldAs any regular reader knows, I love tea. I drink it almost every single day, and when I'm with my friends it is the activity I look forward to the most. In some ways that sounds dumb, b...
- Choosing the Rewards You Respond ToSomeone in the cruise business told me recently that I should start charging cancellation fees. I have to pay the cruise lines a small amount every time someone cancels a cruise. He is...
- Gear Post 2023It's that time of the year again! I think a lot more changed this year versus the previous year, probably because I went fairly travel-crazy this year. As always I think "There's barely...
- Sayonara 2022I can't believe 2022 is over already. Like 2021 I didn't feel as though as much changed in my life as has changed in many prior years, but this year I feel much less directionless than...
2022 14
- Conversation Skills EssentialsA teacher friend of mine told me that this year students were different. If she asked to see a hall pass from a freshman, they'd give her the finger. They swore at her and were generall...
- Gratitude 2022Last year's gratitude post was written largely about my father coming to Vegas to help me with some home improvement projects, so it feels fitting that I'm writing this as I fly across...
- Believing Anything is PossibleMy friend Brian and I got back to the island for the first time in a year. The owners have various levels of interest and ability in getting to the island and working on it, but Brian a...
- The Projects I DidThe last trip I did in August was a trip to Austin, Texas. I stayed with my good friend Noah Kagan, who happens to have two pinball machines in his house. I've never really understood p...
- What I've Been Thinking and DoingOne of the downsides of writing less frequently is that I feel more pressure for each post to be impactful (even though readers have pretty consistently told me that they just want me t...
- Patient and DecisiveThere are a few things that I consider to be the most important things to think about and focus on, primarily because they have enormous downstream effects that impact almost everything...
- How to Love the Bear MarketIf you're an investor in anything other than real estate, you're probably in the middle of a bear market right now. And if you're a real estate investor… these rising interest rates cou...
- Having Good Interactions With Store EmployeesThe other day I walked into Dandelion Chocolate. There was a bit of a line, but the second barista, who wasn't taking orders, asked what drink I was going to have. Iced chocolate chai (...
- Crossword Scores: Did I Get Dumber Because of Covid?My experience having covid wasn't bad at all and I feel like I have no lasting effects, but all of the recent articles about how covid affects one's brain long-term made me wonder wheth...
- Why Hockey is The Best SportIt started during the Stanley Cup playoffs of last year. Las Vegas has a team called the Vegas Golden Knights, who have generally done very well since becoming a team five years ago. My...
- Everything I've 3D PrintedThe thing about a 3D printer is that buying one and learning to use it can rarely be justified by just one project. In fact, what makes it most valuable is that it can do dozens of tiny...
- The 285% Stock TradeBack in September 2020 I mentioned a stock trade that I had executed and estimated at having an 80% chance of roughly tripling and a 20% chance of going to zero. I said that if anyone a...
- Gear Post 2022Ok! Gear Post! I get it! For the record, I always get the gear post done as early as I can reasonably get it done, aiming for the end of the year. What often delays me is going down las...
- Auf Wiedersehen 2021I always write a yearly wrap-up, and this years feels harder than most. If I were to try to come up with a theme for my year it would be "sort of a weird return to partial normalcy", wh...
2021 37
- SacrificeSomeone was asking for advice a couple weeks ago. They wanted to make more money, but really their problem was that they didn’t save enough money. Not that making more wouldn’t be great...
- Gratitude 2021I write at least one post about gratitude per year, and each year I find the task a little bit more difficult because I have even more to be thankful for and narrowing it down to just o...
- Vermeer Quest Complete!In either 2013 or 2014 I decided to see every Vermeer painting in the world. I've always been drawn to his paintings, and when I found out that there were only about 36 (two are dispute...
- Beethoven's 10th SymphonyApparently this blog is now about me reading random articles on the internet and then going to Germany because of them. Luckily it's not always about getting Covid while I'm there. This...
- My Experience Getting CovidI tested negative in Germany, and boarded my flight. I felt great. When I woke up on the plane I noticed that I had a slight runny nose and just felt a bit "off". I figured that the run...
- A Day or Two in DresdenI woke up to an email from my mom with a link to a story about the restoration of the Vermeer painting, "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window". You may remember that I'm trying to se...
- Moving Away from Weekly PostingI can't remember or easily find when I started writing weekly posts, but I think it's been something like 5-7 years. Since committing to doing so I haven't once missed a week, although...
- Negative CashUp until about a year ago I was against debt. Most debt I had encountered was opportunities to buy things one couldn't afford, which didn't appeal to me, or situations I couldn't make u...
- How I Evaluated Risk During CovidI like to talk about EV and risk management a lot, but most of my examples are finance based, as the math is the clearest in those cases. Covid, however, presented a unique situation fo...
- Back in Europe After CovidAs I got off the plane yesterday, I kept saying "wow…" underneath my mask. Going to Europe was more or less part of my monthly routine two years ago, but thenCovid kept me out for a yea...
- My First Time Playing Poker in 5 YearsMy friend Todd was visiting Vegas from Japan for the past few weeks. When I asked if there was any Vegas stuff he wanted to do while he was here, I was surprised to hear him say that he...
- Home AutomationOne of the projects I've been tinkering with constantly for the past nine months or so that we've lived at our new house is home automation. I've been into home automation since about 1...
- Superhuman 4.5 in AugustMy live event, Superhuman 4.5, will be held in Las Vegas on August 14th and 15th (with an optional meetup the night before). Reflecting on the changes brought about by the pandemic, one...
- Why I Switched Back to Wordpress and What I LearnedIf you read the blog through the web you may notice that, for the first time in about a decade, it looks different. If you get posts by email you hopefully don't notice anything, but si...
- How to Get Maximum Enjoyment From CruisesIt's no secret that I absolutely love cruising. Every year I organize a few cruises and try to get as many of my friends as possible to join me. The only limit I have on how many days p...
- Variance and InvestingOne of the best things to come from my career as a professional gambler is a deep unconscious understanding of risk, odds, EV, and variance. The downside to this is that I see people ma...
- You Have More Options When You're WeirdIn many ways my life is very weird. Sometimes when I'm about to make a statement like that I try to think of a relatable example of how I'm not weird in some way, but it's hard to come...
- How I Make Purchasing DecisionsDespite being a pretty severe minimalist for a long time, I think I'm now known a lot for what I buy. I worry about this a little bit sometimes, because I don't think being a great cons...
- The Best Food in Hilo, HawaiiI don't really consider myself to be a foodie, but the food in Hilo is SO good that it's one of the things I most look forward to every time I visit. I've been to the major Hawaiian isl...
- Attainable ExcellenceBy strange coincidence, I know a lot of people starting restaurants. Some are friends, some are family members, and some I've just gotten to know because I eat at their restaurants all...
- Filter More OutWe're all looking for the next thing that we should be doing or paying attention to. Maybe that's even part of why you read this blog. This is a good pursuit of course, but it often see...
- How to Invest in FriendshipsIn just about any way I can think of, I have an amazing life. But of all of the aspects of my life that bring me happiness, the most important one is the relationships I have with my fr...
- Your Annual Reminder to Move to VegasI used to say that Vegas was the best place in the US to live (with a few caveats), as long as you didn't have to be here the whole year and could travel. And then 2020 came, I couldn't...
- Going Green for Fun and ProfitWhen we moved from an apartment to a house recently, I saw it as an opportunity to explore energy efficiency. I knew that switching to more efficient alternatives usually doesn't pay of...
- Dealing with PrivilegeI'm a white male who was born into a loving and smart middle class family with a big support network of extended family. My family prioritized good schools, even when it was a financial...
- What You Need to Know About Buying Properties with FriendsEveryone always asks me for more posts about buying property with friends, but I never really knew what they wanted to know. Last week on my new YouTube Live show, Tea Time with Tynan,...
- Leading LeadersOne of the best compliments I ever received was when a friend told me that I was a leader of leaders. He was also a leader, so it meant a lot coming from him. I've had this topic on my...
- 2021 Survey Results and My First LivestreamWow! Almost 300 people replied to the survey, most pretty thoroughly, and gave me tons to think about. I'll be digesting and acting on the feedback for a long time, but I wanted to shar...
- Reflecting on Fifteen Years of Blogging (Plus a Survey)I always mean to be clever and commemorate years of blogging on roughly the anniversary of me beginning blogging, but I never remember when it is, and then every year think, "Okay, Ill...
- Crafting Your IdentityOne of the best things about the rise of technology is that it has enabled us to connect with people all over the world. I thought about this today when I randomly came across an "over...
- Why I Didn't Buy a TeslaMy Bentley was delivered back to me recently. It came in a tow truck and the trim was removed from the dash and piled up in the trunk along with half of the trim of some random Mercedes...
- Making SpaceMost people who come to me for advice are either working too hard or not hard enough. The latter group knows that there's a problem and want to fix it, but the former group always come...
- Why I Love Buying Properties With FriendsWhen I talk about buying properties with friends (we've bought an island, a flat in Budapest, an apartment in Tokyo, and an apartment in Hawaii), some people get it immediately. Others...
- DIY Home Projects Can Be EasyWhen I was a kid and something needed to be repaired or built, my father did it. He plumbed things, ran new lights and wires, built new walls, and even built new additions to our houses...
- How to Stick to a ProjectI like writing about things that I used to be terrible at but am now good at, because I can be sure that those things could be learned by anyone. In the past I was unable to stick to an...
- Ingenuity vs MoneyMy very first "business" was buying and selling used Palm Pilots and Apple Newtons. I would negotiate back and forth over the smallest increments of money, both on the buying and sellin...
- Sayonara 2020I know many people are cursing 2020 and are glad that it's over, but the older I get the more I realize that any time is good time, and that what we do with what we're given is more imp...
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- Four Difficulty Levels of LifeThere are several different difficulty levels on which you can live your life. They are ascendingly difficult, though the difficulty is really mostly in switching to that method of livi...
- Why I MovedI wasn't planning on writing about this because I don't think it's all that interesting, but so many people have been surprised and asked why we moved that I guess it warrants a post! F...
- What It's Like Living in a Bad NeighborhoodI live in two "bad" neighborhoods. One is my apartment in Vegas, and the other is our shared apartment in Hawaii. The way I'd define both areas is that they're among the cheapest housin...
- Gear Post 2021This year's gear post isn't all that different from last year's (can you guess why?) but there are enough new cool things that I think it's worth doing one. Hopefully travel becomes a l...
- Gratitude 2020Usually in my annual gratitude post I write about people in my life. My family and friends are an easy source of unending gratitude. This year, though, I want to write about something a...
- Stability and UtilityAs far as I can tell, money has two valid uses: stability and utility. It has a lot of other uses as well, like signaling and scorekeeping, but these are poor uses of money and focusing...
- How to Be SecureWhy are some people secure while others aren't? Is it because they deserve or don't deserve to be secure? There are enough obvious counter-examples to that idea to dismiss it immediatel...
- VR For Non GamersIf you've read my blog for a while, you might be surprised to see a post that's about video games. I've never written about video games before because I have never really played them. A...
- What You Should Know About Buying Light BulbsLast summer I got to travel to Uzbekistan with some friends from the area, and we were randomly invited to visit the house of one of the five richest families in the country. However in...
- How to Be CarefreeOne of the greatest luxuries in life is to not have to worry. This isn't possible for all people at all times, but there are things all of us can do to be more carefree, especially thos...
- Your PastI was one of the very lucky ones, though it took me a long time to understand just how lucky I was. I grew up with loving parents, siblings with whom I never fought, very involved grand...
- My First International Trip in 7 MonthsSince my last blog post I traveled internationally for the first time in almost seven months. That period of time represents the longest time I've stayed in one country since 2008, I th...
- Turn Maybes into WinsWe all want good things to happen in our lives. Sometimes these good things stem from obvious wins that can be picked up easily, like accepting a new job offer or going on a second date...
- Your Time ScaleWe make hundreds or thousands of subconscious decisions each day, but just because they're subconscious doesn't mean that we have no influence on them. Quite the opposite, they are actu...
- Investment PrinciplesA friend asked me if I had any rules for investing, not necessarily in stocks but in other things, and I said that I didn't have hard and fast rules, but thought about it more in terms...
- Why I Love Escape Games (Even in VR)My friend Michiru was very excited about a new thing that some of her Japanese friends had brought to San Francisco. It was called a "puzzle break room" and her description of it made a...
- A Basic Formula for ContentednessA friend and I were discussing food. I told him that I didn't care about food, and he laughed and said that I cared more about food than anyone he knew. I am so obsessed with ingredient...
- Being FascinatedFor the past few days I've had a spring in my step. Why? Because I'm writing some tax-loss-harvesting and rebalancing software, of course. Yesterday, as I was coding, I realized how mon...
- SubscribeI have been writing blog posts since 2005 and generally write one post per week. Subscribe to my site to using the box below get these posts delivered to your inbox directly so that you...
- Choosing How to Invest Time and MoneyPartially because of my previous two posts about managing your finances like a billionaire and because of the obvious impact of of coronavirus on CruiseSheet, I've gotten a lot of email...
- Managing Your Money Like a Billionaire: Part 2This is a continuation of last week's post. Read it first or this won't make much sense. One clarification from last week that several people pointed out is that my definition of Beta w...
- Managing Your Money Like a Billionaire: Part 1These past couple weeks represent the biggest shift in my understanding of personal finance in many years, maybe even decades. Things that never made much sense to me (and which I dismi...
- A Step by Step Guide to Life PrioritizationI've been asked a lot recently about how I manage different priorities and how I translate those priorities into day-to-day actions. It's always a good question, but with many of us fin...
- What I Learned About Learning from Tea CeremonyI've been studying Japanese tea ceremony for a little over a year now. The way you learn is by watching people who are better than you, trying to imitate them, and then receiving correc...
- Procrastination on High Mental Load TasksAs I mentioned in my last post, one of the things I did recently was move Sett to a new server. This is a task that I had every reason to do five years ago, but had been dreading and pu...
- What I've Done Since Quarantine StartedI've been quarantining in Las Vegas for four months now, so I thought that it would be fun to write about how I've used that time so far, especially because I've done a few projects tha...
- Think Bigger to Motivate YourselfI see a lot of people struggle with motivation, especially those who are already doing well. That represents a big loss of potential, as those who have already achieved some level of su...
- How To Make Amazing FriendsA reader emailed me recently and asked how I'm able to have such a great group of friends who are so adventurous and into crazy ideas like buying an island and other properties around t...
- Enjoying Paying for ValueBeginning around high school, one of my major core values was paying the least possible amount for everything. I was always trying to figure out how to get things for massive discounts...
- Reflections on 90 Days of Not TravelingI don't keep very close track, but last year I went through emails and discovered that I had purchased about 100 plane tickets for that year. Many were short hops to reposition and some...
- What I've Learned By Doing the NY Times Crossword 800 Days in a RowBefore getting into this post, I should come clean: there was actually one friday about 450 days ago where I thought that I had already done the day's puzzle but I hadn't. So far that r...
- Long Term Valuable OutputThere was a time in my life when I was singularly obsessed with output. I rated my days in terms of how much output I had produced that day and tried, within reason, to limit anything t...
- Create a Stable Life, not a Stable JobJust a few months ago I was talking to a new flight attendant about her job. I remarked at what a stable job it was, since people always need to fly, they have strong unions, and the ai...
- 3D PrintingWhen I first began quarantine I was extremely productive. I rewrote some big parts of CruiseSheet and got a lot of work done. Then after a week or so I had cleaned out my backlog of tas...
- Thinking about PoliticsI have almost no interest in politics, but I am interested in our country and society, so I inevitably get dragged into various political topics. If there's one thing I'm certain of in...
- A Second Year of Writing 52 Posts in 10 DaysIn 2018 I wrote 52 blog posts on a cruise and scheduled them for the following year. They actually ended up lasting more than a month longer because of other posts I wrote in real time...
- My Thought Process on Buying a Boat + AftermathCommon knowledge says that buying a boat is a pretty dumb financial thing to do, and yet I find myself on the precipice of buying one. I'm in a familiar holding pattern where I haven't...
- Finding Purchasing Sweet SpotsFeedback I get often is that I do a lot of crazy things that are really fun, but that they aren't practical for normal people. I understand where this comes from. I marvel almost every...
- ExplorationA lot of people in my life seem to be at the end of a phase of great focus. They worked on a startup and sold or otherwise exited it, they built a business that's now running without th...
- How and When to Give AdviceIn some ways I'm professional advice giver these days. I talk to people monthly and help them make big decisions that will impact their lives greatly. I also do events where 7-10 people...
- Reader Questions: How Selective Should I Be?A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about what I think single people in their thirties should do. A few people emailed my about it, and one reader named Jack asked some really good questi...
- The Upsides of CoronavirusI don't usually write about current events because I don't necessarily think that yet another semi-informed opinion floating around is of much value. This time the event is easily actio...
- Dating Advice for Single People in Their 30sI have a surprising number of single friends who are in their 30s. I don't think that this is a problem by any means, but I know that a lot of them don't actually want to be single. I'm...
- Financial Phases to FollowThe normal financial path that's prescribed by our society is to get out of school, get a job, and then start making money and keep making as much money as you can until you retire. Tha...
- What I Admire About My FriendsAs I always say, I really do believe that I have the best group of friends that a guy could ask for. I use friends as a shorthand, but I really mean it to include everyone who surrounds...
- Shifting GearsLiving in an RV was one of the best things I could have possibly done for the eight or so years I did it. It allowed me freedom, both physical and financial, made it easy for me to trav...
- Things I Like about Things I Don't LikeAs I wrote (last week), it's very easy to criticize problems, and it's easy to categorize things as good or bad without any nuance. I think that it's a lot more productive to recognize...
- Answers to Real Estate QuestionsLast week I posted about buying our fifth group property, an apartment in Tokyo. I got more emails and messages about this post than any in recent history, and people asked a lot of goo...
- We Bought a Tokyo Apartment and I'm Done With Real EstateFor the past three years I've been actively searching for an apartment in Tokyo for my friends and I to buy. It was by far the most difficult city in which to find a suitable apartment,...
- Why I Don't Predict FailureIf you spend time in San Francisco, you hear a lot of startup ideas. A few of them sound really cool, but a lot of them sound pretty dumb. I used to fall into the trap of criticizing th...
- Superhuman 4 in April (One Scholarship Available)I just got off the phone with the last of the attendees of Superhuman 3 and am totally blown away. Every single attendee followed through with everything they said they would do and man...
- Balancing Inflows and OutflowsImagine that everyone has a bucket, and they fill it with tasks. At the bottom of the bucket is a hose that is constantly draining it at some rate, which represents completing tasks. Th...
- Сау болыңыз 2019Another year gone! For the first time, as I read through old monthly updates and scrolled through my yearly calendar, I was shocked at how quickly time had passed. Things that happened...
- Сау болыңыз 2019Another year gone! For the first time, as I read through old monthly updates and scrolled through my yearly calendar, I was shocked at how quickly time had passed. Things that happened...
- Сау болыңыз 2019Another year gone! For the first time, as I read through old monthly updates and scrolled through my yearly calendar, I was shocked at how quickly time had passed. Things that happened...
- Сау болыңыз 2019Another year gone! For the first time, as I read through old monthly updates and scrolled through my yearly calendar, I was shocked at how quickly time had passed. Things that happened...
2019 56
- Gear Post 2020Merry Christmas! As seems to be my pattern lately I keep pushing the gear post later and later. Sorry about that! It happens because I get excited about gear and always end up testing a...
- QualityIt's very easy to idealize and cherry pick from the past, but it feels like quality used to be a metric that people cared about, and now it feels more like a buzzword that is used for m...
- Consistency is KeyYou would think that the people who are most into advanced productivity ideas and systems would be the most productive people who, having mastered the basics, are looking for ways to ek...
- Why Drink Tea?I've been writing out my yearly blog posts and as I've gotten near the end I've realized that I haven't written anything about tea this year. It seems almost inconceivable that a year c...
- Gratitude 2019Every year I struggle to write my gratitude post a little bit, not because I can't think of anything I'm grateful for, but because there are so many things that it's hard to focus. This...
- Some Thoughts on MarriageWhen I asked for blog topics before writing this annual batch, I got a lot of great suggestions with almost no overlap at all. The one exception? Everyone wanted to know what I think ab...
- My Biggest RegretAlmost twenty years ago I was a professional gambler and I ended up getting a little bit sloppy with my procedures, which resulted in casinos catching me and confiscating all of my mone...
- Should You Focus on Strengths or Weaknesses?I saw an interesting debate on Twitter recently between two guys who were debating whather it was better to focus on one's strengths and leverage them for results, or whether it was bet...
- Monthly ReportsA few years ago I started writing a monthly report to a few friends sharing my progress on CruiseSheet. My primary motivations for doing so were that these friends were interested and a...
- Las Vegas UpdateFour years or so ago I bought a small condo in Las Vegas. I did it almost entirely because it seemed like a great deal and because I visited Vegas sometimes, and not at all because I in...
- Dumber PeopleSometimes new tasks can be daunting. I was in Hawaii trying to fix our minivan, and even though the steps involved in replacing spark plugs and wires looked quite easy, I wasn't particu...
- My Routines in my Home BasesOne of the main reasons my friends and I have bought home bases around the world rather than just relying on AirBnBs is that it makes it easier to develop good routines in each one. I'v...
- How I Use Airplane TimeWhen I asked for blog posts at my last Budapest event, one person asked how I spend my time on airplanes. At first I didn't think I had all that much to say about it, but as I thought a...
- Uncommon LuxuriesThe common view of luxury, consisting of fancy hotels, expensive clothing, and jewelry is an odd one to me. Those things are luxurious in that they are certainly not necessities, but it...
- Freestyle MentalityI was a little bit nervous the night before I held my first Superhuman event in Las Vegas. People had paid a fair amount of money and had traveled long distances for an event, but I had...
- Your Three Social LayersOne very common thing I work on with coaching clients is social skills. Through that work I've seen a lot of common patterns and have come to use a three layer model to think about and...
- Recognizing When It's OverAs I've written before http://tynan.com/trendy, I'm generally early on a lot of different things from nomadic travel to online gambling. Being early to things is valuable, but it is als...
- How I Think About AgingI'll never forget asking my grandmother what her favorite decade was. She was in her eighties at the time and had had a really good life overall, but would occasionally make comments ab...
- Reduce FrictionThe more I work on various aspects of my and other peoples' lives, the more obvious it is that friction is one of one's biggest enemies. The best way I can define friction is to contras...
- Solo ScubaThis post isn't suggesting that you should solo scuba dive. Scuba diving has risks and I don't know anything about you. Part of why I always buy properties with my friends is so that we...
- Working Up the LadderOne of my worries in blogging is that people will get the impression that I am always at 100%, ready to be my absolute best and live up to the principles I write about. I think I'm ther...
- Why I Ignore All StudiesWhen I was first learning about marketing (I never got very far with it), one of the things I remember reading was how important studies are. If you can share a study that supports your...
- Updates On a Lot of ThingsI often start habits or routines with a lot of fanfare, but then never follow up on them. Sometimes when people meet me they ask about them, so I figured I'd just think of all of them t...
- One Meal Per DayMany years ago I gave up breakfast because I was told by my trainer friend that I should be intermittent fasting. At first it felt like a big imposition, but after a few days I didn't f...
- How I Attribute My SuccessI'm not sure any of us know exactly what has made us who we are, but it's an interesting topic to think about, and one I consider often as I want to share those things which have brough...
- Positive Things About SchoolI'm about as anti-school as anyone can get. I dropped out of college and can't begin to convey the joy and relief I felt when I knew that I'd never go to school again. The costs of scho...
- How to be a Good Airline PassengerIf you were the guy sitting in 29F yesterday, I really hope you're reading this. I'm generally unflappable and not easily annoyed by people, but that goes out the window when I'm travel...
- Remain CalmTwo friends and I went out scuba diving against the recommendation of the local divemaster. This was a very stupid idea and I knew it going in, but was frustrated that the conditions we...
- Superhuman 3 October AnnouncementSuperhuman 3 is coming in October to Las Vegas! I sent an email out to the Superhuman Vegas mailing list last week, but still have some spots available, so I'm announcing the event over...
- Minivans are the Best VehiclesOver a year ago I was driving my Bentley in Las Vegas and a car ran a red light and drove straight into the side of it, sending it first into a sideways slide, and later to the body sho...
- Cities and FrictionI like and spend time in several cities which are very different from each other. Las Vegas, Hilo (Hawaii), Budapest, rural Halifax (our island), and Tokyo. On paper it would be hard to...
- Crushing Persistent ProblemsNot every problem in life requires overwhelming force applied to it, but I find that the best way to resolve issues that keep cropping up is to go totally overboard and crush them compl...
- Two Totally Different Careers I'm ConsideringI've gone through a lot of cycles of expansion and consolidation. I make a ton of progress, but then I circle back and solidify it, making sure that the gains will stay with me and that...
- How to Support Your Friends Through Hard TimesRecently I've had a lot of friends going through hard times. Not terrible times like great illness or financial loss, but times of growth like going through big life changes or breaking...
- Things I've Learned Through Coaching PeopleI've now been coaching many people one on one for over 2 years. In that time all of them have had major positive life changes and a huge portion have already achieved goals that they ha...
- How to Travel Well With OthersSince a few years ago, when I realized that I vastly preferred traveling with my friends versus traveling solo, almost all of my travel has been with other people. I'm fortunate to have...
- Budapest One Is in the Books!I have to admit, I was a little bit nervous about hosting the Budapest event, moreso even than when I hosted the very first event in Vegas. Vegas events are simple by design. I rent a r...
- What I Learned From a Year of Intense DatingIn the year before I met the woman who is now my wife, I was dating with purpose. I didn't necessarily aim to find a wife, but I was pretty intentional about what I was doing. And since...
- How to Enjoy MuseumsI used to be neutral, or maybe slightly negative on museums. There was something pleasant about being in them, but I didn't really know what I was supposed to do there, and always felt...
- The Three Books I Most RecommendTo be honest, I don't read a ton anymore. I had a couple years where I read 50-100 books per year and that had the effect of exposing me to just about every book anyone had ever recomme...
- How to Make 1000 Mistakes a Day and Still be HappyA friend of mine was telling me about how she struggled with regret, specifically around cryptocurrency. Why hadn't she sold at the top? Why hadn't she bought more when it was lower? Th...
- How to Plow Through Work and Still Produce QualityTwo years ago CruiseSheet didn't have individual informational pages for each cruise. Cruises are large purchases, though, so I thought that it would be much better if I could have a lo...
- Reflecting on Superhuman 2Two weeks ago, ten people came to Las Vegas to participate in my event, Superhuman 2. When I did the first one a year earlier I was nervous about how everyone would get along and how I...
- What I Learned Building a Cabin in the WoodsIn 2017 I built a small cabin in the woods of Nova Scotia. I did almost none of the building, but did do most of the design of the cabin and am now doing the follow-up work on it. Build...
- A Guide to Good SleepSometimes I wonder if I'm annoying because I talk so much about good sleep, but even when I talk to readers about it, it seems like almost no one actually prioritizes and gets good slee...
- Extended Travel in RelationshipsMaintaining a healthy relationship while traveling can be hard, but it doesn't have to be. Like anything, there are pros and cons, and by mitigating the cons and focusing on the pros, y...
- How to Plan a Group Trip With FriendsI love planning trips for my friends. I think that it's a great way to do a service to my friends, to spend time with them, and to foster new connections between them. I believe that if...
- Committment First Time ManagementI'm usually not all that busy, at least in terms of items on my schedule. I have infinite things that I could do, but very few of them have to happen at specific times or on specific da...
- Would I Be a Nomad if I Had Kids?People ask me all the time if I'd still be a nomad if I had kids, or they say that it's impossible or difficult to be a nomad if you have kids. I want to answer the question, but I thin...
- It or NothingRight now I'm writing every single day, averaging around 4000 words. I have a big batch of writing I want to do, and I've broken it up over 10 days. This sounds like a daunting task, bu...
- Simulating OthersOne of the most common errors I see amongst well-meaning people are errors of awareness. They're people with the ability to influence and they only want to help, but they lack a fundame...
- Dating Advice for WomenI don't usually give dating advice to women, but recently two of my female friends have been asking me a lot about dating, so I figured I'd consolidate some of the stuff we've been talk...
- Aloha 2018Well, that's another amazing year in the books! 2017 was an exceptionally great year for me, so much so that I thought that 2018 wouldn't be able to stack up. But this year was even bet...
- Aloha 2018Well, that's another amazing year in the books! 2017 was an exceptionally great year for me, so much so that I thought that 2018 wouldn't be able to stack up. But this year was even bet...
- Aloha 2018Well, that's another amazing year in the books! 2017 was an exceptionally great year for me, so much so that I thought that 2018 wouldn't be able to stack up. But this year was even bet...
- Aloha 2018Well, that's another amazing year in the books! 2017 was an exceptionally great year for me, so much so that I thought that 2018 wouldn't be able to stack up. But this year was even bet...
2018 56
- What I Learned Starting Two Little StartupsFor about three years I worked really hard on a startup called Sett. It's a blogging platform that did a lot of things very different, and, in fact, is still the blogging platform that...
- Standard DiagnosticsIt's always tempting to look for complicated or clever solutions to our problems. We love hacks and secret unknown solutions, rather than straightforward answers to our problems. There'...
- Not Caring What Others ThinkI was telling a friend recently about how I was considering becoming a rapper. The gist of the idea is that I believe that I could make an excellent rap album if I dediated an entire ye...
- The 2019 Gear PostPeople didn't like my iterative way of doing the gear post last year, so I'm listening and going back to the old format of writing about every single item, even if it's been on the list...
- How and Why I Wrote a Year of Blog Posts in Ten DaysI have written this blog since 2005, and haven't missed posting at least weekly since 2012 or so. Writing this blog has had a massively positive impact on my life, both directly and ind...
- Gratitude 2018I'm always grateful for everything in my life, but when I think about what I'm most grateful for this year, family and friends are my immediate focus. I'm incredibly grateful for the pe...
- How to Love Living in Las VegasI absolutely love living in Las Vegas. Even if cost was not a factor, I would choose living there over any other city in the world (ok, I'd have to think hard about Tokyo). This general...
- How to Enjoy Crossword PuzzlesIn my every day normal routine in Las Vegas there are two events to which I look forward each day. The first is dinner at Chipotle. I still eat there virtually every day when it's an op...
- Superhuman 2 Event in March 2019I've been hearing back recently from some of the attendees of the first event and have been blown away by the progress that they've been making. Talking to them has motivated me to sche...
- How to Become InterestingThis is a topic that seems arrogant to even write about, but two people have asked me to write a blog post about it, so I'm going to take a stab at it. We all have strengths and weaknes...
- Ways to Provide Fun Experiences For Your FriendsOne of my biggest pleasures in life is creating opportunities for my friends and family. There are a lot of things I do all the time, but when I think of who I am by definition, I think...
- Brain TrainingThere is one fundamental tool I use all the time, because it's so adaptable. I use it for myself and for a large number of my clients. I don't know if there's some official name for it,...
- Why Drinking Alcohol is a Bad IdeaThis post was suggested by a drinker, which I thought was pretty funny. He goes back and forth on it, though, so maybe he's on the fence and I can help push him to one side (hopefully m...
- The Starting Out BlueprintWhen I asked readers and friends for blog post ideas, one of the most common I got was what they'd suggest for someone just starting out. One guy said a 15 year old homeless orphan (I g...
- Thoughts on RelationshipsI get asked a lot to write about relationships, probably because I used to be involved in pickup and it seems strange to some that I'm now married (though from my perspective getting ma...
- If You Haven't Made Progress in a YearYou never know how your year is going to go. I often try to predict mine, and my predictions are usually nowhere close to what actually happens. Nearly inevitably, though, I make a bunc...
- The Magic of Transoceanic CruisesI'm currently on a cruise, which is really where I'd be for most of the year if I had my way. While I do love all cruises to some extent, there is a certain secret type of cruise that i...
- What It's Like Sharing Properties With FriendsI get tons of questions about what it's like sharing property with friends, which makes me happy because I assume that it means that other people are thinking about doing the same thing...
- My Top Favorite Places All Over JapanOne of the best travel deals out there happens to be in the country that most people (mistakenly) believe to be one of the most expensive. Japan has the JR Rail Pass, which, for under $...
- My Friends and I Bought a Condo in HawaiiMy friends and I have individual condos in Vegas, an island in eastern Canada, and a flat in Budapest. It's not the same group for each property, but there's a lot of overlap. I realize...
- My Unusual Computer SetupA while back, around the time I switched to Linux, I had the realization that any amount of effort I spent customizing my computer would probably pay off. I use the thing just about eve...
- How to Automate Your CurtainsThis is such a niche thing, but you'd be shocked at how many requests I get for information on how I did it. A couple years back I gave a talk about automation, ranging from home to hab...
- How I Choose What to Work OnI get asked often how I choose what to work on. From the outside, I can see why people ask. The projects I work on are fairly wide-ranging, from coding CruiseSheet to writing blog posts...
- Living Frugally and Loving ItI've talked before about how important it is to live frugally. A lot of people probably brush it off because it sounds like too great of a sacrifice or not relevant to them, but I think...
- Eliminating Minor VicesI don't think I'm qualified to suggest how to kick major vices like heroin and alcohol, but I have plenty of experience with minor vices like procrastination and time-wasting activities...
- Four of My Favorite Teas, and How to Brew ThemMaybe this is true of most things, but the variance between great tea and terrible tea is absolutely enormous. If tea was what nearly everyone thinks tea is, I would never drink it. A g...
- Treating Your Todo List As One TaskLast year I had a truly spectacular todo list. It ranged from building a cabin on the island (with no idea how to do so), getting the floors replaced on a rental property in Las Vegas,...
- KazakhstanI had never been so happy to have a sore throat, especially such a bad one. My throat hurt so much that it actually woke me up. Surely this was a reasonable excuse to get out of the tal...
- Knowing When You're Boring and Avoiding ItYou know that feeling when you're sitting across from someone and they're prattling on about something in which you have no interest? They aren't actually trying to bore you, they just...
- How I Write A Book in 14 DaysI've now written seven books, at least three of which were category bestsellers on Amazon. They all get really good reviews and are legitimate enough that foreign publishers have bought...
- My Credit Card StrategyI recently spent the time going through my roster of credit cards to see which ones I should be using for various purchases. I believe I've come up with a pretty universal strategy, so...
- How to Enjoy Ballet and OperaI love opera and ballet, but I didn't always. I remember very excitedly going to my first ballet in San Francisco and leaving with no idea what I just saw and having thought that maybe...
- Making Friends with Awesome PeopleI often get asked how I make friends with so many great people. This is sort of a funny question because I think most people actually don't know just how great my friend group is, since...
- How I Spend Time on CruisesWhen I recently asked for blog topics, someone asked for a granular breakdown of how I spend time on cruises. This is actually something I get asked about once in a while, so I figured...
- How I Manage Money Part Two — SpendingIn the last post I talked about how I save money and earn money. This week I will talk about how I spend my money. I think that I spend my money very strangely compared to normal people...
- How I Manage Money Part One — Saving and EarningI have a somewhat unusual method of thinking about and managing money, which has worked out very well for me. Because money, saving, and spending is such an emotional issue, I believe t...
- Being Early on TrendsI am early on a lot of trends. Before they were popular, I was into RV living, being a digital nomad, online gambling, wool, pickup, cryptocurrency, home automation, minimalism, and a w...
- Superhuman 2 EventAs I mentioned before, Superhuman #1 went extremely well. Everyone left not only with actionable steps to reach their goals, but also with connections to some other really great people....
- The Best Selling CarIt's rare that I see advertisements. I have ad blocking on everything I own, if I go to a movie I try to go late to avoid previews and ads, and if I watch TV it is downloaded with the a...
- If You Bought Forever Nomad, Please Resend Your ReceiptHi, Sorry to bother everyone with this email, but somehow my tangle of email forwards didn't make it to me, so I don't have the receipts of people who bought Forever Nomad. Please resen...
- New Book Release: Forever NomadIt's here! Once again I've forgotten to whet everyone's appetite by constantly mentioning my book until the release day, but I've always been more into getting books out than marketing...
- How Hard Do I Actually Work?Once in a while people who meet me give me the feedback that they're surprised that I'm actually a real person who doesn't just work 24/7. A challenge of being a public writer is balanc...
- Kindness in Tea CultureTake it easy, she said. A-Yi, a middle-aged Taiwanese woman, rushed us out the door. Go eat! Enjoy! Thirty seconds earlier we sat at her table and enjoyed the two different teas that sh...
- Superhuman Event #1 Post MortemFor years I've thought about doing a live event for my readers. It's always been on the backburner as I've thought about formats and group sizes, but my friend Leo Babauta challenged me...
- When People Think You're CrazyThe first thing I did where I was aware that people thought I was crazy was to buy a school bus with my friends. In retrospect it probably wasn't the first time people thought I was cra...
- Never WorryingOne of my friends likes to remind me that everyone is worrying all the time, because he senses that I almost never worry. He's right, and when I do worry it tends to be a more active pr...
- Why That Amount?In one of my (many) posts about optimizing, someone made a comment to the effect of, "What's the point of optimizing everything? Eventually you'll optimize your entire life away and hav...
- Local and Global OptimizationIt cost me about $100 to go to my friend's Christmas party. I had to buy a cheap flight from Vegas to San Francisco, and then a couple uber rides to and from the party. On the surface,...
- Mega Review of Teforia, The $1000 Tea BrewerI remember hearing about the Teforia a long time ago. The story around it was that it was this comically overpriced tea brewer, often compared with the Juicero, that symbolized what was...
- ConsolidationMy main goal as a writer is to write pieces that will spark a permanent positive change for someone. I assume that most posts won't do that for anyone, but if I write enough and have en...
- The Positives of Destroying my BentleyOut of the corner of my eye, just past the cars lined up in the turning lane, I could see that something was coming towards me quickly. Way too quickly. I tried to swerve, but knew that...
- The Financial Benefit of Not Caring What Society ThinksTo see if anyone had any tips for smuggling huge amounts of Chipotle into a hotel (which I only discovered at the last minute wasn't allowed), I searched Google for "Chipotle wedding"....
- Wow 2017I'm not sure how to even begin talking about 2017, except to say that it was a really exceptional year for me. As I've said in previous years, every year of my life has so far been bett...
- Wow 2017I'm not sure how to even begin talking about 2017, except to say that it was a really exceptional year for me. As I've said in previous years, every year of my life has so far been bett...
- Wow 2017I'm not sure how to even begin talking about 2017, except to say that it was a really exceptional year for me. As I've said in previous years, every year of my life has so far been bett...
- Wow 2017I'm not sure how to even begin talking about 2017, except to say that it was a really exceptional year for me. As I've said in previous years, every year of my life has so far been bett...
2017 53
- The 2018 Gear PostI'm going to do something a little bit different with the gear post this year. Usually I go over every single item in a small amount of detail. This year has only a few changes but they...
- How Quickly We AdaptEleven years ago I switched to a Dvorak keyboard. I was worried that I would get carpal tunnel syndrome if I stuck to Qwerty, so I made the switch. The first few days were pure agony, b...
- Making the Biggest DecisionsI wanted to write a post about making the Biggest Decisions. Before doing so, I thought I'd jot down some of mine and look for commonalities. What surprised me most was how few decision...
- How to Live an Aligned LifeHave you ever noticed that amongst people who seem to be doing "the right thing", results vary wildly? Throughout my life I've met a ton of hard workers with great habits. You'd expect...
- Superhuman Event #1I've mentioned a few times wanting to do a live event, but what keeps me from setting a date and doing it is how many different ideas I have on formats and sizes. So, I'm going to just...
- Gratitude 2017I like writing my annual gratitude post, mostly because it's an easy one. I have a ton of things to be grateful for, and I like talking about those things. Fairly frequently, often at n...
- Life Work BalanceI think a lot about work life balance on cruises because all of the noise is stripped away from life when you're on the ship. There are no errands, few interruptions, and no chores. You...
- The Most Important Daily TaskWhat's the most important thing on which you could spend your time right now? Really think about it, don't just keep skimming. Maybe it's a work thing, maybe it's an errand, maybe it's...
- What Other People ThinkAs I help more people work through their sticking points through coaching, I've noticed that a surprisingly large factor in many peoples' lives is how others perceive them. This is larg...
- Alarm BellsI think that there are few absolute black and white rules which should be followed by everyone. After all, we're all different with different priorities and resources. What's right for...
- Making Big Decisions Good DecisionsWhen standing on the precipice of making a big decision, it's natural to wonder whether or not you're making a mistake. It's easy to imagine that each imaginary path through our future...
- My Low Monthly Burn Broken DownI've referenced my potential low monthly burn rate a few times, and people keep asking me questions about it, so I'm going to go into more detail using real life numbers. It's important...
- How I PrioritizeI've realized that I prioritize in a pretty different way than others. I don't know that my way is the best way for everyone, but by sharing it I think I may at least expose a few ideas...
- First Solo Week on the IslandDue to somewhat bungled plans and a cheap flight available to Halifax, I randomly decided to go to the island for a week by myself. Even though the bones of the cabin were pretty much f...
- You Don't Need PermissionI'll never forget the first moment I stepped foot on our island. We hadn't actually bought it yet, but the seller had agreed to let us camp on it the night before to "test it out". As s...
- Envisioning Your FutureA lot of people don't reach their true potential not because they aren't capable of it, but because they keep using their actions to go into the wrong directions. Or, even worse, direct...
- Thoughts on MaterialsI visited my girlfriend's new apartment this week and after one night there insisted on getting her cotton sheets to replace the poly-blend sheets she already had. I think she thought I...
- Write a Monthly ReviewI always look forward to the first of the month, and ironically it's because there's a bit of work that I do every first that I really look forward to. I write a couple monthly reviews....
- Building an Island CabinI had intended to come back to the island once more before building the cabin, but the timing didn't work out. I nervously climbed up the hill to check the spot that I had decided to bu...
- Good and Bad ValueOne of my friends remarked that I'm really obsessed with value. It's true. I love spending money on things that are great value and I hate spending money on things that are a bad value....
- Removing FrictionThe glamorous side of productivity and self improvement is the big changes. You put your stake in the ground, decide to make a change, and you do it. You start a new set of habits or a...
- Why I Bought a Bentley and What It's LikeIn 2003, Rick Rubin offered me a ride in his Bentley Arnage. I declined because I thought the place we were going was within walking distance, and only after he drove off did I realize...
- What I've Learned from Six Months of CoachingSix months ago I began accepting coaching clients beyond my one initial client. I had this plan that after six months I'd collect a bunch of testimonials, write about coaching, and sign...
- Sleep and Crossword PuzzlesI wouldn't say that my younger cousin and I are competitive, but let's just say that when she got good at crossword puzzles, I felt that I had little choice but to also get good at cros...
- How to Relate to OthersI have to admit that I never thought that I'd write a blog post on how to relate to others. For most of my life I realized that I wasn't particularly empathetic but didn't prioritize ch...
- Small Footprint IdentityOnce in a while I do something that threatens my status as a minimalist. It was pretty clear cut when I traveled the world with nothing but a backpack and had nothing back home, but now...
- Okay with Process, Okay with OutcomeMy recent car purchase has been something of a disaster. That's why I haven't written about it yet (or, rather, posted the rather excited blog post I've already written). The car is cur...
- What's Going to be Different Tomorrow?Yesterday, in a fit of inspiration, moved the furniture out of my bedroom and tore up half of the carpets. A few months ago I did the floors for the rest of my house, but I ran out of t...
- Long Life TrajectoriesI went to a Roger Waters concert earlier tonight. I got a free ticket and I make it a habit to see anything or anyone who's supposed to be one of the best, even though I don't like rock...
- Plans Which Can't FailExternal events often have to be left to chance. You submit your book proposal, and maybe it gets accepted and maybe not. You go talk to the cute stranger, and maybe you're compatible a...
- Some Quick Thoughts on GrowthA few random thoughts on growth, prompted by some observations of myself, friends, and coaching clients. Boredom is good. It means that you've reached a new level. Staying bored is real...
- Analyzing RiskOn a recent podcast I was on, I was asked why I took so many risks. I stuttered for a second before answering the question because I was trying to think of an example of a big risk I to...
- Getting Huge Chunks of Work DoneThis feels like a slightly ironic title, as today I spent sixteen hours showing my cousin and her boyfriend around one of my favorite cities in the world, Budapest. No work, except for...
- Getting to Unlimited RunwayDue to CruiseSheet growing and my new coaching project, my income has gone up quite a bit compared to previous years. This has been a strange transition for me, as I'm used to being the...
- Strong DefaultsI have a technique that I use to deal with a lot of situations that I call setting strong defaults. It started with dating as a means to eliminate the ridiculous and common "but where d...
- Help Shape Life Nomadic 2I'm about halfway through a transatlantic cruise, which means I'm also halfway through writing a new book. This time I'm writing a follow-up to Life Nomadic, since so much has changed a...
- Thinking About QualityWhen you travel most of the time and do it with only a small backpack, eventually all of your travel gear becomes very high quality. You buy something nice, love using it, and it retain...
- Living an Aligned LifeMost people don't live a life that's in alignment with what they want to do. That's not a criticism of any of those people; for our entire history as a species we have had to spend most...
- The Benefit of Automating EverythingToday I woke up to the alarm I set on my phone. My bedroom curtains opened automatically, triggered by the alarm. I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth. On my mirror, which has a...
- What I Love and Hate About Vegas, Two Years InWhen I first bought my place in Vegas, I did it only because it was an incredible deal. As a frequent visitor to Vegas I assumed that I'd stay there once in a while, and AirBnb it out t...
- Put Yourself Out ThereIt's easy to analyze when things go poorly, but that it doesn't come as naturally when things are going well. When things are good it's very easy to just brush it away by assuming that...
- Coaching(Note: I'm no longer taking on new coaching clients, but will continue to work with existing ones. I may offer a different coaching program in the future) Due to overwhelming reader dem...
- PerfectionI'm not sure exactly what causes it. Maybe it's the exponential rise in options that all of us have in nearly every aspect of life. Maybe it's the simplification of entertainment and th...
- What to Do When Everything is Going WellTo simplify, we could say that there are three phases in which one's life can be. Sometimes everything is going wrong, or at least everything is statically in a bad place, and the goal...
- Some March 2017 Life UpdatesSometimes it feels like I take my blog a little too seriously, probably because so many people read it and some of the topics I cover are serious. When it started I literally wrote stra...
- How to be Reasonable When Talking About PoliticsI try to avoid talking about politics for the most part, because virtually nobody is open to changing their minds about anything. In times like these, though, these conversations seem u...
- Reconciling Adventure and WorkI love when readers suggest posts, because it takes away the part of my job where I try to guess what would be most interesting or useful. A couple weeks ago a reader named Wolfgang sai...
- How to be CompetentAs I've written before, I think that one of the most important skills one can have is basic competence. It doesn't sound as appealing as programming, writing, or engineering, but it's a...
- The Best Things to Do in BudapestNow that I spend so much time in Budapest I get a lot of requests for things to do there. I'm not always the best at replying quickly, so I figured I'd write a blog post with an exhaust...
- Emotional MinimalismIf you've been reading my blog for a long time, you may have noticed that I have some common traits with adrenalin junkies. I've climbed cranes and towers, jumped freight trains, bungie...
- Utility on InvestmentThe thing about investing money is that it's pretty hard for an individual to do much better than 5-15% per year consistently, depending on your risk tolerance and connections (my best...
- Looking For a Coach? I'm Taking on Two More ClientsA little over a year ago a reader bought enough copies of Superhuman Social Skills to get a free one-hour coaching call. The call went well and I could tell that she was serious about m...
- Want to Buy my RV? It's for Sale (With a Parking Spot)EDIT: The RV is sold, pending receipt of payment. If anything changes I will email everyone back and update this post, but I would assume it's not available. The new buyer also has a tr...
2016 62
- Viszontlátásra 2016And just like that another year has passed! Every year of my life has been better than the last. I used to believe that this was a nearly universal experience, as every year you should...
- Viszontlátásra 2016And just like that another year has passed! Every year of my life has been better than the last. I used to believe that this was a nearly universal experience, as every year you should...
- Viszontlátásra 2016And just like that another year has passed! Every year of my life has been better than the last. I used to believe that this was a nearly universal experience, as every year you should...
- Viszontlátásra 2016And just like that another year has passed! Every year of my life has been better than the last. I used to believe that this was a nearly universal experience, as every year you should...
- How and Why to Switch to LinuxI switched to Linux a few years ago. Four, I think. It wasn't my first time— I remember driving with my friend Phil to pick up a Slackware Linux CD in 1997, being very excited about how...
- The 2017 Gear PostAnd now it's time for the one post per year about which people bug me for months: the 2017 gear post. I realized that a lot of non-subscribers read this post every year, so I thought I'...
- Being PositiveIt begins with a basic acceptance that we will never really understand what's going on around us. We'll be wrong all the time, and oblivious even more frequently. It may feel as though...
- If You Never FailFor a long time I was very proud of the fact that no girl I had attempted to kiss had given me the cheek. I thought that this meant that I was a precision sniper of dating, finely attun...
- Gratitude 2016Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. Although it started with religion, it's become a secular holiday that's pretty pure. Everyone who celebrates it does so with people they're...
- Disregarding Other's DecisionsI get called weird a lot. Not usually in a bad way, usually as a term of endearment. Looking at it objectively, I see the argument — I'm definitely a strange person who does unusual thi...
- Nine Trends I PredictAs you may have noticed, I've been very early on some big cultural trends. I was into pickup way before it was mainstream, was one of the first "digital nomads", was living in an RV bef...
- The Software I Use to Be ProductiveTo break with my normal style of post, I thought this week I'd share some of my favorite software that helps me get work done on a daily basis. Because I use Linux it won't all be appli...
- What It Feels Like to Always TravelFor the past few years I've been in a state of near-constant motion. I was in Budapest for five weeks straight last month, and that was by far the longest I'd been in one place in years...
- State of the Island 2016I'm going to start writing a little wrap-up about the island every year, partly because I want to chronicle it for my own reading later, but also because there's been a lot of general i...
- An Island, Vegas, Budapest for A Fraction of the Median House PriceTwo days ago I closed on a property in Budapest (right where districts V, VI, and VII meet, if you know the area). It's not just my property, though. I share it with eight of my best fr...
- Your Brain As a FunnelI've been working a lot on marketing recently, as you've hopefully noticed if you subscribe to CruiseSheet's (awesome) newsletter. A basic part of marketing is thinking about the funnel...
- The Invisible FenceAs you probably already know, one good way to keep your dog fenced in is the invisible fence. It's a loop of wire you run around your yard that triggers their special collar if they cro...
- Five Things I Learned On My Return to ProductivityA few months ago I had a troubling thought: maybe I've forgotten how to be productive. I am not a naturally productive person. I skated by in school, putting homework off until the last...
- Recent Thoughts on MinimalismI'm always thinking about minimalism. A lot of why I think about it is because I have both very minimalistic tendencies as well as some on the opposite side of the spectrum. That sits w...
- How to Listen to FeedbackIt's been an interesting month so far. Two relevant things happened: first, I got some critical feedback that I needed to hear but sort of stung, and second, CruiseSheet has been doing...
- The Best 2021 EverI think a lot about what an outsider would assume about me if they were to get a deep view of me. What would they think my priorities are? Would they think that I will succeed? Would th...
- The Best 2021 EverI think a lot about what an outsider would assume about me if they were to get a deep view of me. What would they think my priorities are? Would they think that I will succeed? Would th...
- The Best 2021 EverI think a lot about what an outsider would assume about me if they were to get a deep view of me. What would they think my priorities are? Would they think that I will succeed? Would th...
- The Best 2021 EverI think a lot about what an outsider would assume about me if they were to get a deep view of me. What would they think my priorities are? Would they think that I will succeed? Would th...
- Getting Mad at Myself on Purpose and Hating TVI was encouraged to watch the TV series True Crime, which I was told was excellent. I watched the first couple episodes and found all sorts of things I didn't like about it, which made...
- What Won't You Have?Ask anyone what their top priority is, and I bet you get at least three. And if you were to observe their actions, maybe you'd notice that the top priority they're acting on has nothing...
- Living in a World Not Built For YouI say this not to complain or even to suggest that it should be otherwise, but it occurs to me regularly that I live in a world that was not only not designed for me, but may have been...
- Proof in DifficultyBeing funny is an interesting phenomenon. Why are people funny? Why does it matter? Sure it makes you feel good when someone is joking around with you, but so do back rubs and complimen...
- Do You Want What You Want?Two years or so into working on Sett, an experienced entrepreneur friend of mine brought up the topic of taking investment. He thought that we should raise money and was interested in b...
- Small Difficult ThingsWant to totally change your life in just one day with one little tip? Too bad, because that's not how it works. Once in a while a small thing does totally change our lives. Someone happ...
- The Building MindsetI remember reading about the famous marshmallow study, the one where they see if kids can delay gratification or not. Reading about it really haunted me, because a psychologist came to...
- Maintaining a Clear and Positive MindsetMy sister told me about a date she went on recently. When she very politely said that she didn't think they were a good match, the guy went nuts and said all sorts of rude and outlandis...
- Finally Changing PatternsIf you've been reading my blog for a while, it's probably very obvious to you that I am terrible at marketing. My preferred method of marketing is to not do it at all and hope that good...
- Home AutomationI don't think I've written about it before, but I've been into home automation for a really long time. I can't remember exactly when I started automating things, but it was definitely n...
- My Six Secrets for Always Being HappyI know objectively that I did not have a great Tuesday. I woke up well rested, had my tea, got some unexpected work done, and had lunch. I felt prepared. I was entered into a tournament...
- How I TravelI've been traveling consistently now for over eight years. In that time I've visited around seventy countries, many of them several times. But how I travel has changed considerably over...
- NEW BOOK: Around the World in Fifteen FriendsGuess what? I've got a new book out. I hate all the launching and promotion sort of stuff, and I'm not sure it actually helped my last book, so I'm going to do things the old-fashioned...
- How I Drink TeaA couple people asked me recently to make a post about tea. I'm delighted to hear that people are interested, because I sometimes feel like readers must be getting sick of how much I po...
- Just Got Your First Job? Here's What To Do With That PaycheckSummer is just beginning, which means that in my family as well as many others, people are graduating college and preparing to enter the workforce. I just heard that one of my cousins g...
- NanaI'm not sure how I've made it my entire life without knowing that my grandmother was an only child. I'm sitting in a pizza place in Vermont with my grandmother, surrounded by my father...
- Advantages, Disadvantages, ActionA entrepreneur friend of mine, who happens to be female, and I were talking. Another female entrepreneur had said that she couldn't get funding for her company because she was female, a...
- Will I Settle Down? The Third OptionMaking decisions is fascinating to me. Once you build a base level of competence, where you can trust that you will follow through with whatever you decide to do, you could say that you...
- Planning for ChaosOne of two things is true: either you will experience chaos in life, or you are setting your sights drastically too low. With even medium-sized goals, you're going to occasionally run i...
- AcceptanceI did the math again. Fifteen minutes to get to the car rental place, five minutes to check out, five minutes to wait for the shuttle, fifteen minutes to get to the airport, five minute...
- The Vaue of SpontaneityI woke up yesterday morning prepared to grind away at Cruise Sheet all day. This is actually a great type of day for me-- I love non-workout days when I have the whole day to block off...
- Enough LearningThe past dozen or so years of my life have been dedicated mostly to learning and growth. Not totally singlemindedly, of course; I've traveled around and done fun things and have also pu...
- Flexible LessonsI never published it, but I wrote a post a while back about how watching TV was my canary in the coalmine. If I wanted to watch TV, that was a surefire sign that I wasn't fully engaged...
- Accessible Art: Japanese Woodblock PrintsDuring a six hour layover in Honolulu, my friend Brian and I went to the Honolulu Museum of Art. The museum is really cool and worth a visit for just about anyone passing through the ci...
- The Two Year Writing Challenge is OverI can tell you one thing: I'm definitely not writing a blog post tomorrow. Two years ago I agreed to be accountable to a friend for writing a blog post every single day for two years. I...
- Don't Be OffendedMy friend Sebastian has a great way of asking simple questions that create good discussions. We were talking about someone getting offended at something and he asked the not-quite-rheto...
- The Thin Line Between Obligation and OpportunityI've been really excited to work on Cruise Sheet recently. I've made some big strides and am now an actual cruise agency rather than a web site that creates affiliate links. It's still...
- Every Day is ChristmasI remember waking up as a kid on Christmas, heavy with anticipation. Waking up early never came naturally to me, but usually I was up before seven in the morning. It wasn't just that go...
- Contrarian ThinkingI live a little bit in the ghetto. It doesn't feel dangerous, I like my neighbors, and the location is perfect, but in Las Vegas this is known as a terrible area. Even after being pleas...
- Arbitrary RulesFebruary and March I'm going to spend half in San Francisco and half in Vegas. So I'm buying a bunch of cheap tickets to ping-pong back and forth between the two cities. As I booked the...
- Back to Bare MetalIt's been a crazy few years. I was going to say few weeks, then few months, and then I thought about it and realized that there's no reasonable starting point more recent than a few yea...
- The Upside to GenerosityToday we went to a gelato place called Gelatology. The owner, Desyree, used to have a place called Art of the Flavor, which was shut down under suspicious circumstances. From outward ap...
- Sure Enough to Plant EvidenceI'm almost done watching Making of A Murderer. I don't know how it ends yet, but it's not much of a spoiler to say that it opens with a story about a guy, Steven Avery, who was wrongly...
- When The Taxi Driver Didn't Rip Us OffOur ship docked in Dubai today. Very often the ship docks so close to downtown that you can walk, but sometimes you have to take a bus or taxi into the city center. The Dubai port, on t...
- Zai Jian 2015Well, there goes another year. Every time a new year rolls around, my initial impression of the past year is that it was pretty uneventful compared to previous years. Then I go through...
- Zai Jian 2015Well, there goes another year. Every time a new year rolls around, my initial impression of the past year is that it was pretty uneventful compared to previous years. Then I go through...
- Zai Jian 2015Well, there goes another year. Every time a new year rolls around, my initial impression of the past year is that it was pretty uneventful compared to previous years. Then I go through...
- Zai Jian 2015Well, there goes another year. Every time a new year rolls around, my initial impression of the past year is that it was pretty uneventful compared to previous years. Then I go through...
2015 80
- How to Nail a Long LayoverWhen I'm booking a flight, I don't search by shortest duration, I sort by longest. My favorite flights are those that include one or more really long layovers during the day in an inter...
- Why I Only Travel with Ten Pounds of StuffWhether you think I'm a minimalist or maximalist isn't important to me. In some ways I am quite minimalist, but in others I'm the opposite. I have a lot of teaware, for example. Way mor...
- Assets, Experiences, and IndulgencesNothing makes my way of thinking about it the one correct way, but I think of money spent as three different things: Assets, Experiences, and Indulgences. I do this because it helps me...
- The Uncertainty of LifeSteam rises from my little glass teapot. It's the fifth brewing of the Tung Ting Oolong, so it's a little bit weak even though the color is still a clear gold. Employees of the tea shop...
- The 2016 Gear PostWelcome to the 2016 Gear Post! This is my most anticipated post of the year, which means that it's the one I'm harrassed about the most. Due to popular request, I did individual photos...
- The 2016 Gear Post PreludeI would have forgotten about my promise to post this in November if it wasn't for, well, everyone else very tactfully reminding me that I said I'd do it. The timing works, though. My ba...
- Excuses We Give OurselvesMy friends and I do a quarterly accountability group. We come up with our own individual goals and pair them with punishments and rewards. For this quarter, I have a list of ten things...
- Retire FirstHere's an idea for people who are done with school and aren't too excited about the standard life staring them in the face. Instead of grinding through life to retire later, why not wor...
- Island Two-Year Update: ShipwreckedWe were all excited about this most recent island trip. Brian, Elliot, and I would be flying together from Tokyo directly to Halifax, and would be joined there for a few days by Todd, a...
- Up in the EtherWhen I was a kid, I had flannel blankets. Blue and green, if my memory's accurate. My bedroom had big french doors to the outside that made my room cold when it was winter. Even before...
- Build Things With Your FriendsA couple years ago I became obsessed with the idea of buying an island. I mean, I'd always been obsessed with it, but my obsession shifted from the idea of buying the island into the ac...
- Opportunity, Not OutcomeTodd and I sat on my couch in Vegas today. He was on his computer researching home automation stuff, and I was cleaning up my place, getting it ready to hibernate until I return. I didn...
- Why I Throw Away my ChangeI throw away my change. Not all of it. Quarters of the lifeblood of laundry, and dimes have the best value to weight ratio, but I throw away all nickels and pennies. If I'm at a store a...
- Superhuman Social Skills is Now Available! Free Today Only on Kindle!Whew! Superhuman Social Skills is Officially available! I'd like to hype up this book and tell you how proud I am of it, and how much early readers have liked it, but instead I'll do yo...
- Results of the Social Skills Survey -- Book Coming out TuesdayWow. Over six hundred people responded to my social skills survey and gave really thoughtful and in-depth answers. In retrospect, I really wish that I had done this survey before I had...
- Scott DinsmoreI woke up to a message from my friend Leo, asking if I'd heard the news about Scott. I assumed that it must be some amazing story or accomplishment, as that's the sort of thing you hear...
- Help Me Get My Next Book Ready (And Get it Free)As I've mentioned briefly before, I'm finishing up a book called Superhuman Social Skills. I think that this is going to be the best and most impactful book I've written, so I'm really...
- How To Earn $36.50 (or more) in Five MinutesEDIT 9/28/15: Coinbase has now blocked me from doing this. Prior to offering it, a friend had emailed the CEO of Coinbase and got the go-ahead. A few weeks later a CSR told me that they...
- Sunk CostsLast night I played poker at Bellagio in Las Vegas. At one point I got pocket queens, a tremendously good hand. The hand played as expected until the last card. I got raised by a medioc...
- How to Handle (and Find) Crazy Flight DealsA few times a year, a crazy flight deal appears. Sometimes they're crazy sales, and other times they're mistakes that the airline will be legally obligated to honor. Take, for example,...
- One Last TimeDue to poor planning, I had to walk a half mile or so to my motorcycle tonight before going home. Not a big deal, but it was after midnight, I was tired, and still had a few things to d...
- My Day in CourtI remarked, on the way in, that we were the only people that wanted to be there. Being a defendant must be a bad time, and I doubt being a plaintiff is much better. Jurors are getting a...
- No ShampooIn case you don't know, there are a large number of people on the internet giving up shampoo. They claim that shampoo is the problem, stripping your hair of oils and then adding them ba...
- PermanenceThere's some fundamental human attraction to permanence. We want relationships to be permanent, achievements to hold their importance permanently, and for our possessions to be ours per...
- 2015 Dating UpdateIt's more than halfway through the year, which means I'm overdue for an update on my dating situation. If you're just tuning in now, I took three years off dating with the intention of...
- StreaksI've been blogging for nine years and five months. That's a pretty long streak, and I'm sure you can imagine how big of a barrier it creates against me ever quitting. Streaks are a powe...
- Taking Failure Off the TableLast Thursday, four of the owners of the island converged there to tackle the biggest task so far: build the yurt. Things started going poorly even before we got there. Brian came down...
- Wonders of the WorldLast night, over dinner, I was part of a conversation about virtual and augmented reality, two technologies that aren't here yet, but are inevitable and will change a lot about our worl...
- Think First of the HasslesIs there anyone who isn't busier than they think they should be? I work alone and have a ton of free time, and yet even I feel like I'm constantly doing something I have to do. But it's...
- Placebo Power, How I Don't Get SickThe power of placebos is about as clear cut as research findings come. In fact, one of the biggest challenges for drug companies is finding drugs that are more effective than placebo. M...
- Why Rolexes are Awesome and How to Buy Them CheapSHORT VERSION: Here is a link to my saved search on eBay that shows cheap Rolexes that are probably worth buying. Read on to see why. A month ago or so I wrote a post called, No One Car...
- Take a Day to Clear EverythingToday I decided to just handle everything that's been backing up, but hasn't been a top priority. I set up invoicing for the island and began to collect money from everyone to pay for u...
- Go Where Local Tourists GoOur ship pulled up to Gallno. The landing was nothing more than a small dock and a dirt trail that led into the large island. It's the sort of place where my sense of direction is total...
- My Experience in the 2015 World Series of PokerI played the World Series of Poker for the first time in 2011. Having been consistently winning at the biggest stakes available in San Francisco (which are a lot lower than the biggest...
- Why I Salted My Chocolate MousseIn my normal life, I eat two meals a day. A sardine and a tuna sandwich for lunch, and Chipotle for dinner. I never snack, because I know that these two meals are enough to keep me full...
- CruiseSheet ProgressWith a little encouragement from friends smarter than me, I've decided to pour some time into CruiseSheet and try to make it into an awesome cruising resource and a real business. I thi...
- Do You Really Want What You Want?On a regular basis, I'm surprised to find that what I think I want isn't actually what I want. Last night I found out that there was a caving tour here in Budapest. The pictures looked...
- Aging GracefullyThe most common reaction to seeing us young folk on the cruise was to compliment us on our performance the previous night. Apparently all young people look the same, and the dance corps...
- One Year of Writing In...I've written a blog post every single day for a year exactly now. Actually, there have been two or three days I've used the "buffer by one day" clause and had to write two the next day,...
- Wine or the BottleToday a friend showed me a video where an IKEA print was put into a Dutch art gallery. Patrons were asked about the piece in a hilarious and bumbling volley of art-speak. One guy said h...
- If You Travel, Switch to T-MobileA real love fest went down in the strip mall off the highway in Santa Cruz. We stopped for lunch, at Chipotle of course, and I saw a T-Mobile store. One of my todo items for the followi...
- The Mental Journey of Writing a BookI remember when I wrote my first book. A friend told me I should do it, he was more financially successful than I was, and so I figured I may as well just do what he said. It was a daun...
- Big Blocks of TimeEveryone wants to work smarter, not harder. No reason not to do both, really, but smarter seems so much more appealing sometimes because it requires less work. The free lunch at the end...
- Rolling With PunchesI stare at my phone's clock. My watch isn't accurate enough for situations like this. Up the street I look for the bus, the one with the happy-looking dog on it. It's 3:22, and the bus...
- Managing Thought PatternsIt's got to be on millions of people's bucket lists. It was on mine, too. My friends and I were going to Jordan, and my one must-do was to go to Petra, the famous city carved from rock...
- Putting Yourself Out ThereIt is fairly easy to avoid getting rejected. Just don't step up to the plate and you can never strike out. If you really look at it, this is the modus operandi for most people. They're...
- Short Term Imbalance, Long Term BalanceI've been called unbalanced many times. Not mentally unbalanced (that I know of), but unbalanced in terms of how I spend my time. I spent a whole year doing nothing but pickup. Three ye...
- The Crazy Story of How I Met JustineYou might wonder why I haven't mentioned a word about WifeQuest 9000 since posting a post saying I'm single. Maybe you've assumed that things are going really poorly, and I don't want t...
- Happy With The Best Possible OptionMy motorcycle gave me three years of virtually no problems. Then water got into the tank and caused it to intermittently stop running. A week after I had that fixed, the fuel pump broke...
- Doing Things Every DayLet's say you're going to put ten hours of effort into something, either a project or a habit. Your goal, or one of them, is to get as much out of those ten hours as possible. What will...
- Food is Bad EntertainmentYou don't have to look very far to see indicators that maybe we don't have the best relationship with food. Most people are overweight, unhealthy, and making little to no effort to chan...
- Joking Around With StrangersI can't imagine that working at a car rental place is much fun. Especially if you're working in Las Vegas and the line is full of angry customers who have waited an hour only to be barr...
- The Importance of Having Varied InterestsMy friend Jimmy was working on his business, Minaal. Every once in a while, when you're really working hard, you need to come up for air and take a break. You want to do something that...
- Why Pack UltralightI really agonized over the purchase of my latest jacket. For about fifty dollars more, I could get a jacket that was .8 ounces lighter than the other one. It sounds crazy just writing t...
- I Love BudapestI'm not sure how many countries I've visited in the past year, but the fact that I have no idea gives you an idea. Four in the past week, if you don't count the US. A lot of good flight...
- Two Things to BuildI think that there are two main things worth building in life, not as ultimate life goals, but as valuable waypoints to whatever goals you may have. Those two things are an amazing grou...
- Morning Tea in AmsterdamSome cities I love because they're full of things I like to do. Tokyo, Shanghai, and Budapest, for example. Others I love because of how they feel, but I don't always know what to do wi...
- What Should You Do Next?When I hit them up for blog post ideas, my friends say that I should write posts about how I decide what to do next. I'm not sure if it's because they think I make good decisions when f...
- If You're Going to Do It AnywayMy natural instinct to procrastinate is about as strong as natural inclinations get. Back in school, major papers were often done on a tiny laptop the period before they were due. I'd t...
- The Deal With Cheap Vegas Real EstateAs I mentioned in other posts, I've bought a place in Vegas and have officially moved there (although I still spend a lot of my time traveling). Living in Vegas is a weird sort of looph...
- Being SpecialI'm fascinated by the attitudes of high-level professional fighters. It's such a strange job. Two people spend months preparing for a fifteen minute event, and one of them must lose. Th...
- Obligation of TimeThe other day I thought about getting a job in the most abstract sense. I thought: what would it be like if I just turned one hundred eighty degrees and got a job. The idea is literally...
- Relative Value and BargainingI got into a tuktuk in Chiang Mai to meet my friends for dinner. A tuktuk is a motorcycle with a built in passenger cart behind the driver, which serves as a taxi, but doesn't have a me...
- The First Thing I'd Do DifferentlyStepping back from Sett has left a lot of room for me to reflect. What went wrong? Of those things that went wrong, which were avoidable, or will at least be avoidable in the future? Tw...
- A Rosy Rear-View MirrorThe boat we keep at the island is named the SS Hassle. The process for buying it involved punching a hole in the side of it, patching that hole, buying a new motor because the first one...
- Huge DecisionsMy cousin is deciding which college to go to. There's pressure, because this is going to be one of the biggest decisions of her life. I was thinking about that tonight as she and her mo...
- Skeptical of StudiesWhenever I see a headline that begins with "New Study Proves...", I skip over it and move on to the next one. I love science, and I even like studies, but I have a big problem with the...
- Drinking Tea While TravelingFor a while I just accepted that I wouldn't have good tea when I traveled. I drank good tea in my RV, or at Samovar, but would drink nothing but water when I was on the road. I slowly b...
- EV (How to Make All Decisions)I've been wanting to write this post for a long time, because it's the kind of post that will allow me to write more posts, linking this one as background. Because it's so important, I'...
- Get to the Airport Late But Don't Miss Your FlightI travel a lot. Not as much as a lot of business travelers, but maybe in the top 1% for independent travelers. That means that I spend a lot of time on planes, in airports, and experien...
- Very Quick to ActWhen I think about a lot of the good things that have happened to me over the course of my life so far, a huge number of them can be directly attributed to my willingness to act very qu...
- MomentumLater in the day, after spending hours exploring the pyramids in Cairo, we rented some busted up four-wheelers and took to the desert behind the pyramids. Driving over a huge dune, pyra...
- Perspective From a TombI was enveloped by a red granite box, not much larger than myself. There was no lid, so I could look up at the red granite ceiling. I lay in the tomb of Cheops in the largest pyramid of...
- Short Trips and Long TripsSometimes a preference can morph from being your best assessment of a particular situation into a fixture of who you are. When that happens, you're in a bad position to reevaluate and m...
- When In Doubt, Do Something NiceOne of the hardest things in life is deciding what to do next. Think about what life would be like if you knew every single step that you had to take to get where you wanted. Some of th...
- What I Know About Making Money Self Publishing on AmazonI have four books that I've published myself. Three are on Amazon as paperbacks and Kindle, and a fourth is only available on Kindle. Despite all sorts of other projects I've worked on,...
- Time to Date Again! Introduce Me!As you must know if you read my blog regularly, I really enjoy making extreme resolutions and then sticking to them. One was deciding in 2012 that I wouldn't date until 2015. I had a we...
- Arrivederci, 2014I can't believe the year's over already! As I look over my past year, it feels like the things that happened last January were just a few weeks ago. Trips blended together to create a w...
- Arrivederci, 2014I can't believe the year's over already! As I look over my past year, it feels like the things that happened last January were just a few weeks ago. Trips blended together to create a w...
- Arrivederci, 2014I can't believe the year's over already! As I look over my past year, it feels like the things that happened last January were just a few weeks ago. Trips blended together to create a w...
2014 104
- Wealth Inequality Shouldn't Matter So MuchA quick preface to say that a lot of people are in real poverty through little or no fault of their own, and that's a sad thing. I would like for them to have it better, and agree that...
- Pushups if LateIf you've ever led a group of more than a couple people, you know that timeliness is a big factor. If there's any leeway for people to show up late, someone is going to do it every time...
- The 2015 Gear PostAt last! I'm going to start this gear post with a promise, since everyone's been so patient: the 2016 Gear Post will be out on or before the Monday following Thanksgiving of 2015. The b...
- Sett Has FailedBeginning now, Sett is going into maintenance mode. Todd won't be working on it anymore, except to help me fix the occasional bug on parts he built, and I will work on it as a side proj...
- Ephemeral FriendshipsGlasses clinked and spoons rattled against porcelain as we sat in a backstreet cafe in Tokyo. Our table was three chairs one one side and a low couch on the other. Across from me was Ji...
- Debt is the Opposite of FreedomMost of us, especially people like you who have come to read this blog, value freedom. And not the corndog and bald eagle variety, but the ability to make a wide range of decisions that...
- When to Maximize, When to SufficeI'm a natural maximizer. Whenever I do something, my natural inclination is to go all the way. For example, I travel comfortably and productively with just one bag that weighs less than...
- Seeing Faults in OthersSometimes I would be in my own little world. I remember, as a kid, helping my dad with projects, and he would say that I was oblivious to what was going on around me. He'd be waiting fo...
- What Won't You Change?A while back I watched some of the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, a firmly entrenched creationist. The debate was mostly hilarious and mind-boggling, but one question really stood...
- What I'm Thankful for in 2014I think that gratitude is an essential part of a good life. If you don't appreciate the people, places, and things that make up your life, you don't have much motivation do anything. I...
- Being Bad at Things Isn't CoolMy stepfather was talking today about a friend of his who is a competitive arm-wrestler. That reminded me of something I'd tell people, back in high school: that I'd only won two arm-wr...
- How I Decided to Move to Las Vegas In 12 HoursMy friend Leo suggested once that I write a post about how I make decisions. Since then I've been waiting for the right moment, one where I made a large decision in a very short amount...
- Playing GamesThere's a concept called Radical Honesty that was made popular by a book with the same name. The idea was that you were to be not only completely honest, but also completely forthcoming...
- Try Not to be IgnorantWhen you write a blog that has a fair number of readers, you get a lot of comments on your writing. I just did a quick query, and I've had over 18,000 comments here, nearly all of which...
- A Weekend in Hong KongI spent the weekend in Hong Kong, which sounds a lot more extravagant than it actually was. Early last year there was a flight deal that offered a round trip flight to Hong Kong cheaply...
- How to Think About Bad DaysI took a nap today. I slept for about an hour and a half, woke up, thought about doing something productive, and then went back to sleep. Sure, I'd gotten a handful of small things done...
- Why You Shouldn't Worry About the WorldIn 1894 there was a major crisis in London. It seemed that there was no solution in sight, and that the city was destined to be doomed. The problem was the incredible amount of manure b...
- Remember Why You're Really Doing ItAs you may know, my friend Sebastian and I have a bet going where we must write a blog post every single day for two years. We ironed out the terms and conditions, but one area was left...
- Why It Doesn't Matter Where You TravelIt turns out that sometimes, in South America, four hour bus rides take seven hours. And sometimes the air conditioning doesn't work, and it's the middle of the day in the summer. Today...
- How to Tell a StoryOn the cruise a friend was asking me about my days in pickup. What was the worst rejection I experienced, he asked? That's a path paved with so much rejection that it's sort of like ask...
- Having Very Few ConstraintsA friend asked my yesterday why I do so many crazy things. What's my raison d'etre? He mentioned a few specific examples, and I had reasons for each, but those reasons weren't similar t...
- Cogs in the SystemI used to think that it was a really bad idea to be a cog in the system. I thought this for two reasons. First, I was personally averse to being a cog in any system, and of course any p...
- Things Besides Money and TimeWe've started a new tradition on our cruise called BLunch, which stands for Business Lunch. One member of our gang presents some background on their business, followed by the biggest ch...
- The Traveling YuppieThe other day Todd and I were sitting in a cafe. Next to us was a guy who appeared to be a typical San Francisco yuppie. I wouldn't have talked to him, but Todd is more extroverted than...
- Decoupling Your FinancesAs I've mentioned before, I'm pretty frugal. I like spending money on things like the island, travel, and good food, but I also like saving money. I spend very little money frivolously,...
- How To Make Lots of Great FriendsSometimes as a plane takes off, or a line for a bus inches forward, I occupy myself by making a mental list of things I'm grateful for. The list is never-ending, but the item on the lis...
- The 2014 Transpacific CruiseThe end of a long cruise always feels a bit unfair. It doesn't seem right that tomorrow morning I'll be unceremoniously dumped onto the pier in Yokohama, Japan. Over the past fifteen da...
- Believing Your Own HypeToday I got selected as one of the first Amtrak residents. The original pool was narrowed down from sixteen thousand to just over one hundred, and then again to twenty four. This event...
- When to be StubbornSome of the most interesting attributes are those that are both good and bad. A simple prescription of elimination of the attribute or building it isn't sufficient. Instead we must lear...
- Building EmpathyThere are some skills you have to build only because you're so bad at them. Mediocrity can go overlooked, but we're reminded of our biggest weaknesses constantly, either directly or thr...
- Where Your Advantages Will Come FromSince you're reading my blog, it's probably fair to guess that you're not content to coast through life, and that you've got ambitions that you're chasing. Maybe, like mine, these ambit...
- My New Book: Superhuman by HabitAfter many months of being deprioritized due to Sett and other obligations, I've finally finished my new book on habits, Superhuman by Habit. It's available right now on Amazon. I've be...
- How To Earn Hundreds of Thousands of Frequent Flyer Miles Every YearAs I write, I'm flying over Wyoming on my way to Kansas City, Missouri. I'll be there for approximately fourteen hours, just long enough to watch the Invicta FC 8 Women's MMA fight and...
- How to Be Frugal And Live a Good LifeI think that the way most people spend money is absolutely nuts. I see people buying things they can't really afford, or things that will have no lasting impact on their lives whatsoeve...
- All in the PreparationI'm always interested in finding blind spots or misconceptions in common knowledge. Most people don't seem to really get what they want out of life, and while this is partly fueled by s...
- One Year Update on the Island We BoughtIt's been nearly a year since we bought an island near Halifax. We went in being completely clueless, our only salvation knowing that we were completely clueless and would have to learn...
- The Magical Cure-All ElixirIt's day five of the fifth trip to our island. We don't yet have any sort of permanent structure, so even with cots, sleep isn't perfect. And there's the irregular meal schedule, the ha...
- Treating People Like PeopleLas Vegas is a city that has its own set of rules and norms. When you check into a hotel in any other city, you get the room that you paid for. But Vegas is built on comps and kickbacks...
- Digging Down When You Face ProblemsMy life is so good that I really have no call to complain or worry about anything. That doesn't always stop me, though. Last night I got some bad news and discovered that the yurt we're...
- Suffer NowI'm exhausted. I took a red-eye from Las Vegas to DC, which is a bad idea to begin with because the flight is only four hours long. Even if you sleep the whole time, you're still exhaus...
- Discounting Perspective with TimeMy sister, who I'm immensely proud of, is launching a career as an interior designer. She studied it in school and rose quickly to the top at the firm that hired her right out of colleg...
- Turning Small Wins into Big WinsWorkwise, I had a bad Saturday. It was my first day back in the RV, away from family, and I had psyched myself up. The plan was to work the entire day and knock out a big Sett task, plu...
- Self Improvement Demands an OutletI'm aware that everyone, including myself, is probably a little bit of a hypocrite. What irks me the most is when I do something, say wear a chain with my name on it, think it's cool, a...
- Living in Parallel UniversesI like the idea of parallel universes. There's legitimate scientific research that says that there are infinite universes existing simultaneously in different dimensions, maybe even one...
- The Value of a ThrowawayI have this rule for myself that if I say I'm going to do something, even if it's only to myself, I do it. My overarching principle is to always to do the best I can, but sometimes my b...
- Be The Best on Your Worst DayMy cousins, who are mostly younger girls, and I just finished watching season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter together. My brother is a big UFC fan and bought the pay-per-view fight last Chr...
- A Brief History on NonsenseOnce upon a time, hundreds of years ago, there existed a species called homo sapiens. They had an enormous amount of processing power, an excellent ability to match patterns, and a leve...
- How to Work When Others Don't Want You ToA situation I run into frequently, including right now, is being around people who would prefer that I not work all the time. They understand what I'm doing and are supportive of it, bu...
- Tight and AggressiveIn poker there's an ideal called "tight and aggressive". The idea is to play a very small selection of hands, but to then play those hands very aggressively. You play a small selection...
- Seven Awesome Android Apps You Don't Already Have InstalledAs you might expect, I'm a huge Android fan. I think that what you can do with an Android phone is spectacular, especially a rooted one. There are still some big apps that make it to iO...
- What's AvailableI'm in New York right now visiting my family. I love spending time here. Today I taught my cousin some programming, she actually did some real work for Cruise Sheet, and we only took a...
- The Simple Problems Found on the IslandIt's midnight and I'm on my cot in a tent on the island. It's quiet now, just small waves slapping the rocks and jokes between me, my cousins, and my friend Nick, When we wake up, it wi...
- Leveraging the ImpossibleIn each of our minds is a gradient of activities, ranging from things we definitely won't do (finance a Ferrari), things we'll definitely do (drink water today), and everything else in...
- The Hustler's TrapI was talking with a really accomplished photographer the other day. The guy is an immense talent, has been hired by all sorts of celebrities and productions, and has a very impressive...
- Willing Things into ExistenceWhen I was really young, I would occasionally take over my friend's paper route when he was busy. Not being much of an early riser, I never got to eat breakfast on mornings where I deli...
- Setting a Lower BoundVariance is a natural part of life, and it's not a battle that can ever be won. Some days you'll perform amazingly, and others you'll be a lot worse. We'd all like to have as many amazi...
- Love Work IIWork is almost synonymous with stress in our culture. If you're working hard, you're exhausted, stressed, and stretched thin. So you only work a fixed amount of hours per day if you can...
- The Battles WithinA wild horse is a beautiful thing on its own, but isn't very useful to a person. To create a symbiotic relationship with the horse, the owner must break the horse, training it to give u...
- Free ImprovementRight after I write this, I'm going to go eat at Chipotle. On the train ride over there, I'll be doing Mandarin flashcards on my phone. The ride is less than ten minutes, but I usually...
- No Such Thing as Not Sticking to ItA while back I wrote about how I was going to be neat and tidy henceforth. I'd clean my RV twice a day, keep my travel stuff organized while on the road, and basically be the opposite o...
- What to Do if You're Forced to Go to SchoolYou know that dream where you're at school with no pants on? I don't have that one, but I have one that's almost as terrifying: that I'm in school WITH pants on. I dropped out after a y...
- Dealing in Harsh CriticismHere's my theory: harsh criticism is one of the most valuable commodities out there, and you should be collecting as much of it as possible. Secondly, people enjoy giving harsh criticis...
- What's the Real Worst Case?Over the past few days there was a "mistake fare" going on with some European airlines which enabled you to book amazing US -> Europe -> Asia multiple stop tickets for $130-400. Friends...
- The Smiling MaidI'm in a bus going up the Chilean coast. The ride is almost twenty-four hours long, which means I have no excuse to not get a solid blog post written. If only I had an idea... For the p...
- Build Self Trust FirstOne of the fundamental pillars of being someone who executes (does executioner sound too extreme?) is trusting yourself completely. Only when you have that trust can you reliably reach...
- Or Can You?Yesterday afternoon we got to the bus stop and boarded our bus. We would be on it for twenty four hours without a power jack, meaning that every last milliamp of power was precious. In...
- Finding Your FaultToday eBay reversed a payment I received for selling a phone. I had sent the phone on the way to the airport and kept the receipt in my backpack in case I needed to verify that I sent i...
- The Greatest Story Ever Told, Starring YouImagine a story. Maybe it's a novel or a movie or a long running TV show, whichever you prefer. The beginning of the story is your life so far. It's been compressed a lot, so it's not t...
- The Relationship Between Happiness and PleasureOne of the most frequent criticisms I get is that I'm too focused on serious things like productivity, self improvement, and learning. I value those things highly and often focus on the...
- Just Sufficing SucksIt might surprise most readers to know that I actually had a pretty great time in school. I learned a lot, made great friends, and had some very good teachers. There are a lot of positi...
- A Precarious LifeLast night I played poker for the first time in four months. I play a reasonably big game, where you typically buy in for $500, and always have another $500 in reserve. When you play a...
- One Language Down, A Review of The Pimsleur MethodTwo months ago I wrote a blog post about how I was going to learn every language. At the time I had just finished the Pimsleur tapes for Romanian I and German I, and was moving on to Ge...
- Why Crazy Stuff Happens on the Island: Risk ProfilesI really enjoy talking about risk, but it's always better to talk about concrete examples rather than theories. My recent post about the disasters encountered on our island trip got a l...
- Island Adventure 2, Part 2: Almost Total VictoryI woke up to a familiar sight. Outside the vehicle I had slept in was Brian, on the phone, trying to get us help with our latest predicament. And, just as last time with being stuck in...
- Island Adventure 2, Part 1: Total DisasterAs I write this, I am hunched over my laptop, which is held at an awkward angle because of the steering wheel in front of me. Carpal tunnel syndrome is imminent. Out of the window to my...
- Sometimes It's Better Not to KnowI'm sitting in the Kansas City terminal, waiting for my next flight. The barbecue restaurant there serves shockingly large portions, which, combined with waking up early today, has me f...
- Dread and Uncertainty Cause Us to Overestimate How Long Things TakeI'm on a late flight back from Vegas, I didn't get enough sleep, and I'm exhausted. I hadn't done my German tape for the day yet, so I put my headphones in, propped my head against the...
- Trying Valve's Virtual Reality, and Why It Will Change EverythingThanks to my friend Brian, I recently had the opportunity to try out Valve's new work on virtual reality. Only a couple hundred or so people have had the chance to try it so far, and mo...
- When Is Your Lowest Priority Task Your Most Important?You know that feeling when you're having a great day, but you forget exactly why it's so great? There's that feeling that something really good happened earlier, and its glow is being c...
- Filling Your Glass and Fighting Hedonic AdaptationThere's a concept called hedonic adaptation, which says that we quickly adjust to any increased level of comfort or luxury and cease to appreciate it. Anything good that happens to us b...
- Not Being a RobotOne of my overarching goals in how I present myself is to be consistent. Although the relationships I have with my family, friends, acquaintances, and random people on the internet is a...
- The Experience the Other Person Wants to HaveI know that I'm more self centered than I should be. It's something I work on, not by instructing myself to be less self centered, which is too foggy a command to actually obey, but thr...
- Making Rules for YourselfI don't notice that I have a million rules for myself until someone hears about one, asks if I have others, and the conversation lasts for hours. I know that even with all of the discip...
- Why I'll Be Writing Every Day For Two Years"Are you kidding me? I've been telling everybody that you write a blog post every single day!" Sebastian just learned that I fell off of my writing-every-single-day habit, and became ou...
- Make Fewer Decisions to Produce MoreI want to produce at a superhuman level. Looking back over a year, I'd like to wonder just how I got so much done in such a short period of time. At my best I can execute to that standa...
- Being Willing to be NeutralA couple months ago I watched the Wolf of Wall Street with some friends. As the credits began to roll, I started to consolidate my opinion on the move. Did I love it? Did I hate it? I c...
- Principles I Live ByMost of what we do is subconscious, driven by our habits. The rest is conscious, primarily driven by our principles. In addition to dictating our conscious actions, principles also guid...
- Where I'll Be In 2024A couple days ago, during a rest period of a workout, Leo asked me if I was different now than I was ten years ago. My gut reaction was to say that, no, I was pretty much exactly the sa...
- Dealing With the Pain of Breaking UpOne of the things that's missing from my writing is emotion, and I know it. I'm always trying to correct that by looking for ways to add emotion to my writing, but I rarely find them. T...
- Carry the Weight[Note: If you're in San Francisco or Austin, read the bolded part at the very bottom!] For most of my life, at least until my late twenties, I was a slacker. I did almost nothing to hel...
- Doing Things That Aren't Supposed to Be DoneThe first example I can remember was when my friends and I, nineteen at the time, bought a forty foot long school bus. The idea was so absurd and without precedent, that it seemed impos...
- Believing Things That May Not Be TrueIn poker, you make money whenever your opponent plays differently than he would if he knew what cards you have. When you do the same, you lose money. In other words, whenever you act in...
- Why I Take Ballet Classes, And Why I Like ThemAbout eight months ago, I had the idea that maybe I should be doing something to work on flexibility and posture, like yoga. I've taken yoga in the past and liked it, but never really l...
- The Long ShotsI have a favorite type of hand in poker. I like it because it makes up a huge chunk of my winnings at poker, is good solid play, and looks idiotic to bad poker players. It's the kind of...
- Treading Water Doesn't Get You to the ShoreIf there's one long-term state that I won't tolerate for myself, it's treading water, putting out effort just to stay where I am. I want to either expend effort to move something ahead,...
- Live Every Day Like Your FirstI've never been a big fan of the phrase, "Live Every Day Like Your Last". If I was going to do that, I would book the most ridiculous multi-leg flight possible, and go try to see my lov...
- The Opportunity of AdversityHave you ever noticed that adversity is often a good thing when spoken about in the past tense? I wrote a story a long time ago about how I got in way over my head exploring a cave in A...
- Why and How I'm Learning All the LanguagesBefore going to Romania, I decided I'd try to learn a bit of Romanian. By almost any measure it's sort of a pointless language to learn, but I figured I'd get a kick out of pretending t...
- Adventure is a ChoiceTwo months ago I was on a cruise ship making its way through the Mediterranean towards the Atlantic. My friend Brian and I sat down to dinner and were surprised when we were joined by t...
- Five Reasons I Recommend Japan to EveryoneWhen offering advice, I try really hard to actually give advice that's suited for the person I'm giving it to. I make an extra effort to do this, because I know that I have a tendency t...
- Why You Should Probably Buy BitcoinsIn 2009, probably within the first couple months of its existence, I downloaded the Bitcoin client and began mining bitcoins. Back then it was really easy-- you could get hundreds of Bi...
- Consider the Full Range of Options on Big DecisionsA lot of life is about managing focus, the battle between breadth and depth. If we take every opportunity that comes our way, we're left with too little time and energy to make a meanin...
- Consequences of the Rise of DesignI was walking through the mall a couple days ago. My path took me past a bunch of stores and kiosks, including the Nike Store. I walked past it and looked at their window display. They...
- Acting in Spite of Being CluelessOne of the first presents I remember getting from my parents was a camera. I was about seven years old, and from the prints I still have, it seems that most of my photos were of my guin...
2013 109
- La Revedere, 2013I'm always amazed at just how much happens in a year. At the end of each year, grateful for a gimme topic to write about, I sit down to write this post. And each time my first thought i...
- La Revedere, 2013I'm always amazed at just how much happens in a year. At the end of each year, grateful for a gimme topic to write about, I sit down to write this post. And each time my first thought i...
- La Revedere, 2013I'm always amazed at just how much happens in a year. At the end of each year, grateful for a gimme topic to write about, I sit down to write this post. And each time my first thought i...
- Sticking to It WorksI think that we all know what works and what doesn't work, but in order to avoid doing the work, we come up with fake stories about what works. How do you make progress? You stick with...
- Investing Time vs. Spending TimeIf I ask you how you spend your money, that's a very different question than if I ask how you invest your money. Your goals for spending and investing are different, and as a result you...
- The 2014 Gear PostFor those of you who were linked here, or who are new to my blog this year, every year I write a gear post which contains every single item I travel with. Despite being minimal, the set...
- Things I'm Not Going to Write About TodayLife has been crazy lately, and I haven't seen my daily writing habit in months. I have a hundred blog posts written, but I forget exactly where they are, and I remember thinking none o...
- Why Obsess About Productivity?A guy on Twitter asked a pretty good question the other day: "Why do you worship productivity so much? Honestly? (I am currently sitting at a ski hill with an ear-to-ear grin from powde...
- Learn to Get Things DoneI have a group of friends that I have dinner with every Sunday. One of them owns a chocolate factory / cafe called Dandelion Chocolate, and another owns Three Babes Bakeshop (side note:...
- Comfort is the Opposite of TrainingBeing comfortable should be a warning sign. It's not that being comfortable is a bad thing by itself, but if we agree that growth comes from pushing your comfort zone, then any time we'...
- Think Long Term to Make Good DecisionsI'm on a Southwest Airlines flight right now, heading from DC to San Francisco. The way food works on Southwest is they hold out a big basket full of snacks, and you take whatever you w...
- Thankful for my FamilyThanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. The other ones are weird religious inventions or consumerized hijackings of religious inventions. And sure, the origins of thanksgiving are...
- The Fake Newsletter Cruise PrankI've written the equivalent of about 50 blog posts in the past couple weeks for a new habit book I'm writing, so you'll have to excuse the off-topic post today. I can only write so much...
- What's the Point of Traveling?A few days ago reader "jd" had a great suggestion for a post: what's the point of traveling? Seeing that I'm at the end of a long series of trips, it's seems to me that it's a perfect t...
- Random Notes on Places I've Visited RecentlyI haven't been writing travel stories recently, but since I've been through so many different cities in the past month, I figure I should share a few little notes on each, just in case...
- Don't Get The Job DoneI've found that there are two different mindsets that I can be in when I'm trying to get work done. One is the mindset that always accompanies a new project: excitement and the drive to...
- How To Book Cruises For Less Than $30 Per DayIn the last post, where I wrote about how much I like working from cruise ships, I mentioned that I could share my method for booking really cheap cruises. I'm going to do that here, an...
- Why Cruise Ships are My Favorite Remote Work LocationI'm currently on a cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean sea, en route from Barcelona to Casablanca. Most people here are either retirees enjoying the easy life or younger folks ce...
- How to Book Flights with Free Mini-StopoversLast night I landed in Florence. I had four layovers on the way here, which doesn't sound like a positive thing at first, but I booked them intentionally. Very frequently, if I have a l...
- The Simple Method of Preventing Jet Lag Every TimeJet lag sucks. I remember the worst time I had it, during one of my first trips to Japan. I was so excited to get out and see Tokyo, but I just couldn't pry myself from the bed. At thre...
- Don't FrontThere are a lot of different stories I could tell about SETT. To certain audiences of people outside the tech world, I could really make it seem like a big thing. I could say that I'm t...
- The Importance of Environment on ProductivityI've got two weeks in China. The first was spent between Shanghai and Beijing with Leo, mostly drinking prodigious amounts of good tea in tucked away teahouses. The second week I figure...
- Bet Your Friends to Be More RightA while back I had a friend named Andrew. The tie that bound us was our love for gambling, not as a thrill-seeking diversion, but as a practical application of statistics. We made money...
- How To Be Productive While TravelingIf you have a nine to five job, then maybe your challenge is to not work while you travel. The hard part might be escaping the calls and emails. But when you're independent, sometimes i...
- My Mini Sideproject - Cruise SheetI went on my first cruise ten years ago. All I really knew about them at the time was that they were the most interesting things pictured on the back of cornflakes boxes, and that a gir...
- Thinking About How You'll Feel to Survive ImpulsesI just finished up a 12 hour workday. I got a lot of stuff done, took only the bare minimum in breaks, etc. All I wanted to do afterwards was watch Elementary, a modern Sherlock Holmes...
- Our Heroes are Normal People, TooIt's comfortable to believe that our heroes are cut from a different cloth. They can appear to be like humanoid aliens from another planet-- similar in a lot of ways, but totally differ...
- You Have to Create Your Own ChallengesLast night I was reading Ender's Game, which means that I'm way behind the times, since everyone else seemed to read it in high school. In the book, at least as far as I've gotten, the...
- Four Modern Competitive Advantages You Can Build NowIf you perform at an average rate, you'll probably have an average life. Yes, there are exceptions, but counting on an exception is a weak plan. If you want an above-average life, you'r...
- Moving from Net-Negative to Net-PositiveWhen you live in a world with a million different things you could be doing at any time, the decision on how to spend your time is difficult. Ignoring the infinite suboptions in each ca...
- What About Learning?Right now I'm staying up with my cousin who's a senior in high school. It's midnight on Sunday, and she's busy finishing up her homework for the weekend. There's a roll of tape on the c...
- How Can a Minimalist Buy an Island?Considering the island story has eclipsed my next most popular story on this blog by almost 4x, maybe a follow-up is in order. At this point I should admit that I have no idea what the...
- My Friends and I Bought an IslandAs long as I've remembered, I've wanted to buy a private island. Having a random patch of land somewhere holds almost no appeal, but an island is totally different. An island is like yo...
- On The Importance of Facing the TruthThe list of problems that don't have their roots in a fundamental misunderstanding of how things actually are is a short one. The other night I was playing poker, and one of the guys at...
- Broadening Your Focus to Improve Your MoodWhen I renewed the registration on my motorcycle six months ago, I was asked to provide proof of insurance. I tried to do the online insurance validator, but it didn't work, so I emaile...
- How to Recalibrate Yourself To Change Habits and Reach GoalsDoing anything that's not normal is difficult. You have to move past your automatic patterns and rely on conscious action to move forward. We're wired to rely on our subconscious, so th...
- Ramblings on NarcissismYesterday there was a story about me, my RV, and my friends on the front page of the SF Chronicle site. The article was really nicely written and very positive about the whole RV thing....
- Five Steps to Becoming a LeaderI've always wanted to be a leader. For the longest time I didn't know what it actually meant to be a leader, so my aspiration was probably just because I wanted the prestige of being a...
- What I Learned From Two Frustrating Days of Not WorkingFor two days, I didn't do any programming for SETT. The morning of the first day I was busy with other high priority stuff. I finished that up, ate lunch, and decided to work on SETT. B...
- Using Specific Motivation to Reach Your GoalsOne of the worst pitfalls of productivity is to decide that you're going to execute on something, work on it for some period of time, lose interest, and ultimately quit before you get m...
- Is Life Futile?A few weeks ago I was in Salem, Massachusetts. It's a really nice town on the ocean with quaint red brick buildings and lots of trees. It's also full of shops selling jokey witch knick-...
- Thinking Ahead and Accepting DiscomfortToday was a long day. I had to have a difficult conversation unexpectedly, I had a long flight, a train ride, and when I arrived at my RV, I was locked out. By the time the locksmith go...
- The Silver Lining in Taking Breaks from WorkA big reason that I work seven days a week is to keep momentum going. I know that any day I take off will set me back not only the productivity I would have gotten on that one day, but...
- How to Use Self Talk to Reinforce Good HabitsThere's that cliche, "If you think you can't, you can't," or something like that. The idea is that if you decide that you're not going to be able to do something, you'll self-sabotage a...
- Thank YouIt's funny how sometimes our biggest faults are invisible to us. When I first heard from a girlfriend that I didn't express enough appreciation for her, I thought she was overly sensiti...
- When You Go Off the Rails, Only Go a LittleAs imperfect humans constantly trying to stick new habits, we're all familiar with the concept of falling off the rails. It happens to everyone, sometimes as a conscious decision, somet...
- Twice, Then StopOn our Japan trip this year, lots of people took turns sharing their skills with others. Sebastian gave an awesome talk on Sengoku Japan (AT Osaka Castle, no less), Nick Gray gave one o...
- Have Less Acquaintances, More FriendsFor the past year or so I've made an effort not to socialize. Sounds weird, but I figured that the only way I could really see just how much I could focus on SETT would be to cut out ev...
- Things Shouldn't Always WorkLast night as I brushed my teeth, I had a great idea for a new logo for SETT-- maybe I could contort the ends of the S in such that the negative space would create two speech bubbles, I...
- The BasicsA long time ago I read about how Michael Jordan practiced. Despite being creative on the court, almost all of his practice was the basics. Free throws, three pointers, dribbling. I figu...
- Frozen PondsWhen I was a kid, I used to play on frozen ponds. It's one of those things that I'm now amazed I was allowed to do, which causes me to worry that I'll be an overbearing parent. The smal...
- Birth of a HabitI always write about habits after they're done, but I thought that it would be interesting to write about one before it starts, to get really specific about the actual process of creati...
- The Smallest IntervalIt's scary making large sweeping promises, even if they're to yourself. There's something about long time horizons that churn our stomachs a little bit. If I asked you to give up sugar...
- Two YearsThey say that we overestimate what we can do in the short term, and underestimate what we can do in the long term. As someone who's had his share of overstuffed todo lists, I believe th...
- The Bernal Heights Piano Incident(s)Christophe was moving his office and had to get rid of a piano. But one does not simply get rid of a piano. He and Todd concocted a plan to bring it to a public place so that it could b...
- Switching to LinuxI was eating in Chipotle, browsing Hacker News on my phone when I read some outdated article about how the NSA may or may not have backdoor access to some cryptographic function of Wind...
- FallingBeing high up in the air isn't a problem until the wind starts blowing. Then the dance begins -- your mind rebels, and you have to do everything you can to not get sucked down into it....
- Terrible FirstWhen we first started building SETT, I'd sometimes get asked what I was working on. Saying it was a new blogging platform was easy, but when pressed for details on what made it differen...
- Why and How to Be On TimeFor about a year now, I've been very punctual. Before making a concerted effort to be on time to everything, I was like any other average person-- sometimes on time, often a few minutes...
- GrampsA few days ago I'd heard that my paternal grandfather, Gramps, was diagnosed with Lymphoma and was going to have some tests done to see what treatment was required. Today I woke up and...
- Automating EverythingI've always been obsessed with automation. When I had a house I had automatic robot lawnmowers to mow my lawns and a matrix of motion detectors to control my lights. These days I have a...
- Information You Won't UseI think that bitcoins are a big deal. Maybe not this year or next year, but within the next five to ten years, I believe that there's a good chance that they will revolutionize online f...
- Progress on my CampaignsI'm always starting (and ending) new habits and campaigns. I tend to write about them when I first start or first see results, but I'm not always good at follow up. Sometimes, too, the...
- The Path to PerfectionI work to be a perfect writer, a perfect friend, a perfect programmer, a perfect son and brother, a perfect motorcycle rider, and a perfect violinist. I also want to have perfect discip...
- Historical Fiction Book RecommendationsIt's been a long time since I've shared book recommendations, but I've been reading a lot and have stumbled upon some great books recently. I normally read non-fiction, but I've been in...
- FreestylingWhen I was a freshman in college, MP3s weren't all that easy to come by. I had about a hundred of them, five of which were Eminem freestyles. His freestyles were amazing, but my favorit...
- Triggers for Automated HabitsI've had a few friends who've gone through quitting smoking. The hard part, they say, is that certain things trigger wanting to smoke. Stressful situation? Time to smoke. Driving a car?...
- Maybe I CanI have two seemingly conflicting beliefs. The first is that whenever possible, it is best to know the truth. By default I think that we sometimes avoid the truth, and we sometimes avoid...
- MicroprioritiesI've talked a lot before about priorities in a macro sense-- that it's a good idea to have one large overriding first priority. In my case, that priority is SETT. So when another really...
- Better All the TimeI have a really strong desire to be the best person I can be. Not in the Army reserves sort of way, but eliminating weaknesses and building strengths. I think it's a ridiculous privileg...
- GritMy friend Ben Yu, has recently taken to rebutting all of my blog posts on his own blog. I hope to prove him wrong on the first one through action, but I'll address the second one with w...
- Good SleepI think that some might be surprised to hear how much I sleep and how important it is to me. I average right around eight hours per day (tracked for a few months), and prioritize sleep...
- Removing OptionsA few years ago I visited the Dominican Republic, and its island-mate, Haiti. Dominican Republic is a relatively poor country, but Haiti is far poorer. In fact, it's the poorest country...
- Learning a language on your own - self-study textbooks/methodsA lot of you who have been following Tynan for a while probably understand by now that Tynan loves traveling and he's also learning Japanese these days. I'm sure a lot of Tynan's reader...
- This Will PassA while ago I was having trouble working. I had just begun a new workout regimen, which was taking up a lot of my focus and willpower, as well as leaving me more tired with the same amo...
- Three Tricks to Get Cheap International FlightsI've been on an awesome run of trips recently. I've gone to China, Peru, Mexico, and Japan, and have paid $1350 total for all four flights. That's roughly the cost of the normal price o...
- Sprint to the Finish LineAround ten years ago, a friend of mine bet me that he could run a mile faster than I could. We each had a month or two to train, and then we met at the high school track near my old hou...
- Conservation of DecisionsThe way we make decisions is pretty interesting. Making decisions that are bad for us is easy and effortless. Think about how easy it is to decide to watch TV, eat some junk food, take...
- What I've Learned about MeditationIt seems like almost high achiever I know finds the time to meditate and lift weights. Those are two fairly different activities which are usually associated with disparate stereotypes,...
- A Somewhat Balanced View on School and Dropping OutI dropped out of school during my sophomore year of college. I was a little bit scared to do it, but I followed through because I was certain that I didn't want to get a normal job or d...
- Getting SeriousThe great Japanese Train Trip of 2013 is over, and everyone has left Tokyo besides Sebastian and myself. Making up for the week of decreased productivity, we meet in an office in Shibuy...
- What I Do When I'm StuckA quick little post today on my routine that I go through when I'm stuck. Let's say that I'm programming and I'm hitting a wall, maybe I'm getting frustrated that I can't figure somethi...
- The Upside to being StubbornBack when I used to help Mystery run workshops, we had a division of labor. He did most of the teaching, I did most of the organizing, and he made most of the decisions. Our program was...
- The Possibility of Being a Horrific FailureYou can't control definitively whether you'll succeed or fail, but you do get to set the parameters. The way I live my life, I will either be an big success or a huge failure. There are...
- The Opportunity Cost of Working HardWhen you're working, you're not out seeing a new city. You're stuck in a room, probably at a computer, churning away. When you're working, you're not out meeting new people. You're stuc...
- First TemptationThe coefficient of friction is a number that describes the friction between two objects. A combination like rubber on concrete would have a really high coefficient of friction, whereas...
- The Jagged Upwards LineI like the Bell Curve. It's one of those universal principles that can be applied in millions of different ways throughout your life to help make sense of things. Along with the bell cu...
- What You Are, What You DoYou know when I was the most productive? The day before I started writing about how productive I was. You know when I was the least productive? About a week after that. You know where I...
- The ComboI'm pretty good at a lot of things. I'm a good programmer, a good blogger, a good writer, a good poker player and so on. Am I one of the BEST programmers in the world? Nope, not even cl...
- "Total Focus; Total Enjoyment" by TynanI'm thrilled that Tynan is coming to you with two things -- first, he's offering a breakthrough session through GiveGetWin. It's geared around doing more of the kind of excellent work y...
- The Less FortunateI write a lot about how people need to make decisions for themselves, work extremely hard, and get off the beaten path. Inevitably, people ask about normal people or people who don't ha...
- Isn't it ConvenientIsn't it convenient that humans all need the same amount of schooling? Four years of high school, four years of college, and then we're prepared. Isn't it convenient that driving a car...
- Whose Goals?It's really hard for me to judge people by their own goals, but I think it's an important thing to do. I see someone chomping down on McDonalds, sitting behind a desk, playing solitaire...
- My Daily RoutineFor most of my life I operated without a daily routine. I would have an idea of what needed to be done every day, and how I should be living my life, but there was little consistency be...
- The Tempo of WorkWhenever you fully immerse yourself in something, you begin to see patterns and make connections that you wouldn't otherwise make. This is why everyone who's ever become really good at...
- Almost Impossible to FailWhen beginning some new undertaking, I ask myself: what would I have to do for it to be nearly impossible to fail. Certainty of success is an illusion, but by for any given goal it's po...
- Not That Kind of PersonFor the past month I've been working out regularly under the tutelage of Dick Talens, the founder of Fitocracy, and for the first time ever I'm making actual gains. Seven pounds gained...
- My Writing ProcessI've gotten a few emails asking about my writing process, now that I write every day. It's changed quite a it since last time I wrote about this, so it's probably about time for an upda...
- You're Going to Be the One Doing it AnywayWhen I was a kid, my parents would tell me to do something reasonable like clean my room. I'd probably do it, or at least make a token effort. Sometimes I wouldn't do it, and my mom wou...
- Training YourselfTo train any animal, you follow a simple process. You somehow indicate what you want it to do, and then when it does it, you give it a reward. Maybe in some cases you punish it if it do...
- There Are Fifty Blogs on SETT Now!Last Friday night, after two years of really hard work on SETT, we sent invite codes out to the four hundred people on the SETT waiting list, offering fifty spots. Whoever managed to sn...
- Past, Present, FutureThere's this new-age idea that we should all be completely in the present at all times, ignoring the past and the future. Some people go so far as to parrot phrases like "the present is...
- Not Regretting Something Doesn't Make it RightI've noticed that a lot of times when I do something and I wonder for a moment if it was the best choice or not, I tend to come to the conclusion that I don't regret it, so it must be g...
- Roughly What You DeserveBack when I was gambling professionally, it seemed like everyone had an opinion on which casino was rigged. I never really thought that, but I also didn't really think that I was winnin...
- Average PeopleWhen I write about "average people" or "average Americans", I often get flack about it. Some people call me elitist. Occasionally I get called something worse. Then there are the commen...
- Interesting Art ThingsI must be in an art sort of mood. I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before Christmas, and then went to the Met and Museum of Modern Art in New York after New Years. Today I ev...
- My Daily MealsA few people asked what I eat every day. I think that what I eat is of minor interest, but maybe the reasoning behind it might be more valuable. First the what. My friend Dick Talens su...
- Stimulation and How I Learned to Love DishwashingWhen I bought a house ten years ago, I also bought place settings for six and silverware for twelve. Then I developed a minor fascination with bone China and bought settings for eight....
- Goodbye 2012I'm sitting by a crackling fire at my aunt and uncle's house in New Jersey and we're just a couple hours into the new year, which means that it's a perfect time to review the year and l...
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- Being Your Own BossStandards are an interesting thing. They don't dictate exact performance, but they do sketch out a ballpark. If you expect yourself to read a book a week, you may not actually do that,...
- Three Speeds of Self ImprovementYesterday I got a good question from a reader. His email was too long to paste in full, but the gist of the question was that he was trying to do a lot of self improvement stuff at once...
- On BullshitIf you've been reading for a while, you may have noticed that I almost never swear. I tend to think that there's a more accurate way than swearing to express anything, but today I could...
- Consistency is the Hard PartThe one thing I consistently fail to account for when planning trips, especially shorter ones, is the disruption it will cause to my routine. For over a hundred days in a row, I wrote a...
- The First DistractionRight now I'm waiting to start a video interview. I called in early, but my friend who is doing the interview wasn't ready, so I've got five or ten minutes to kill before we get started...
- Gear Post 2012: Zen EditionOkay, okay, okay... I'll write the gear post before the year's over! One of the things that keeps me from writing all year is that it never really feels like the stuff in my pack has ch...
- No MiddleWhen I talk about working like a maniac for 10-14 hours a day, I sometimes get criticized for working too hard. I need to relax or enjoy life more, people say. When I read this, I assum...
- ProtocolsThe benefit of having your subconscious make decisions isn't so much that it's a better decision maker than your conscious mind (it's probably not), but that it can make decisions much...
- From Weakness to StrengthWhen I first released SETT, a common bit of feedback I'd get was, "It's nice, but it's really slow". This shouldn't have been too surprising to me, given that I hadn't spent any time op...
- Da Hong Pao: An $80 Pot of TeaI had only the roughest of plans coming to China-- hang out in Shanghai, make it to Hua Shan, and drink some good tea. With a couple weeks of Shanghai loafing and a trip to Hua Shan und...
- A Survey For Bloggers (and story for everybody)We're getting pretty close to being ready to launch SETT to the (unsuspecting) public. Shooting for mid December, but no later than January no matter what. If you're a blogger, you can...
- Hua ShanIt started about five years ago. On the internet I saw a picture of a really janky looking pathway that was nothing more than some two by fours bolted high into the side of a mountain....
- Exploiting Societal WeaknessesIn poker you often win not by playing your cards, but by playing your opponents cards. My good friend and sometimes poker mentor once told me that to become a winning poker player, you...
- Stuck in Canadian CustomsI slept most of the flight from San Francisco to Vancouver. I was up until one thirty in the morning the night before, and had to wake up at five in order to get to the airport on time,...
- My Eighth BloggiversaryEight years ago today I started my blog. It actually started as a livejournal blog which I used to chronicle my third (and successful) attempt to get onto a polyphasic sleep schedule. I...
- A Low Success RateAbout a year ago I was in my bed, working on my laptop. A fist pounded on the wall of my RV, moving from the front to the back. Then more pounding on the other side. Finally I hear some...
- Things Other People Don't DoWhen someone gets an idea, what determines whether that idea gets put into practice or not? There are a lot of factors, but one of the largest is whether or not he believes that the ide...
- What Your Priorities AreIt's always better to look at actions than words. If someone says that they're committed to being healthy, but then they order a fat stack of pancakes... well, maybe they're not so comm...
- TulumWhen you write every day, coming up with topics becomes the hard part of it all. So whenever I go on a trip, I try to wring a post out of it. In some cases, like the Peru trek, the thre...
- If Not This OneA friend of mine founded a company with another guy. When they started out, their lives and ambitions were very similar, even if the principles bubbling below the surface weren't. One t...
- Happiness and SatisfactionSeven years ago, I wrote a post called "How to Be Happy. Always." It's pretty poorly written, but starts off with an important concept-- we live in a society where happiness is the numb...
- Creators and AssemblersI had tea with my friend Joey the Cat today. He's the number one ranked skeeball player in the US and has a small skeeball empire of his own, refurbishing machines, and then renting the...
- Two New Bloggers on SETT!I can't tell you how excited I am to share this news. As some of you may have already noticed, there are two more blogs on SETT, bringing the count to four. As I've mentioned before, I...
- Tynan vs. the Peruvian AndesA couple months ago I was minding my own business, reading a book, about to go to sleep. I give twitter one last check on my phone and see a message from my friend Jenna telling me of a...
- What Shape are You?This post is a guest post from my friend Brian SharpMy post before this was a kind of therapy / Buddhism / personal growth kind of deal, but I also spend a lot of time thinking about ho...
- Where the Line IsWhen you're doing something hard, the effort curve looks something like a bell curve. At first, as you're dabbling in it, you don't put in much effort. Then it progressively gets harder...
- Beating Someone at His Own GameAs babies we learn through imitation. We use our unrefined motor control skills to mimic what our parents do, and eventually with enough practice, most of us master the basics like eati...
- The Most Valuable DayI slept in until eleven thirty today. Three months ago that would qualify as an early morning, but I"ve shifted to becoming an early riser, and now that feels late. Usually I have my wr...
- The Hustler's MBAI've been saying that college is obsolete for a very long time. I dropped out in 2000, because even back then I could see that it was a really poor value proposition. I didn't predict t...
- Nine out of TenEight years ago, I lived in a house that we called Project Hollywood. A group of the four best pickup artists in the world-- and me-- rented out Dean Martin's old house on Sunset Blvd....
- Strengths and WeaknessesSomething I wrestle with from time to time is whether to focus on my strengths or my weaknesses. On one hand, weaknesses often represent the lowest hanging fruit. If I'm really bad at,...
- Throw Away Your WorkI have a whole book written that you'll probably never see. A third of a novel that I'll finish by the end of the year, but may never publish. Pages of rap lyrics I've written. Over fif...
- Spur of the MomentLast night I was in the Las Vegas airport, waiting for boarding to start on my flight. I went there an hour early because I didn't have time to play poker, so I figured I could get on w...
- Love WorkI used to dislike to work. I saw how most people lived their lives, slogging through work that they hated, and I was determined not to fall into that trap. I made the mistake of general...
- PreferenceThere are different ways to solve problems. I've noticed that there's a continuum that these solutions rest on. On the left side are solutions that attack the symptoms of the problem. T...
- Spent TimeIt's early and the whole day is in front of me. How will I spend my time? When I was in middle school, frozen yogurt was served during recess for fifty cents. Sometimes I had fifty cent...
- How I Won't FailSETT, the new blogging platform that Todd and I are building, which this blog is running on, is going really well. With every project comes this fantasy that as soon as the world catche...
- The Magic Of Every DayI talk a lot about habits on here-- but there's a certain type of habit that's especially near and dear to my heart. Or a certain frequency of habit, I should say. The daily habit. I've...
- What Am I Doing That's Hard?It's funny, this natural inclination we have for things to be easy. Everyone wants to work really hard, not for its own sake, but only so that they can stop working hard and go live on...
- SETT Survey!SETT has gotten to the point that I'm spending less time putting out fires and stomping bugs, and more time trying to think about how people are using it and how I can make that better....
- On Turning 30Previous birthdays never really meant much to me. At eighteen I could buy cigarettes and porn, but I didn't because I don't smoke and know what the internet is. At twenty one I could bu...
- Why Your Next Laptop Should be Japanese, And How to Buy ItI'm the kind of guy who's so dependent on his laptop that it makes sense to always have the best one for my needs. I'm willing to go to extraordinary lengths for a good laptop, because...
- A Short Trip to AlaskaOne night, while in the RV working on SETT, Todd suggested a trip to Alaska. I said I'd be interested in it, forgetting that in our group of friends, this low level of commitment basica...
- The RaceThere's a race going on, but it's not an ordinary marathon. First of all, it's not a mere twenty six point two miles long. We don't know how long it is because we can't see that far; no...
- The 2012 RV TourFor new readers to the site, or old readers who haven't been paying attention, I live in my small RV. I bought my first RV in 2007, and except for short term travel rentals, I haven't l...
- Building a Small Piece of GreatnessI've recently become interested in history, which was one of my least favorite subjects in school. Last week I watched a documentary about the Medici family, the rulers of Florence who...
- SETT's First Non-Tynan BloggerTime for a SETT update. Let's eat our dessert first and start with the big news-- my good friend and really sharp tech entrerpreneur, Daniel Odio, is officially the first person to swit...
- Brain TrainingOne day last week I drank too much tea too late in the day. Instead of going to bed at my normal 1:30-2am time, I went to bed after 3am. The next morning I woke up around eleven, feelin...
- Real Escape, and What I Learned From ItReal Escape is a Japanese phenomenon, which is generally enough to get me in the door. Through my Japanese teacher I met one of the creators a few months back, and he described a real l...
- Looking at ExtremesAs I wrote in What Lasts, classical music performances are an excellent place for me to think and tune out distractions. In addition to the suggestion that ideas are the durable commodi...
- Some Thoughts on ProcrastinationWhen I was in high school and I had a week to do a paper, I would put it off. Not until two days before it was due, not until the night before it was due, and not even until the morning...
- Practicing Your CraftI remembering reading in some book-- maybe it was Mastery by George Leonard-- that experienced doctors generally aren't better than brand new doctors. The implication, the book explaine...
- Planning Your day like Sebastian MarshallI bought Sebastian Marshall's book, Ikigai, when it first came out. His is one of very few blogs that I read regularly, so I had high expectations for the book. And, hey... even if it's...
- Why I Took Four Violin Lessons and then QuitI'm not enough of a productivity champion that I can work for 14 hours straight with no breaks at all. Sometimes I"ll find myself pressed up against some extra tricky problem, and even...
- Having Enough and Wanting MoreI have everything I could possibly need. I have a really cool house-on-wheels, enough good food to keep me healthy and full, great friends and family, enough money to travel around a bi...
- What LastsClassical music concerts are one of my favorite places to think. It sounds weird, but classical music provides just enough stimulation to keep me from becoming distracted, but not enoug...
- Live Longer by Riding a Motorcycle (sort of)When I tell people I ride a motorcycle, they're either really excited (because they ride too), or horrified that I would take such careless risks with my life. Just how dangerous is mot...
- When People Stop Getting BetterOne way to break down a lifetime would be to think of it as two portions-- the part where the person became better, and the part where he coasted. In a normal person's life, the getting...