Be Fast When It Matters Cover

Be Fast When It Matters

If you’ve ever watched a Kung Fu movie, you’ve witnessed a fascinating relationship: the unity of fast and slow.

Be it Bruce Lee, Ip Man, Mr. Miyagi or Jackie Chan, in day-to-day life, the master is always deliberate. Quiet. Almost lethargic. He walks slowly. He talks slowly. He eats slowly. He’s never in a hurry and no matter who bursts in the front door with exciting or distressing news, he remains unfazed.

But then, suddenly, as soon as the fight begins, he is swift like the wind. Each step lands lightning-fast and with surgical precision. His eyes capture even the tiniest twitch in his opponent’s reactions. He chains together split-second movements, every one of which counts.

And then, as fast as it came, it’s gone. The storm is over. The enemy lies on the ground. And the master folds his hands like a closing flower, retreating back into his zen. Back to unity, where another cycle stands completed.

Meanwhile, we’re not even aware this unity exists. We’re just in fast mode all the time. I mean what do we wake up to? An alarm. If that’s not telling, I don’t know what is. And alarmed we are. Getting ready in the morning feels like rushing to the fire truck, ready to race off, to put out the next inferno, to salvage whatever emergency must have waited for us while we were asleep.

Ding! Wake up! Shower! Get ready! Brush teeth! Faster, faster, faster. Only so we can end up missing the bus, idling in traffic, and forgetting our keys.

That’s the thing: Most of the time, being fast doesn’t matter.

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What If Our Addictions Are What Makes Us Successful? Cover

What If Our Addictions Are What Makes Us Successful?

I have a theory:

Everyone’s addicted to something.

Not addiction in the clinical sense. I’m not talking about a chemical imbalance that might lead to substance abuse. That should be treated professionally.

When I say ‘addicted,’ I mean that you do something just a little more than you probably should. And even though sometimes that “just a little” isn’t all that little anymore, if you had a shrink, he wouldn’t recommend sending you to Shutter Island just yet.

Here’s an example: When I was 15, I was addicted to soccer tricks.

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The Sentences That Life Is Made Of Cover

The Sentences That Life Is Made Of

There’s an old, wooden box in our attic. It looks like a treasure chest. What’s actually inside it is not nearly as interesting as what I find when I open it only in my mind. The last time I did, it was full of…sentences.

Not the kind of sentence you hope will have a lot of impact when you say it. Like “I do” when you get married or “I quit” when you resign from a job you hate. The kind of sentence a friend might drop only in passing, but that will mysteriously visit you again at just the right time.

When Einstein said that “two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, but I’m not so sure about the universe,” he wasn’t gunning for a place in the books of history. He was probably making a joke at dinner. It was a line and then we turned it into a quote. All quotes start as sentences, but very few as bold declarations. It is that second kind, the inconspicuous kind, that life is truly made of.

That’s why I find something different each time I open the box. Some are things people have said to me, others have found me along the way, but they all made me think a lot when they did. From third grade until today, here’s my life in 77 quotes.

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303 Life Lessons We All Learn But Keep Forgetting

I used to think beyond 7th grade math is only useful for physicists and statisticians. After the rule of three, which allows you to calculate discounts on prices, diminishing returns start to kick in fast.

I’ve remedied that view a bit; geometry and calculus have led to some of histories strongest philosophical insights, but I still like to imagine a world in which our high school table of subjects includes:

  • Human behavior.
  • Relationships.
  • Communication.
  • Body language.
  • Personal finance.
  • Etiquette.
  • Career discovery.
  • Work habits.
  • Creativity.

Until that happens, however, I’m grateful for people like Alexander J.A Cortes, who compile the curriculum of such a school of life for us to learn it now, as adults. On February 25th, he shared a tweet storm previewing his next book titled Untaught Truths of Adulthood, which went viral.

As I read through his nearly 100-tweet-long outpour of life lessons, many examples from my own life popped up in my mind. It’s only natural, for all of us learn many of these things, but we never articulate them. I reached out to him and asked whether he’d be up for a collaboration: The result is his treasure trove in long-form, with my experiences as backup to his insights.

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13 Ways to Get Your Grip on Life Back

With each passing year, I find more truth in this:

“The days are long, but the years are short.”  — Gretchen Rubin


It’s that time of the year again. Tax day’s got you throwing your hands up in frustration, your New Year’s resolutions have long vaporized into thin air and you feel like your hold on 2017 is getting weaker and weaker.

I’m here to tell you: You still have time.

The year’s not even halfway over, and you’re already giving up? No. Not this time. You will make 2017 the best year of your life. Period.

The way you do that is by getting your grip back on some of the things we all need to succeed. For some, it takes longer than for others. That’s okay.

Because you will start today.

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