Over 1,000,000 words have flown from these fingers in the past 30 months. Who knows how many it might have been, were it not for these three words:
Bracket unnecessary words.
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Professor Lupin’s Procrastination Antidote
Remember the scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where Professor Lupin introduces his class to the boggart?
A boggart transforms into whatever the person facing it fears the most.
Read More“Follow the spiders? Why spiders? Why couldn’t it be ‘follow the butterflies?’” — Ron Weasley
One Thing You Can Learn in 2 Minutes That Will Be Useful for the Rest of Your Life
In 430 BC, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, Greek general Pericles led a fleet of over 100 ships towards the enemy island.
As they were charging ahead at full speed, suddenly, a solar eclipse cast the entire fleet into darkness.
Unaware of the scientific nature of this unexpected and shocking event, panic befell the soldiers and sailors. But not Pericles.
Read MoreHow To Change Your Life in Just 10 Minutes per Day
10 minutes, ha! I’m going to show you not one, but six things that will change your life — and we’ll do it with time to spare.
After this, you’ll feel calm, prepared and ready to take on the world, like this:
Let’s go!
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How to Come Up With REAL Startup Ideas
“Fruit salad!”
I had to blink a couple times. She couldn’t possibly be serious, could she?
“What do you mean, ‘fruit salad?’”
“I want to create a fruit salad brand. The best one ever! You know, I want to become the Hershey’s of fruit salad!”
My roommate and I were attending a startup event at a reputable VC fund in Munich. Free food, free booze and more hot air than in Richard Branson’s balloon, most of which came straight from the founders’ mouths.
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The 5 Most Powerful Questions Every 20-Something Should Ask Themselves
It was a random moment. Not one you’d celebrate. Or even notice, for that matter.
I was walking along the sidewalk, like every day. Morning snack from the bakery in hand, headphones in my ear, Kygo playing on repeat.
Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks.
*Ping!*
The insight hit me like a stun grenade. I actually had to step aside, into a little alleyway, so people could pass me by.
Read More“You will never figure out life. There will never be an end to all the questions. You’ll just get better at dealing with them and learn to do it faster.”
Are Your 20s Really the Best Years of Your Life?
Here’s a picture of me when I was 16:
That year, I went to England. All by myself, in a foreign country, for the first time ever away from home. I spent two weeks in a language school, parts of which looked like Hogwarts.
It was the year the last Harry Potter book came out. The camp supervisors took a couple of kids into London to get their copies on release day. I missed it. One day later, one of the guides brought me one. I read it in 3 days.
It was the best year of my life.
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The 7 Uncommon Habits of Not-Yet Successful People
What you see up there is not a CGI rendering from a movie. It’s a real animal. An inhabitant of the Australian desert called the thorny dragon.
Let’s call him Trey. Trey does a few very uncommon things:
- He collects dew drops falling from plants on his back, where they remain on his spiny, rough skin.
- Trey then sends those dew drops to his mouth via his capillaries with one simple “chewing” motion.
- This means he can literally “suck up” water by just standing in it.
- He follows a simple, one-item diet: ants. Trey eats nothing but ants.
- Lastly, Trey has a second, fake head on top of his real one, which he can present to enemies by bowing down and hopefully get away without much damage.
Pretty cool, huh? So how come you’ve never heard of Trey? I mean, he’s not the national animal of any country, there are few clips of him on Youtube and he hasn’t been on the cover of Forbes.
However, Trey, much like his fellow thorny dragons, has a lifespan of 15 to 20 years, which is an eternity in animal land. A few more evolutionary cycles and they’ll close in on the masters of longevity: turtles.
When we look for success, we usually turn to the commonalities of those, who’ve made it to the top. But what if we’re wrong?
Maybe, the only commonality of making it to the top is to not share many commonalities with others.
Read MoreThe Most Important Person You Work For In Life Is You
On Monday, I picked up the official lecture notes for my “Fundamentals of German Law” class. It’s 180 pages long. The exam is in exactly four weeks, and I don’t know the first thing about law.
In a slight rush of feelings — mostly panic mixed with determination — I sat down and went through the first half the same day. Before this day is over, I’ll have done the rest. But not before writing this.
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…But You Didn’t: What Really Makes a Genius
“How very wet this water is.” — L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz
Do you ever go “Duuuuh, I could’ve thought of that!” after someone told you something?
Good ideas become obvious after the fact, but that’s the entire point.
After, not before.
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