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This Virtual Soldier's Speech Explains How to Have True Purpose in Life Cover

Humans are agents of change.

From the moment we are conceived, our body begins to evolve. It grows until we’re born, and then it grows some more. Our bones, cells, muscles, even our brains — they constantly renew themselves. Day after day, month after month, year after year. It all changes until it can’t change anymore.

In time, we start to decay. Decay, too, is change. It’s not a bad thing, you know? As Steve Jobs said, “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

We don’t change just on the inside. Between birth and death, we change everything we interact with. We change nature, culture, and others. Throwing a rock is change. Discussing remote work is change. Patting a friend on the back is change. Even sleeping is change.

Change is the most human thing we do — and the most powerful way to enact change is through purpose.

The Plus-and-Minus Theory of Living Happily

August 11, 2023August 11, 2023 Nik

On most days, I don’t shower to not feel dirty. I shower to feel clean. It may not sound like it, but there’s a difference.

Have you ever wasted away in bed for a few days until, at some point, you couldn’t stand your greasy hair anymore and lugged yourself into the shower? If so, by turning on the water, you took care of what Frederick Herzberg would have called “a hygiene factor” — pun present but not intended.

In his 1959 book The Motivation to Work, Herzberg, a clinical psychologist and professor, introduced a model of motivation called “the two-factor theory.” It stipulates that in order to feel happy in our jobs, two conditions must come together: a lack of dissatisfaction and a presence of satisfaction.

My 12 Favorite Nonfiction Books Most People Have Never Heard Of

June 30, 2023April 17, 2025 Nik

Imagine a city with one million inhabitants. It has everything you would expect from a city of that size: some skyscrapers, a decent transport system, and all the usual public and social infrastructure.

There is, however, a catch: Everyone in this city can only read the same 10 books. It’s a simple literary restriction, but what consequences might it have? If all of those books are mainly concerned with inequality and societal problems, chances are, the city’s citizens will spend most of their time bickering and fighting. But what if those books are instead filled with stories about community and kindness? Probably, people will be inclined to help one another, and everyone will get along on most days.

Regardless of their effect and how strong you believe this effect might be, however, with only 10 books, the people in that city will inevitably stop learning. Thinking, creativity, innovation — eventually, these pillars of progress will come to a screeching halt. Why? Because the pool of ideas is too limited! Try as hard as they may, the best those citizens can do is to rehash the same ideas from the same 10 books, over and over again. Sooner or later, to create more and better output, they’ll need more and better input. The same is true for you as an individual.

Haruki Murakami famously wrote that “if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Popular books are usually popular because they’re agreeable. They’ll get you social credit and remind you of what’s common sense, but they’ll rarely truly stretch your brain. There’s nothing wrong with reading these books, but they shouldn’t be the only ones you consume. If you and your friends all read the same few bestsellers each year, and you all agree on their premises, none of you will learn anything new! Where’s the discussion? The thinking? The sparring of ideas? If you all read different books, however, everyone has something to teach to everyone else.

Over the last ten years, I’ve read hundreds of nonfiction books. Without fail, the lesser known ones have been the most satisfying in terms of new ideas, memorable lessons, and, yes, I’ll admit it, making me look smart in front of my friends. So for more than one reason, I agree with Murakami: Don’t run the risk of becoming like the people in that city — set in your ways, a rusty thinker. Read the obscure, the questionable, the forgotten. Read what no one else is reading.

Here are 12 titles I believe will fit that mark. Even if you’re an avid nonfiction reader, I’m confident you won’t have heard of most of them. But if you give them a try, maybe they’ll enter the ranks of your all-time favorites. They sure have done so for me.

The Only Post About the Pomodoro Technique You’ll Ever Have To Read

June 26, 2023January 5, 2025 Nik

On a cloudy September afternoon in 1987, German-Italian programmer Francesco Cirillo was trying to study for his sociology exam. He couldn’t concentrate. “I made a humble bet with myself,” he says. “‘Can you stay focused for two minutes without distraction?’”

Cirillo grabbed a timer from his kitchen, wound it up, and started reading his book. It worked. Francesco’s tomato-shaped clock rang after just 120 seconds, but the moment he looked up from his book, still half-lost in its pages, the Pomodoro Technique was born.

“For the first time, I had managed to turn time into an ally,” Cirillo writes. Right when they most appeared to be his enemy, he finally started using his seconds instead of running away from them.

For the next five years, Cirillo kept refining the method. Since 1998, he’s taught it to millions of people around the globe. And his book The Pomodoro Technique is now in its third edition.

I first discovered the Pomodoro Technique around ten years ago, and I wrote about it as early as 2015. Since then, I’ve completed well over 10,000 Pomodoros to write millions of words. In the last 12 months alone, my productivity app tells me I’ve completed over 1,400 sessions averaging around 50 minutes each.

Here’s everything you need to know about this amazing tool.

Ikigai: The Wonderful Japanese Concept Everyone Misunderstands

June 18, 2023December 2, 2024 Nik

Explaining Japanese concepts to a Western audience has become a big trend in nonfiction, and ikigai is leading the charge. Naturally, in our almost-typical self-centeredness, we’ve managed to make the worst book about ikigai the most popular one and totally misunderstand the idea.

If you’ve heard of ikigai — and at this point, I’d be surprised if you hadn’t — you’ll probably loosely associate the word with “happiness” or “your life’s purpose.” That’s because our discourse about ikigai has been dominated by a single book, and while it’s a good book in and of itself, unfortunately, it completely misstates what ikigai is actually about.

I love Japan. I went to Tokyo, Kyoto, in Osaka in 2013. In 2022, I also read all major English books about ikigai — thankfully, there are only three of them. So today, I’d love to share what I’ve learned with you. Let’s understand what ikigai is actually about.

Omotenashi: How the Japanese Remind Us We Deserve to Be Happy

May 16, 2023May 16, 2023 Nik

On our last night in Tokyo, we missed the korot stop. It was nearly 8 PM, and we knew this was our last chance. “Dude! We have to turn around!” My friend and I got off at the next stop along the red Marunouchi metro line that connects Shinjuku and Tokyo Station, then hopped right back in to go the other direction.

I can’t recall whether it was Ginza, Kasumigaseki, or Shinjuku-sanchome station, but I still remember exactly what the tiny stall selling little pieces of heaven looked like. It was a 10-foot-long aluminum box with two glass displays, their bottom half straight, the upper half curved — the kind you typically see in bakeries and cake shops. “Thank god!” The single-pull metal shutter was still open.

4 Tips to Forever Improve Your Reading

April 4, 2023November 27, 2024 Nik

Reading may not be your favorite thing to do, but you are still a reader. Every day, you read thousands of words. You read messages, notifications, and web pages. You read books, signs, and documents.

If you could retain 10% more of everything you read, your life would be a lot better. The following 4 tips took me years of daily reading to collect but will only take you 3 minutes to learn. You’ll be a better reader forever.

7 Lessons From the 7th Year of Running a Book Summary Business

December 22, 2022December 22, 2022 Nik

My business has lasted as long as the average American marriage — seven years. The level of commitment surely feels on par.

When I launched Four Minute Books, I had no idea what it would grow into. All I thought about was how to get better at writing and maybe make a few bucks along the way.

Seven years later, in what has been, undoubtedly, my hardest year in business yet, it turns out that this little book summary site is, so far, the only consistently growing revenue generator. Here’s a chart contrasting its revenue vs. Medium and Write Like a Pro, my writing course.

Why I Deleted Most of My Social Media

May 4, 2022August 8, 2024 Nik

A few weeks ago, just before Elon bought Twitter and made it look cool, I deleted my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok accounts. “FITT,” their initials spell, and fitter I feel indeed.

The main idea behind minimalism isn’t to save money or time. It is to save mental energy, which physical items take up, even if they’re sitting quietly in your attic. Somewhere in your subconscious, you know the broken volleyball net is up there. Even if it only makes it to the top of your mind on occasion, you’ll feel a burden being lifted once you chuck it in the trash.

Digital minimalism works the same: You can stop using your social media, but the accounts will still be there. So will all the connections. All the posts you’ve created will still harbor the energy you put into them. The weight of sunk costs will be palpable.

“I wonder what Marcus from my year abroad is doing.” That thought hits different when you can check up on Marcus vs. when you can’t — and the latter is not necessarily a bad thing.

We tend to be kinder to people when we keep them only in our memory. Plus, when you can’t see Marcus’ new house, you won’t feel bad about yourself from the inevitable comparison that follows. When Marcus only visits your attention once a leap year, your natural reaction is to wish him well, then be on your way. For many relationships in our lives, this is the way they’re supposed to go. We’re not wired to maintain distant yet infinite contact with thousands of people.

Manage your social media in a way that prevents them from managing you.

There Are Only 3 Ways to Live a Happy Life

January 6, 2022August 10, 2023 Nik

What happens after you die?

In his book Sum, neuroscientist David Eagleman provides 40 different, often contradicting answers to that question — some harrowing, others hilarious. What if God allowed everyone into heaven, but then we’d all complain about being stuck there with one another, concluding it is, in fact, hell? What if God turns out to be a microbe, completely unaware humans even exist?

Maybe you’ll continue life in a world inhabited only by the people you already know or be forced to live each moment again, grouped by similarity. Four months of sitting on the toilet followed by three weeks of eating pizza, after which you’ll have 24 hours of nonstop stomach cramps before sleeping for 30 years straight.

Despite conjuring stories that happen exclusively in a place from which we can’t return, (and that we therefore know nothing about) Sum holds profound implications about what we might choose to do in the here and now. The mere idea of accidentally becoming a horse in your next life, realizing only in the last second how great it was to be human, could be the exact hoof kick you need to finally start writing your novel, for example.

Sum is Derek Sivers’ single-favorite book of all time. Whichever specific tale it may have been that spurred him into action, one day, he decided to write a book just like it, except he’d answer a different question — a question even more important than what’s beyond death, with even greater indications: While we are on this earth, how should we live?

Category: Work

This Virtual Soldier’s Speech Explains How to Have True Purpose in Life