Category: Work

You Don't Need Authority Cover

You Don’t Need Authority – You Just Have to Care

Nik

Remember when you first learned how to draw? Oh, the artworks that you made! You didn’t even need a model or a scene — you made it all up from scratch, using nothing but your imagination.

A dragon looked how you thought a dragon should look. A house was a house in your image. What’s more, nothing had to be perfect, because you could always explain your picture to the audience.

“That’s you, mom!”

“Ah, of course, I see it now!”

The best thing about the pictures we paint as children, however, is that because they’re so self-evidently not about us, we’re happy to give them away. Every one is about something, but also for someone.

As a result, and I’m sure you remember this as well, we would regularly toddle over to our parents and say, “Look! I made this for you.”

“Aww, that’s so cute honey, this’ll go right on the fridge!”

The fridge?! Are you serious?! Ohmygodthankyousomuch!

We may not have shown it, but seeing our work “up there” felt special, didn’t it? Yeah, I definitely remember now. Good times.

What happened to this feeling? Actually, what happened to us?

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The Four Burners Theory of Work-Life Balance Cover

The Four Burners Theory of Work-Life Balance

Nik

Imagine there’s an old stove in your house. It’s square and has four burners.

You know, the kind where you still have to light the gas with a match and pull your hand away really fast so you don’t get burned. Each of those burners represents an important area of your life:

  1. Family.
  2. Friends.
  3. Health.
  4. Work.

So far, so good. There’s only one problem. According to the original New Yorker article first mentioning the concept:

“In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.”

Ouch. That hurts. But it makes perfect sense. It stings because it’s true.

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Responsibility Is Freedom

Responsibility Is Freedom

Nik

Derek Sivers built a business empire by accident.

In 1997, he was looking for a place to sell his music album online. When he couldn’t find one, he set up his own little website with a buy button. Soon, friends wanted him to put up their CDs too.

Then, friends of friends came along, buyers started asking for new arrivals, and, ten years later, CD Baby had 85 employees, two million customers, and distributed 200,000 musicians’ work online.

Never having set out to be an entrepreneur, Derek felt done with it in 2008. He sold the company for $22 million in cash, most of which he gave to charity, and went back to his solo artist life.

Whether he was happy with this “little detour” or not, it worked out in the end. But that’s why, in a free class about the whole experience, Derek encourages us to start our own journey with a question:

Why are you doing what you’re doing?

And even though he outlines several options, it’s not an easy one to answer. Because the devil is — as always — in the details.

The Three Forces That Drive Us

In his book Running Down A Dream, another business owner turned independent artist, Tim Grahl, remembers the time he heard Sivers talk about our three strongest motivators: fortune, fame, and freedom.

None of them are right or wrong. You can get more than one. However, only one will drive you. I knew I wanted freedom. Not freedom to travel. I still don’t go many places. Not freedom to work whenever I wanted. I still work set hours [each] day. I simply wanted the freedom to make those decisions myself. I wanted to live a life where nobody could make a claim on my time without my approval.

That’s already a huge step up from how most people live their lives, which is by mere imitation. Who of us hasn’t seen someone doing things that impress them, and instantly started piecing together a poor copy of that person’s life? Often, the copy is not poor because our idol’s life isn’t worth living, it’s poor because we don’t question any of its parts. If we don’t at least adapt it to our own wants and needs, that’s an almost guaranteed descent into misery.

That makes freedom a viable alternative. It’s also the theme Derek chose when he sold his company:

“I really liked the idea of setting up my life in a way that, at any point, I could just disappear. Or I could just be antisocial and go read books for a month, or whatever it may be. So I had to set up my career in a certain way to delegate almost everything, make myself unnecessary to the day-to-day running of my company, so that I was free to go do other things.”

As he explains this, he shows a little slide that says:

Refuse responsibility. Delegate everything.

I think that’s where we should start splitting hairs. Because I don’t believe true freedom is the absence of responsibility. I think it’s something different.

And I’m not alone. Just ask my friend Shaunta.

Rejecting the Zero-Task Lifestyle

I first watched Derek’s class in 2015. Now, next to money, stardom, and independence, he also mentions prestige (try getting a table at Masa) and legacy (there are 2509 Carnegie libraries) as purposes we can choose.

Still, like Tim, I felt freedom spoke the most to me, and so I chose to adopt Derek’s definition of it wholesale. I spent all of 2016 building a passive income business and I’m glad that, today, I control my time, who I work with, and what projects I tackle. But I also have more responsibility than ever. Now, thousands of people expect me to deliver. Readers, partners, customers.

That very much contradicts “not having to do anything,” but I still feel free. Maybe, there’s more nuance to it than “delegate everything.” Reflecting on these same ideas, Shaunta Grimes can’t imagine the zero-task lifestyle either:

Sometimes I think about the possibility of a totally passive income and what it would be like to spend the day on the beach, doing whatever the hell I want to do. But the absolute truth is that I wouldn’t last very long. I’d attract responsibilities like a magnet. It’s just how I am. And, I also find myself rebelling against the idea that freedom only means fewer responsibilities. I guess I’d say I’m partially driven by freedom — but my own interpretation of it. But the truth is, I often willfully make decisions that restrict my freedom.

I think this is true for most, if not all of us. We get bored when we idle for too long. We need a purpose. We want to solve problems. And so, the further I go in my own journey as a solo creative, the more I realize:

Freedom is not about shedding your responsibilities, it’s about choosing them.

When I first struck out on my own, I wasn’t worried so much about the pressure to deliver, to get clients, to make money. I was running away from having a boss, being bored at work, and owing my time to one person, one place. Because those were responsibilities I couldn’t stand having.

I felt much more comfortable with setting my own deadlines, coming up with ideas, and asking people for work, despite having to first learn all of those things. This distinction of what you’ll feel comfortable shouldering might have external consequences, but it comes from an inner place.

Responsibility is freedom, as long as you choose a labor of love.

A Burden We Can’t Shed

Why do people become soldiers? Because they love serving their country. It’s a responsibility they don’t just feel comfortable with — they enjoy bearing it.

Now, passion is tricky because it’s part talent, part love, and part just sticking with it. But if your recurring duties at work constantly make you feel like you’re bouncing around in a pressure cooker, they’re the wrong kind of duties.

The obligations of being a mom are different from the accountability of a CEO and have little in common with the burdens of a remote freelancer. No, you won’t get insta-rich from nailing this choice, but making it will make your life easier. Because we’re all good at being responsible for different things.

We often underestimate the negative impact a responsibility mismatch can have. A lot of us are running around like chickens, work always feels like work, and oh the stress of it all. But if we don’t learn to love the boring days, the exciting ones can never fill this huge hole in our everyday happiness.

The question, “why are you doing what you’re doing?” has many complex answers. But even if we aggregate them into high-level themes like fame, fortune, and freedom, at the end of the day, they all come down to this: “Because my goal comes with responsibilities I feel good about carrying.”

Think about it. Everything is accountable. And — for better or for worse — you’re the one getting all the credit. At the end of your life, you’ll either regret many things or just a few, but it’s all a reflection of how much responsibility you took in deciding what you did with your time. That’s a burden we can never shed, no matter what goals we dedicate ourselves to.

And so it’s not the absence of responsibility that makes us happy, but choosing the right set at the right time — picking duties we love fulfilling and that we feel confident we can deliver on. Maybe, why we do things isn’t as important as those things feeling light enough for us to not crack under their pressure.

Maybe, the better question is:

What kind of responsibility feels the lightest in your mind?

If we answer it correctly, we’ll always feel free. Regardless of our obligations.

Freedom From Within

Socrates supposedly said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” If all we do is imitate those we admire, we might one day wake up and wonder what it’d feel like to truly be ourselves.

But nowadays, a lot of us pondering this idea associate it with complete and utter freedom — financial independence and a total lack of responsibilities. This isn’t just unrealistic, it’s delusional. Because the concept of responsibility itself will never vanish from our lives.

Only once we accept that we’ll always carry some degree of duty — that, as humans, we’re meant to — can we start choosing our obligations deliberately. These choices will dictate what we channel our energy into and how we design our lives, but they should ripple from the inside out.

Whatever we stand for should make us feel proud, and we should want to approach it with love and care, because when we do, we won’t mind the pressure our goals often put on us. We’ll enjoy our routines and our pace.

Most of all, we’ll learn to be happy and free, no matter how many hats we wear or whose expectations we need to fulfill.

And there’s nothing accidental about that.

Why Rest Is Essential To High Performance Cover

Why Rest Is Essential To High Performance

Nik

On The Tim Ferriss Show, LeBron James said he sleeps eight or nine hours each night. Sometimes ten. And if he can’t get those, he’ll catch up with a two-hour nap. James is a prominent fan of quality shut-eye, but not the only one.

According to ESPN, sprinter Usain Bolt and tennis stars Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova also shoot for an average sleeping time close to the double-digits. Point guard legend Steve Nash told The New York Times that naps on game day are a common occurrence among NBA players — and they help.

The message is that sleep isn’t just beneficial, but essential to top performance.

This is easy enough to understand for physically demanding activities, like sports, but when it comes to knowledge work and creative professions, we have a much harder time accepting the importance of sleep.

And yet, all of us know how tough it can be to host a long meeting or how hungry we are after hours of creativity. So what’s going on here?

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We're All Just Diamonds in the Rough Cover

We’re All Just Diamonds in the Rough

Nik

Imagine you’re going to an art gallery. The exhibition is called “Unfinished.”

In the lobby, Schubert’s Symphony №8 of the same name swells in the background. You get your ticket and enter the first room. The strings mount into their first crescendo, and there she is: The Mona Lisa. Well, the Mona.

Because Lisa is still kinda missing. You can see her shape, her arms, and her hair, but only half her face. Only half of that mysterious, enchanting smile. The backdrop isn’t done either. A blurry mix of blue, brown, green, and grey.

In the next room, van Gogh’s Starry Night feels off too. There’s a town and a tree, but where are the stars? Where’s the brightly lit crescent moon? Where are the swirls and the clouds that make you feel dreamy and moved?

A little confused, you continue to make your way through the exhibit. Dalí, Monet, Picasso, they’re all there, but…their paintings aren’t done. Slowly, it dawns on you. This isn’t about up and coming artists. It’s about you.

The sole purpose of the exhibit is to show you: Once upon a time, everything was unfinished. Even the world’s greatest masterpieces. And so are you.

On September 3, 1783, the United States finally signed a peace agreement with Great Britain that recognized American independence.

Contemporary painter Benjamin West aimed to capture the moment on canvas. After he’d sketched the American commissioners, however, the British delegation refused to pose. The painting remains, to this day, unfinished.

Right in the middle of the incomplete action sits none other than Benjamin Franklin. In his biography of the man, Walter Isaacson calls him “the most accomplished American of his age.”

But Franklin himself would never have accepted that kind of praise. After all, ‘accomplished’ pretty much means ‘done,’ and with Ben, that was never quite the case. He treated his life like a perpetual work in progress.

Towards the end of his career, he was elected as the governor of Pennsylvania, a position he held for three years — longer than any other — and well into his 80s. Even in his last year of being alive, he wrote essays about the cruelty of slavery and lead the local society supporting its abolition.

This is a trait he shares with many historic figures we call genius today. Einstein scribbled equations on his deathbed, Schubert completed 50 works in his last year, and Dante barely finished the Divine Comedy before he died.

Some might look at these people and see an addiction to work, delusional grandeur, and exaggerated feelings of self-importance. I see quite the opposite, actually. A laissez-faire approach to life that surrenders to the fact that we’ll never feel like we’re finished. Because there’s always more to do.

At just 20 years old, Franklin wrote down 13 virtues he committed to keep practicing throughout his life. Again, what might seem like strict rules at first turn out to be rough guidelines. In his autobiography, Franklin noted that he focused on just one value each week, leaving the others up to chance, and admitted to failing many times.

But he wholeheartedly believed the mere attempt of following them made him a better, happier, more successful person. What a forgiving approach to self-improvement.

He also penned the following quote, recognizing what a tough job it was:

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”

When a diamond emerges from the earth, it looks bland at best and is impossible to recognize at worst. Without the long refining process — the cutting, the shaping, the polishing — no one would want to buy one. It may have been created under pressure, but now it needs a softer treatment.

I think our lives are the same. We’re all just diamonds in the rough.

The hardest part of being human is to be born in the first place. That’s where we need the pressure. That’s where we defy the incomprehensible odds.

But now that we’re here, applying more of it won’t help. It’s time to stop beating ourselves up. No matter what we do, we’ll always remain a work in progress. We’ll always be ‘unfinished.’ But we’re still diamonds.

Once we let go of negative self-talk and accept this, we can focus on what we really need: Refinement. Incremental progress. Polish.

Polish is sticking to your values in the chaos of everyday life. It’s letting go of the big picture to take the next stroke of the brush. Polish is rolling up your sleeves and saying: “What good can I do today?” It always feels small in the moment, but in hindsight, you’ll see it’s what makes your life shine.

Most of all, when we accept our roughness, we’ll learn to enjoy life regardless. Because if you never arrive, celebrating the journey is the only way.

I wish we could visit the houses of history’s greatest artists. The Da Vincis and Dantes and Franklins. If we rummaged around in their attics, I bet we’d find tons of partial works. What’s true for all of them is that, somewhere along the line, they figured out how to live with that burden. How to go on despite never being finished. At least some of them enjoyed what they did anyway.

I also wish we could ask them to show their drafts in an exhibition. Because knowing all of this, first they would laugh, and then they would agree.

The Only Way to Find Success Is to Relentlessly Forgive Yourself Cover

The Only Way to Find Success Is to Relentlessly Forgive Yourself

Nik

Last week, my sister came to visit. It was awesome. We saw Mike Shinoda, got ice cream, and tried lots of great food. I love her and I’m glad we hung out.

But for some reason, whenever I go to an event, a friend stops by, or the week is just generally slow, I still feel like I should get as much done as I usually do. Like I should create the same output, regardless of the time I take off.

That’s impossible, of course. But it creates guilt and that guilt is the real problem. Guilt is a useful emotion. As opposed to shame, it makes us want to step up. To rectify what we did wrong.

But when it comes to being productive, there’s nothing to rectify. It’s not like a crooked picture you can just push back into place. Your life is continuous and each moment is a small dot on a long line. Work is such a big part of that line that it’s impossible to see how each dot shapes it day-to-day, week-to-week, often even year-to-year. Unlike other things we feel guilty about, you can’t just go back to the café, pay the bill you forgot, and reset the karma balance to zero. Because there’s always more work.

And so it may feel like focusing for one hour in the evening makes up for a bad day, but who wants to spend their entire life salvaging leftover scraps of time? That’s a surefire recipe for unhappiness. The solution lies on a higher level.

Who’s to say it was a bad day in the first place? Maybe you needed rest. Maybe you were affected by something in your subconscious. Why can’t we suspend that judgment altogether? Jim Carrey has a great metaphor for our moods:

“I have sadness and joy and elation and satisfaction and gratitude beyond belief, but all of it is weather. And it just spins around the planet.”

Shame, guilt, regret, these are also just weather phenomena. External conditions that’ll sometimes swing by your planet.

Of course, it’s hard to constantly practice this non-judgment in advance. To go into each experience without attachment or expectation. We’re human, after all. We fail. We let things get to us. And so we need to learn to pick ourselves back up. To realize when we’re complaining about the weather and stop.

The only way to do this over and over again, to keep moving forward no matter what happens, is to relentlessly forgive yourself. Forever and for everything. You won’t always do it immediately, but try to do it eventually.

Note that forgiving yourself is not about letting yourself off the hook. It’s not an excuse to not learn from your mistakes. It won’t guarantee it either, but without forgiveness, you can’t learn anything. Because regret is in the way. You must say: “Okay, that’s done, how will I move on and what will I change?”

This applies to all kinds of emotional weather you’ll experience, but when it comes to productivity, to using your time well, it’s especially important. Only forgiveness can remove the friction of guilt. The nagging that prevents you from picking up the pen again. From continuing to just do things.

We all have different definitions of success and that’s a good thing. For some, it’s raising their kids to exceed their own accomplishments. For others, it’s fighting for a cause or using art to change how we think. And some just want to live quietly and enjoy the little things.

But no matter what end work serves in your life, you’ll never do enough of it if you constantly kick yourself.

Forgiveness is the only way.

Why don’t we talk about this? When we’re looking for ways to move on, why do we encourage everything from resting to trying hard to having a purpose to proving someone wrong, but not loving yourself when all of these fail?

I don’t know. Maybe, it makes us feel like frauds. To say “alright, let’s move on,” when others had to pay stricter consequences. Maybe, forgiveness isn’t sexy enough. Not a compelling reason to continue. Or, maybe, it’s the hardest of them all to believe in. To actually mean it when you think it. Or say it.

I’d put my money on that last one.

It’s good to practice non-judgment. It helps me a lot every time I succeed. But often, I don’t. And then I’m wrestling with myself for forgiveness. I’d much rather learn to consistently win that second battle. The first one isn’t lost, but I know I’ll never reach perfection. Forgiveness, however, is always available.

It’s as if the healthiest option is right in front of us, but we’re too blind or stubborn to use it. Too scared to allow ourselves to move on. Well, I don’t know you, but here’s permission to forgive yourself. I hope you’ll exercise it. It’s time. Have courage. Move on. Turn the page. And don’t look back.

Maybe, life is not about finding the straightest path to success. Or the simplest. Or even the smoothest. Maybe, it’s about finding one, just one, that allows you to get there at all. But that requires letting go of our old beliefs.

Mike Shinoda is a lead member of Linkin Park. On his current record, he’s processing the loss of his best friend and band mate of 20 years. Imagine how much forgiveness that takes. It’s got sad songs, angry songs, desperate songs, helpless songs. But there’s also one that’s light. Optimistic. Forgiving.

Maybe, in our own quest for being kinder to ourselves, all we have to do is act on its lyrics:

And they’ll tell you I don’t care anymore
And I hope you’ll know that’s a lie
’Cause I’ve found what I have been waiting for
But to get there means crossing a line
So I’m crossing a line

Everything We Do Is Not For Today Cover

Everything We Do Is Not For Today

Nik

When the town’s crime boss wants a precious piece of land, he sends some of his goons to terrorize the school that’s built on it. First, they threaten the principal, then they torch a classroom.

Luckily, the local Kung Fu master saves the day. When he tries to acquire more help in form of the police, however, the chief says his hands are tied. His boss took the case. Corruption. After listening patiently, the master starts talking:

“The world’s not fair. But moral standards should apply to all. Those who rule aren’t superior and those who are ruled aren’t inferior. This world doesn’t belong to the rich. Or even the powerful. It belongs to those with pure hearts.

Have you thought about the children? Everything we do, they’re watching. And everything we don’t do. We need to be good role models.”

And then, master Ip Man says something important. Something we forget. Something that, little by little, seems to fade from the human story:

“Everything we do is not for today — but for tomorrow.”

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Happiness Is Loving the Boring Days Cover

Happiness Is Loving the Boring Days

Nik

Out of all the great TED talks that exist, Barry Schwartz’s is easily the best. He talks about what he calls The Paradox of Choice. I’ve gone back to it countless times for countless reasons, but my favorite part is when he shows this comic:

David Sipress, The New Yorker, Nov 24, 2003

Ask anyone how they feel about their life from ten years ago, and they’ll likely tell you that “those were simpler times.” Less to worry about, more to enjoy. Somehow, everything was easier. Today, it’s all complicated. Always.

“Everything was better back when everything was worse.”

It’s more than a good chuckle. So simple, yet so instinctively true. But why does our gut want to agree so badly when we hear this? Barry explains:

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Be Fast When It Matters Cover

Be Fast When It Matters

Nik

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.

We’re optimizing the wrong things. We raise all hell to drive a little faster, leave the house a little sooner, submit the report a little quicker. And then? Nothing changes. You don’t get a medal for reaching the office parking lot first, no one clocks your front door, and, usually, you don’t get promoted for beating a deadline. These are not the moments that make or break your life.

Of course, feeding the beast is fun. It’s satisfying to fuel the rush, to give in to anxiety. It feels efficient in the moment but, often, won’t make a difference in the end. This is something the Kung Fu master is acutely aware of:

Most of life is better lived slowly.

Everyday chores work better when you’re slower. Washing dishes. Folding laundry. Brushing your teeth. You’ll have to do them just once. You won’t break so many things.

Eating is better when you’re slower. We’re supposed to chew our food, not chug and potentially choke on it. You’ll feel full faster. You’ll enjoy the taste more. You won’t mindlessly gobble up junk.

Sex is better when you’re slower. It’s not a race. Either two people win or both of you lose. It’s about caring, communicating, exploring. Not power-humping to see who can finish first and leave the other in their dust.

Talking is better when you’re slower. Pauses allow you to think and help the other process what you’ve said. What’s more, they can help you summon the courage to say what you really mean. And, of course, there’s room to listen.

Making decisions is better when you’re slower. Especially the big, life-defining ones. Like what to work on, where to live, who to marry. Our gut really screws us on these things. We jump into them too fast. We tell ourselves it’s “just for now,” and then we wake up five years later, wondering where time went.

Yes, sometimes, it really matters to be fast. But those moments are few and far between. A life-changing opportunity. A physically dangerous threat. These are not everyday situations.

That’s why Bruce Lee’s “be like water” analogy has remained so popular to this day. It perfectly captures this balance, this default slowness we need.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”

Water is a slow judge. It presents itself like a blank sheet of gift wrap, asking: “To what surface should I conform?” As if slowly feeling the shape of an object in the dark. One touch, one brush, one tap at a time. Then, it adapts. But if we want to do this, adapt like water, we must question each situation anew.

“Empty your mind. Be formless. Shapeless. Like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash.”

Despite having no form and being infinitely soft, water is one of, if not the strongest element on earth. When there’s even a tiny path, water will trickle along. When there’s no path, it’ll silently, almost immovably wear away the stone. And if the terrain is wide open, it can transform into a raging torrent. Thanks to this never-ending balancing act, water always finds its way home.

“Water may seem to move in contradiction, even uphill, but it chooses any way open to it so that it may reach the sea. It may flow swiftly or it may flow slowly, but its purpose is inexorable, its destiny sure. Be water, my friend.”

Like water, the Kung Fu master is fast when it matters. And when it doesn’t, which is most of the time, his default is to stay calm. To move slowly.

The words ‘early’ and ‘late’ only affect us in extremes. Too early, too late, these can make all the difference. What falls in between barely registers. There’s always another bus coming, another task waiting, another deal to be made.

Be fast when it matters. When you are, be swift like the wind. But don’t spend life quicker than it already runs out. It passes fast for all of us. When there’s no need to rush, to fight, to struggle, to crash, be calm like a pond.

Remember that life is balance. Unity. And every spectrum has two ends.

If you practice it long enough, maybe, we’ll call you master one day.

Finding Yourself Won't Make You Happy Cover

Finding Yourself Won’t Make You Happy

Nik

I have spent the last seven years finding myself.

It all started with my semester abroad, which created two breaks. One voluntary, from my emotional connections, the other necessary, from my material possessions. My usual environment of friends, school, and family turned into a small room, space to think, and a blank social canvas.

Thus began my journey of self-discovery. First I weeded out some bad behaviors, then I explored new ideas. I dove headfirst into blogs, books, travel, and events. I learned random skills like Persian, SQL, and the Gangnam Style dance. Like on a scatter plot, each dot shaped the line.

The line was my life, and the more I tried, the clearer its trajectory became.

At a fairly young age of 21, this turned out to be one of the most productive things I’ve ever done. Having a purpose is important, and finding it is one of the biggest challenges most of us face in life. But I also became obsessed with it. I used to think the line was all that mattered. That, as long as I knew who I was, I could care less about the rest of the world. Now, I’m not so sure.

Finding myself has helped me in countless ways and I wish I could’ve embarked on this adventure even sooner. But, ultimately, it’s not what contributes most to my happiness.

That requires something else.

An Intuitive Promise

Years ago, Kamal Ravikant was down in the dumps. He’d built a track record as a successful entrepreneur, but then his last company failed. Too depressed to leave the house, he spent weeks in the dark, bed-ridden and barely moving.

Eventually, however, he got sick of himself. His chosen helplessness and resignation. He decided he’d get out of the hole or die climbing. On the day he did, he wrote down a vow: the promise to love himself. Without an idea of what it meant or how it felt, he built a practice around this vow.

Kamal’s life improved. First slowly, then surely, but at an ever-accelerating pace. His mind cleared. He took care of his body. He engaged with the world again. Over time, Kamal’s good thoughts, decisions, and habits compounded.

Good things started happening, some of which he couldn’t possibly have controlled or anticipated. I can only judge from afar, but today, he seems calm and happy. A thriving author and investor, but one with few wants and needs.

When now asked why he thinks his simple idea worked so well, he says he intuitively built it around the best piece of advice he ever received:

“Life is from the inside out.”

Miraculously, both science and philosophy agree.

Unraveling the Existentialist Brain

One of my favorite German words is “Trampelpfad.” It describes a path in the woods that’s not quite a paved road, but well-trodden enough to make it the obvious choice. I like this word because it resembles neuroplasticity — your brain’s ability to physically change throughout your entire life. Donald Hebb summarized how you can use this to your advantage with a simple rhyme:

“Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

For every action you perform, your brain takes a picture with vast amounts of information. Which neurons fired, what was the context, how did you think of yourself at the time? Keep choosing the same actions in similar situations and your brain will start remembering it took a similar picture before — and make another one just like it. Actions become reactions, efforts become habits.

Neuroplasticity — the trampelpfads in your brain turning into highways — is what makes habits hard to get rid of. But it’s also what allows us to change them in the first place. All you need is to create new snapshots. You might not believe the line “I’m not a smoker” the first 100 times you use it to decline a cigarette but, over time, your mind will make it so. Until your brain is rewired.

That’s exactly what Kamal did. By insisting on loving himself long enough, he literally altered his mind, updating it with a new belief. Life is from the inside out. Beyond making biological sense, this idea is right up an existentialist philosopher’s alley.

For over 5,000 years, going all the way back to Plato, essentialism dominated our view of philosophy. It suggests we’re born with an inherent purpose, an ‘essence’ we must align with. But in the 20th century, a few bold individuals, like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and others, challenged this notion, asserting that:

“Existence precedes essence.”

Existentialism rejects the inherence of meaning. It says that first and foremost, you are. You exist. Discovering your essence, figuring out a purpose, all that comes second. In fact, doing so is not just your job, it’s the whole point of life.

So while both philosophies agree that “life is from the inside out,” only one leaves you with a say as to what that inside is. One is bent on finding yourself, the other allows you to invent yourself.

An essentialist Kamal would likely have concluded that, after a big failure, being an entrepreneur wasn’t who he was. And only an existentialist Kamal could have chosen to love himself in spite of not believing it at the time.

In a way, existentialism, like neuroplasticity, is the ultimate move towards gaining agency. If you believe you can create meaning from nothing, meaning is always just one thought away. That’s all fine and wonderful, but how does it contribute to your happiness? You’re right. It won’t. At least not on its own.

Life may be from the inside out. But happiness is from the outside in.

The Final, But Never-Ending Destination

Today, most people know Kamal as a founder and venture capitalist, but his first self-paced endeavor was to publish a book. A memoir of what he learned traveling the world after laying his father’s ashes to rest. Of course, no one wanted to read an unknown, unpublished author, so he kept rewriting it ten times over the course of a decade, collecting rejection letters along the way.

After his last, colossal failure as an entrepreneur, however, a friend urged him to self-publish a short account of how he’d recollected himself. Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It became an instant bestseller. Funny enough, he now had the credibility to tell his other story. Rebirth was published in 2017.

Kamal has a third book, published in between the other two. It’s called Live Your Truth. The title perfectly encapsulates not just the story of his life, but also its biggest lesson: Finding yourself is the starting point, but continuing to share your discoveries is the final if never-ending destination of a happy life.

Life is from the inside out. Before he could enjoy the externals, the accolades, relationships, financial freedom, Kamal had to rework his inner wirings. But only when he shared his self-created essence did his bet on neuroplasticity really pay off. There’s finding your truth and there’s living it. Two sides of the one coin that is your life. “Live Your Truth” is pulling from both directions.

Managing your mind, loving yourself, confidence, keeping your promises to yourself, minimizing regrets, all of these are important. But once we have them, once we find self-love, self-belief, self-compassion, we must share them with others. Turn back outside. Return to the world. Live your truth.

And you can’t do that in a vacuum.

Don’t Forget the Second Half

At some point in our lives, self-improvement catches most of us. I get it now. It’s attractive. Immediate. Change one thing, one habit, one pattern, and you might change your whole life.

But learning to live from the inside, to reassemble the infrastructure in our mind, is just the first step. Rewiring our brain is a waypoint on our larger path.

As the existentialist worldview takes over, we slowly learn to deal with the vastness of freedom we’ve been afforded. To be less trapped by religious dogma or political doctrines. But as empowering as it is to infuse your life with self-created meaning, it’s still one step shy of happiness.

Because unlike life, happiness is from the outside in.

Whatever we find inside ourselves that brings us joy, only sharing it can get that joy to multiply. Seeing our truth is not enough. We must live it. That’s a job that lasts a lifetime, but one with infinite space for new discoveries.

Change your habits, but let them serve something larger. Find a purpose, but fit it to something larger. Live your truth, but live as part of something larger.

Dive into yourself. May life flow from the inside. But do it with an open heart. Allow happiness to visit. Don’t forget the second half. Don’t forget…

…to engage with all of us.