Meditations on strategy and life
One of my kids’ favorite books is I Need a New Butt. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but he needs a new butt not for any culture-war reason but because his has a crack in it. That’s funny, especially if you’re four or five or six or seven. My boys love the sequels too, I Broke My Butt! and My Butt Is So Noisy!, which I’ve read to them many, many times. They’re funny and silly and ridiculous and…
For 2,130 consecutive games, Lou Gehrig played first base for the New York Yankees—a streak that would stand for five and a half decades. He put up a career .340 batting average. He was a two-time MVP, seven-time All-Star, six-time World Series Champion, Hall of Famer, and the first player ever to have his number retired. All from a man who wasn’t born an athlete. As a boy, Lou Gehrig was so…
There are a million good reasons not to travel. I woke up with a bunch of them this morning. I was exhausted. My kids were fighting. My wife has been sick. It was ungodly hot—literally the hottest Europe has ever been. My routine is out the window. So is any sense of a budget. Our suitcases are already full of knick-nacks and crap we don’t need and there’s quite a bit of trip left. The car that…
Well, I’m now almost 40. Like officially almost 40. I woke up yesterday in Cle Elum, Washington, ran 20 miles and then turned 39. I did a little talk for Amazon and then flew home, getting in very late and very tired. I have been doing some version of this post for basically twenty years. (You can see my birthday posts for 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, and…
I’ll tell you, very few people become writers because they want to stand up in front of a room full of strangers and talk. Often, in fact, it’s the opposite. What draws most people to writing in the first place is that they’re introverts. At least, that’s what drew me! We like to sit quietly, alone in a room, working through our thoughts on the page. That’s the whole appeal. So one of the strange…
When I first moved in, six years ago. If you walk into the locker room or practice facility for a professional sports team or elite college program, one of the things that strikes you is what they put up on the wall. The walls are tattooed with precepts. Every hallway and doorway is decorated with motivational quotes. There are statues of former players and coaches, the legends who set the…
Come see me in SF and Portland next month—Australia and the mid-west after that and then the east coast—as part of the Daily Stoic Live tour. Ask me questions, get your books signed, learn a little—should be fun. Grab tickets here! When I started writing, I followed the advice a lot of writers follow: hit a word count. Write a thousand words a day. Two thousand. Whatever the number. Then I came…
I’m going on tour next month (Portland and SF) and then a bunch of other places around the world in the early fall. Come see me talking Stoicism—grab tickets here. I hated writing essays in high school, but they changed my life. Not because of the subject matter or anything. With one exception, I can’t remember what any of them were about. The one I remember is an 11th-grade English assignment. My…
Quick note: I’m hitting the road for a Stoicism speaking tour throughout the rest of the year. So far, dates are set for Portland, SF, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Australia, and New Zealand, with more to come. Get tickets (and updates when new dates are added) here! Sitting on my desk as I write this is a book I paid $8.25 for nearly twenty years ago. The cover…
I’m going to be on a Stoicism speaking tour this summer and fall—Portland, SF, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit plus a bunch of dates in Australia and New Zealand. Come see me! I’ve brought it to the Grammys. I’ve brought it to NFL games…and kids BJJ practices. I’ve brought it into the green room backstage before talks. I’ve brought it to restaurants and bars. I’ve carried it into museums and…