Last year was the first year I really forgot how old I was. This year was the year that I started doing stuff over again. Not out of nostalgia, or premature memory loss, but out of the sense that enough time had elapsed that it was time to revisit some things. I re-read books that I hadnât touched in ten or fifteen years. I went back to places I hadnât been since I was a kid. I re-visited some painful memories that I had walled off and chosen not to think about.
So I thought this year, for my birthday piece (more than 10 years running nowâhere is 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32), I would revisit an article I wrote several years ago, which has remained popular since I first published it: 28 Pieces of Productivity Advice I Stole From People Smarter Than Me.
Iâm not so interested in productivity advice anymore, but I remain, as ever, focused on taking advice from people smarter than me. So here are some of the best pieces of adviceâthings I try to live by, things I tried to revisit and think about this yearâabout life.
Enjoy. And remember, as Seneca said, that we are dying everyday. At 33, I donât say to myself that according to actuary tables, I have 49 years to live. I say instead that I have already died three and one-third decades. The question is whether I lived those years before they passed. Thatâs what matters.
âGeorge Raveling told me that he sees reading as a moral imperative. âPeople died,â he said, speaking of slaves, soldiers and civil rights activists, âso I could have the ability to read.â He also pointed out that thereâs a reason people have fought so hard over the centuries to keep books from certain groups of people. Iâve always thought reading was important, but I never thought about it like that. If youâre not reading, if books arenât playing a major role in your life, you are betraying that legacy.
- Another one on reading: in his autobiography, General James Mattis points out that if you havenât read widely, you are functionally illiterate. Thatâs a great term, and one I wish Iâd heard earlier. As Mark Twain said, if you donât read, youâre not any better than people who canât read. This is true not only generally but specifically on specific topics. I am functionally illiterate about many things and that needs to be fixed.
- Sue Johnson talks about how when couples or people fight, theyâre not really fighting, theyâre just doing a dance, usually a dance about attachment. The dance is the problemâyou go this way, I go that way, you reach out, I pull away, I reach out, you pull awayânot the couple, not either one of the people. This externalization has been very helpful.
- The last year has certainly revealed some things about a lot of folks that I know or thought I did. But before I get too disappointed, I think of that beautiful line from F. Scott Fitzgerald at the beginning of The Great Gatsby (discovered on a re-read): âWhenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world havenât had the advantages that youâve had.â
- Iâve heard this many times from many different writers over the years (Neil Strauss being one), but as time passes the truth of it becomes more and more clear, and not just in writing: When someone tells you something is wrong, theyâre almost always right. When someone tells you how to fix it, theyâre almost always wrong.
- It was a French journalist who was writing a piece about Trust Me Iâm Lying who happened to tell me something about relationships. LOVE, he said, is best spelled T-I-M-E. I donât think Iâve heard anything truer or more important to my development as a husband or father.
- Also, Seinfeldâs concept of quality time vs. garbage time has been almost as essential to me as Robert Greeneâs concept of alive time vs. dead time. I would be much worse without these two ideas.
- A few years ago I was exploring a book project with Lance Armstrong and he showed me some of the texts people had sent him when his world came crashing down. âSome people lean in when their friends take heat,â he said, âsome people lean away.â I decided I wanted to be a lean-in type, even if I didnât always agree, even if it was their fault.
- When I was in high school, I was in this English class and I shared something with the discussion group we were in. Then later, I heard people use what I had said in their essays or in presentations and get credit for it. I brought this up to the teacher later, that people were using my ideas. The teacher looked at me and said, âRyan, thatâs your job.â Iâm very glad she said that and that I heard it at 16.
- Another thing about being a writer. I once read a letter where Cheryl Strayed kindly pointed out to a young writer the distinction between writing and publishing. Her implication was that we focus too much on the latter and not enough on the former. Itâs true for most things. Amateurs focus on outcomes more than process. The more professional you get, the less you care about results. It seems paradoxical but itâs true. You still get results, but thatâs because you know that the systems and process are reliable. You trust them with your life.
- Speaking of which, that distinction between amateur and professional is an essential piece of advice I have gotten, first from Steven Pressfieldâs writings and then by getting to know him over the years. There are professional habits and amateur ones. Which are you practicing? Is this a pro or an amateur move? Ask yourself that. Constantly.
- Peter Thiel: âCompetition is for losers.â I loved this the second I heard it. When people compete, somebody loses. So go where youâre the only one. Do what only you can do. Run a race with yourself.
- This headline from Kayla Chadwick is one of the best of the century, in my opinion. And true. And sums up our times: âI Donât Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People.â
âTim Ferriss always seems to ask the best questions: What would this look like if it were easy? How will you know if you donât experiment? What would less be like? The one that hit me the hardest, when I was maybe 25, was âWhat do you do with your money?â The answer was âNothing, really.â Ok, so why try so hard to earn lots more of it?
- It was from Hemingway and Tobias Wolff and John Fante that I learned about typing up passages, about feeling great writing go through your fingers. Itâs a practice Iâve followed for⌠15 years now? Iâve probably copied and typed out a couple dozen books this way. Itâs a form of getting your hours, modeling greatness so that it gets seeded into your subconscious. (For writing, you can substitute any activity.)
- Talked about re-watching earlier. The scene from Tombstone still stays with me (and also sums up our times):
Wyatt Earp:
What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday:
A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of himself. And he can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp:
What does he want?
Doc Holliday:
Revenge.
Wyatt Earp:
For what?
Doc Holliday:
Beinâ born.
- Steve Kamb told me that the best and most polite excuse is just to say you have a rule. âI have a rule that I donât decide on the phone.â âI have a rule that I donât accept gifts.â âI have a rule that I donât speak for free anymore.â âI have a rule that I am home for bath time with the kids every night.â People respect rules, and they accept that itâs not you rejecting the [offer, request, demand, opportunity] but that the rule allows you no choice.
- Go to what will teach you the most, not what will pay the most. I forget who this was from. Aaron Ray, maybe? Itâs about the opportunities that youâll learn the most from. Thatâs the rubric. Thatâs how you get better. People sometimes try to sweeten speaking offers by mentioning how glamorous the location is, or how much fun it will be. Iâd be more impressed if they told me I was going to have a conversation that was going to blow my mind.
- Iâve been in too many locker rooms not to notice that teams put up their values on the wall. Every hallway and doorway is decorated with a motivational quote. At first, it seemed silly. Then you realize: Itâs one thing to hear something, itâs another to live up to it each day. Thus the prints we do at Daily Stoic, the challenge coins I carry in my pocket, the statues I have on my desk, that art I have on my wall. You have to put your precepts up for display. You have to make them inescapable. Or the idea will escape you when it counts.
- Amelia Earhart: âAlways think with your stick forward.â (Gotta keep moving, canât slow down.)
- I was at Neil Straussâs house almost ten years ago now when he had everyone break down what an hour of their time was worth. Itâs simple: How much you make a year, divided by how many hours you realistically work. âBasically,â he said, âdonât do anything you can pay someone to do for you more cheaply.â This was hard for me to acceptâstill isâbut coming to terms with it (in my own way) has made my life much, much better. It goes to Timâs question as well: What would it look like if this were easy? Most of the time, it means getting someone to help.
- âNo man steps in the same river twice.â Thatâs Heraclitus. Thus the re-reading. The books are the same, but weâve changed, the world has changed. So it goes for movies, walking your college campus or a Civil War battlefield, and so many of the things we do once and think we âgot.â
- âWell begun is half-doneâ is the expression. It has been a long journey but slowly and steadily optimizing my morning has more impact on my life than anything else. I stole most of my strategies from people like Julia Cameron (morning pages), Shane Parrish (wake up early), the folks at SPAR! (no phone in the AM), Ferriss (make before you manage), etc. (You can see more about my morning here.)
- âYour last book wonât write your next one.â Donât remember who said it, but itâs true for writing and for all professions. You are constantly starting at zero. Every sale is a new sale. Every season is a new season. Every fight is a new fight. If you think your past success guarantees you anything, youâre in for a rude awakening. In fact, someone has already started to beat you.
âDavid French: âHuman beings need forgiveness like we need oxygenâa nation devoid of grace will make its people miserable.â
- Dov Charney said something to me once that I think about a lot. He said, âRun rates always start at zero.â The point there was: Donât be discouraged at the outset. It takes time to build up from nothing.
- I read this passage in a post from Chris Yeh, which apparently comes from a speech by Brian Dyson:
âImagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name themâwork, family, health, friends and spirit ⌠and youâre keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four ballsâfamily, health, friends and spiritâare made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same.â
âThere is no party line. Thatâs what Allan Ginsbergâs psychiatrist told him when he asked for the professional opinion on dropping out of college. This is good advice for life. There is no party line on what you should or shouldnât do. And if you think there is, youâre probably missing stuff.
âJames Altucher once pointed out that you donât have to make your money grow. You can just have it. It can just sit there. You can spend it. Whatever. You donât have to whip yourself for not investing and carefully managing every penny. The reward for success should not be that youâre constantly stressed youâre not doing enough to âcapitalizeâ on that success.
- At the same time, I love Charlamagneâs âFrugal Vandross.â The less expensive stuff you have, the less there is to worry about.
- Iâve talked before how I got my notecard system from Robert Greene. Only later did I realizeâto steal a concept from Tyler Cowenâthat doing notecards is an effective way to âdo scales.â Meaning: How do you practice whatever it is that you do? Whatâs your version of playing scales or running through drills? For me, itâs the notecards. Thatâs how I get better at my job. Do you have something like that?
âRamit Sethi talks about how you can just not reply to stuff. It felt rude at first, but then I realized it was ruder to ignore the people I care about to respond to things I didnât ask for in the first place. Selective ignoring is the key to productivity, Iâm afraid.
- Before we had kids, I was in the pool with my wife. âDo you want to do laps?â I said. âShould we fill up the rafts?â âHere help me dump out the filter.â There was a bunch of that from me. âYou know you can just be in the pool,â she said. That thought had not occurred to me. Still, it rarely does. So I have to be intentional about it.
Who better to close another year, another piece than with the Stoics. âYou could be good today,â the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote. âBut instead you choose tomorrow.â
That quote haunts me as much as it inspires me. And it does a lot of each. Itâs worth stealing if you havenât already.