Essays

This is essentially a question about motivation. To do any type of action we need to be motivated enough to do so. Motivation comes in two forms, pain and pleasure. As a human, you want to avoid pain and seek out pleasure. That’s why you get out of bed in the morning. Maybe because of seeking that sweet and tasty pleasure of your morning coffee. Maybe of the excitement of making progress on your pet project. Or to avoid your boss yelling at you for being late to the meeting. Pain and pleasure are the needles of our compass. ...

Who are you? It shouldn’t be a hard question. You’ve been living as yourself for many years. But it is a hard question. And you get very different answers when you ask people about this. The reason is that your identity is formed through an interplay of different factors. But what are the factors that make you you? I think Jim Clemente, a former FBI profiler and behavioral analyst, said it best: ...

As humans we tend to think in boxes. There’s a box with knowledge about how to write, a box that informs us about how to edit the work, and one about publishing and promoting. We think of each of these boxes as independent areas of expertise. But they’re not independent. The boxes we construct are usually interconnected and knowledge in one domain is useful in another. For example, writing and the skill of story telling is tremendously useful when it comes to promoting your work as well. ...

It is a given that your mindset fundamentally determines your success and impact on the world. Beliefs such as a victim mentality are huge hurdles to achieving what you strive for. Conversely, having the right beliefs is the foundation for realizing your full potential. I believe that both realizations are central for anyone to change from a consumer to a creator. You are Nature’s Best Problem Solver Most of your life is spent problem-solving. People forget that. Your brain is constantly looking for problems so it can solve them. Even small daily issues can lead to a large number of challenges you need to master. ...

I was always wondering how people can be so blind. Turns out I was making the mistake of thinking there was something like rationality of a belief. I could not understand how someone could arrive at a completely different conclusion than I did, even more so if they based their view on the same information I had. A strong believer in enlightened thinking and rationality, I was convinced that A and B must necessarily lead to C. Consequentially, disagreement and conflict must result from people that are not ‘rational’ enough or just blind to the truth. Of course, this is incredibly naive. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote: ...