23 pieces of career advice I wish I’d known earlier.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking to make a big change, or aiming to reach new heights in your current role, I hope you’ll find something here that helps you navigate your own unique path: 1. Be quiet, work hard, and stay healthy. It’s not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity.

“I’m not saying that you have to be a reader to save your soul in the modern world,” Walter Mosley said. “I’m saying it helps.”

Here are a bunch of books—some new, some old—that will help you live and be better in 2024: 1. The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton

On a ski vacation in 1964, Robert Kennedy was loaned a copy of this book and ended up spending most of the trip in his room reading it.

This book changed the political trajectory of the entire Kennedy family. It's a must read.

This Is The Word I'm Trying To Live By This Year:

These Are 11 Things Stoics DON'T Do: 1. Don't suffer imagined troubles

Seneca said, "we suffer more in imagination than in reality."

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself.

Focus on the present. Don't think about the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.

6 pieces of timeless parenting advice from three great Stoic sages: 1. We don't control what happens, only how we respond

Circumstances are not up to us, but we always have the ability to control what kind of parent we are.

Parents who only focus on what they can control are much happier than those battling against what they can’t control.

The best parenting advice I've ever gotten.

From some of history’s greatest thinkers and parents: 1. When your child offers you a hand to hold, take it.

That’s a rule I picked up from @EconTalker. You might be tired, you might be busy, you might be on the other line—but whenever they reach out, whenever they offer you a hand to hold, take the opportunity.

19 Keys To Being a More Disciplined Person: 1. Attack the dawn

The morning hours are the most productive hours.

Because in the morning, you are free.

Hemingway would talk about how he’d get up early because early, there was, “no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write."

100 (very) short rules for a better life: 1/ Wake up early
2/ Ask: Am I using this technology, or is it using me?
3/ Forget about outcomes — focus on making a little progress every day
4/ Say no (a lot)
5/ Read something every day
6/ Don’t watch TV news
7/ Comparison leads to unhappiness
8/ Journal

100 (very) short rules for a better life: 1/ Wake up early.
2/ Ask: Am I using this technology, or is it using me?
3/ Forget about outcomes — focus on making a little progress every day.
4/ Say no (a lot).
5/ Read something every day.
6/ Don’t watch TV news.
7/ Comparison leads to unhappiness.
8/ Journal.

The best parenting advice I've ever gotten.

From some of history’s greatest thinkers and parents: 1/ When your child offers you a hand to hold, take it.

That’s a rule I picked up from @EconTalker. You might be tired, you might be busy, you might be on the other line—but whenever they reach out, whenever they offer you a hand to hold, take the opportunity.

6 pieces of timeless parenting advice from three great Stoic sages: 1/ We don't control what happens, only how we respond

Circumstances are not up to us, but we always have the ability to control what kind of parent we are.

Parents who only focus on what they can control are much happier than those battling against what they can’t control.

50 (short) rules for a better life: 1/ Wake up early.
2/ Ask: Am I using this technology, or is it using me?
3/ Forget about outcomes—focus on making a little progress every day.
4/ Say no (a lot).
5/ Read something every day.

If you only read a few books in 2023, read these: 1/ A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy

“Daily study,” Tolstoy wrote, is “necessary for all people.”

Tolstoy dreamed of creating a book with “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people.”

10 ways to create better habits in 2023: 1/ Think small

@jamesclear defines “atomic habits” as small habits that makes an enormous difference in your life.

Repetitive actions, he says, accumulate and add up in a big way over time.

Don’t promise you’re going to read more; instead, commit to reading one page per day.

These Are 11 Things Stoics DON'T Do: 1/ Don't suffer imagined troubles

Seneca said, "we suffer more in imagination than in reality."

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself.

Focus on the present. Don't think about the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.

The world is complicated, paradoxical, and contradictory.

To make sense of it, to thrive in it, you must cultivate what John Keats called “Negative Capability”—the ability to hold conflicting ideas in your head at the same time.

Here are 8 ways to cultivate Negative Capability: 1/ Read widely & from people you disagree with

Epicurus said, “One sage is no wiser than another.”

The Stoics believed this too—that we should actively engage with anyone who can be a source of wisdom to us, regardless of the school of thought from which that wisdom arose.

Procrastinating "is the biggest waste of life," the Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote. "It snatches away each day...and denies us the present by promising the future."

Want to stop wasting your life?

Here are 8 Stoic tactics to beat procrastination: 1. Take it action by action

"Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole," Marcus Aurelius wrote. Remember, he adds, everything is built action by action. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, said, “Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.”

Questions I ask myself regularly: Am I using this technology, or is it using me?

30 Stoic lessons from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus: 1. Focus on what you can control.

2. "You become what you give your attention to." — Epictetus

3. "We suffer more in imagination than in reality." — Seneca

4. You can’t learn what you think you already know.

5. Stop waiting to demand the best for yourself.

If you start your day with social media, the news, or email, realize: you're starting your day at the mercy of others. Social media is others telling you what to think.

The instinct is to look for answers, but the truth is that questions teach us most.

10 questions that will change your life: Who do you spend your time with?

Goethe said, “Tell me who you spend time with and I will tell you who you are.”

It’s not just people. What you read, what you watch, what you think about—your life comes to look exactly like your surroundings. Choose wisely.