Here’s what achievement actually means, according to science. Here’s a daunting idea: Anything that you try to do well, you will first be very bad at it. And you will be very bad at it for a long time. Depending on your outlook, this can be either encouraging or deflating. …

Here’s what he tells his shareholders every single year In his letter to shareholders in 1997, Jeff Bezos emphasized that everything Amazon did was in honor of the long game. No amount of record sales, rapid scaling, and short-term success should distract from his multi-decade vision of Amazon as the…

Here’s what to know to optimize your path to success There are plenty of smart people who don’t make notable achievements. Above average intelligence is not as rare as some may think. While the intellects who make waves in society and throughout history are extremely intelligent, their intelligence only comprised…

And 3 rules to remember for optimizing your success Two things to keep in mind: People make fun of things — until they don’t. People doubt someone’s potential — until they don’t. The dash sitting in the middle of each of those two sentences? That is where consistency comes in…

Completing tasks is less important than building systems At the start of every new year, people jot down their new year’s resolutions and vow to stick to them. Usually, they include going to the gym more often, picking up a book with greater regularity, or reciting morning affirmations. Some mixture…

Ignore the big picture to make the most of the new year Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @philrosenn This year brought much of the same as last year. Covid-19 dominated headlines, day-to-day life, and thoughts. …

Here’s how writers can switch gears between fiction and nonfiction writing — My day job as a journalist could not be more different from fiction writing. I report on cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the stock market. Business news, heavy with numbers and hot takes from executives. But at night and on weekends I do different work. That’s when I write literary fiction. Short…

Returning home after travel isn’t always easy. I write now in Newark airport. It isn’t yet 7:00 AM. People around me — masked, tired — bustle about with carry-on bags and passports in hand. A lukewarm airport coffee is an anti-climactic finale to my first three and a half months…

The great John Steinbeck wrote extensively about his own insecurities “Just set one day’s work in front of the last day’s work. That’s the way it comes out. And that’s the only way it does.” That’s how John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939) according to his personal notebook. As he wrote his Pulitzer-prize winning epic — one of my all-time favorite novels — he kept a diary which was eventually published as Working…