Good stuff happens when we stop — “Can we eat a peach?” My son was close to turning four. We were walking back from the Tuesday morning market in our town. It was summertime. I still had to work. He didn’t. “Can’t it wait till we get home? I’ve got things to do.” “I’m hungry. It’s just…

“You only have to get things right a few times” — Warren Buffett — When reading, “The Warren Buffett Way,” I came across a line that has been running around in my head ever since — “You only have to get things right a few times. 12 investment decisions in my career have made all the difference.” Having recently turned 40 years old, it…

Don’t just passively consume stories, actively dissect them — “If you go down to meet this guy, you may never back. He’s on another level.” Shortly into his career, legendary Esquire columnist Cal Fussman, got the itch to interview Harry Cruz, a novelist who wrote off-the-wall stories about things like a man who ate a car. Despite the warnings…

Restraint is a choice — “Hey, Laia!” I shouted from my office. “Do you have any idea what a bad word is for a woman that starts with a K and ends with an N?” “What the hell are you talking about?” my wife shot back. “You’re the native English speaker, not me!” “It’s just…

Sometimes the best tactic is not to have a tactic — I shared a story inspired by something my 5-year-old did that caught my attention the other day. It didn’t go viral. But for the couple hundred people who saw it here as well as a few thousand on Twitter and in my newsletter, it clearly resonated as I’ve received 50-plus…

Building a reputation for not wasting other people’s time is a seriously underrated quality — I was cleaning out my inbox and stumbled across an email I’m glad I didn’t delete. It came courtesy of entrepreneur and ADHD expert Peter Shankman. And in the message, Peter shared how he’d recently been invited to join a tight-knit community. Seems pretty harmless, right? Maybe even kind. But…

A powerful reminder courtesy of an unassuming 5-year-old — I walked through our front door and found my 5-year-old quietly drawing at our kitchen table. I wanted to join him. But since he was biting his tongue clearly lost in concentration — and remembering how much I hate it when people bother me when I’m in the “biting-tongue” zone…

Or, how much self-help sucks according to a group of guys who smoke anything that burns — During quarantine, I began an interesting experiment with my friends in Spain. To try to have a laugh — and knowing full well they enjoy a good self-help article as much as someone telling them smoking kills — I created a weekly email chain with a handful of trending posts…

A valuable exercise to zero in on what matters most — My wife and I recently made a big life decision. We traded in our relatively spacious apartment (by Spanish standards) at the base of the Pyrenees mountains and moved into a relatively small apartment (by anyone’s standards) near the Mediterranean Sea. If it was just the two of us, downsizing…