How I Became A Morning Person, Read More Books, And Learned A Language In A Year
“The distance between where I was starting and where I wanted to be was so great that I would fail a lot. And each failure made it harder to succeed the next day.”
Watching Rocky II with Muhammad Ali | Interviews | Roger Ebert
“As Rocky got back to his feet, Ali broke the spell. ‘The most scary moment in a fighter’s life is right now. The moment before the fight, in your dressing room, all the training is behind you, all the advice in the world don’t mean a thing, in a moment you’ll be in the ring, everyone is on the line, and you…are…scared.'”
So interesting to hear a true Champ’s thoughts on the Rocky movies. So many great quotes in this one.
Happy Ambition: Success, Status Cocaine, and Happiness
“Or as Don Draper put it in Mad Men, ‘What is happiness? It’s the moment before you need more happiness.'”
In other words, there’s never enough of it.
The Goldilocks Theory of Being Rich
“As my friend Tyler Cowen has noted, what ‘average’ people in America share with the super rich Bill Gates is far more significant than what we don’t share with him”
Such an interesting way to describe how lucky we are in America.
Everything you need to know about whether money makes you happy – 80,000 Hours
“Recent surveys of hundreds of thousands of people, in over 150 countries, show that richer people report being more satisfied with their lives overall, but that the richer you become, the more money you need to increase your satisfaction further. This is because people spend money on the most important things first. Someone earning $100,000 per year is only a little more satisfied than someone earning $50,000. The best available study found that each doubling of your income correlated with a life satisfaction 0.5 points higher on a scale of 1 to 10.”
In other words, there are many other ways that we can find happiness than money. The question becomes is 0.5 points/10 worth it to you?
“Giving money to someone living on $1,000 per year in the developing world will do far more to improve their lives than giving the same amount to someone earning $25,000. The correlations above suggest that it will be about 25 times more valuable. If you want to help people, this is a major reason to focus on international poverty rather than helping the relatively poor in richer countries.”
I’m all for helping out people within our country (certainly there is plenty of need for it). However, this is a strong argument.
Joe’s Blog » Some Thoughts on Coffee
“Black coffee has 0 calories. A Starbucks Caffe Mocha with whipped cream has 400 calories.”
I’m not someone who counts calories, but I do believe in making smart choices when it comes to what you eat and drink. Maybe don’t buy that pop, have some water instead. The problem is so many people think they need to diet, go to the gym, and do 10 other things to even begin losing weight. This is wrong. Start small. Stop drinking pop, start drinking black coffee instead of that grande whipped thing you call coffee. Baby steps.
You suck at technical interviews | Seldo.Com Blog
“The primary mistake that people make when interviewing is over-valuing present skills and under-valuing future growth.”
I’m glad all of my previous employers (and current employer) took a chance on me. Future growth and the mindset the people you are interviewing have is so important.
“Your first stage of interviewing should be attempting to answer two questions: Can they do this job? This is not the same as “can they do this job right now?” but you need to be confident they can learn how to do the job. Are they going to get better at this job? The answer has to be yes.”
“Strong candidates say “I don’t know” as soon as they hit their limit, and may start asking questions. The very strongest candidates say “but if I had to guess” and then attempt to extrapolate. Those are great because it shows intellectual honesty and a strong desire to figure things out.”
In Conversation:Louis C.K.
“Being a great writer means writing shitty stuff and not giving up.”