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Deconstructing Pat Riley’s guarantee
In The Optimism Bias, Tali Sharot writes a story about Pat Riley, who was head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s and had just won the 1987 NBA Championship: In the midst of the postvictory celebration, Riley was approached by a reporter. The journalist wanted to know if Riley believed the Lakers…
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Make a book about a person
There’s a niche that doesn’t often get discussed: books about people. This can come in the form of short, unauthorized biographies like Clayton Geoffreys’s sport series, or Jake Brown’s In the Studio series. (I have bought books from both.) These books aren’t long, Caro-sized, biographies; they can be very short books, effectively long introductions to…
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Out the trunk
In his memoir Lucky Me, Rich Paul shares a motto—a philosophy, an approach, a stance, etc.—that I really like, “Out the trunk.” Rich is a jersey connoisseur; in the early 2000s, he had spent thousands of dollars buying rare jerseys at Distant Replays. He eventually met owner Andy Hyman and offered to invest in Distant…
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Three types of imaginary barriers
In Creative Doing, I write, “After years of learning and applying rules, you might live within these constraints even when they don’t actually apply to you. You’ll feel like you’re bumping into invisible walls.” I call these walls imaginary barriers. (You can read the full prompt here.) Here are three types of imaginary barriers—amongst many…
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Rich Paul on flying private, salary with LeBron, and fronting
I came across Rich Paul’s memoir at a bookstore the other day, so I picked it up and I’m really enjoying it. Naturally, I also started digging into some of his appearances at YouTube. I really liked his panel with Junior Bridgeman and Earn Your Leisure. Junior has a great story too, but some notable…
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On businesses publishing books
If you’re a business targeting the small group of people who still read—maybe 2% of the American population (a number from Seth Godin (17:00))—you are deciding to target one of the oldest fandoms in the world. For example, you may be inherently selecting people who are interested in intellectual matters. Or, they’re ambitious enough to…
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“Should I be doing that instead?”
There’s a saying that the best workout plan is the one that you’re actually going to do. It’s a great approach to exercise. As a principle, it can be just as effective when you apply it to other parts of your life as well. What works for somebody else isn’t going to be what works…
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If you’re reading to learn, don’t read the whole book
You don’t need to read the entire book to get something out of it. For example, I learned to take notes from skimming a book that I otherwise wouldn’t have read (and still have yet to finish). If you’ve had a book that you’ve been meaning to read, I highly recommend buying and opening it…
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Nice vs. kind
In Clear Thinking, Shane Parrish writes: Too often, the people we ask for feedback are kind but not nice. Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach on your teeth. A nice person won’t because it’s uncomfortable. A kind person will tell…
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Choose someone else
In case you’ve been waiting to be chosen, there’s plenty of great advice on choosing yourself (or picking yourself). There seems to be much less advice about the natural next step: choosing someone else. These days, you and I and everyone else is a gatekeeper in some way. That means we also have the ability…