Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Berkshire Hathaway is widely regarded as one of the most successful companies in the world. If you look at Warren Buffett’s 49 year track record with Berkshire, it almost looks easy in hindsight. Make …
“To oppression, plundering and abandonment, we respond with life.” *** Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) was believed by many to be one of the world’s greatest writers. Two of his books, …
“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.” — Ernest Hemingway *** Solitude is an important aspect toward accomplishing great things, creative or otherwise. In fact, it’s one of the commonalities …
A voracious reader and best-selling author emailed me shortly after my post Anne Lamott: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. He proceeded to tell me the book was full of terrible advice, the …
Idleness is a lost art. That’s the message behind Andrew Smart’s book: Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing. “Being idle,” he writes, “is one of the most …
While a lot of people casually use the word, not many people have read: Antifragile, where Nassim Taleb defines it for us. Just as being clear on what constitutes a black swan allows us to better …
The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell. And the funny thing is, you’re a salesman, and you don’t know that. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman No matter what you do for a living, …
[quote]”Knowing one’s limits is more important than it used to be.”[/quote] “Welcome to the Hyper-Meritocracy,” Cowen writes in his latest book Average Is Over. This is an …
Paul Baltes once described wisdom as “a topic at the interface between several disciplines: philosophy, sociology, theology, psychology, political science, and literature, to name a few.” …
Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead with an excellent talk on how we should think about critics. I love that …
[quote]”The main problem is that we think we understand the minds of others, and even our own mind, better than we actually do.”[/quote] Despite the fact I do it countless times a day, …
A poet once said, “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a …
Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger spent the last 10 years looking into what makes things popular. Questions like: Why are some stories, ads, and rumors more infectious than others? Why do some …
“A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular time.” *** Theodore Roosevelt was perhaps the most well-read president. On a normal day, he’d read a book before breakfast …
“It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.” — Molière *** “Why is it so fun to be right?” That’s the opening line from Kathryn Schulz’ excellent book …
I stumbled across Anne Lamott’s beautiful Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Lamott’s advice is down to earth, real, and void of any pretentiousness. In fact, it’s …