2025-11-30 20:11:00
I recently shared a post about the importance of taking the time to get to clarity about what you’re looking for. Once we have clarity, the decisions and actions that follow become so much easier.
Rebecca, who has been part of this community for many years, wrote in with a beautiful addition. She shared from her own experience that while the most effective action does flow from clarity, there are times when clarity simply isn’t available. In those moments, even misdirected action can be what ultimately creates the clarity you need.
I’ve found that to be true as well.
If you can get to clarity first, that’s wonderful.
But if you can’t – move. Try something. Action reveals insight.
It was also a lovely reminder of a principle I come back to often: the opposite of a good idea is often a good idea.
Sometimes clarity leads to action. Sometimes action leads to clarity.
Both paths can work. The right one at any given time just depends on context.
2025-11-29 20:48:00
Berkshire Hathaway released Warren Buffett’s thanksgiving letter. I loved the last section with his reflections and advice. There’s a lot of wisdom in these notes that resonated (“Don’t count on a newsroom mix-up” is gold) – sharing in full below.
One perhaps self-serving observation. I’m happy to say I feel better about the second half of my life than the first.
My advice: Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little
from them and move on. It is never too late to improve.
Get the right heroes and copy them. You can start with Tom Murphy; he was the best.
Remember Alfred Nobel, later of Nobel Prize fame, who – reportedly – read his own obituary that was mistakenly printed when his brother died and a newspaper got mixed up. He was horrified at what he read and realized he should change his behavior.
Don’t count on a newsroom mix-up: Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.
Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless.
Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.
I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.
I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving. Yes, even the jerks; it’s never too late to change. Remember to thank America for maximizing your opportunities. But it is – inevitably – capricious and sometimes venal in distributing its rewards.
Choose your heroes very carefully and then emulate them. You will never be perfect, but you can always be better.
2025-11-28 20:23:00
More than a decade ago, when I was applying to graduate school, I went through a period of deep uncertainty. I had tried the previous year and hadn’t gotten in anywhere. I wanted to try again, but I had a lot going against me.
I’d spent most of my undergrad building a student job-portal startup and hadn’t balanced it well with academics. My GPA needed explaining. My GMAT score was just okay. I didn’t come from a big-brand employer. And there was no shortage of people with similar or stronger profiles applying to the same schools.
Even though I had learned a few things from the first round, the second attempt was still difficult. There were multiple points after I submitted applications where I lost hope.
But during that stretch, a friend and colleague kept repeating one line to me:
“All it takes is for one to work out.”
He’d say it every time I spiraled. And as much as it made me smile, a big part of me didn’t fully believe it. Still, it became a little maxim between us. And eventually, he was right – that one did work out. And it changed my life.
I’ve thought about that framing so many times since then.
It’s unbelievably powerful in any high-stakes search:
You don’t need every job to choose you. You just need the one that’s the right fit.
You don’t need every house to accept your offer. You just need the one that feels like home.
You don’t need every person to want to build a life with you. You just need the one.
You don’t need ten universities to say yes. You just need the one that opens the right door.
These processes – college admissions, job searches, home buying, finding a partner – can be emotionally brutal. They can get you down in ways that feel personal. But in those moments, that truth can be grounding.
All it takes is for one to work out.
And that one is all you need.
2025-11-27 20:35:00
Every Thanksgiving, I find myself reflecting on three groups of people.
The first group is the set of people who made this year memorable – the ones who were an essential part of the story of this year. This year, like every other, had its ups and downs, and there are always a few people whose presence, conversations, or actions had a disproportionate impact on my experience.
The second group is smaller but deeply significant: the people who gave me a break or supported me at a moment when I most needed it. So much of the privilege and opportunity in my life traces back to this handful of people. Without them, the story would have been very different.
The third group is the group that stays – the people who are with me on the journey, through all its ups and downs. Not just for a reason or a season, but for a lifetime. These folks are the anchors of this experience.
Every Thanksgiving, I think about these groups. And every year, I’m struck by the same thing: there are many material things to be grateful for, but it’s the people – always the people – who make this life special.
Happy thanksgiving!
2025-11-26 20:28:00
One of the biggest lessons I learned from wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) was just how powerful a post-dinner walk is for metabolic health.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. Our metabolism slows at night.
If we don’t burn off the glucose from dinner, the excess is converted into triglycerides – not ideal for long-term health. A simple walk helps clear that glucose before we sleep.
2. Digestion affects sleep, and sleep affects everything.
A walk helps digestion, and better digestion often leads to better sleep – another massive lever for metabolic health. It also naturally creates some space between dinner and bedtime.
But I kept wondering: How long of a walk is enough?
I realized it depends on what you ate – a carb-heavy meal requires more effort than one centered on protein and fiber. Still, I found it helpful to have a simple rule of thumb. And with ChatGPT’s help, the rule I’ve settled into is 2,500 steps.
This translates roughly to 30 minutes of walking. Just enough to meaningfully lower post-meal glucose for most dinners.
Every night, I check my step count and aim for 2,500 more before bed. Some days I exceed it, but having the number makes the goal incredibly tangible. And making it tangible has dramatically increased my consistency.
That’s the lesson – the clearer and more concrete we make our goals, the more likely we are to achieve them.
(Typed as I walk my 2500 steps :-))
2025-11-25 20:35:00
Sometimes we go through challenging experiences with seemingly little rhyme or reason.
There isn’t always some obvious profound lesson waiting on the other side.
Sometimes we get struck by bad luck/circumstance at an unfortunate moment, and our job is to make our way through it the best we can.
And when we do, absent that profound takeaway, we still emerge a bit stronger and with a bit more perspective.
As always, it is what we make of it.
