2023-12-29 02:02:15
I went from thinking the Bible was the most boring book ever to seeing the magic in it.
Years ago, I realized that the Bible is the foundational book of Western civilization. If I was going to be an educated person, I needed to know what it said. Though I was motivated to learn about it, I didn’t have the patience to read it or the knowledge to understand it.
Generally, I try to follow my 4th-grade English teacher’s advice to read things first-hand. But the Bible seemed too hard, too boring, and too confusing to read on my own. It was a snooze fest. The stories felt outdated in a world of smartphones and fast Internet. Living in the modern world, shouldn’t I be rooting my life in modern books, modern studies, and modern authors?
At the time, I was living in New York when a friend introduced me to the work of Tim Keller. I reluctantly found time to put down the self-help and picked up two of his books instead: The Reason for God and Making Sense of God. It was around that time when I discovered Keller’s Questioning Christianity lecture series.
Instead of focusing on the Bible directly, Keller focused on Christianity’s relationship with culture and the modern world. He spoke to career-driven Gordon Gekkos who were driven by the glories of the material world, but sensed the emptiness at the heart of such a single-minded pursuit. Instead of referencing scripture directly, he spoke about big-picture themes like identity and purpose, morality and meaning.
This was back when I thought all Christians had the intelligence of sidewalk pigeons. I would scoff at church-goers because I didn’t understand why anyone would worship a sky fairy or follow rules from thousands of years ago. Keller was the guide I needed.
For the first few years, I looked at faith through a cultural lens instead of reading the Bible directly. I literally knew nothing about Jesus or Christianity — and I came to realize how little I knew about my own atheism too. In school, while studying the Declaration of Independence, I’d learned that it’s “self-evident” that “all men are created equal.” Turns out, this defining American ideal is only self-evident if you assume that every person has inherent worth because they’re made in the image of God. I was stumped. Where did my moral compass come from? Do people have inherent value? And if so, is it because every human is a child of God?
In addition to advocating for the life of Jesus and the truth of his message, Keller revealed the many assumptions underlying my own atheistic worldview. He taught me that every worldview requires a leap of faith. Sure, Christianity couldn’t perfectly explain everything in the universe, but then again, neither can any worldview. Astrophysicists say that much of the universe is made up of “dark matter,” which is a scientific-sounding way to talk about a leap of faith
Though I did some Bible studies, I never enjoyed them. They felt more like reading tedious academic papers than drinking directly from the fountain of God’s wisdom. Instead of reading Scripture directly, I joined a small Christian reading group where I was the only non-believer. By showing me coherent ways to interpret reality besides my science-based materialism, books like The Story of Reality and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist loosened the screws on my atheism.
My palate was beginning to change. Like a fine wine, the same flavors that were once repulsive to me started to appeal to my intellectual taste buds. I surrounded myself with wise Christians who were orthodox about scripture and eager to answer my hardest questions about faith. I asked them to dinner and invited myself to Church with them.
This marked a new era. Once again, I found some guides: books, Internet sources, and an in-person leader to show me the way. On the Internet, I’d turn to The Bible Project to answer my big-picture thematic questions. I picked up the ESV Study Bible, which I still read every day on the white boucle couch in my living room (if you like reading on the computer, I recommend The Bible Study App by Olive Tree).
For years, I’d stiff-armed the Bible. Now, I was skipping to a 7am Bible Study led by a devout believer who’d been reading God’s word every day for almost a quarter-century, and wasn’t afraid to rebuke my theology.
What surprised me most was how carefully we read. I admired the integrity of our study. We live in a culture of binge-reading where people boast about how many books they can complete in a given year. We did the opposite. We never read more than ~20 verses in a single session and dissected every word, every verse, and every story. (I once spent two hours studying John 1:1-4 — just four verses — at a strip-mall Schlotzsky’s in the Texas Hill Country.)
Never in my life had I read so deliberately. I spent months in the books of Ephesians, Romans, John, and 2 Corinthians, and there’s no way I would’ve known how to read the Bible so diligently on my own. I learned to look beyond English translations, and I use the BibleHub to look up the original Greek and Hebrew whenever possible.
For a translation, I recommend the English Standard Version (ESV) (no, you don’t need to read the King James Version). And If you’re going to pick two books, I recommend the Gospel of John and the Book of Romans. Either find a guide to read them carefully with you or follow along with The Bible Project and The ESV Study Bible. Whatever you do, read slowly.
I used to be a serial consumer who’d brag about how many books I read every year. I’d pick up anything and everything. The more, the merry. But the more I study the Bible, the more careful I’ve become about who I read and listen to. Gone are my days as a serial consumer. Frauds, charlatans, and false teachers abound, so be skeptical and vet your sources. In all this time, I’ve had no more than ten serious teachers. Fortunately, that’s all you need.
I became a believer on March 20th of this year, four years after attending my first Tim Keller lecture, and the Bible is alive for me now like no book I’ve ever read.
These days, I read the Bible and basically nothing else.
Opening it up is the best part of my daily routine. The words twinkle. The stories are supernatural. It’s a living, breathing document, and I wholeheartedly believe it’s the Word of God, which makes every other book feel dim by comparison.
Cover photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash
The post How I’ve Studied the Bible appeared first on David Perell.
2023-06-24 04:08:54
At times, I’ve taken on too many responsibilities, only to pay the price later with poor follow-through — which is ultimately more painful than saying “no” at the outset.
My poor follow-through is downstream of my ambition and my desire to people-please, both of which seem noble but can lead to consequences. When it comes to ambition, I’m like a starving guy at a buffet. Not only am I unable to eat everything on my plate, but I get sick from trying. My desire to people-please is why I say “yes” to opportunities as they arise, but I disappoint people later when I’m late on a project or have to cancel at the last minute.
To combat this, I’ve adopted a principle called “Own It Mentality.”
My goal is simple: Be a man of my word. Do what I say I’m going to do, when I say I’m going to do it. That means showing up on schedule, communicating clearly, and getting things done on time.
Being reliable is table stakes. My friend Chris, who used to run giant concerts, tells me that the most successful bands are also the most operationally buttoned-up. They run on schedule, communicate clearly, and pay invoices on time.
I want to do the same. Practically, the best change I’ve made to my own working habits is scheduling time to respond to messages every day (inbox zero, Slack zero, Twitter DM zero, text message zero).1 I used to wait a long time to respond to important messages because “it’s good to think about things,” only to never reply because so much time had passed that my message now had to begin with an apology, which made things even more ominous — until the whole situation turned into a monster that I was too terrified to confront. The solution is to respond fast because the faster you respond, the less energy it takes to do so.2
Scheduling time every day keeps me focused on my work when I need to because I know that I have response times built into my schedule.
Many Silicon Valley investors say that fast response times for important messages correlate highly with a founder’s long-term success.
Good executives are information-routers. Much of their job is making introductions, giving feedback, and setting the tempo for the organization — all of which demand fast response times. They need an Own It Mentality because they are ultimately responsible for following up and following through on the organization’s commitments.
Own It Mentality doesn’t just apply to executives. It’s important for all members of a team. David Ogilvy says, “In the best companies, promises are always kept, whatever it may cost in agony and overtime.”
One core difference between low- and high-performing companies is that one wishes while the other promises. At high-performing companies, diligent follow-through is the norm. People do what they say they’re going to do, when they say they’re going to do it. Meanwhile, low-performing organizations are ruled by excuses. Tasks slip through the cracks. Timelines are outright ignored.
High-performing companies are the opposite. They do the simple things right. Commitments are kept, repeatedly. When deliverables are late, people communicate. When things go wrong, the blame is owned, not deflected.
I expect an Own It Mentality from myself and from everyone I work with.
Own It Mentality means confronting conflict as soon as it arises. By not saying what needs to be said, you trade short-term comfort for long-term pain, and the longer you wait to deal with an issue, the worse it usually becomes. Avoiding conflict means borrowing time and energy from your future-self (and the interest rates are high).
For example, people avoid conflict by saying “yes” to everything and taking on too much work. Saying “yes” feels good in the moment because the expectation of achievement comes with an instant dopamine rush. All the pain of saying “no” is postponed.
One way I reduce conflict is by setting clear expectations and outlining a person’s scope of responsibilities before I start working with them. Such clarity is a way of immediately addressing conflict.
Everybody benefits from clear expectations and a high standard of excellence. Own It Mentality means that once somebody says they’re going to do something, I don’t have to worry about their ability to get it done. That, then, gives them freedom in their work. I give people lots of autonomy. I don’t micromanage. In return, I expect people to take initiative, be proactive, communicate well, and follow through on their commitments. So long as they have an Own It Mentality, I don’t care how much somebody works, when they work, or where they work from.
Expecting an Own It Mentality doesn’t mean that you expect perfection. Life gets in the way sometimes. People get sick. Accidents happen. Projects take longer than expected. That’s fine. But when things don’t go according to plan, you have to communicate — and if people are chasing you down for information, you’re probably not communicating enough. Own It Mentality also means that you own the fact that you aren’t able to “Own It” right now.
Do you follow through on your commitments? Is your word a wish or a promise?
Thanks to Brent Beshore, Jeremy Giffon, Will Mannon, and Chris Monk for conversations that led to this article. It was informed by Brent’s idea of “Extreme Reliability.”
Cover photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash
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2023-04-19 21:54:31
There are two kinds of intuition: a secular intuition and a God-inspired one.
Under a secular mindset, intuition comes from a vague sense of feeling what moves and excites you. It’s all about you — your wants, needs, passions, and desires. As society trends towards a secular mindset, it forfeits the divinity around us.
A heavenly, God-inspired intuition is different.1 Self-gain is replaced by self-sacrifice, in service of a higher purpose. It’s a divinity-led adventure, not a solo endeavor — where you surrender to the wishes of a higher power instead of relentlessly going after your self-driven desires. Worshippers come to understand God’s wishes by reading Scripture. Through prayer, we come to ask Him questions.
I’m referring to a Judeo-Christian God here.
The deeper your relationship is with God, the more He works through you and steers your intuition.
And so, intuition becomes a union between man and the divine. It stops being about what you want and more about how you can uniquely serve God.
(Also… If you’re interested in faith, you’ll like my pieces on the Bible and Christianity’s influence on Western civilization.)
Cover photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash
The post A Divine Intuition appeared first on David Perell.
2023-04-19 04:32:44
We’ve lost touch with the ultimate purpose of education: to transform our being and improve our character.
A century ago, the purpose of education was so widely accepted that it wouldn’t have been worth mentioning. But today, it’s controversial.
In the 1970s, three-quarters of freshmen said college was essential to developing a meaningful philosophy of life. Only one-third said it was essential to financial well-being. Today, those fractions have flipped.
Runaway student debt and high tuition costs may be to blame. Regardless, American universities have been reduced to farm teams for the corporate big leagues. They assume that you have to accumulate wealth before you can cultivate goodness — as if you can only focus on bettering yourself once you’re financially secure.
Take Harvard. Like many of the Ivy Leagues, it was founded to produce students of exceptional moral character. But today, it’s been reduced to an institution designed to help students fatten their wallets and climb the power ladder.
One reason why people belittle the liberal arts is that we lack a consensus for what a virtuous life looks like (no surprise that the decline of the liberal arts traces the decline of religion). Without a shared moral code, even the world’s top universities are lowering their sights to mere utilitarian endeavors, like making money or building a professional network — all of which are necessary pursuits, but only a means to the higher ends of wisdom and virtue.
The liberal arts are the ends, not the means.
They’re a capsule for the human spirit. Through art, we express our humanity. Through history, we solidify our civilization. Through spiritual practice, we generate meaning.
The treasures of the liberal arts lie not in financial riches, but rather in the wealth that comes with depth and wisdom — the stuff of a life well-lived. That we belittle such a worthy endeavor as a “useless major” and a “colossal waste of time” should make us wonder what’s gone wrong.
Cover photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash
The post Where the Liberal Arts Went Wrong appeared first on David Perell.
2023-04-19 04:09:21
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” — Ellie Wiesel
To commit to loving something is to commit to sometimes hating it. It’s easy to love your daily writing routine when you’re feeling motivated and inspired and just as easy to hate it when you’re tired, busy at work, or crushed by the burdens of life.
For writers, the question isn’t: “How do I stay committed when I’m in love with my work?”
The question is: “How do I stay committed when I temporarily hate it?”
Temporary is the key word there. If you’re indifferent about a piece of writing or it feels like busy work to you, stop working on it. And if you permanently hate writing, don’t write. Cut the masochism and do something else.
When I hate writing, it’s because I love it so much. An experienced writer is somebody who knows when the hatred is temporary.
The week I spent putting finishing touches on Peter Thiel’s Religion was one of the most grueling weeks of my career. I cared so much about that piece. It drove me nuts — every word, every sentence, every anecdote. At times, the flames of frustration burned so brightly that I wondered why I even tried to write it in the first place.
Because I needed to write it. That’s why.
Nobody had really connected the dots between Thiel’s faith and his business philosophy, and I felt called to do it. I loved and hated writing that piece, but I was never indifferent about it.
It taught me a lesson too. The difference between a “writer” and “somebody who writes” is the difference between showing up on a schedule and only showing up when you’re inspired. If you insist on always loving the craft, you’ll quit in the face of turmoil.
Greatness isn’t always rainbows and butterflies. Great musicians practice their scales even when their fingers are calloused. Great writers get their daily words in even when it means waking up at 5 am to get some alone time before the kids wake up. Great bodybuilders push through their final set even when their muscles are screaming and their veins are about to explode.
To be disciplined is to resist your short-term emotional whims in service of your long-term goals. Let everlasting love triumph over the temptress of temporary hate.
Cover photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
The post I Hate Writing (and So Will You) appeared first on David Perell.
2023-04-06 22:08:06
Ambition breeds a particular kind of frustration, and the more ambitious you are, the larger it looms. Without like-minded peers, ambitious people become suffocated by life — chained by tall poppy syndrome and the dogmas of complacency.
As social creatures, humans need to feel validated by their peers in order to go all in on who they are. We become like the people around us, so it’s hard to sustain ambition in a complacent environment. This is why actors move to Hollywood, musicians move to Nashville, and basically every podcaster/biohacker/Internet-writer type lives inside a twelve-mile radius in Austin, Texas.
Moving in search of ambitious peers isn’t a new idea. It’s why Ramanujan, one of history’s greatest mathematicians, went to Cambridge. At home in India, even though he showed a divine aptitude for math, he flunked out of school and hid under a cot because his parents disapproved of his obsession with math. Though he taught himself number theory by working through problems in a borrowed textbook on his own, he knew that his genius was ultimately constrained by a lack of ambitious peers. And so, he wrote to Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy to ask for help getting his work published. Once they met, everything changed for Ramanujan.
See, ambitious people don’t just need peers. They need mentors. They need people who will encourage them to pursue hard and meaningful projects.
In college, I felt insane for being driven and obsessive. The anti-dedication environment drove me nuts. My ambition was only validated when I arrived in New York City and met people who exuded the kind of heart and hustle for which I’d always been called crazy. The people I interviewed on my North Star Podcast became many of my peers.
Paul Graham, the founder of Y-Combinator and the low-key God of online writing says “Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people’s lives, then the ambitious ones won’t have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water.”
Fight to find your kindred spirits, even if it means moving across the world like Ramanujan or staying in on Saturdays to write on the Internet. The more ambitious you are, the more consciously you’ll need to cultivate your social circle.
Ask yourself: Who do I need to surround myself with?
Cover photo by 青 晨 on Unsplash
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