Betterment

In the United States, over sixty percent of people live a sedentary lifestyle. A quarter of the population gets no physical activity at all.  Maybe you’re one of these sedentary folks. Physical activity is just not something you do. It’s not part of your life.  Why is this? Why are so many adults physically inactive? […]

It’s a simple question that can open doors. But it also creates tension. The person you’re seeking to connect with might not want to believe that help is possible. There’s a solac…

There are two marketing problems when it comes to creating interventions for the public good. The first marketing problem is that when it works we take the intervention for granted. The world doesn…

How do you find work you love to do, that actually pays well?

Is mastery just a matter of 10,000 hours of practice? Debunking a common myth about improvement.

Eliminate the guess work and dress with confidence with classics from Huckberry. Read more.

No kid forgets getting his first bike, nor the surge of independence he felt the first time he pedaled away from his parents. And even as adults, the bike seems to give off a feeling of romance, of freedom, and, when you get going fast enough, even of flying. The special allure of the bicycle […]

We’ve long been advocates for the idea of intentionality. In a universe where everything defaults to the path of least resistance, good stuff doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen. This is a truism we’ve applied to everything from creating a positive family culture to getting the most out of your leisure time. […]

In The Safety Trap by security expert Spencer Coursen, he mentions that a surprising number of burglaries occur because the homeowner left a door or window unlocked. He describes one case where a wealthy client of his kept the key fobs for his luxury vehicles near the front door. The rich client failed to lock […]

It’s a shame, because it would help us do a much better job of bringing ideas to people: “I don’t care enough to do what you’re asking.” “I don’t trust you…

It’s typical to include machines, rent, stationery, all that stuff. But the real startup costs are the missteps, errors and learnings that every new project goes through on the way to success…

The Soviets weren’t the best managers, to put it mildly. They were famously god awful at it. Here’s an example of a Soviet-era error: A factory is ordered

Why the most important step for improving your career isn't writing a resume.

Think career capital, not passion, if you're trying to find work you love.

Growing our impact or profit usually involves maximizing something that’s valuable. And things that are valuable are often scarce. Finding the one thing that is at the heart of your value/sca…

You usually succeed You rarely feel like an imposter You already know what you need to know You’re confident it’s going to work

People tend to do one of two things: not talktalk Both are a problem. If we’re facing an important issue at work, at school or in our community, our instinct is to let others who are better i…

In the realm of physiology, being “metabolically flexible” means that your body can use whatever fuel is available to meet its energy demands. It can readily switch between burning carbohydrates or burning fat (whether that’s fat you ingest or fat already stored in your cells). While a metabolically inflexible individual gets cranky and lethargic if […]

When we think about people who can live anywhere, we tend to think about corporate-employed remote workers and online entrepreneurs. But many other kinds of professionals, from teachers to doctors, could hypothetically find a job anywhere, and thus live anywhere they’d like. If you’re what my guest Melody Warnick calls an “anywhereist” and have seriously […]

The math is simple: many people do less than they should. They might be selfish, but it’s likely that they’re struggling with a lack of resources or a story of insufficiency. Either way…

Both The Shawshank Redemption and The Big Lebowski bombed. If “bombed” means that during the first few weeks, no one went to a theater to see them. Since then, tens of millions of peopl…

You own your living room and your bedroom. We take care of our front lawn for our neighbors. And our trash (in all its forms) belongs to everyone.

They dance with each other. If expectations are too low, you don’t get the gig, and you’ll never have a chance to engage with a customer. But if they’re too high, surprise and rem…

Everyone who comes in contact with a strong culture feels it. Customers develop unique relationships with these companies. So do employees. As a

Plastic was inevitable. It took hundreds of years to perfect, but we built a system based on profit, convenience, productivity and markets. Markets are extremely good at sniffing out problems that …

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II. It’s a milestone that feels both distant in time, and not that long ago. There are still those living among us who experienced the attack on Pearl Harbor, the invasion of Normandy, and the celebration of V-J Day firsthand. But each year, they […]

As a teaching fellow in grad school I helped undergrads improve their expository writing. Some were engineers, and I invited them to think about writing and editing prose in the same ways they thou…