2026-05-14 12:00:00
Someone asks you to do something, and you feel that pressure to answer immediately.
You don’t really want to do it, but don’t know how to say so on the spot.
You avoid confrontation, and say OK.
You regret it, and later think of how your ideal eloquent self should have said no.
I felt the pain of this, over and over again. Then I finally figured out a solution that’s worked wonderfully for years.
I took an hour to write a really nice “no” in advance. Considerate, but decisive. Not too long, but not too short. Generalized and versatile for all situations.
I saved it on my computer and phone, to copy and paste. Now as soon as I get an unwelcome request? Tap-tap-tap. COPY-PASTE-SEND in three seconds, and it’s out of mind.
No anguish. No discomfort. No resentment. No procrastination.
It feels rude to reject so quickly, but I know this refusal is the kindest I could have written. Yet it took three seconds to send. And I can use it over and over again. Amazing.
A few people have written back saying it was the nicest “no” they’ve received.
Next: I memorized the gist of my text to use in-person.
It’s so handy in those high-pressure moments where someone is looking you in the eyes, asking you to do something, and awaiting your answer. No problem! You have it memorized and ready-to-go, even when unexpected. You can be kind but decisive on the spot.
I won’t post my text here, since it needs to be in your natural voice. But here’s my outline, in case it helps:
Four sentences is enough. Nobody wants verbosity here.
2026-05-12 12:00:00
Last week someone asked why I prefer books. My immediate answer was that I love their quiet, non-commercial nature. No ads. No hype. Just quiet wisdom with deep rewards for a focused mind.
But today I realized something more profound: Each of my biggest life-changing moments came from a single sentence deep inside a book.
This is a novel about a British man who shipwrecks on an island with an ideal culture. The natives are role models of mental and emotional health.
While rock climbing, someone says the instructor used to be her physics teacher. The British man is surprised, so she explains that in their culture, it’s healthy to switch jobs every two years, ideally to something the opposite of what you’ve been doing.
I was 22 years old, two years into a job. The first year, I learned so much, but the second year was just comfortable.
After reading that one sentence in this little novel, I quit, and that was the last time I ever had a job.
I was 23 years old, trying to be a full-time musician in New York City, making an average of $100 per gig.
I went to a weekend seminar called “Doing Music and Nothing Else”. The workbook said there’s an organization, called the National Association of Campus Activities, that hires entertainers to come perform at universities, for $1000 to $5000 per gig.
I was determined to get into that scene, so I joined the organization, and spent a couple years working hard to crack it. I eventually mastered it, playing at 300 colleges around the country.
With the money from those shows, I bought a house.
200-something pages into this book, it said that to keep learning, we need to be surprised. For example, read books about subjects you know nothing about. Or ideally, it said, move to a place far away, very unlike home, so that you’ll be surprised every day.
This hit me hard. I was comfortable and successful, inside my expertise, and rarely surprised.
So in the name of learning and growth, I took the book’s advice to an extreme. I forced myself to leave America forever, to live around the world for the rest of my life.
As I was selling my company for $22 million, I saw this book in a book store, and read it for pure entertainment.
The author made millions pretty early, then spent another thirty years pursuing more and more, amassing $800 million. But he used himself as a cautionary tale. He had huge regrets. He said those decades of pursuing more only made him miserable, and if he could do it all over again, he would stop at $30 million, to spend the rest of his life planting trees and writing poetry.
I was at a crucial point. I was about to pursue the path of a serial tech entrepreneur, using the proceeds from my first sale to launch a bigger thing. But I respected his perspective, followed his advice, and haven’t worked for money since then.
I have more examples like this, but these are the biggest.
And this is why I read books carefully, all the way to the end, looking for another sentence that will change my life.
2026-05-05 12:00:00
Forty years ago, a family moved from India to Canada, and raised their children with “Indian values”. When those children visited India last year, the locals laughed at their outdated beliefs. What their family had said were facts were just a perspective from 1980.
Twenty years ago, I lived in Los Angeles. Talking with an old friend that’s still there, I said it’s the nicest place I’ve ever lived, and why. She said, “Oh wow. You haven’t been here in a while. It’s not like that anymore.” She said my description was like looking at an old photo from 1999.
Last year I went to China and loved it. So clean, polite, efficient, and all-around nice. A German friend said I’m crazy because “China is filthy, rude, noisy, and awful - with everyone spitting and pushing.” I asked when he was there, and he said 2002. Ah! But that place is long gone. It’s not like that anymore.
When someone speaks of a place, you have to ask, “When?” Geography is four-dimensional. You can’t know a place - only a place as it was at a time. Where is bound to when. Unless you are in a place right now, you can only speak of it in past-tense.
I was born in America, but the last year I lived there, George Bush was president. So I’m not from the current place, though it has the same name.
Like Doc stepping out of a time machine. “I’m from here, but not this here!”
I used to describe myself as American, but that’s becoming less true with time. I’m from the America of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.
But that place is long gone. It’s not like that anymore.
