Best Articles
I decided to put together a selected list of my writing over the last ten years organized thematically by subject. There is a lot more in the archives on this site, on Thought Catalog and on the New York Observer but this should be enough to get you started. Enjoy!
READING, RESEARCH & NOTE-TAKING
The Notecard System: The Key For Remembering, Organizing And Using Everything You Read
How And Why To Keep A “Commonplace Book”
How I Did Research For 3 New York Times Bestselling Authors (In My Spare Time)
Read to Lead: How to Digest Books Above Your “Level”
Marginalia, the Anti-Library, and Other Ways to Master the Lost Art of Reading
READING LISTS
Books To Base Your Life On (The Reading List)
24 Books You’ve Probably Never Heard Of But Will Change Your Life
25 Recommendations For Life Changing Biographies For The Voracious Reader In You
A Practical Philosophy Reading List
24 Books To Hone Your Strategic Mind
The 16 Best Books About Marketing, Period.
For more reading recommendations you’re welcome to sign up for my reading list email which goes out once a month to over 70,000 fellow book lovers and you’ll immediately receive my seven favorite books.
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY & STOICISM
Stoicism: Practical Philosophy You Can Actually Use
Stoicism Isn’t Pessimistic. It’s Boldly Optimistic
What Everyone Gets Wrong About Stoicism Is Exactly Why You Need It
What Is Stoicism? A Definition & 3 Stoic Exercises To Get You Started
100 Things I Learned in 10 Years and 100 Reads of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations
For more on Stoicism, I invite you to explore DailyStoic.com (and sign up for the free 7-day course) which is the companion site to my last book, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living.
PRODUCTIVITY
33 Ways To Be An Insanely Productive, Happy Balanced Person
Here’s Your Productivity Hack: Go The F*ck To Sleep
The Guilty, Crazy Secret That Helps Me Write
28 Pieces of Productivity Advice I Stole From People Smarter Than Me
Here’s the Strategy Elite Athletes Follow to Perform at the Highest Level
LIFE
The Narrative Fallacy (also see: The Narrative Fallacy Embodied)
Advice to a Young Man Hoping to Go Somewhere
The Maxim For Every Successful Person: ‘Always Stay A Student’
The Perfect Spouse Is the Best Life Hack No One Told You About
Don’t Follow Your Passion, It’s What’s Holding You Back
STRATEGY
29 Lessons From The Greatest Strategic Minds Who Ever Lived, Fought, Or Led
Why You Need To Understand The American Civil War
3 Questions You Need To Answer Before You’ll Have The Life You Want
Why Do You Do What You Do? Because You Better Know.
MARKETING
Here’s Some Marketing Advice: Your Thing Sucks
How To Growth Hack a Book: MVP to Bestseller
From Zero to 50,000: How I Built A Big Email List Exclusively About Books I Liked
Behind The Book Campaign: How to Sell 30,000 Copies in Six Weeks
The 5 Top-Performing American Apparel Ads, and How They Get PR for Free (NSFW)
For more from me on the subject you can check out Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising!
MEDIA
Peter Thiel’s Reminder to the Gawker Generation: Actions Have Consequences
The Cause of This Nightmare Election? Media Greed and Shameless Traffic Worship
This Is the Hollowed-Out World That Outrage Culture Has Created
The Real Reason We Need to Stop Trying to Protect Everyone’s Feelings
Exposing the Racket: A Simple Stunt Reveals How Blogs Will Print Anything for Pageviews
9 Tactics of a Media Manipulator: How to Control and Influence Blogs
My longer writing on the topic of course is my first book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
WRITING
So You Want To Be A Writer? That’s Mistake #1
So You Want To Write A Book? “Want” Is Not Nearly Enough
The Most Important Part of The Creative Process That Everyone Misses: A Draw-Down Period
44 Writing Hacks From Some of the Greatest Writers Who Ever Lived
The 7 Strategies That Helped Me Write 3 Books in 3 Years
INTERVIEWS
How Tim Ferriss Became the ‘Oprah of Audio’—Behind the Podcast With 70M-Plus Downloads
An Interview with the Master: Robert Greene on Stoicism
The Quiet Co-Founder of the Media Juggernaut No One Writes About
On Stoicism and Not Giving a F*ck: An Interview with Mark Manson
Exclusive Interview: How This Right-Wing ‘Troll’ Reaches 100M People a Month
DROPPING OUT OF COLLEGE
How Dropping Out Of College Can Save Your Life
So You’ve Just Dropped Out Of College (Or Made A Life-Changing Decision)
MISC.
5 Life Lessons I’ve Learned From My Pet Goats
How To Buy A House Before You’re 30
Dear Dad, Please Don’t Vote For Donald Trump
A Burglar Stole My Engagement Ring — And It Made My Proposal
The Performance Bias: Life Is Not a Movie, Life Is Not a Novel
Things Heavy Metal Taught Me About Life
Please, Please, For The Love Of God: Do Not Start a Podcast
How To Be A Public Speaker — Or, The Art Of The Keynote Address