Articles - Page 93 of 172

What Factors Predict Whether A Person Becomes Successful?

July 27, 2020 No Comments

I stumbled upon this question on Quora the other day: “What is the best indicator of a person who will become successful one day?” What are the success predictors that we should adopt to succeed in life?

The person is trying to reverse-engineer success. If you know what predicts success, you can simply adopt those indicators. But there’s one problem. What is success? People get fussed up about this all the time.

To me, a successful person is simply someone who achieves what they set out to do. My mother’s goal was to become a good mother. My father’s goal was to own a business. They are both successful because they achieved what they set out to do.

Decision Making, Philosophy, Thinking

Why ‘Science-Backed-Advice’ Is Not Always Better

July 20, 2020 No Comments

There’s a lot of “science-backed-advice” in books, articles, newspapers, and other places we get our advice from. Honestly, I also regularly refer to scientific studies.

My goal for writing articles is to combine my personal experience with evidence. Sometimes I share mostly my experience; sometimes I share stories about other people’s experiences and research. But I always think, “How can we trust these sources?”

Fortunately, I’m not the only person who thinks that. Even scientists say we should remain critical of the findings of scientific experiments. David Chester, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, recently did a study of studies. Together with his colleague, Emily Lasko, they wrote:

Decision Making

The Munger Technique: The Best Way to Improve Yourself

July 13, 2020 No Comments

We’ve all heard about the magic of compounding interest. Something equally powerful is mental compounding interest. Here’s some advice from the investor Charlie Munger that I read in the book, University of Berkshire Hathaway:

“He (Munger) got the idea to add a mental compound interest as well. So he decided he would sell himself the best hour of the day to improving his own mind, and the world could buy the rest of his time. He said it may sound selfish, but it worked. He also noted that if you become very reliable and stay that way, it will be very hard to fail in doing anything you want.”

I’ve been calling this idea the Munger Technique since I learned about this. But when I mention this to my students, team, or friends, the majority assumes that Munger is talking about a morning ritual.

Career Advice, Happiness

Curiosity: The Key To A Long Life

July 6, 2020 No Comments

One of my favorite ways to learn is by studying people who have been on this planet for seven decades or more. One of those people is my grandfather, who’s 87 years old, and still takes care of himself.

I also met several highly successful entrepreneurs through my father, who I’m working with since 2010. I had the opportunity to start a business with my dad, and that automatically put me in the presence of great business people and investors.

Two of those people inspired me a lot. One of them is a Dutch real estate investor who’s now in his seventies. He once told me he never wants to retire. Another one is an American entrepreneur from Florida, who we recently started working with. He’s 82 years old. And late last year, he visited us in The Netherlands by himself. To him, age is not a limitation.

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