Networking doesn't have to be icky and transcational. Here's how to do it from a place of generosity and connection.

If you're a first-time manager, this guide is for you. It covers communication, leadership, 1:1s, training and more.

It's more than a cute chat app. I'm all in.

Here’s an embarrassing little confession. I’ve been using Rogaine since I was 22. Well, while that is true, what I really wanted to share was that I was a Computer Science major in college. A really sh*tty one, racking up mostly Cs and a few Bs. I did not embrace the suck and have never […]

I like streaks. Here are a few of my favorites: 15 years of exercising 5 days a week. 1,700 days of surfing since 2018. And then there’s one that’s about to end. 400 weekly essays. Yup, I’ve run out of things to write about. Well, sort of. New to RadReads? Hi, I’m Khe Hy. Nearly […]

Raise your hand if you hate seeing these things go down? Here’s some bad news, they don’t always go up. New to RadReads? Hi, I’m Khe Hy. Nearly a decade ago I quit my 7-figure job on Wall Street to become a writer. I explore topics like money, happiness, ambition, relationships, productivity and more. I […]

Is it just me or does adulthood seem backwards? You work extremely hard to buy that house and load up your 401k and 529s. There’s an obvious trade-off — your youthful energy. You put hobbies aside. Your blood pressure goes up. You miss a lot of bath times and weekday snuggles. You miss the Magic […]

Warren Buffett has $145 billion dollars.  How much is he planning on giving his kids? “Enough so that they can do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing.” (Translation, $1 Billion per kid.) Now your Boomer parents have way less.  But they’re sitting on giant homes. They’ve locked in super-low interest rates. And […]

When I was 21 years old I had two finance jobs. Well, technically I had one job – but two incomes. I was working as a trading assistant at Fisher Investments. And my investment banking job had paid me (ahem, deferred me) to take the year off. It was 2001 and I was making close […]

I am a happy person. I’m an optimist who sees the glass as half-full. I’m patient. And I don’t really get mad often. That should make me “happy,” right? That’s not what this pie chart would say. Am I wrong about my happiness? New to RadReads? Hi, I’m Khe Hy. Nearly a decade ago I […]

The HENRYs are a coveted demographic. They’re young, educated and tend to be concentrated in big cities. They are High-Earners with an asterisk. Not Rich Yet. HENRY. HENRY’s are typically in their late 20s and 30s and earn between $300,000 and $500,000. Just as I familiarized myself with this acronym, I discovered a new term: […]

The fed cut rates and markets are in a tizzy. But I didn’t realize they were this happy. Yes, if you bought at the lows of the credit crisis, you’ve 10x’d your investment. These are the kind of multiples you’d expect on VC funds, not something you can buy commission-free on your phone. As a […]

We were each enjoying a delicious bite of uni. It was our first Omakase since becoming parents a decade ago. We sipped some sake at the quiet upstairs sushi bar. (I might have even snapped a few food pics for my Instagram account.) And then the meltdown happened. The couple next to us went nuclear. […]

“I want to learn the guitar,” he said. “But when I actually get to pick it up at the end of the day, I’m totally wiped.” “So the guitar just sits there,” he lamented. I hear this all the time. Ambitious professionals are holding their days together by a thread. Squeezing in a workout is […]

I am an MC. And even though I can tell a mean dad joke – I’m not a master of ceremonies. But what I am, is a Master Coper. If you throw any uncomfortable feeling at me – envy, anxiety, worry, fear, anger or FOMO – I know how to cope. Sometimes the cope is […]

This week’s post is by Jeff Hittner, an entrepreneur, executive coach, husband, and father (rarely in that order!). Jeff is the founder of Ambitious Dads and an ambitious dad himself. Ambitious Dads is a resource for fathers inspired to lead in their careers AND at home with their children.  He threw food, screamed and smacked his little […]

There are some time-tested career trajectories that you don’t want to mess with. Getting a Computer Science degree from Harvard and then a job at a top-tier Venture Capital firm is one of them. (Not to mention, Division 1 rowing.) But sometimes you feel a pull. Something awakens in your soul. You need to do […]

I’ve worked with many folks who have left 7-figure W-2 jobs. First, they were greeted with a blast of euphoria. The euphoria then fades into a messy middle. Then you’re left at a crossroads. There’s a lesson for all of us at this juncture. New to RadReads? Hi, I’m Khe Hy. Nearly a decade ago […]

Meet Dr. Goobie. He’s a sweet (MIT-educated) neurosurgeon in his 30s. And he just quit his job. The decision was the byproduct of poor health, broken incentives, the lack of time freedom and career-driven existential angst. Goobie quit without a plan, overcoming the “sunk cost fallacy” of med school and residency. And in this viral […]

I turned 45 on Monday. If you believe actuarial estimates, I’ve lived 60.3% of my life. A solid (but daunting) 39.7% remains. I’ve worked my butt off. Taken big risks. Tinkered with what’s possible. And smiled a lot. Here are 45 things I’ve learned along the way. New to RadReads? Hi, I’m Khe Hy. Nearly […]

Drake had a very bad Q2. He picked a rap battle with Kendrick Lamar. And lost. Kendrick’s diss track, Not Like Us, became the song of the summer (featured at ​kids’ birthday parties​ and ​Argentina’s victory celebrations​). But Q3 marked the start of Drake’s comeback. His redemption. The 6 God made his first high-profile appearance […]

I used to be a very busy boy. Jacked up on Dunkin’ Donuts Hazelnut coffee and a mini-fridge full of Diet Coke, I would plow through jam-packed days. I dug up an old calendar. 5:30 am wake up. Double breakfast. A hard Crossfit workout on 6 hours of sleep. Meetings galore. And usually a work-related […]

The productivity bros are back. With a vengeance. First it was cold showers. Then it was monk mode. More recently, “testicular tanning.” What’s their latest invention to maximize output, financial independence and unleash beast mode? Rawdogging a flight. I’m not kidding. Have you ever gotten this freaky on an airplane? New to RadReads? Hi, I’m […]

I made the biggest purchase of my life when I was 26 years old. It was a fancy condo in the East Village of New York City. And a tale of two cities. It was 585 square feet (“worst of times”) and had a sexy pool on the roof (“best of times”). I won’t share […]

People hate the term networking. They hate it so much that they want to take a shower after participating in the activity. In one study, networkers were more likely to complete a sentence with “cleansing” words like “shower”, “wash”, and “soap.” And in another, people who considered attending a business networking event rated cleansing products […]

Well, that was quick. Yesterday, she was a newborn. Taking a nap while nestled on my chest. Like a little kitten curled up in a cozy nook. 10 years later, she grabs my phone, shoves it in my face to unlock FaceID so that she can start her Spotify playlist. Every proposed hang is met […]

Our dinner conversations have been evolving. Long gone are the days of “airplane” – aka the interpretive dance of making a morsel of cold chicken appetizing to a toddler in a high chair. And they’ve been replaced by an onslaught of “bruh” and “no cap.” And “skibidi toilet.” If you’re a Gen X parent trying […]

I’m looking for a new teacher. Not for meditation. (I’ve got one already.) Not to learn a new language. But to rekindle a childhood dream. Learning how to make beats. Hip-hop beats using Fruity Loops, to be precise. Yup. Think The Neptunes, Timbaland and more recently Metro Boomin. I’ve been talking about this idea for […]

I want you to run a thought experiment. Imagine you wake up to a giant surprise. It’s Tuesday morning and on Monday night a mysterious benefactor showed up. And they slid a cool billion dollars into your bank account. What would Tuesday look like? First, blow it out! Ok, I know what you’d do with […]

Things got nuclear in hip-hop this week. It was a gift from the heavens for fans. And for the combatants, it was ugly AF. In the pursuit of lyrical dominance, they went scorched earth. Plastic surgery, shoe sizes, ghostwriters, cultural appropriation and baby mommas were all fair game. And I’m not here to opine on […]

This Monday, I did something bat sh*t crazy. It was completely out of character. I’d never done anything this wild in my life. I woke up and watched an episode of Peaky Blinders. At 8 am on a frigging Monday morning! I think I’m in the midst of a spiritual awakening. The Taskmaster must step […]

I’ve spoken to many founders with 8-figure exits. They all complain about the same thing. The first 2 years after the exit are the hardest. Not because they have to stay for the earn-out. But because they feel rudderless and without purpose – and deeply unsatisfied. So, they usually do two things: angel investing and […]

There are two types of people in this world. There are maximizers. And satisficers. You know the former. They optimize their spending to MAXIMIZE credit card points. They research every single high-yield savings account to MAXIMIZE their interest. They have over-engineered diets to MAXIMIZE their longevity. And they are stuck in their high-paying jobs so […]

“You Americans are just wired differently.” I was with one of my French cousins, reminiscing about our summer trips to the South of France. Our families would spend two weeks together for nearly 20 years. My cousin remembered how he wanted to do 13-year-old kid stuff. Like sleep in, play Gameboy and read a few […]

I live and die by a single investment strategy. It’s simple AF and goes as follows. Whenever you go to bed wondering: “I have NO idea what the world is going to look like tomorrow?” That’s the ultimate buy signal. But this strategy’s much harder than it seems. Meet my “Bear Market Journal” I specifically […]

“Everyone knows that if a child’s parents dies, the child will suffer with sadness and loss. No one thinks about this being the case when a child loses a parent to success.“ These two sentences hit like a ton of bricks. Success is usually paired with accolades, promotions and a financially “good life.” Things that […]

This post’s for the “F9 Monkeys.” Now this can be a diminutive term for a first-year analyst. One who lives in Excel building indestructible financial models. And for those unfamiliar with F9, it’s the special button that runs the model. You smash F9, and your perfectly fine-tuned (and 50-tabbed) model spits out an answer. Sell […]

Here’s a question for folks who grew up “lower middle” and are now “rich.” The grit, persistence and work ethic you learned as a child are hard to recreate for your own kids. But at the same time, you don’t want them to have the childhood that you had. How do you reconcile this? The […]

Imagine you’re competing in the Olympics. But you didn’t win Gold. You missed. By a hair. Instead, you got the Silver medal. No small feat. Yet still disappointing. But you know who’s happier than you? The Bronze medalist. So close, yet so far away Absurd! I can hear you yelling at the top of your […]

What would you do if you sold your company for $25 million? I can think of a few things. I’d probably go surf Kelly Slater’s manmade wave. Maybe buy a mountain home. Or a Porsche. Don’t you worry; I could keep coming up with ideas. What’s something I wouldn’t do? Immediately give it all away. […]

Two merchants are competing at a market. An angel comes and offers the first merchant any outcome he wants. But there’s one caveat. The competitor gets double. The angel explains: “You earn 5 gold bars; they get 10.” “You own one ship; they’ll own two.” “You live to be 100; they live to 200.” The […]

My stomach felt nauseous. My temples were throbbing. Sweat beads were forming. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” I muttered to myself. I handed the cashier my two items. A half gallon of milk and a bar of dark chocolate. “That’ll be nine dollars and thirty-three cents,” he said politely – completely unaware […]

“You can give a child resources, but you can’t teach them resourcefulness.” This is one of the many gifts of being the kid of first-generation immigrants. And as a parent, I want to instill this resourcefulness in my kids. Am I in the minority? I guess so. According to Pew, nearly 60% of parents provide […]

There’s a common marital fight in the Hy Household. It’s not about the dishwasher. It’s not about the merits of Tiger-styled Parenting. It involves travelling. Economy Plus, to be specific. This question leaves us a house divided: When does the trip begin? Is it the moment you leave your house? Or the moment you land […]

There is a camp for kids who aspire to be YouTubers. It’s to be expected. After all, Internet Clout is one of the highest forms of social status these days. (Fun fact, 50% of teenagers between the ages of 13-18 want to be social media influencers.) But there’s a plot twist. The most prolific YouTubers […]

An Investment Banker takes a trip down to Mexico where he meets a local fisherman. The banker brings the fresh fish back to his villa and it’s the most delicious fish he’s ever tasted. The banker comes back the next morning with a question. “Why do you only fish 2 hours a day?” he asks. […]

He used to receive knickers in the mail from smitten fans. (Translation: women’s undergarments.) Then it all stopped. The fans started mailing him bullets. They burned an effigy of him in front of his parents’ house. They spit on him in the streets. After a controversial red card in the 1998 World Cup, David Beckham […]

Imagine you could build your identity using Lego bricks. One component at a time. Ivy League degree? Ya smart cookie! Marathon runner? What a resilient fella! Board member? Soooo charitable. TriBeCa apartment? Cha-ching. Now let’s smash it to the ground with sledge hammer. Are you OK? The curious case of Andrew Luck Andrew Luck had […]

As we head into the quiet stretch of the holidays, I love catching up on the year’s best posts, videos and podcasts. We’ve curated a mix of external (i.e. non-RadReads) and internal (i.e. yours truly) based on what YOU recommended. I hope you enjoy and happy holidays. (PS Y’all love “Top 30” lists!) Most read […]

His cousin was killed in an act of retribution. He then had to kill his own consigliere. His mom disowned him. And his lover left him. There’s a steep cost to being the #1 kingpin. There’s a cost to being The Top Boy. In a moment of reflection, Dushane asked: “Is the juice worth the […]

The Internet got very mad at Emma Chamberlain. Since most of you have never heard of Emma, she’s an OG YouTuber. She landed a Joe Rogan-esque deal with Spotify during the pandemic. At the ripe age of 22 years old, she’s reportedly worth $20 million. But she wouldn’t know. She hasn’t checked her financial statements […]

At age 50, Ichiro Suzuki just pitched a shutout – against a team of high school girls. The former outfielder (and future hall of famer) took to the mound for an exhibition game. He’s known to be obsessive about baseball – refusing to let go since he first picked up a mitt 47 years ago […]

Where do you go after you slayed the rap game? Sporting a Gucci turtleneck and a cashmere trench coat, Snoop Dogg made his debut on the Big L. We’re talking LinkedIn, baby. “I’m not just an artist. I’m a force to be reckoned with,” says the D-O-double-G. Is this how gangsters roll? Or is it […]

Every city worships its unique god. It serves its idol. In NYC, “How’s your fund performing?” shows the money chase. In DC, “Going to the correspondents’ dinner?” flaunts proximity to power. Vegas asks, “Got a hookup for XS?” – it’s all about pleasure. LA name-drops, “Met Kim K’s manager,” seeking fame. Which idol are you […]

Imagine being having $20 million and being scared of losing it all. Now imagine having $100 million and “sleeping with one eye open.” Yet, the scarcity mindset is a terrifying boogieman. Who strikes at all levels of wealth. It’s a fear that lurks around the corner. A fear that the “rational brain” can’t overcome by […]

This tweet stopped me dead in my tracks. It reminded me of the feeling when you connect multiple sections of a jigsaw puzzle. But unlike a puzzle, this tweet didn’t evoke a deep sense of joy and satisfaction. It produced more of a wtf-this-can’t-be-true moment. But first: What do Michael Jordan, Taylor Swift and Don […]

The gig is up for the CEO of Goldman Sachs. David Solomon hung up the turntables this week. “DJ D-Sol” had a good run. He performed at Lollapalooza. He even hit the Billboard charts. But the board of directors crushed his little passion project. Thankfully your side projects are safe. And you should lean into […]

Imagine your parents hiring someone to teach you to ride a bike. A hedge-fund manager I knew once did that. He’d calculated his time was worth $3,205/hr. So this optimization made sense. It turns out that something else is being optimized these days: chores. 82% of you did them as kids. But only 28% of […]

Dear Productivity, We’ve had a wild 23 years together. I remember when we first met after graduation in 2001. It was at the Barnes and Nobles on the corner of 18th and 5th Avenue. (Now an H&M.) We were just kids. I had a wad of cash in my pocket. Venmo? Pfft. We had just […]

A loyal RadReader once tried to get Kendrick Lamar to sign up for this newsletter. 100% true.  Kung Fu Kenny lives in Manhattan Beach. They were lifting next to each other. But Kendrick didn’t bite. Nonetheless Paul was relentless in his quest to recruit this distinguished subscriber. This past Wednesday, we said good bye to […]

“A young widower, who loved his five-year-old son very much, was away on business, and bandits came, burned down his whole village, and took his son away. When the man returned, he saw the ruins, and panicked. He took the charred corpse of an infant to be his own child, and he began to pull […]

“I feel like I’m on a treadmill all week longAnd the only way to shut it off is to black out.” You’d think these were the words of an over-worked Wall Street banker. Nope. They were the words of a high school student. The pricey Mandarin tutors, volunteer activities and industrial sports complex had given […]

Here’s an embarrassing story about our honeymoon. We were in Bora Bora staying in one of those private huts on the water. The “swim in, swim out” kind sitting above the reef. Flush with manta rays, friendly baby sharks and clownfish. We playfully sipped Veuve from our hot tub overlooking a majestic and dormant volcano. […]

I want you to picture an endurance race. It’s between two 21-year-olds working on Wall Street. One only invests their personal money in real estate. The gritty fixer-upper kind with shitty tenants, leaky septic tanks and non-stop cash-out refis. The other taps a button and buys a single index fund. 20 years go by. Who […]

There once was young warrior who had to battle fear. She was nervous. Fear was aggressive and mighty. “How can I defeat you?” she asked. Fear replied: “My weapons are that I talk fast.I get very close to your face.Then you get completely unnerved and do whatever I say.If you don’t do what I tell […]

“It’s strange being rich.” I was at a networking dinner with a 42 year old SaaS founder. He had just sold his company. For an eye-popping $70 million. Yet he was busier than ever. Setting up trusts, implementing tax-loss harvesting and hiring a house manager. But his biggest worry: “Will someone marry my kids for […]

Next month I’m doing something crazy. I’m going to a bachelor party. In Munich. For 3 nights. It’s a 12-hour flight from LAX. But here’s the crazy thing. I don’t drink beer. And my cheap ass wouldn’t spend the extra $700 on Premium Economy. So instead I have a middle seat. For a red eye. […]

You’re a 44 year old father of 3 young kids. It’s Friday night and you’re ready to let loose. You crash at 9 pm. Set an alarm for 2 am. You head to BASEMENT NY at 3am You dance the night away. Solo and sober. Grab a Dunkin’s at 6am just in time to make […]

Picture date night with your boo. Kids are with the in-laws. You splurge on 2014 Chateauneuf Du Pape. Tipsy and holding hands like college lovebirds, you saunter back home. You kick open the bedroom door. (Siri, play Sade.) And to your horror, your bed is littered with books. This picture made the rounds on LinkedIn […]

“Daddy, we can get ice cream on Door Dash!” I immediately remembered our last DoorDash order: Vietnamese Pho. It was so sad. The broth a bit too cold. The noodles a bit too hard. The meat a bit too raw. Bruh, Pho is not meant to be shipped 20 minutes across town in a Toyota […]

Imagine selling your startup to eBay for a cool $800 million. It’s the ultimate act of financial freedom. And Bryan Johnson did just that. He sold his payments company Braintree in 2013. He was 36 years old at the time. A true time billionaire. But let’s take a look at his daily routine. After all, […]

400 weeks is a long ass time. Think about it, what’s an activity you’ve done 400 discrete times? A lot can happen during 400 weeks. That was the case for our family. Two kids were born. We moved to LA I surfed 1,500 days. All this was anchored by a single activity. Writing a weekly […]

“I just want my kids to be friends with me.” I often hear this noble pursuit from fellow parents. It comes from a place of deep love. But the cold truth is we can’t control other people. We can’t make someone feel a specific way. And that’s a tough pill to swallow for the people […]

“I’ve been grinding hard. I’m in my 30s. I’m remote, traveling the world and having awesome experiences. But I’m dissatisfied with my daily life. What do I do? It’s what I dreamed of and worked so hard to achieve. But I literally feel no happier, than when I was broke.” This entrepreneur continued: “I kind […]

My friend’s a successful hedge fund manager in NYC. But expensive toys aren’t his thing. However, he recently splurged on a Porsche Taycan. And immediately regretted it. Why? He feels like a D-bag at the soccer pick-ups. The maintenance is stressful. He can’t shake the immigrant guilt of having nice stuff. “I should’ve just bought […]

Ari Emanuel is a Hollywood rainmaker. He reps The Rock, Oprah and Martin Scorcese. He orchestrated mega-deals to acquire the WWE and UFC. In 2021, he earned an eye-popping $300 MM in total compensation. And he’s a notoriously intense networker. He makes up to 300 check-in phone calls each day. While that sounds terrible (and […]

Would you rather have $100 today or in 30 years? Understanding the Time Value of Money is Personal Finance 101. But would you rather have 100 hours today or in 30 years? You make that decision every time you stay late at the office. Every time you skip a family gathering. And every time you […]

“I took a red-eye to New York for a 45-minute meeting.” Absurd, we both agreed. My friend’s a partner at a “Big 3” consulting firm. 22 people flew from across the country for this meeting. He’s 43 with 3 kids under the age of 7 and lives in LA. (So smack in the middle of […]

Justin Timberlake was sending some bad juju to Britney Spears. When the rumors swirled of her infidelity, he responded with a warning: What goes around, goes around, goes around,Comes all the way back around Actions have consequences. Beware of the karmic boomerang. But karma impacts you more than you realize. You understand that if you […]

There are many perks to working on Wall Street. I went to Super Bowl 48. I sat courtside and watched the Knicks, Lakers and Nets play at their iconic arenas. I skied fresh tracks all day at the Yellowstone Club. (Yup, a private ski mountain.) All for free. All before I turned 32. Yet none […]

Leaving Wall Street cost me $900,000. Yup, the “Golden Handcuffs” are real. Bonuses are deferred. So by definition you leave money on the table. At 35, I said f** it. I want to own my time, surf every day & watch my kids grow up. 8 years later, I’m still standing. I’ve learned a lot […]

50 Cent has FU Money. The rapper-turned-entrepreneur has so much money that he bought 200 front-row seats to Ja Rule’s show. Just to keep them empty. How’s that for some shade? FU Money is the holy grail for hard-charging bankers, software engineers and entrepreneurs. FU Money lets you play by your own rules and blaze […]

TIL a new productivity strategy: Micro-tasking. Whenever you have a free moment, do something productive. It’s the key to feeling in control. And on top of things. Plot twist. I’m totally kidding. This is an absurd strategy. But the feeling of needing to squeeze in one more thing is a very real one. And if […]

“We have no idea what the world will look like when we wake up tomorrow.” It was late Sunday night, September 14, 2008. Lehman Brothers had just filed for bankruptcy. And when the markets re-opened on Monday, it was going to be a bloodbath. And indeed it was. 401ks were eviscerated. 9 million people were […]

Guys, I screwed up. I left Wall Street at 35 without a plan. I was constantly told: “You’re throwing away your Peak Earning years.” The haters were right. I’m now 43 and my net worth is exactly the same as it was at 35. I screwed up my retirement. And that’s great news. It’s time […]

Summers were always a fertile season for productivity. We spent them in France and I came prepared. SAT flash cards.A “Beginner’s Guide to HTML” book.Ankle weights to spice up the workouts. Then at night we’d go get ice cream. But there was a problem. The Ice Cream shop was closed. For the ENTIRE MONTH. Where […]

Last Friday I turned into a feral creature. An innocent game night quickly took a dark turn. Bringing back childhood desires, adult insecurities and the bloodsport of competition. We were playing Monopoly. And this guy showed up: He was going to teach my 9-year-old an important life lesson. Play or get played I was going […]

Are you a green bubble or a blue bubble? You know what I’m talking about. Even if you use WhatsApp. Heck, you’ve probably denied someone entry into your group chat because of the green bubble. (Our surf group has displayed this savage behavior – so I’m not above it.) The green bubble is a red flag […]

“How did you go bankrupt?” Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Life can come atcha pretty quickly. (At least according to Ernest Hemingway.) And while RadReads is far from bankrupt. And I ain’t broke – in January of 2023 our business got hit by a quadruple-whammy. Yes, a mere 55 days after my proudest moment as […]

There’s a special kind of playdate reserved for tiny children. These playdates usually go until age 2. It’s called “parallel play.” The two kids play in the same room, but independently. Parallel Play is an on-ramp for socialization. TIL that a similar concept exists for older men. They’re called Men’s Sheds and according to the […]

In 2007, they handed me the keys to the castle. Well, not exactly — but at 28 years old I became a manager for the first time. I went from having to worry only about myself as an IC to grooming new college graduates, injecting myself into corporate politics and managing colleagues who were much […]

I’ve been thinking a lot about bucket lists recently. Mostly because we redesigned our marketing assets to include the following tag line: Your bucket list matters more than your task list. It captures the spirit of all things Rad. Not getting lost in the details. So that you can zoom out on the big picture. […]

It’s been a hard year for bankers. The New York Times’ headline: For Many Wall Street Bankers, This Year’s Bonus Season Is a Bust. Reuters reported that bonuses would be down “40-50%.” Yes, life at the Panerai store must be hard in 2023. And while percentages are fun. What do these numbers mean in actual […]

Parenting is such a trip. Lisa and I were high-fiving each other after Christmas. Santa delivered a Nintendo Switch – and suddenly – Instant Childcare! For 45 minutes each evening, Lisa and I had – gasp – time to watch a TV series. (Fleishman is in Trouble, godd**n that’s like a RadReads blog series.) And […]

Is there a perfect amount of money we need to be happy? Why are people with plenty of money so scared of “losing it all”? And why can’t money do the tricky job of helping us create meaningful and purposeful lives? I brought all of these questions to my friend, Carl Richards. He’s a Financial […]

Mother Nature is a fickle beast. Especially when it comes to waves. Surfing, unfortunately cannot be scheduled. There’s the wind. The tides. The swell direction. The sandbars. In Manhattan Beach, the optimal “surf window” is between sunrise and 11 am. So, here’s how I plan each week. First, I block out the surf window. Yup, […]

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Well in that case, humanity’s problems should get resolved when we turn 39. This graph floored me. I drew my finger up from my age (43) to see what was in store for me. […]

A Notion Dashboard can be an amazing one-stop-shop for your daily organization and productivity needs. With endless ways to begin building, however, it can also be intimidating to get started. Notion is a powerful no-code tool with many articles and videos to tell you how to start, which can lead to procrastination and decision paralysis. […]

“Nobody works, nobody gives a damn.” These were the words of Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, the nonagenarian (yup, “ninety year old”) criticized today’s workers and their risk-taking capabilities. Marcus questioned the broader implications this laissez faire attitude had for capitalism. So, shhhhh, let’s not […]

John Mayer, philosopher? Say it ain’t so. With Mayer’s bevy of famous exes, “lothario” seems more appropriate for the Your Body is a Wonderland singer. Maybe you know him for his crooning. Or songwriting prowess. Or his ridiculously gi-normous sleeve tattoo. But wisdom? In a recent episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Mayer demonstrated […]

“Five’s a nightmare. Can’t retire.Not worth it to work. Five will drive you un poco loco, my fine feathered friend.Poorest rich person in AmericaThe world’s tallest dwarf.The weakest strong man at the circus.” This is a make-believe comment from the make-believe show Succession. In the scene, one of the naive heirs (Conor) to the patriarch’s billions (Logan […]

There are no limits to a Notion note-taking system. In comparison to most note-taking tools, Notion is extremely flexible and you can customize it to fit your needs. The downside is that Notion can present a steep learning curve and overwhelm new users. But don’t let that put you off! If you’re in the market […]

As the year winds to an end, it’s time to surrender. Surrendering to the 1,470 unread emails in your Inbox. Surrendering to the fact that a Dry January won’t atone for a Drunk December. And surrendering to all the 2022 New Year’s resolutions that didn’t make it past February. But those are all small-scale surrenders. […]

It’s 9:57 p.m. on a Thursday night. Your partner is brushing their teeth, but you’re still seated on the couch where they left you after some Netflix (and chill). And you’re scrolling. Just a few more notification checks before you go to bed so that you can truly sign off for the night. First, a […]

Do you feel like you have so much to do you don’t even know where to begin? When you try just to get one thing done, does your mind interrupt your progress to remind you of all the other things you wonder if you could or should be doing instead? You constantly worry about forgetting something […]

Would you rather have 5 people or 5,000 people at your funeral? I find this question to be quite problematic. My rational, logic-seeking brain says: “Dude, you’re dead. Who cares?” It then says: “As long as it’s your loved ones, great!” But then my chest gets tense. My heart beats faster. There’s a pit in […]

We’re surrounded by scarcity.  The day starts with “I didn’t sleep enough.” Then the rush to get the kids fed and out the door is accompanied by the nagging feeling that as parents we’re “not present enough.” Next, a commute skimming articles on our phones and listening to podcasts at double speed. There’s too much to […]

Are you looking to do more with your Todoist GTD setup? Maybe you want to get more done or be more mindful about your to-do list. You’re not alone and you’ve come to the right place. Todoist is one of the most popular to-do list apps and one of our recommended GTD apps. There are […]

I’m a man of my word. If I say I’ll send you a follow-up, I will send it. If we have a meeting, I won’t be late. (Which is hard in LA.) Said differently, I honor my agreements. With others. But what about agreements I’ve made with myself? Do these agreements adhere to the same […]

GTD Meaning: Getting Things Done®, commonly known as GTD, is a framework for time and task management, as well as a method for maintaining productivity day after day. It teaches you how to organize and prioritize all the “stuff” in your brain so that you can get more done in less time, reach your goals […]

I’ve got a challenge for you. Are you up for it? Seriously, it’s going to take some guts. Let’s go. Go to your Downloads folder. Click on it to see all the contents. Hit CMD + A to Select All. Now hit delete. How does it feel? Chances are you couldn’t pull the trigger. After […]

Two of the best-selling productivity authors teach a version of the 2-minute rule. Here’s what they recommend and how to use the 2-minute rule to beat procrastination in your personal and professional life. The 2-Minute Rule in GTD: Just get it Done David Allen spent over 30 years helping top executives improve their productivity. In […]

Which are the best GTD Apps and how are you supposed to know which one is for you? Well, today’s your lucky day. After being in the productivity space for years and trying out pretty much every productivity app under the sun, we handpicked a list of the 14 best GTD apps plus recommendations on […]

Are you looking for tips to getting things done today? You’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’re sharing 13 great tips inspired by the iconic productivity system Getting Things Done (also known as GTD). Productivity guru David Allen created GTD around the time Apple released the first iPod. And just like the […]

One of the most savage defensive plays in the NBA is the blocked shot. Better known as the rejection. For the uninitiated, a player (on offense) will try to shoot the basketball. And they wait for that swoosh. Unfortunately, a defensive player is there to greet them. And swat that sh** away from the basket. […]

“It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who has been swimming naked.” Straight from God’s Lips (i.e. Warren Buffet) to my ears. And boy did we see a naked swimmer this week. Sam Bankman-Fried (known in crypto circles as SBF) flew his firm (FTX) a bit too close to the sun. And […]

We have an Amazon Prime problem. We’re averaging 2 packages a day, adorned with the the awkward smiley-face-meets-arrow logo. (I blame Halloween, a YMCA camping trip and our unhealthy obsession with health products.) But yesterday something jumped out. It was a small white cardboard box. Initially, I found this box “suss” but decided to open […]

When the markets tank, I start acting in odd ways. I vividly remember the last time this happened. It was the 3rd quarter of 2020. Day after day, the market would be down. Down 2%. Down 7%. Down 5%. (BTW, even with this drawdown, what a 5 year run!) It didn’t seem like there was […]

Meet Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general. Aka America’s Doctor. As “the leading spokesperson on matters of public health,” past surgeon generals have opined on safe sex, Zika, COVID-19 and – of course – smoking cigarettes. So I was shocked to see the Surgeon General wade into the debate about work. Well, toxic work specifically. […]

I once pleaded with my wife that we hire a Task Rabbit. I laid out a very precise plan. She did the cooking. I did the cleaning. But I hated it. (Especially since we had one of those tiny NYC sinks that could only fit a saucepan in it.) I was ascending the ranks on […]

There’s trouble brewing in paradise. The sacred union between a football legend and a super model is on the brink. (For the record, I never EVER want to celebrate someone’s struggles. This essay is just a thought experiment and pure conjecture.) First, I always wondered how Tom Brady (aka TB12) could hate strawberries so much. […]

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” We’re at that fun age of parenthood, with our 9 year old flip-flopping her answers like a campaigning politician. “A fashion designer.” “A dancer.” “An artist.” Thankfully we’ve diligently shielded her from social media. (Well, technically we watch TikTok together 6 minutes each day.) Long […]

If everyone has the same number of hours in the day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? We’ve heard all the platitudes about everyone having the same 24 hours and time being a finite resource. And to get more done you’ll hear the same advice: wake up earlier […]

Meet my friend Jenny. Here’s a bit about her business. She works 20 hours a week. Her business generates $505,000 in revenue. Her take-home pay is $330,250 in profits. Now the financial metrics are good. But here’s where it gets spicier. Jenny rarely checks email from her phone. She takes 2 months off each year. […]

If you’re using Notion to run your business, then your strategic goals should also be in Notion. OKRs are a popular and powerful goal-setting framework that will help your company define a broader vision while hitting your short-term milestones, deliverables and goals. And by implementing your OKRs in Notion, you ensure that they play a […]

Ready to feel crappy about your life? This old productivity meme originated on Molly-Mae Hague’s Diary of a CEO podcast. Now putting aside that Queen Bey has a supporting team of nearly 100 people, there’s a kernel of truth here. There are a fixed amount of hours in each day. Which means there’s a limit […]

Learn how to use the GTD Flowchart to finally get on top of your to-do list. Get started with GTD in just 10 minutes.

Every decade has its memorable alliterations. The 90s had Best Buy. Jamba Juice came up in the 2000s. Barry’s Bootcamp (and RadReads) were products of the 2010s. And the 2020s gave us Quiet Quitting. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it was impossible to make it through this week without a mainstream publication offering […]

I’ve got some baller-ass friends. There’s an entrepreneur who sold a company after 2 years, personally pocketing $50 mm. (After taxes.) There’s a law firm partner who owns not one… not two… but three homes. There’s an early buyer of Bitcoin at $30, who after crypto winter is still worth 8 figures. And there’s the […]

I’ve got a confession. I write tasks on my to-do list just to check them off. And I know you do that too. Now there’s nothing wrong with a little momentum to put some wind in your sails. After all, Honest Abe wisely proclaimed: “If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, […]

I was pretty amped for this week’s essay. My editorial calendar had some good ideas queued up, especially as follow-ups to my 43 lessons at age 43. I wanted to dive into why it’s easy to make money. I wanted to deconstruct the desperation behind the 9-to-5 hamster wheel. But the powers that be had […]

It’s my 43rd birthday and I’ve lived a little, laughed a bunch and learned some stuff along the way. Here are 43 lessons on life, money and happiness that I’ve collected along the way. Caveat emptor!

Everything you need to know to use Notion for business including step-by-step instructions on how to build your team workspace

Our bedroom is a deliciously luxurious. Yes, we’re long-time renters, but I’d put our bedroom up against any Aman or St. Regis. We’ve made the investment. California king. Check. Blackout shades. Check. The Chili Pad mattress cooler (his and hers edition for different temperatures). Check. Buckwheat pillows. Check. And it’s certainly paying off in spades, […]

Every time I struggle with my parallel parking, I’m reminded of the movie Austin Powers. During this classic scene, Powers is trying to “course correct” his parking job, by pivoting inch by inch in a narrow corridor. Yet despite his herculean effort, he makes zero progress. With my road test firmly ensconced in the past, […]

Life is lived in seasons. Long stretches of time, book-ended by milestones. Milestones like graduation, getting married, having a child and sending that same child off to college. One of the most beautiful seasons of life is the DINK season. (For the uninitiated, DINK stands for dual income, no kids.) It begins right when you […]

I did something crazy this week. I flew down to Mexico by myself for a 4 day surf trip. No kids. No wife. Fish tacos every day. A $90 a night hotel room with youth hostel vibes. And tons of surfing. Now here’s the crazy part. It’s only the second trip I’ve taken “for fun” […]

RadReaders are a quirky bunch. We have a hard time being lazy. (Especially on a 3 day weekend.) We’re always trying to optimize things. And we make things unnecessarily complicated. Look no further than a simple to-do list. We obsess over capture speed. Zapier automations. Chrome plug-ins. And text expanders. But what if we’re just […]

“It’s like herding cats.” That’s how a friend recently described being a manager.  Jerry Colonna (aka the CEO Whisperer) has his own pithy take on what makes management tricky:  We’re just bags of chemicals.  Yup. And as a manager we need to get these bags of chemicals to “click.” Now don’t get me wrong. Management is […]

Most of the things you do don’t matter. Yup, that tweet you’re reading. No impact. The presentation you just edited. No one’s going to read the slide. And that feature you just shipped. Crickets. As you’re taking a mental inventory of all your activities, this may feel a bit harsh. But the Pareto Principle states […]

When I was in college, I was always looking for quick tricks to make an extra dollar. I worked library shifts and helped students with their printing issues. (Get paid to study!) I did random moving jobs. (Get paid to work out!) I signed up to let AllAdvantage track my computer and serve me banner […]

Let’s paint a picture of your morning. You wake up. Open one eye. Then the other. The timer starts. How many seconds until you grab your phone? The data ain’t pretty. 31% of workers under age 40 are on their work email – within less than a minute of waking up. (Per research from Superhuman.) […]

Let’s noodle over these 3 statements: I never have enough time I have a futile fixation of getting it all done I’m overwhelmed by the number of inputs in my life I’m seeing a few heads nod as you scroll through this list. And here’s what makes the promise of productivity so compelling. If we […]

Let’s time travel back to the year 2001. I was a newly-minted college graduate. The Blackberry 5810 was the hottest device in tech. Trent Dilfer was a Super Bowl champion. It would take another decade for our lives to be dominated by Instagram-scrolling. That’s whenI picked up my first copy of David Allen’s productivity classic […]

I recently shared Memento Mori with a little zing to it. Let’s just say, the responses were… animated. Here’s a visual describing the conundrum: But before we go any further, you’re probably wondering: What’s a business book? As a starting point, we can use these four that I grabbed off my bookshelf. (TBH, as someone […]

The famed Eisenhower was supposed to be the panacea for all of our prioritization problems. With its handy quadrants, it was meant to be a beacon of clarity and focus. I mean, if you chopped off anything deemed “not important” (i.e. the bottom half) life would be so much less… stressful. But here’s the rub. […]

My 7 year old wrote me a love letter yesterday. Yikes. It was 8 pm. Teeth were brushed. We had finished reading Judy Moody. She was in one of her question asking modes. “What’s the difference between a country and a continent?” “Do continents have presidents?” Meanwhile, I was on my phone. Here’s the embarrassing […]

Learn how to use Notion with this awesome (and free) Notion Course, designed specifically for Beginners taking their first steps and Advanced Users who want to brush up their knowledge and make sure they’ve mastered the key concepts. After these lessons, you will have a solid understanding of how to set up your workspace understand […]

Here at RadReads we take vacation very seriously. Our employee handbook states: After 3 months of full-time employment, RadReads has an unlimited vacation policy A few bullets down it adds: We want all vacation days to be off the grid, which means that there’s zero expectation to check Slack, Email or other in-app notifications. TBH, […]

Ready for a silver bullet? A playbook that will 10x your productivity and create more than 24 hours in a day? I hope you’re sitting down. Here it goes. First, set your alarm for 4:27 am. (Bonus points if you create an Instagram story documenting this feat.) Next, strip off all of your clothes and […]

I’ve got a friend named Jim. Jim is a rad guy. Someone I care about deeply. Jim also loves to travel. And before each one of his epic trips, he puts together a giant list of “must-sees” in the destination city. But here’s the catch. Jim outsources his research to… his friends. Now I love […]

I want you to imagine for a moment that I was your boss. (I know, cringe.) Then imagine that I assigned you a task that would take up a good chunk of your afternoon. This task would require you to write in detail how you show up at work. The ensuing document would have a […]

“A few good dudes are gathering in El Salvador in April. The waves are expected to be 3ft-8ft, highly surf-able and fun for all levels.” I read this email with great enthusiasm. And trepidation. It was a semi-private destination. Lots of perfect waves. Not that many surfers. My mouth was salivating. I kept reading. “On […]

As a productivity coach, instructor (and sometimes guru) I’m often asked a simple question: I’ve got no system, where should I begin? There are some unspoken assumptions baked into this question. The question-asker has no desire to read David Allen’s 267-page classic Getting Things Done. (They also tried eating the frog and it didn’t work.) […]

We won’t talk about Bruno. No. No. No. But we will talk about Bruno’s niece, Encanto’s Luisa Madrigal. Encanto is the story of a magical hidden town where (nearly) every family member is blessed with magical superhuman powers. Antonio can talk to animals. Isabela can grow flowers at will. And Luisa (pictured below) has superhuman […]

A few a times a year, the stars will align in Nazaré, off the coast of Portugal. The oceanic swell, tropical storms and tides will perfectly coincide to create the conditions from which arises an epic sea monster. The 100 foot wave. Garrett McNamara is the OG trailblazer in this feat of man versus wave. […]

Here’s a tale about two friends. And our divergent approach to investing. This friend (who we’ll call Jim) and I are of the same “cohort.” We were both born in 1979. We both went to fancy colleges. Our kids are the same age. And we both spent significant chunks of our careers on Wall Street […]

Let’s play a game together. I want you to close your eyes and think back to your early 20s. Bring into focus what you were doing. Where you were situated. What you were wearing. Whom you were hanging with. And the dreams and desires that consumed your intimate daily thoughts. Now ask yourself the question: […]

“How do you deal with the existential angst that the perfect job doesn’t exist?” I was asked this heavy question from a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed MBA student at a recent talk. “You know there’s a company that pays you $1,000 to take the week off,” I responded. “But there’s a rub,” I continued. “In order […]

This week, we witnessed one of the greatest Internet rabbit holes since the 28.8k modem came to the scene in the early 90s. For a few bucks, you could buy a slice of the US constitution. Yup, we the people could be owned by the people. It was a remarkable feat watching a collective of […]

Supply chain issues be damned. After what seemed like an endless wait, it finally arrived. My sleek new iPhone 13 Pro. Sexy black Graphite. 3 Cameras. 4K video. Ridiculous battery life. Everything necessary to take RadReads to the next level, right? The warm glow of this Shiny New Toy had yet to wear off when […]

I love ice cream. Jeni’s. Ample Hills. Salt and Straw. Van Leeuwen. If it’s cold, creamy and chocolate-y – I love it. But as a 42 year old, ice cream and the Notorious B.I.G. have something in common: Mo ice cream, mo problems. (That is a terrible dad joke.) You see, the Chocolate Gooey Brownie […]

I have a confession. Each day I write down on average 23 tasks in my to-do list. But there’s something unique about three of them. You see, I write them down with the earnest intent of getting them done. But here’s the rub. They’re actually already done. Yup, I write tasks down tasks just so […]

I’m a quarter French, so yes I’ve eaten a frog. (More like cuisses de grenouille.) I’m three-quarters Cambodian, and once ate a deep-fried tarantula at a market in Phnom Penh. (It tasted like an onion ring.) Mark Twain once wrote: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you […]

Adulting. Whether it’s making life insurance payments, negotiating with an electrician or drafting your will – it’s tedious AF. Adulting is the toll booth of life. With no EZ Pass. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines adulting as: [Behaving] like an adult, specifically to do the things—often mundane—that an adult is expected to do. Some examples of […]

Being a beginner surfer, really sucks. Not because of the low wave count. Not because I had to awkwardly carry around one of those gigantic “Costco Boards.” And definitely not because I looked more like a doggy-paddling toddler than a shredding (and shredded) Kelly Slater. Nope. The worst part was the lactic acid. The non-stop […]

“I want to invest in RadReads.” Wait, say wutt? “Would you take my $300,000 investment?” This question landed like a Jake Paul haymaker. I was totally blindsided. After all, we were just two friends sipping some Skinny Margaritas (pro tip: swap out Triple Sec with Giffard Pamplemousse Liquer) catching up on summer gallivanting. The mosquitos […]

Block Island is a quaint and picturesque beach town off the Long Island Sound. It doesn’t garner the attention of its neighboring hot spots (Montauk for the Panerai-flexing bankers; Martha’s Vineyards for the salmon colored pants and sock-less loafers). But it’s a tiny slice of heaven. A short bike ride around the island will span […]

The dust has settled on the release of the Notion API and we’ve been busy exploring the many ways entrepreneurs, creators and no-code aficionados can utilise all the new possibilities to scale and leverage their Notion Workspaces. In this post we’ll take a closer look at a lesser-known, but incredibly powerful integration service: Integromat. What […]

My Instagram feed is a hot mess. It’s a mix of shortboarders, Japanese notebooks, Soundcloud rappers and sans-serif typography. There was a time in my life when I tried to build an Instagram following. I posted every day. Recorded stories. Created a unique link-in-bio link.  But it was too exhausting. I had to delete the app. However, there was […]

Automate your workflow and free up time by leveraging the Notion API to turn your Notion Workspace into a true powerhouse. With the recently released Notion API, it’s now possible to integrate Notion with all your favourite productivity apps. Connect Notion to Google Calendar for easy planning, synch it with Todoist for Quick Capture or […]

I’ve got a soft spot for Bethenny Frankel. Sure, when it comes to the Real Housewives franchise, Beverly Hills (umm, hello Brandy Glanville) is my favorite. But my kudos towards Bethenny can be traced to one groundbreaking innovation: The Skinny Girl Margarita. Go ahead. Bring it. I’ll own my skinnies (both jeans and margaritas). The […]

The math is simple. Find 1,000 True Fans. Charge them each $100. Then voila, you’ve got yourself a six-figure business. Easy peasy, right? That was Kevin Kelly’s call-to-arms in 2008, marking the unofficial rise of the Creator Economy. But things change. They evolve. They scale. 12 years later (in 2020), the Creator Economy morphed into […]

Three things make $10 Tim happy as a pig in mud. The Whoopie cushion feature on a Tesla. A Hawaiian Pizza. (Yup, the kind with cooked ham and pineapple.) And going to the Apple store. Every time he steps foot through those majestic glass doors and sees rows of shiny aluminum devices basking in beautiful […]

$10 Tim started this Tuesday, determined to win the day. He pinned Ellie’s colored Rainbow to his cubicle as a reminder for why he works in the first place: to support his family. (There would be no In-and-Out burger today, just a smoothie and Greek salad. His health turnaround begins today.) As Tim began his […]

Tim is very mad at Elon Musk. His rage started 10 days ago when Musk called Dogecoin “a hustle” on Saturday Night Live. That sent the cryptocurrency tumbling. Then last week – adding insult to injury – Musk lambasted Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. Bitcoin plummeted by nearly 50%. Crouched over the bright light of Tim’s Coinbase […]

People love options.  A second year analyst has the option of going to Business School. A single person keeps their dating options open by staying in the gray zone. And a savvy trader purchases a stock option on a company that is grossly undervalued – effectively leveraging their investment. In this post, we’ll look at two different types […]

300 weeks ago I sat down and sent an email to 36 friends. I wrote the email in Gmail and signed of with the following: “Not sure when I’ll have time for the next one.” Welp. 2 kids later and with less hair on my crown, look at where we’ve landed. Some back of the […]

All social interactions have unspoken norms. Period. Sharing an appetizer of four mozzarella sticks with your three friends? You eat only one. Riding the elevator with a group of people? Everyone faces the door. We mostly don’t say these norms aloud, and yet we know that not following them can have real social consequences. At […]

Trevor Lawrence is living his best life. The 6 foot 6 Clemson quarterback (with incredible hair) is the consensus #1 pick in this Thursday’s NFL draft. This will land him a $40 million contract. Not bad for a 22 year old. Yet Lawrence has his share of haters. And I’m not talking about Clemson’s South […]

This week, I taught my seven year old about interest rates. Armed with a perfectly crisp $50 bill (courtesy of an uber generous grandparent), she was ready to pounce. On a corgi for Violet, her American Doll. (What a scam!) On her 13th Beanie Boo. (Since a unicorn with polka dots was missing from the […]

“I can’t do this anymore,” I exclaimed as I burst into tears. Like a child who had just put a beloved pet to sleep, I buried my head into my mom’s shoulder and sobbed uncontrollably. But I wasn’t a child. Far from it. I was actually a 22 year old investment banker, sporting my finest […]

Have you been buying Bitcoin since the early days? Did you ride the Gamestop wave to its highs? Or do you remember epic collapse of Enron stock? In every instance, the end result was a concentrated (or un-diversified) portfolio. Which can put you at tremendous risk. We can take the same approach to $10/hour and […]

Growing up, my French-speaking parents always warned me about having “plus de gueule que de sac.” While the Google translation is entertaining, English has its own version: “Having eyes bigger than your stomach.” Growing up, this idiom always stayed with me, whether it was at the all-you-can-eat hotel buffet or a post-soccer practice McDonalds run. […]

I’m going to tell you a story about not having enough time. But there’s a catch. As you read it, I want you to simultaneously remember an 8-digit number: 53965921. You got that? We’ll start with the story of Katie. A driven and successful medical resident – working 80 hour weeks – typical for the […]

“External solutions for internal problems do not exist.” Most of us have internalized this by now. We know that a Porsche won’t fix our mid-life crisis. And that an Oura ring won’t cure our weekday drinking habit. But let’s streeeeeeeeeetch this logic a bit. Stay with me now. Every single human being has “internal problems.” […]

The Big Sur MacOS update delivers a delightful Easter Egg. Your AirPods now magically follow you across devices. Gone are the awkward transitions (“hold on, let me connect my AirPods”) while fiddling with your Bluetooth settings and pressing that random button on the white case. Now you can gracefully glide from podcast, to Zoom call, […]

When it’s time to get to work, it’s time to get to work. And whether you’re plowing through Grand Central Station to make your connection or aggressively lane-switching on the 405, if there’s one activity that justifies hurry it’s commuting. The author Derek Sivers applied this mindset to his daily biking commute along the Los […]

The plane had just landed on the tiny island of Papeete in Tahiti. Fingers trembling, I pulled out my Blackberry 6510. My armpits were damp and my heart was beating violently through my chest. I hit power on and the LED on the top right corner immediately flashed red. I stared as the messages started […]

If there’s something Ten Dollar Tim knows well, it’s gadgets. Tim’s Whoop strap monitors his Heart Rate Variability. (Cost, $360/year) His Peloton provides on-demand HIIT workouts to lower his blood pressure and give him the energy to keep up with his toddlers. ($1,895 + $468/year) His Oura ring promises an orderly wind down at 9:45 […]

“Those waves are heavy!” When it comes to surfing, heavy is not usually a good thing. Take a look at the brave soul below trying to get out to the waves at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It’s windy. It’s cold. There’s water everywhere. The whitewater tosses you like a rag doll; the current acts […]

There’s a hard path. And there’s an easy path. Let’s take a peek into the world of finance, where this path can be approximated with a number, known as The Sharpe Ratio. The Sharpe Ratio is calculated as follows: Investment Return divided by Investment Volatility. (Finance geeks, please allow me to take some liberties in […]

“You need to practice being a nobody.” Those words made the hairs on the back of my neck stand. Growing up as a shy, skinny, Magic the Gathering playing nerd – I had spent my entire life striving and trying to prove to others that I was indeed a somebody. Sensing my discomfort, my spiritual […]

And that’s ok. I got a lot of advice when my first child was born nearly seven years ago. “Surviving is winning,” is most definitely hard-wired into my cranium. But now that they can wipe their own butts and sleep through the night, the survivalist mindset has eased. Yet one tiny story still stands out. […]

A New Year is upon us, and it’s got me feeling frisky! (Happy New Year, btw 🥳) No, I didn’t do a Dry January. No, I didn’t set an unachievable physical goal. (I’m far from surfing overhead waves on a short board.) And no, I didn’t set a single resolution. (After all, 80% of them […]

Human beings do some silly behavioral stuff. Let’s begin with the story of four Wall Street Bankers power lunching at the esteemed NYC Bistro Balthazar. Fresh off of a gi-normous M&A deal, they order the Mouton Rothschild 1989 wine at an eye-popping price point of $2,000. Unbeknownst to them, they receive an $18 Pinot Noir. […]

“So why do you make money?” My question is often met with a dismissive stare. As if the answer is so obvious, that the question isn’t even worth asking. It’s one of the first questions I ask during my coaching onboarding process. Yet scrappy founders, law firm partners and professional investors – who typically don’t […]

The word leverage evokes the imagery Bankers Gone Wild. There are the Barbarians who stormed the gates of RJR Nabisco during the 1980s leveraged buy out. There are the Failed Geniuses from Long-term Capital who leveraged Russian Bonds that ended up defaulting in 1998. And there’s the leveraged homeowner, coerced by their mortgage bankers into […]

Editor’s Note (12/20): After writing this post, I later read that Newport wrote on his blog that despite the headline, his article was not “about David Allen’s productivity system, which I really admire.” “Who wouldn’t want the cheat codes?” My friend (we’ll call him Taylor) was perplexed. We were reminiscing about his remarkable career trajectory […]

You’ve already hopped on the bandwagon for the Notion productivity app and are using it for note-taking and managing your to-dos. But using it for your team’s big picture project management has been one step too far. Thankfully, Notion’s most recent update offers an exciting new feature just for project management, so you’re in luck: […]

Tim Urban has a simple equation for measuring happiness. Give it a spin, you’ll be surprised with its accuracy. That dinner reservation you had to book exactly 30 days in advance? That long-awaited family reunion? The next Kanye album? (Yawn) The formula is shows us how our happiness (and ultimately our lives) teeter on a […]

It’s the week of election day in the United States. For some inexplicable reason, you woke up inspired and energized. So jazzed about the world and its potential, that you decided to set two goals for yourself. The first goal would take place over one day. Tomorrow, you decided that you would do 50 burpees. […]

Two icons of American literature were once partying at a billionaire’s lavish mansion on Shelter Island. Kurt (Vonnegut) turns to his friend Joseph (Heller) and says: “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in his entire history?” […]

There are a few time-tested to piss off the Internet. You can get tangled up with Beyonce’s Beyhive. You can question if FIRE is worth it. And you can say that starring Gmail messages can’t replace using a dedicated task manager. I learned the last one the hard way after writing last Thursday’s email. Starred […]

We’re in a golden age of Ice Cream. Many RadReaders have found trusted quarantine companions in pints of Ample Hills, Van Leeuwen, Jeni’s and McConnell’s. That’s why I’ll never forget my first trip to Facebook’s NYC office in 2015. While I vacillated between the lunch options of braised beef tacos, made-to-order sushi and spicy curly […]

Step 5: Connect your second app Next we’ll connect our “receiving” app, Trello (a Kanban-style task manager). For purposes of our demo, I purposely hadn’t “connected” Trello to Zapier. Thankfully it’s easy to search for the app and connect it.

Sneaker heads know all about “the drop.” New Yorkers have watched (with both bewilderment and scorn) as young men lined up outside the Supreme store for the the 2002 Nike SB Dunk collection. Then there’s the Travis Scott x Jordan 1s “drop” that now trade on Sneaker exchanges at the eye-popping price of $1,170. This […]

I’ve got a confession. When I need to give the directions Right or Left, I use a shortcut. I inconspicuously create an “L” with my left hand, to ensure I’ve got it right. (Yes, it’s the same trick I’m currently teaching my 6 year old.) Thankfully, the Internet confirms I’m not alone with this directional […]

I’m not a watch guy, but when I think of Patek Phillipe, two things come to mind. First, there’s Future on Racks Blue: “The Patek a two-tone/ I done went colorblind I’ma get my shine on, yeah” Then, there’s the highfalutin ad copy, usually on the back of The Economist: You never actually own a […]

One’s eyes are bigger than one’s stomach. It’s an old idiom from the good ol’ days of the all-you-can-eat buffet. Remember those? I do daydream about the conference hotel where you could effortlessly combine a mini croissant, greasy hash browns, a bagel with fresh lox, and some freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. You know, just because. […]

Three is a magic number. There are three Hanson brothers. And three Jonas brothers. Three personalities anchor Freud’s signature theory. (Id, Ego, Super Ego.) And writers have their own rule of three which “combines brevity and rhythm to create a pattern” that our brains find catchy, memorable and deeply satisfying. You know what else works […]

“I’m so used to doing it with one hand.” I pictured my coaching client, with one arm tied behind his back doing some fancy Bruce Lee training in his DIY garage gym. After all, he’s got his sh*t together as the COO of a venture-backed SaaS company and just an all-around great human. “Playing with […]

This post was adapted from a @radreadsco Instagram story. If the old adage “paying rent is like burning money” is true, then our family has (and will) continue to burn it for many years to come. Two years before I left Wall Street, I made the conscious decision to de-risk our financial picture by selling […]

“It took me fifteen years to realize that I’ve been playing the wrong game,” confessed my friend. I was surprised. Randy (as we’ll call him) is always playing his cards right. He has the quintessential credentials: he was selected into his undergrad honor society, has a PhD in Biophysics and is currently on the partner […]

Note-taking and personal knowledge management are in the midst of a technological revolution. Gone are the days of flat Evernote text file, replaced by databases, interactive templates and Excel-like formulas. You know what else has gotten a facelift? The good old hyperlink is a relic of the past. Taking its place are backlinks and bi-directional […]

On June 11, 2018 you lost $20. And didn’t even realize it. Say what? How’d that happen? Amazon Prime increased its price from $99 to $119 a year. Big deal, right? Well, if you’re Amazon, yes. With an estimated 100 million Prime subscribers, that provided an immediate $2 billion boost to the company’s revenue. And […]

View this post as a Tweetstorm. There is such thing as a free lunch. A win-win-win situation. All it takes is a 30 second email and poof. When executed correctly, it will unleash a torrent of job opportunities, business partnerships, and consulting work. Heck, maybe even a romantic relationship. But there’s a catch: this magic […]

Would you work 16 hour days, 6 days a week, for 6 months to protect your job during a pandemic? That’s a very personal question. But to my friend Jim, the answer was yes. And as the world and markets were falling apart, in early March he made a conscious decision: he was going to […]

With a whopping 4.2 billion pages on the Internet, chances are you’re going to stumble on a blog post you want to read. In the past, you’d use a printer (gasp!) or a Read Later app (like Pocket or Instapaper). But the ascent of note-taking (Evernote and Roam), database (Airtable) and all-purpose productivity apps (like […]

I have so much free time. Said no one, ever. But if someone were to ever dare utter those words, it would be my friend. We’ll call her Ingrid. Ingrid’s one of those people who make you wonder: If everyone has the same number of hours in the day, why does she seem to get so much more […]

Airtable and Notion are two game-changing tools for entrepreneurs, project managers and creators looking to implement databases cheaply and effectively. Prior to Airtable’s release in 2015, databases were the exclusive domain of programmers and “sysadmins” who could afford solutions like Oracle or SQL servers. But today, anyone can spin up a CRM, invoicing system and […]

In Homer’s Iliad, the Trojan War presents Achilles with a vexing choice. Stay home with his loved ones and live a tranquil life of obscurity; or fight til death with the guarantee of immortality through legacy. Here Achilles describes his choice: That two fates bear me on to the day of death.If I hold out here […]

The mighty lion sits atop of the food pyramid. Any passing mammal can become its prey – whether it’s a sprightly antelope or a measly field mouse. Yet the lion does not hunt the mouse. Why? Because the caloric energy required to chase, wrestle and devour the little critter exceeds the caloric value of the […]

What’s more fun than one killer productivity app? 2 killer apps working together – like Batman and Robin. And loaded with features, the Notion app is the ultimate Swiss-army knife. And since the much anticipated release of the Notion API, there has been a constant stream of awesome new Notion integrations. And don’t worry: thanks […]

We’ve all got dreams. Buying your first home. Locking down the 529 plan for each kid. Hitting your FIRE number. These dreams require savings. And by extension, investing. And at some point, you just gotta start. Unfortunately, picking the right entry point can be terrifying. Let’s say you started investing in your dream at Point […]

Everything in our lives is powered by databases. Whether your browsing Amazon, listening to Spotify’s Discover Weekly or browsing the New York Times’ home page, behind the scenes they’re all powered by Databases. There’s a common misconception that databases are complex and can only be created by software engineers. It’s wrong. Databases are nothing more than two […]

Notion templates are a powerful and easy way to upgrade your Notion workspace and turn our favourite productivity app into a true powerhouse. The only problem? There are thousands of Notion Templates our there with new ones being released every day. So how are you supposed to find the best Notion templates? Don’t worry, we’ve […]

The litmus test for a high-impact productivity system is the ability to implement it on a sheet of paper. The timelessness and universality of David Allen’s GTD and the Bullet Journal can in part be attributed to their analog origins. So imagine my giddiness when I stumbled upon an index card-based system for note-taking called […]

In the world of Covid careers, there are very few certainties. Jobs are being lost, industries permanently altered and a redefinition of coming to the “office.” Career switches and pivots have come to a standstill. That makes sense; hiring and uncertainty do not make for good bedfellows. And if you’ve got the job security, benefits […]

“Stress is a perverted relationship to time.” These words from the late Irish poet, John O’Donohue are truthfully incisive. And whether it’s using Text Expanders or doing Tabata Burpee workouts – I’ve always been in the hot pursuit of more time. The chase is straight forward. More free time equals more time to do stuff. […]

I know you’ve heard of Lil Nas X. But have you heard of YoungKio? He’s the 20 year old Dutch producer who created the country trap beat (btw, with a NIN sample) that took the pop charts by storm. YoungKio (née Kiowa Roukema) sold the beat to Nas X (whom he had never met) for $30 via […]

It’s a familiar pattern – within days of setting up Notion, you’ve created a page that’s not only functional and beautiful and you’re ready to share it with the world. Maybe it’s a GTD task manager that your colleague wants to use; the recipe database you use with your spouse; or a dashboard for a […]

“Real wealth, such as food, is perishable,” wrote Alan Watts in his 1951 classic The Wisdom of Insecurity. Is that really so? Surely, the pyramids have immortalized the wealth of the Pharaohs. Students at Yale will dine at the Schwarzman Center for decades to come, courtesy of the Blackstone founder’s massive $150 million gift. In addition to […]

Chefs have a ritual called the mise-en-place. It literally means to “put in place.” It’s the simple act of gathering and organizing ingredients and tools needed for cooking. And whether your a chef, investor or entrepreneur – there’s something reassuring about getting your house in order. It’s called the GTD Weekly Review. During this weekly ritual, you close those pesky “open […]

Hey. No seriously, hayyyyyy. I’m talking about the buzzy new productivity tool hey.com. ​Superhuman? Nah, that was like 2 years ago. Notion? Come on, that was soooooo 2019. Roam? Well, the Gates of Roam did open last week…. but the cool kids have moved on to Obsidian for their networked thought. But this week, hey.com dropped. It’s an invite-only email service that aims […]

One of the best feelings after an intense workout are those pumpin’ post-workout endorphins. Haggard and drenched in sweat, that first sip of water tastes like heaven. And then your day just glides by, effortlessly. But the best part of the day… is actually not the day, but the night. As your head hits the pillow, […]

There are 50 unique words in the children’s classic Green Eggs and Ham. Dr. Seuss (née Ted Geisel) wrote the book after betting his publisher that he couldn’t write an entire book with less than 50 unique words. (For context, The Cat and the Hat employs 236.) Constraints are powerful. They make us resourceful. Grateful. Creative. And they’re FOMO slayers. […]

When I worked on Wall Street, I did the unthinkable. I took vacation. Not just the 3 day weekend type. But two g**damn weeks. In a row. I took 3 weeks off for our wedding + honeymoon. I took 2 weeks off when my kids were born. Which may not seem like a big deal, but […]

The night when you go to bed and say to yourself ‘I have no idea what the world will look like when I wake up tomorrow’ is when you want to buy more. (April 27, 2020) I wrote this phrase in my Investment Journal last week. It was eerily similar to how I felt 12 years ago right […]

Now before your mind jumps into the gutter, I’m talking about emotional intimacy. Because amidst Zoom Kindergarten, constantly (and I mean constantly) doing dishes and laundry, while potty training our 2 year old… adult time has been scarce, to say the least. (And if you’re baking sourdough with your fiancée – screw you! Kidding… I’m just jealous.) And […]

Check out our Amazon search history to see how we’re coping as a family during the pandemic. First, you’ll find a Doug and Melissa Magic Responsibility Chart: Then there’s a book on Scratch Jr, a kids’ programming language: And finally (I promise, I’m not kidding), an iPhone Prison: I know what you’re thinking: What the heck is going on […]

During my quarantine boredom my mind sometimes drifts back to Game of Thrones. In this daydream, I find myself flying a dragon (Khe from house Targaryen) or as a master swordsman (Khe from house Stark). Paul Graham is the co-founder of Y Combinator But Khe de Reddit? Nah dawg, that sh*t ain’t for me. What are […]

The Internet loves credit card hacking. For the uninitiated, it’s the (dubious) science of maximizing credit card points. It drives frenetic behavior like signing up for a card then quickly cancelling it (to claim a bonus); using different cards for different purchase types; or moving points across airlines to maximize the point value. To […]

Enroll in Supercharge your Productivity with Notion today! Friends… look what I got a hold of: It turns out the Tiger King himself, is a Notion power user. You’ll observe how he implements Tiago Forte’s PARA Method to organize the four primary spheres of his life: Projects – defined by end dates and discrete goals (Take Care of […]

It’s day 36 of the lockdown and the bounce in my step is definitely gone. It feels like mile 18 of a marathon. Hitting that proverbial wall. But in this case, I’ve identified the culprit. His first name is José. Last name Cuervo. Pre-pandemic I was an every-other-day drinker. One stiff cocktail on alternating weekdays. A few extra […]

What does love look like during a lockdown? Is it the Tiger Trifecta of Joe Exotic, John Finlay and Travis Maldonado? Or does it look like a surge of December babies? (The married-with-kids readers collectively shake their heads… Homeschooling, shall we say, has bludgeoned the spark.) Or will cramped quarters pour gasoline on years of pent-up and unaddressed […]

This superpower could land a job. It could make you smarter. It could make you more money. It could get you invited into rooms that were previously inaccessible. And you could harness this superpower, irrespective of whether you’re an engineer, an analyst, or a grad student. You would do everything in your power to unleash […]

Nearly 160 RadReaders took the Antifragile Assessment last week. The average score was 57/100. OK, now for the fun part… Here’s a breakdown of the results (i.e. beginning with least antifragile). 1. Do you have more than one source of income > 10%?1.8 (Average Score) This isn’t surprising, so don’t be hard on yourself here. It’s hard to […]

And just like that, we kissed March goodbye. But if the 8,000 days in March began in earnest on 3/11/20 (i.e. the day they cancelled sports) – April’s gonna feel like 12,400 days. 8,000 x 31 / 20 = 12,400. Adding insult to injury, April’s familiar signposts have all been eviscerated: Spring Break, Baseball’s Opening Day, […]

Take the FREE Antifragile Assessment quiz to see how your career ranks The second week of unemployment numbers in the US were just released and they’re absolutely staggering. 10 million is the headline number. KPMG estimates that the decimation of the consumer economy could bring this number to 20 million within a few months. It’s […]

Last night was a good night. It was the second Friday of the lockdown. The Disney+ marathon continued with Wreck it Ralph. We ate too much Ben and Jerry’s (The Tonight Dough). And ofc, the mandatory Rosé. As I threw the tarp over the grill and turned off the terrace lights, I looked up in stunning bewilderment. Stars. […]

Our Notion Course Supercharge your Productivity is currently closed for enrollment, but sign up here to be notified when we re-open. The average knowledge worker spends 4.5 hours a week looking for missing files. That’s nearly 20 days a year. The average American takes 17.4 vacation days. Let that sink in. Yup, US knowledge workers spend more time searching for files than going […]

“There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.” And what a week it’s been. On the macro level, the loss of life, economic hardship and debilitating uncertainty seem to accelerate with each passing day. On the micro level, every single person’s daily life has been upended. We’ve all become the BBC Skype dad. Frozen […]

In 1996 I sold my Magic the Gathering collection for $7,000 and bought shares of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (today worth $28,516). But that wasn’t best investment I ever made. What was? Reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done as a college grad and learning his GTD method for productivity. (And yes, two decades later GTD […]

Thoughts on the Coronavirus Wednesday afternoon felt like the end of days. I wrapped a coaching call and re-entered reality. And what a reality it was. The day before (Tuesday), I had tried to catch a falling knife, and the market punished me with a -10% print. I then walked outside and our garage was […]

Let’s talk about our love languages. There’s words of affirmation (thanks for taking the garbage out), gifts (ooh, a Chanel bag), quality time (watching GoT together), acts of service (folding the laundry) physical touch (both hand holding and the NSFW kind ?). But I want to add a sixth language, inspired by the the Wu Tang Clan. Yup. Cash. Cold. Hard. Cash. Dolla Dolla Bill, Y’all The love language […]

Have you ever said yes to something, but immediately wished you could take it back? There’s that nit-picky client who won’t sign the proposal. Do we need an internal meeting to discuss? Yes. Your ex-boss’ son is looking to get into consulting. Could you grab a coffee with him to give him the lay of […]

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Thank you Bruce Lee for your fast tortoise wisdom to becoming a badass. But if you aren’t blessed with fists of fury nor don a Gi to your workplace, what repetitive steps […]

When I graduated college in 2001, I fell under the spell of the Wall Street investment banks. I had one of those jobs where you worked 100+ hours a week, got anxiety attacks every time you saw your Blackberry’s flashing red light, and constantly cancelled plans with 5 minutes worth of notice. Ahhhh, to be […]

In my old world of hedge funds, there was a type of investment that was always accompanied by a buyer beware sign. It wasn’t a tiny pink sheet microcap. Nor was it a hair-brained ICO that promised the Lambo Life of the crypto bros. In fact, its dangers were masked by its nerdy name: Negative Convexity. Bloomberg.com refers to these […]

Notion Formulas can elevate your Notion Workspace to the next level, but even experienced users are often intimidated by them. However, it’s actually really easy to get started with Formulas in Notion. All you need are a few basic concepts and use cases. Here’s everything you ever need to know to start using Notion Formulas. […]

A chunk of my hair once fell out of the left side of my head. Not the top of the crown kind of thinning. But two inches from my ear, leaving a crater the size of a quarter. It happened before one of my best friend’s weddings. I was a mess. A steroid injection was […]

She’s a 73 year old chain-smoking cat lady with frizzy blonde hair. You’ve never heard of her. And she runs the world from her big empty house in the North Side of Chicago. Her name is Lois Weisberg. You may remember her from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (and Weisberg has since passed away), in which […]

I’m always on the lookout for new tattoo ideas. And I was stopped dead in my tracks when I stumbled onto this tattoo on Twitter. Someone was so moved by James Clear’s fantastic book Atomic Habits, that they permanently imprinted a reminder of their own latent potential on their wrists. The permanence of this tattoo […]

There’s an old adage about crap. “90% of everything is crap” declared the author Theodore Sturgeon in 1951. He was referring to his genre of science fiction, where he felt that 10% of the works deserved critical acclaim, yet were overshadowed by the 90% (of crap). It turns out that Sturgeon’s Law was ahead of […]

This past year was a good one for reading, propelled in large part by the Libby app. I’m working to write up all the summaries and ratings. DNF = did not finish (Note: All links are Amazon affiliates.) 2020 List The Great Believers by Rebekka Makkai⭐️⭐️⭐️ The story of the early days of the AIDS […]

My friend’s dad always wanted to be a millionaire. As pre-pubescent boys more focused on Magic the Gathering and ollies, his dad would constantly extol the virtues of index investing on Vanguard. He was a gym teacher who lived modestly and found a simple joy in watching his balances creep up with each quarterly statement. […]

Two things come to mind whenever I hear about Roam, the buzzy new note-taking app: the B-52s and one of my tattoos. The Gen Xers will recognize the catchy pop jingle “Roam if you want to, Roam around the world” and when I ejected from the corporate hamster wheel, I celebrated with a tattoo memorializing […]

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life,” asks Mary Oliver in her poem The Summer Day. With less than two weeks before the decade wraps, let us ponder this question. Yet in this exploration of career reinventions, more time with the kids, or rekindling a long lost hobby […]

You’ve got to really love note-taking apps to stumble upon an epic beef in the personal knowledge management world. In 2018, Evernote users began migrating to the “all purpose tool” Notion. However, barely a year later there’s a new kid on the block: RoamResearch creating a productivity geek’s own version of East Coast vs West Coast. What […]

Have you tried Notion, the new all-purpose app for productivity, task management, and knowledge management? Its power lies in the ability to merge the functionality of countless apps into a single platform. Plus, its clean and sleek design makes it a delight to use. But like any growing child, it’s got its share of issues: […]

My friend got speared in the abdomen by the sharp tip of a surfboard. And it wasn’t accidental, it was payback for one of the sport’s cardinal sins: dropping in on another surfer who had caught the wave. My friend had apologized profusely for his transgression, but it wasn’t enough. On his next wave, a […]

Don’t miss Part 1 of this series How a newsletter will transform your life. This post contains two affiliate links to products I wholeheartedly endorse (ConvertKit and Carrd.co) I want you to check out the rad website called Cozy Cats. The design is crisp, it loads quickly and is fully responsive (web parlance for it […]

It’s that time of year. The leaves have turned, the Halloween decorations have been replaced by candy canes, menorahs and inflatable Olafs. And with the arrival of Black Friday comes Frozen 2 – lord help us all. Meanwhile in board rooms, conference rooms, and Zoom calls another high-stakes corporate ritual has begun. Kings, queens, emperors […]

Adulting is an Internet meme about the trials, tribulations and annoyances of adulthood. I mean, I get it; as an adult, the number of commitments attached to your name skyrocket. It starts with cooking your own meals, then figuring out how taxes work (and then paying them). And it often culminates with that big, open-ended […]

I recently got sucked into the rabbit hole of credit card hacking. It all began with the purest of intentions. I wanted to ditch my Chase Sapphire card’s annual fee in favor of a straight 2% cash back card. But this five minute task quickly devolved into a 4 hour long expedition – robbing me […]

“I miss having a job.” I recently confided with a friend that I missed the closure of working for a paycheck. No, I don’t miss the Monday Morning meetings, the weekend conference calls and being tethered to email. But a job has much clearer boundaries than entrepreneurship. Yes, you can always be improving – but […]

I’m wary of shiny new toy syndrome. The diet that can instantly get you lean and ripped. The shoes that can improve your marathon time. And the all-purpose app that promises to supercharge your productivity. I trust reliable and time-tested products which is why I’ve been using Evernote for nearly a decade. The note-taking act […]

Screw you Instagram. Your years of digital snooping have trained your pernicious algo to know too much about me. My yearnings, my anxities, my guilty pleasures… and my gazingus pins. Instagram, you’re relentless with your digital onslaught; your perfectly timed sponsored posts seem to land when I hate myself the most (scrolling mindlessly at 11 […]

I’ve noticed a disturbing (yet recurring) conversation with many RadReaders. It begins with someone in their mid-30s (let’s call them Sam) who’s worked their entire adult life and rapidly scaling the corporate ladder. Sam’s never had to worry about money as an adult, because she’s been on the better side of a simple formula: income […]

On 9/24 I’ll be teaching a course on how Supercharge your Productivity using Notion. The digitization of information is a double-edged sword. It’s an unassailable benefit that every bit (and byte) of knowledge resides on the supercomputer in our pocket. Yet, the unintended consequence is that we’re bombarded with information: Kindle books, blog posts, podcasts, […]

I’m on the permanent hunt for more Portrait Mode in my life. That’s the iPhone camera feature that lightly blurs the background, while sharpening your subject’s face. And instantly, all the photos of my kids look like they were snapped by a pro. Portrait mode is the ultimate high-leverage feature; it turns noobs into pros. […]

The last week of August is a snoozer, right? Not for the NFL. Last Sunday, the league (and its all-consuming doppelgänger, Fantasy Football) took a hit – courtesy of the Blind Slide. Former number one draft pick and potential Hall of Famer Andrew Luck hastily announced his retirement at youthful age of 29. With $97 […]

We’ve been on over 50 flights since our first child was born in 2014. These adventures have included projectile vomiting on Singapore Air (the one time, we upgraded to business), questionable car seat decisions, and 832 walks up and down the aisles while counting down the number of 7 minute increments until you land. Yet […]

We’ve all got a friend who sees the world through the lens of half-empty. A friend of mine has gone to all the right schools and has been super-strategic in his career. Yet something’s always wrong. A few months ago, we hooked up for a coffee and he went on an epic rant. He rattled […]

Looking to Supercharge your Productivity with Notion? Free up 5 hours a week over at Notion.Courses Imagine being able to scale yourself, your income and your free time. Meet Notion – an app that lets you effortlessly combine documents, tasks, spreadsheets and databases to suit your workflow. It’s sleek and clean. It brings joy and […]

The best part of not having a corporate job is no longer having the Sunday Scaries. I had them every Sunday for fifteen years; or 780 consecutive weekends. My friends and I anthropomorphized this dread by giving it a name: Mr. Scary. We were young bankers in our 20s and here’s how a typical weekend […]

The completion of a quarter is typically accompanied by some personal house cleaning. A GTD (“getting things done”) review of the Important, not Urgent, paying estimated taxes, a marital money review, and updating the bean counters that measure your personal assets. As an investor with a very long-term horizon, I’ve long eschewed directly linking my […]

What advice would you give to someone who’s on the fence about investing? I asked the RadReads community for their best tips, here’s what y’all came back with: Here are the follow-up links:

For many years I yearned for the good old days of Microsoft Access. In 2003, I used this antiquated software to create an Investor Database at a startup investment firm. I knew just enough code (or Structured Query Language, in coder parlance) to stitch together a few disparate spreadsheets to create a lightweight CRM. But […]

Elon Musk was nearly broke in 2008, borrowing money from his homies to cover his rent. “About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” he stated during his divorce proceedings. His brother Kimball confirmed his precarious position, “Oh yeah. [He’s] in debt. More than broke.” And then-girlfriend, Talulah Riley remarked on his physical condition: […]

Looking for a simple Notion Tutorial that will get you up to speed with this buzz-creating productivity tool? But you don’t have the time to watch countless hours of Youtube videos piecing together information? Don’t worry, here’s a complete Notion tutorial that you can finish in 10 minutes (or less). Why even use Notion? Getting […]

“In any conversation, try to talk 10% of the time and listen for the remaining 90%.” I heard this career wisdom in my early twenties and it went on to deeply influence my approach to building relationships. Along the way, I developed a bunch of conversational tricks: never break eye contact, wiggle your toes if […]

Picture yourself during date night with your boo. The kids are with the in-laws (so no babysitter pressure), you went cray and opted for that second bottle of wine and now you’re at the opera enjoying one of your favorite performers. You bob and nod your head immersed in this glorious music, savoring each and […]

We’re deep in the throes of our summer trip preparations. This summer we’ll be gallivanting around Europe (specifically Denmark) which means lots of midnight suns, Carlsberg and design museums. And lots of flights. Which brings us to the age-old flashpoint in our marriage: do we upgrade to Premium Economy? This year, the question is more […]

Looking to Supercharge your Productivity with Notion? Join out next cohort at Notion.Courses If you had to go surfing on a distant island, what surfboards would you bring? There are many variables to navigate: the conditions, wave sizes, your own skill level and even how much effort you’re willing to bring to the table. Many […]

The term Money Illusion evokes those distortive mirrors you find at your hometown fair’s makeshift haunted house. The kind that stretches you out like Yao Ming or makes you rotund like Elmer Fudd. But when it comes to your actual money – the illusion is way less obvious. Money Illusion is a behavioral bias that […]

When you link your accounts to YNAB, what’s actually happening behind the scenes? How is a simple little app coordinating cash flows across credit cards, savings accounts, payroll (and even Venmo). Let’s start with a hypothetical example. You get a stroke of inspiration and decide that it’s time to start Budgeting Like a Boss on […]

Last week, we hung out with our man Sherman paralyzed by his $1.2 million salary and bereft of agency over his own life. He’d played his cards right – attending the right schools, developing unique skills and landing in a lucrative industry. Yet the path to financial independence was sealed off to him. Well that’s […]

“I’m jealous of everyone who had the balls to do something that made them happy” lamented a seasoned portfolio manager at his fifteenth Harvard Business School Reunion. As the protagonist in Charle’s Duhigg’s recent Sunday New York Times ball-breaker America’s Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable, this professional investor worked 12 “insanely stressful” hours per day, […]

“Remember that time is money.” This is the simple advice that Benjamin Franklin offered to a young tradesman in 1748. I knew a Hedge Fund manager who unabashedly heeded this advice on opportunity costs. Fluent in the language of mega-deals (and strapped for time by travel and conference calls) he knew that his time commanded […]

The children’s book The Color Monster features a hot mess of a protagonist. The monster’s emotional wires are criss-crossed, preventing him from seeing or thinking clearly. His internal state of mind is a flummoxed combo of red (anger), green (calm), blue (sadness), yellow (happiness), and grey (fear), obfuscating his daily reality. But as he starts […]

You don’t need to have F.U. money to be financially independent. In fact, you don’t even need to be rich. I’ve developed a framework to achieve financial security and independence, while living a fulfilling life. I’m not feeling FIRE The FIRE (aka Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement is such a tired trope. Yes, in theory […]

Passive income is the Daenerys Targaryen of personal finance. It scorches the earth of our work-centric society giving birth to freedom, pleasure and financial independence. It anchors so many calculations, such as the never-ending quest find your tipping point, or your “Number.” The allure of The Number is that it spits off passive income. Once […]

Don’t miss the follow-up post on the Portfolio Approach to Passive Income. The most satisfying part of Microsoft Excel is the F9 key. It ignites (some might say, “refreshes”) any complex financial model; with a single tap, it can tie together tabs, inputs and conditional IF statements to produce a beautiful number. A single cell […]

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery” wrote the author James Joyce. I recently spoke with a young analyst in Private Equity who wanted to take a pragmatic look into regrets with one qualifier – “not the deathbed kind.” He wondered aloud, what were some common regrets of people ten or twenty years older? And did […]

There’s a new app in town that’s stirring up a lot of buzz. It gives you superhuman powers to tackle one of life’s most soul sucking activities: e-mail. It’s actually called Superhuman and borrows marketing tricks from both Supreme and trendy nightclubs – building up a waiting list of users and using luxury pricing ($30/month, […]

Here’s a sexy audible for your next date night. As the conversation shifts away from the pickup schedule and that Rosé starts talking, slide a few pieces of paper over to your better half. Its contents are more eloquent than a love letter, more sensual than a sonnet, and yes, even more risqué than a […]

A friend once told me they used set recurring daily reminder to read more. “Come on,” I responded, “that would be like putting having sex on your to-do list.” Paying your rent, filling out school applications and scheduling annual physicals are tasks. Making love, exercising, and sleeping more (maybe the three form a compelling bundle?) are […]

Watching a great point guard play basketball is an out-of-body experience. To the untrained eye, they’re just one of five players on the court, tasked with the mundane responsibility of passing and scoring. But when they touch the ball, they become the de facto field general with 360-degree peripheral vision and the ability to anticipate […]

“Do you think your wife would ever leave you?” It was a jarring question, one that shook up routine coaching session. “Absolutely,” I said without any hesitation. I surprised myself with my answer’s assertiveness. It was a bit like jumping off a cliff at an amusement park. You trick your legs into jumping, a split […]

The day my daughter was born was the day I stopped saving for her college education. Yup, you read that right. She wasn’t even a day old and under some conservative assumptions, her 529 College Savings Plan was fully funded. I started investing in this tax-exempt account long before the iPhone came out without […]

Learning new things is one of the joys of life. Whether you’re a parent, professional, or hobbyist (oftentimes, all three) there’s a good chance you’re powered by the ABL mantra: Always be learning. So it’s no surprise to see this reflected in our collective brain: the Google search. Try this little thought exercise. Before scrolling, how do you think […]

My wife Lisa really likes it when I’m hungover. Not the post-Vegas kind, but the one-too-many-bottles-of-wine-with-married-friends kind of hangover. (The latter ensures I’m still coherent enough to not abdicate my parental responsibilities.) When I’m hungover, my mind can ease out of its regular state of restlessness. The urge to listen to podcasts, read my Kindle or work […]

Tis the season. Meet the new Managing Directors. Welcome the new Partners. Shout out to the Forbes 30 under 30 list. And yes you’re overjoyed when this happens to one of your friends. But then for a split second, you somehow find yourself rooting against them. Or creating an excuse in your head such as “They […]

This post originally appeared as an Instagram story. Overpriced avocado toast and retiring by age thirty are two incongruous ideas. Yet, both movements have been birthed by wily Millennials, always looking to disrupt things, like retirement. And while the avocados are a tired trope, not a week goes by without seeing an article on Retiring in Your 30s […]

Four years ago I embarked on an abrupt career transformation. I went from hedge fund researcher to creative solopreneur (with a messy discovery process in the middle). I recently launched a new podcast with Quartz called FWD: Thinking (iTunes, Spotify) and interviewed five bold professionals who have challenged the status quo in the pursuit of meaningful work. […]

My new podcast FWD: Thinking (iTunes, Spotify) is about recreating your career. This season, I’ll interview bold professionals who have challenged the status quo in the pursuit of meaningful work. In each episode, I also reflect upon my own reinvention from Wall Street analyst to creative solopreneur. Here are five steps that anyone can apply to […]

This post first appeared on Instagram over @radreadsco. Ascending the corporate ladder can involve an alphabet soup of options. There’s T vs. I-shaped professionals, a concept pioneered by design guru and IDEO CEO Tim Brown. For the wonkier free-agent types, there’s the semicolon-shaped person coined by blogger Venkatesh Rao. These frameworks all seek to reconcile the perceived trade-off between […]

Investing in a stock involves taking disparate bits of information and unifying them into a thesis. There’s an approach called Mosaic Theory, in which an investment analyst acts like a detective or investigative journalist; pulling on threads to see if something juicy will materialize. The process requires rigor, creativity, and inter-disciplinary breadth. And the humility […]

OK guys, I did it. After growing a beard and exclusively rocking Air Maxes for three straight years – I smashed the last relic of my corporate existence. The alarm clock. And by flipping that pesky Radar the bird; I’ve come one step closer to the promised land. Freedom. The non-event Ah, but if only it were so […]

View this post on Instagram @radreadsco I’m often asked to distill my post-Wall Street career transformation into some simple advice. And when I think about my business today – the speaking engagements, consulting, coaching, and press there’s one thing that sticks out: a consistent writing practice. People assume that I’ve always been a writer. But […]

This is part 2 of the Rent vs. own series and check out RadReader comments. The 90s electronic act called KLF (of 3 AM fame) once pulled a publicity stunt that went awry. Having only tasted modest success, they burned a million British pounds declaring that “struggling artists are meant to struggle.” Wait, what? Clearly […]

Warren Buffet knows how much money his kids should inherit: “Enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” That amount, $2 Bn – each!  While the number is incomprehensible, it’s great that he has a framework. Yet most entrepreneurs, lawyers, bankers and other […]

Are you willing to lose 100% of your investment? That’s the starting point for any angel investment. As it should be. With no product, customers, and team – angel investing is a risky proposition. (If you’re not convinced, even VC professionals have a 90% failure rate.) Yet people do it. I’ve done it. And have my […]

Summer SZN is here and I’ve slowed down the pace of the blog and newsletter. Despite an attempt to take last week “off,” I got an email from my website host saying that my blogging software needed an upgrade. I went and did it. Then, I learned that because of this update, certain plugins no […]

Episode 17: Tiago Forte and Khe Hy ▶ Play Episode ▶ Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | TuneIn| RSS Tiago Forte is the founder of Forte Labs and has been called the “next David Allen.” Today’s productivity writing is mostly focused on “squeezing water out of a stone” but this approach overlooks the core human behaviors and tendencies. In these two episodes, we start with […]

Our first guest Tiago Forte returns to close out the first season of Rad Awakenings. Tiago’s the founder of Forte Labs, an education company focused on productivity and learning. He believes that technology has fundamentally changed the way we work – as entrepreneurs or as knowledge workers. With new multi-billion dollar industries being created each […]

Last week one of my heroes fell. Thankfully it was a fluffy one, so there was a soft landing. It’s hard to deny the benefits of delayed gratification. And Walter Mischel’s famous marshmallow experiment from the ’90s made a resounding case that if there was one superpower to cultivate, this was the one. You WILL […]

Last week one of my heroes fell. Thankfully it was a fluffy one, so there was a soft landing. It’s hard to deny the benefits of delayed gratification. And Walter Mischel’s famous marshmallow experiment from the ’90s made a resounding case that if there was one superpower to cultivate, this was the one. You WILL […]

This is the third installment on lifestyle creep: What is lifestyle creep (Part 1) and a behavioral hack to avoid it (Part 2). Hi I’m Khe. I’m 38 years old, worked in finance for nearly two decades and never made a budget. Not once! And TBH I think it may be too late. I’m lucky to […]

Don’t miss Part II of this series: How to pick your newsletter tech stack It’s really hard to repeat any activity for 25 consecutive weeks. No, I don’t mean watching Game of Thrones re-runs or smoking a joint – I’m referring to an activity with just a pinch of struggle. Like going for a long […]

This is the second part of our Lifestyle Creep Series: What is lifestyle creep (Part 1) and A spreadsheet to detect it (Part 3) Raises are good things, right? But with a raise, comes the tendency to increase spending. And you should, as you worked hard to earn that raise. Enter lifestyle creep: Boosting spending […]

This is the first part of our Lifestyle Creep Series: Using ‘nudge theory’ to slow down lifestyle creep (Part 1) and A spreadsheet to detect it (Part 3) Ever wondered how Billions’ Bobby Axelrod makes casual chic look so effortless? Well it turns out that for starters, his hoodie is no ordinary hoodie. It’s a Loro Piana cashmere […]

Every year, I re-read this wonderful poem by Robert Hastings – a reminder that the joy of life is the journey and not the destination. Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We’re traveling by passenger train, and out […]

I never considered myself a spiritual or religious person. In fact, as a left-brain engineer, much of my worldview has been through the lens of data, logic, and empiricism. It took leaving the corporate life to really appreciate that there was something deeper missing an openness to the unexplainable. I’ve drifted into eastern philosophy and […]

We’ve all faced situations in our lives where everything seems to be moving against us and the only way out appears to be a long slog forward. It could be a setback at your company, a lingering physical ailment or a bad set of co-workers. How do you move forward and develop mental resilience when […]

As a self-described perfectionist, I’m always on the lookout for good examples of the Pareto principle, (aka the 80/20 rule). The principle states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. You can see this in sales (80% of revenue from 20% of clients) and sports (20% of the exercises/habits […]

Every morning I flag 10 items on my Omnifocus to-do list app for attempted completion. I always, always end up knocking off 3 items, at best. I end the day demoralized, often with a little bit of self-loathing. Maybe it’s just an instance of reality overpowering expectations. Our top 17 productivity apps I recently interviewed Yale […]

There seems to be a running joke about me that I’m not privy to. I was asked to speak at a conference about “retiring in your 30s “(and when I left BlackRock, eFinancialNews wrote this about me). Yes, like a retiree, I’ve had to tap into my savings. Yes, I’ve blurred the lines around “work,” […]

There’s an ancient samurai tradition that is meant to develop resilience, improve mental fortitude, and enhance your killer instinct. It’s called the misogi. By deliberately leaving your comfort zone, you can stretch limits of possibility and ultimately re-wire the pathways in your brain. I heard about this banal idea through an unlikely source – the mop-haired and […]

Are you thinking of becoming an entrepreneur? How should you think about health insurance? Building a budget? And when will you know that you’ve incubated ideas long enough to reach a “tipping point” to give you the confidence to leave? you may also enjoy   You’re thinking of financial security the wrong way Side hustlers, […]

I was bored the other day and played with a rap name generator. You answer a few questions and then it spits out a bunch of rap personas. Khedona, a likely tribute to the Wu Tang Clan. Urkel Urkel, as the geek chic has also found a home in hip hop. And my favorite, Big Corky, after my […]

Networking doesn’t have to be icky, transactional, and zero-sum. We discuss network structures, a philosophy centered around generosity and curiosity, and how to create systems to grow relationships. Don’t miss our other webinars on How to Use Omnifocus and How to Start Blogging. [su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/UHsbOz3-Ibg”] Networking with kindness and generosity from Khe Hy Additional Links […]

In 2007, as a newly minted Vice President at Blackrock I bought a “junior 1 BR” (aka studio) in the East Village. A friend, in a similar situation bought his first place too in Williamsburg. It was a dizzying time in New York. The finance and hedge fund industries were booming and few knew about […]

I’m really excited about a new investment opportunity. I want to build a portfolio of poorhouses, flop houses, and cardboard boxes. Why? It seems to be where many successful professionals think they’ll ultimately end up living. And plus, in the investing spirit of Peter Lynch, I’d be “buying something I understand.” Just this week, three signs confirming this […]

My wife Lisa is out of town this weekend, leaving me with both kids for four nights. I consulted the dad playbook which reads: “To avoid a crisis, fly your mom out ASAP.” Now I pride myself on being an involved dad, whose ninja moves include defusing a public meltdown and administering a bottle while feeding myself with my […]

Eugene Wei’s career cannot be described succinctly or linearly. He worked as an analyst at Amazon in the late 90s, went to film school, worked as a product manager at startups including Hulu and Flipboard and most recently was head of video for Facebook’s Oculus VR. Eugene always “seeks to be a novice” and eschews […]

I had the pleasure of interviewing Eugene Wei on the Rad Awakenings Podcast. We discussed how he learns, organizes his readings and synthesizes knowledge across disciplines. Don’t miss what he learned from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. 1. Read multiple books in parallel The way I read now is only possible because of the Kindle. I tend […]

I had the pleasure of interviewing Eugene Wei on the Rad Awakenings Podcast. Eugene worked at Amazon from 1997 to 2004 as a strategy analyst and shares these juicy gems about observing Jeff Bezos’ as both master communicator and visionary. Don’t miss Eugene’s excellent post Compress to Impress and how he reads. Jeff Bezos the […]

Management gurus love the phrase “feedback is a gift.” After all, when we take critical feedback from others we improve, develop new skills, and learn about our blindspots. But something about that aphorism rings hollow. We know about this gift, yet approach feedback conversations with anxiety. Once we’re having the conversation, our palms get sweaty and our heart rate […]

The #radfam hosted our inaugural webinar series on February 9, 2018. The topic was streamlining productivity and workflow using the app Omnifocus. The best way to sum up my experience with the app: “It’s like cheating.” Our top 17 productivity apps Here is the video from the webinar: And the slide deck: Elevate Your Workflow […]

A group of us at work got together and started a Slack channel called #death. For the uninitiated (to Slack, that is) you can think about it as a running AOL Instant Messenger chat where likeminded aficionados meet to noodle on this topic. A quick glance in the channel shows topics such as “What happens […]

Here’s a thought experiment. An unfortunate accident leaves you with a scar on your face. You now must move through the world with a striking blemish that others don’t understand. As you start interacting with other people, you notice awkward body language, averted eyes, or abbreviated small talk. And from those interactions, your confidence and self-worth start to suffer. […]

As a kid, did you ever dream of being a certain age? When I was really little, I wanted to be “big” so that I could go to work like my dad. Mostly because I loved the french fries in the cafeteria. As teenagers, my suburban friends would dream about the freedom that came at […]

I’m so fucking tired. Our six month old started teething this week, which means we’re back on the newborn sleeping schedule. Lisa and I alternate “night duty” which involves rocking a frustrated baby back to sleep between the hours of 2 and 4 am. And my 38 year old body does not recover like it […]

Habits are the shit. Habit formation is the silver bullet to hacking and honoring your New Year’s resolutions. The productivity porn stories will tell you to wake up earlier (but isn’t that just doing more work?) or to develop incredible stores of willpower or to delete social media apps. These are just band-aids. Habit formation […]

TIL that a “cuddle puddle” is a sex and drug infused bacchanal for Silicon Valley’s elite. Personally, I don’t care what folks do in the privacy of their own mansions, but one paragraph from Emily Chang’s forthcoming book Brotopia stood out: But many of the A-listers in Silicon Valley have something unique in common: a lonely […]

There’s a gaping hole in the protection of your digital accounts. And it exists even if you’ve taken the basic steps of a password manager and enabled two-factor authentication. Nope, it’s not even your bank login. It’s your cell phone carrier. This is due to number porting, that cool feature that allows you to seamlessly switch carriers. […]

Writing is like compound interest. Einstein once called compound the Eight Wonder of the World. Ergo, writing is the Eighth Wonder of the World. I often get asked the question “I want to start writing, but don’t know where to begin?” I can totally relate — I avoided writing (and all the humanities) until my mid-30s. When I first began writing, […]

Andrew Taggart is a practical philosopher who works with executives and entrepreneurs. He challenges them to investigate life’s basic assumptions, even if it’s uncomfortable. We discuss high performers’ antagonistic relationship with time and their desire to turn life into a series of problems which can be resolved — and how this can mask our disorienting relationship with mortality. Instead of avoiding these question, we consider how “an examined life is a life lived more fully.”

“Nah, I’m going to wait a year.” Every winter, my hedge fund manager friend stares at a new set of golf clubs, almost buys them, and then punts until the following year. Why? His three kids are self-sufficient adults, his fund’s doing well, and he’s not a big spender. But he’s got a nagging fear. A fear that […]

Today’s guest Mark Pollard is a straight up OG. Whether it’s creating Australia’s first Hip Hop zine to designing web sites during the early days of Web 1.0, Mark’s done it. He’s the founder of Mighty Jungle, where he helps founders make their brands make sense — through brand strategy and mental workouts. Mark really sees the world thru a unique lens: he’s fiercely analytical and left-brained, but also a “rebelliously creative” right brain and he’s got a strong sense of self and understanding of our own biases.

I Promise this isn’t a Humblebrag I’m really bad at being Useless. That’s probably a good thing, but not always. This tendency definitely helped me become a Managing Director. I always have something at my fingertips that is useful. I have Kindle book and podcast episode for every possible mood I could ever be in. […]

Proceed with Caution or Emulate What Worked? Note: This first appeared as a post-script to the RadReads e-mail newsletter (Subscribe) I wanted to explore a question that gets asked frequently, particularly from our younger readers. It goes: I’m [22] years old early and early in my career. Once I achieve the career recognition and success that […]

And where Deep Work fits into this framework I woke up last Saturday to an e-mail newsletter, challenging not one, but two of my deeply-held beliefs. The subject was “Semi-Colon Shaped People” and the sender was Venkatesh Rao, one of my favorite contemporary thinkers. Rao was challenging my beliefs of the virtues of T-Shaped Individuals […]

Fred is an “OG” in the crypto world. But we barely talk crypto — instead, we talk about his journey. Fred joined Goldman as an FX Trader because it was “the cool kids” job, only to find an industry suffering from the classic Innovator’s Dilemma — one focused on extracting rents, instead of innovation. Fred’s such a crisp and honest thinker and we […]

Why Leaving with No Plan, is the Best Plan Play: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Email Newsletter Fred Ehrsam Fred is an “OG” in the crypto world. But we barely talk crypto — instead, we talk about his journey. Fred joined Goldman as an FX Trader because it was “the cool kids” job, only to find […]

A Question, from a thoughtful Rad Reader I love answering questions from the community and this particular exchange was better suited as a blog post. It refers to my article on Quartz, “The Number.” TL;DR The question goes as follows: You talk about mindfulness, not seeking material things, and pursuing your passion — but only after having made […]

The Surprising Obstacle Holding Talented Folks Back from Entrepreneurship photo courtesy of screenrant.com When I left finance over a year ago, I conducted a “farewell tour” of sorts with colleagues, friends, acquaintances, clients, and other professionals I had met over the decade and a half. When they learned that I was going to try my […]

I’ve spent the last 15 months on a deep journey of introspection — learning and questioning many of life’s most basic assumptions. This was in part motivated by the desire to find fulfillment, and in part, to find equanimity. Coming off of a 14 year career in Corporate America, I realized that while I was extremely deliberate in my professional life […]

This isn’t a clickbait headline. It’s a true story and that I can relate to (I used to want to sell a company for $50 mm). This proclamation came while speaking to a friend, who I’ll describe briefly below (and slightly modify details to preserve his identity).The friend is in his early 30s, works in […]

Mapping my own fears to this framework Credit: Psychology Today Over the past year, I’ve spent more time thinking about fear than I did in the first 35 years of my life. In hindsight, many of my decisions and habits (which ultimately brought me a lot “success,” by traditional benchmarks) were fear-based — completely unbeknownst to me. […]

The “Spoiler of the Present” I want to play through a few situations, many of which will be eerily familiar to you: Making a sales pitch to a big client Giving a Best Man (or Maid of Honor) speech at a wedding Forgetting your unlimited Metrocard at home Losing your luggage upon arrival at a big […]

And actionable steps to becoming a ninja in the process The 3-S Playbook I worked in finance for fifteen years investing in Hedge Funds at Blackrock. I recently left to pursue a more entrepreneurial path (notably RadReads) but over the years reflected on the playbook that I had used to guide me throughout my career. I distilled […]

Does a focusing on the headline number come with onerous terms? Dirty Unicorn Last week, famed Venture Capitalist Bill Gurley wrote a heavily circulated piece called “On the Road to Recap: Why The Unicorn Financing Market Just Became Dangerous for All of Us.” The gist of the story was that certain founders (and their VCs) were […]

Not as morbid as it seems — the answer informs how you think about your time Photo courtesy of Gratisography The first ~25 years of my life were very focused on “skill development.” Coming from an immigrant family, everything was goal (and skill oriented) — doing vs being. I studied Computer Science and Economics at Yale, two very functional disciplines. […]

Identity is complicated, here’s my story. I was born in New York and am a dual American-French citizen. My parents are Cambodian and French and came to the US in 1973 with a small amount of money, no friends and family, and barely speaking English. When I applied for college, I was forced to define […]

I’ve interviewed a lot of folks in the past 15 years and I have to confess. I always look at the very bottom, usually under “Personal Interests” or “Hobbies” for a very peculiar item — skateboarding. Yes, I skated as a teenager for 6–7 years and, yes, I’m a fan of skateboard culture (even as a 35 […]

Why? If you ask ten people how they manage their contacts and stay connected to their personal networks you will get ten different responses. These vary from using Outlook contacts to some elaborate Evernote scheme combining tags, notebooks, reminders, and search. It is a guiding philosophy of mine to stay connected with my network of […]