Our vision is that every single person in the world has the opportunity to create a Second Brain – a personal system of knowledge management – of their own. Everyone should have the chance to gather information and ideas, turn them into valuable knowledge, and use that knowledge to improve their own lives and the…
2021 was the hardest year of my life. It all started, as so many things these days do, in 2020. Our entire lives changed within the span of a few months that year, from moving back to the U.S. from Mexico City in March, to buying and moving into our first home in May, to…
One of the most useful exercises I perform each year is a “mid-year” review in June or July. It’s great to set ambitious goals at the start of the year, but that plan often doesn’t survive contact with the real world for more than a few weeks. We’re like newborn babies flush with excitement for…
In the summer of 1964, a young engineer at NASA named Gary Flandro was assigned a seemingly mundane task: to study ways of exploring the outer gas giants of our solar system. These planets didn’t get as much attention as our near neighbors, and remained largely unknown. As he researched the possibilities, Flandro made a…
On January 9th, 2021 we’ll kick off our third annual workshop The Annual Review, which we’ve just opened for purchase. It is a virtual workshop taking place over two days, Jan. 9 and 10, where David Perell and I will lead you through the process we’ve developed over more than 10 years of combined experience. Doing a…
As I start writing this year-end review, the latest in a long line of year-end rituals, I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Even more than usual. In 2020 so many people around the world got sick, lost their jobs or businesses, or their lives. I want to start this ritual grounded in that…
Here are my goals for 2020. I’m publishing them for public accountability, and just in case anyone out there has a goal that is aligned with one of mine. 1. Write and publish Building a Second Brain book by June 1, 2020, with 100,000 copies sold by end of 2020 This is the big priority…
Check out my super in-depth, 2-hour conversation with my co-instructor David Perell below. We talk about what we think the future of online education will look like, how creativity and productivity are evolving in the modern world, and what we’ve learned from teaching over 1,000 students through our online courses, Building a Second Brain and…
On a recent Sunday afternoon, while reading on the couch, I was startled to realize that I had a life philosophy. It’s not a very deep or sophisticated one. It’s not rooted in a grand narrative. It doesn’t specify precisely which rules to follow or which decisions to make. But it has served me well….
In The Four Pathways of Modern Book Publishing, I described the main routes for a writer to get published today, and in The Case for Traditional Book Publishing I explained why I believe that for online entrepreneurs like me, traditional publishing makes the most sense. With that foundation, here are the steps I’m planning on…
At the end of every year I perform an “annual review.” It includes a series of exercises and questions designed to close out the previous year and help me plan for the new one. I decided to do it differently this year. Under the guidance of my friend Ting, I took on a process of…
I’m very proud to announce the first ever New Year’s Bundle for Building a Second Brain! It has been a VERY eventful two years since I first launched this course (known as BASB for short), including: Over 600 students from all over the world learning how to build their own second brain 13 podcast interviews I’ve…