Whenever something isn’t working, you have no incentive to protect it. Our inclination is to yield to the sunk cost fallacy and think that anything we’ve put effort into is worth shielding, but that just prevents us from getting to the root of the problem. No matter how much you’ve worked on something, if it isn’t functioning as intended then it’s worthless – so you might as well flip it on its head. Break it; shuffle it up and put it back together. You have nothing to lose, no matter how much your brain stings at the idea. But you might gain something. You might actually fix it, or you might realize how to build it better. Or you might just break the hold it has on you, which is worth everything.

I generally think of myself as smart. But I’m careful not to count on it.

I was shopping with my oldest daughter recently and we were browsing a camping supply store. While she was looking at stuff she wanted, I found a merino wool shirt I wanted. The hanger was threaded through with some sort of “security wire” that kept it from being removed from the rack.

I scowled. What a dumb thing, I thought. Are we really so worried about theft that I have to be inconvenienced in this way? That I, in turn, have to inconvenience an employee to come over here and what, unlock a shirt for me? Ugh. So I looked around, made eye contact with an employee across the store, and called him over.

He was cheerful enough, and his smile didn’t falter when I explained what I wanted. He then took the shirt off the hanger and handed it to me.

The hanger was threaded with security wire. The shirt was just… hanging on the hanger.

We both laughed about it (the guy had a good sense of humor), but it was also a really good reminder about how “smart” works. You’re smart when you’re in your “zone of genius.” That means both A.) talking about your area of expertise, and B.) having your ‘thinking cap’ on, i.e. not stressed, not distracted, not hungry, not tired, and consciously deciding to bring your higher intelligence to bear rather than going through whatever you’re doing on auto-pilot because it isn’t that important.

When you’re not in your Zone of Genius, you’re not a genius, no matter how smart you might be while you’re in it. So be careful counting too much on your own intelligence, and give other people grace when they make mistakes. They’re probably just well outside their particular zone, but they’ll be back at some point. So will you.

The more convenient something is, the less resilient it is to any sort of damage or change.

If something – an object, a process, whatever – is very easy to use, even streamlined, then chances are good that when it breaks, it really breaks. Yeah, that iPhone is real sleek. But you can’t fix it if it breaks.

Things that are clunky and inconvenient are also often resilient. A key component of making something convenient is hiding all the moving parts, so you can’t get at the things that need to be tweaked when the whole process goes belly up.

So be careful; a little inconvenience is good for you.

Whenever you present a persuasive argument, it’s generally aimed at a particular group. A common mistake I see when people make such arguments is either assuming that everyone in that group is your enemy or that everyone in that group is your ally.

Every group will contain a mix of both. Your goal in any persuasive argument is to turn your enemies into your allies without turning your allies into your enemies.

Let’s say Sam is trying to get the employees of a particular company to unionize. Sam addresses the whole of the worker population, so that’s the group he wants to persuade. It’s an easy mistake to assume that every worker wants to unionize and only needs a coordinator; if Sam makes that mistake, Sam fails to address the enemies in the group. As a result, the group doesn’t get persuaded.

Meanwhile, Sam is giving speeches to management in that same company trying to bully them into accepting a union. Sam addresses that group as if they’re all enemies, and alienates the potential allies in the group as a result. There may have been managers that were sympathetic or even supportive of a unionization cause, but when they’re treated as adversaries and insulted right from the start, you push them further away.

When you address a group that you’re hoping is allied to your cause and you want to spur them to action, you have to acknowledge the people in that group that aren’t allied to your cause at all. And you have to do so kindly, without bullying – or you’ll never incite the entire group to move the way you want them to.

When you address a group that you’re assuming is opposed to you, you have to seek the allies within that group first. That will show the others that you aren’t an enemy – that you want to reach common ground, which is far more likely to entice others to move in your direction.

Every group is mixed. Be aware, and don’t waste your efforts!

Imagine your goal wasn’t to get something to work, but to break it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The assignment looks like this: You have to deliver some final process or product, but it won’t pass quality control unless it breaks ten times first, in ten different ways, with proof that you’ve fixed each of those flaws.

Changes how you think about things, right? If you want a car to pass this process, the first thing you have to do is get a (barely) working model and crash it. Then you have to examine that crash and find which things did the worst during the collision – preferably with some prior hypothesis about which parts would suffer the most.

When you’re first starting out on any new project, think this way. Don’t try to go from idea to final product quickly, and don’t expect to get there efficiently. Instead, look to break something quickly. Find the flaws intentionally. Most importantly, don’t take flaws in the initial versions to be indictments of your ability. Your goal is to find flaws, which means they aren’t failures.

Your projects – and your spirit – will be stronger.

I believe the core of all self-improvement is this: help other people.

If you want to be happier, make other people happy. If you want to be wealthier, help other people succeed. If you want to be esteemed, help other people live better lives. If you want to be healthier, work with others on healthy goals.

Methods may change, but that’s all I’ve figured out so far in four decades on this planet.

When you watch a NASCAR or Formula 1 race, you immediately notice that the secret to success isn’t just going as fast as you can all the time. If that light turns green and you put your pedal to the floor and never let up, not only will you not win, but you’ll very likely crash.

You need pit stops. You need to slow down in the curves (but not stop), and you need to go as fast as you can go during the straightaways. You need to adapt to small problems and variations.

All of this isn’t “time management.” It’s energy management.

Our focus as professionals on “time management” feels like an attempt to squeeze as much work out of us as possible, but it ignores the nature of the machines that we are. We overheat and need refueling as much as any car. We need to slow down in curves, and we need to let ourselves fly when the way is clear.

Part of the challenge is identifying what “curves” are for you in this context. I’ll give you a personal example: for the past week I’ve been working in a way that’s not common for me. I’ve been in a room full of brilliant professionals all day, every day for a week – actively collaborating, discussing things, even eating together. It was very productive, but it was also absolutely a “curve” for me – a big energy drain. I simply could not do that every day full-time. The strain would be too great. But in short bursts, it’s a great way to gain some ground if navigated well.

If I went into that curve without realizing that’s what it was, I would likely have pushed myself way too hard and hit the outer wall. I don’t want to crash! So I made sure to focus on techniques to keep my energy levels reserved. I curbed my inclination to volunteer for too many things, I listened and took notes more frequently than I spoke (that’s generally an energy-generating activity for me), and I communicated my intentions early. In short, I slowed down for the curve.

“Time Management” is about not wasting time, doing the most you can do, and being efficient. But you can’t be efficient all the time. Being efficient takes mental and emotional (and even physical) energy that isn’t infinite. Sometimes you need to be a little less efficient in order to maintain a healthy energy flow in your life. You need pit stops when you run out of gas or need a tune-up, not according to a rigid schedule set by someone else. You need to let your energy go somewhere when you have a lot of it, and you need to slow down when you don’t. You need to recognize the shape of the track.

What was the last curve you faced? How would you go through it differently if you thought about this first?

What’s the next one?

Humans love to find “meaning” in just about everything. Every light was green this morning but Starbucks got your name wrong? Then the universe is pointing you toward the person with the name on your cup, obviously. Got fired from your job for gross incompetence? That’s just the universe telling you that you’re needed somewhere else. A cat came up to you on the street? Clearly it’s your reincarnated grandmother telling you that you should definitely go on that vacation you wanted to go on.

Look, most stuff just happens. But humans are non-stop meaning machines, trying to turn every event into something profound. It’s our greatest curse… but it can be our greatest blessing.

First, repeat after me: no external source imbued any of the events of your life with profound meaning. Everything that happens to you just happens, either because of a really obvious root cause or Random Bullshit ™. So don’t look for meaning.

Create it.

The events in your life don’t innately have meaning. But it doesn’t follow that they have to be meaningless. Use that incredible power humans have to find meaning in things all you want, as long as you hold the grounding fact in your mind that you are doing this for yourself. You are choosing to learn lessons and make decisions because of what you experience. You have agency, and you’re reading the vast weave of information around you to learn what to do with it.

You can choose meaningful actions based on what you learn. You can live a meaningful life. But those things don’t happen to you – they’re caused by you.

Know what I mean?

Every idea you will not consider reduces the total possibility space of your life. When you eliminate areas of thought and inquisition, you build cages around yourself. You slice off whole continents – whole planets – that you might otherwise explore.

Everything you will ever accomplish or experience will come from the combination of other things; your life is a constant cauldron of mad and unpredictable alchemy. Your best bet for an exciting and wondrous life is to throw as much stuff in there as you can.

There is an ocean of conceptual space between considering an idea and embracing one. You do not need to take any particular idea and build a fortress of principle upon it. But even terrible ideas can lead to brilliant ones – the foolish is often the bridge to genius. What might you miss if you blow up that bridge before you cross it?

Keep your heart solid and your mind open, not the other way around.

I teach leadership skills and other “soft skills” like that. Often, they’re not so soft – I teach frameworks, step-by-step guides, and methods like negotiating, building organizational culture, and de-escalating conflicts. And I notice an odd pattern. Often people will go to great personal expense to invest in themselves to learn these skills, only to pretend that they didn’t.

Look, you don’t have to memorize this stuff. When you learn a new skill, you can take notes. You can make little infographics or pictures or mnemonic devices or whatever. And then you can look at them later! You don’t have to pretend like you aren’t using a skill you’ve learned but rather are simply relying on ancient, innate wisdom you’ve inherited from your ancestors and have always possessed.

People sometimes don’t like to admit they’ve learned something recently (especially as they get older or more progressed in their career), because that’s like admitting they didn’t know something not too long ago. Actually, it’s exactly admitting that, but we don’t like to do it. And to keep that charade alive, they’ll bumble their way through the application of a new technique when they could have just pulled out a notebook.

If you’re trying to assist an employee in a task and you say, “Oh! I recently learned a new method to help in exactly this situation. Let me grab my notes so I get it right, because I think this could really help me help you,” you’re not going to lose that employee’s respect, trust me. But doing a half-ass job with some buzzwords because you wanted to pretend you were incredible without trying will.

You don’t have to keep your skills – and where you got them – a secret. Learn out loud, it’s more fun.