I'm Ryan Waggoner. I build things. I blog about how to work harder and smarter to build the life you want. You should subscribe.

Get your advice from the second-best, not the best

02.06.12 Posted in Achievement, Goals, Habits, Posts by

Image by Philo Nordlund There are some side effects of always blogging about your life and your efforts to improve it. Some good, some bad. For instance, I feel like I’m becoming that guy who is always trying some weird lifehack. I’m not quite to Tim Ferris status yet in terms of bizarre behavior for [...]


How a Barista and Losing a Quarter of a Million Bucks Taught Me to Ask for What I Want

01.23.12 Posted in Achievement, Finances, Goals, Personal, Posts by

Most people do not know what they want. The other day at Starbucks, I watched the person in front of me get smoothly upsold from a cup of coffee to a $20 tea sampler set. I’m not saying that the guy was pressured into buying it; he wasn’t. I’m not saying that he got ripped [...]


A sunken ship and the absurdity of “goals vs. habits”

01.20.12 Posted in Achievement, Goals, Habits, Posts by

CC Image via Wikimedia Commons There’s a recent guest post on Zen Habits about how you shouldn’t set goals. The headline was intriguing enough to pull me in, and then I was dismayed to find that the author had setup the story as a conflict between goals and habits. And concluded that since people fail [...]


Ken Rudin and the Beauty of Mastery

08.24.11 Posted in Achievement, Inspiration, Misc, Politics, Posts by

This is kind of a weird post, but I’ve been really impressed by this guy recently, so I thought I’d share. I listen to a bunch of different podcasts, including a few from NPR. Ken Rudin is a political editor who appears on “It’s All Politics” and on a weekly political segment on “Talk of [...]


Practice does not make perfect

08.08.11 Posted in Achievement, Education, Goals, Habits, Posts by

Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Are you practicing the way you want to perform? Knowing how to learn is one of the most valuable skills you can have, and I think it’s one that most people are worst at. A big part of learning is practice, and how you practice makes a [...]


Ideas are like trophy wives

07.28.11 Posted in Achievement, Blogging, Posts by

Ideas are like trophy wives: best enjoyed when young and fresh. For the last year, I’ve had about 25% of my total office whiteboard area covered in scribbled blog post ideas. I’m trying to clean it up now, so yesterday I went through and put them all in a file with a short explanation of [...]


A little sleep, a little slumber

07.27.11 Posted in Achievement, Goals, Inspiration, Posts, Time management by

I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep, a [...]


Fly a good approach

07.25.11 Posted in Achievement, Aviation, Goals, Posts by

I had a great morning today; got up early, got in an early run, had a good breakfast, showered, and got to Starbucks right when they opened. Then I had a few hours of really productive work. All in all, a fantastic start to the week. And it was really pretty easy, but not because [...]


Want to be successful? Don’t marry a loser.

06.23.11 Posted in Achievement, Finances, Goals, Inspiration, Personal, Posts by

It’s amazing how smart, ambitious, driven people let intelligence and wisdom go right out the window when it comes to the choice of who they’ll spend their life with. I know what some of you are thinking: “But you can’t apply the rules of logic to matters of the heart!” That’s pure crap. The laws [...]


Change is held back, then driven by emotion

06.21.11 Posted in Achievement, Goals, Inspiration, Posts by

We know what we should do, but we hesitate. We are lazy, uncertain, but most of all, afraid. Until we experience a catalyst, an epiphany, an urgent and raw desire for things to be different, we will not put in the hard work required to change. But once we have that experience, once we carry [...]


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