Look at this guy.

He just climbed to the top of this peak only to look beyond and see a taller one in the distance.

Besides the fact that this pic is totally staged and the dude isn’t dressed for the climb ahead, I’m guessing he’s thinking one of two things:

1. He’s monumentally frustrated and currently shouting F-bombs at the summit ahead, or…
2. He’s proud of his mini-achievement and pausing to take in the view before continuing the climb.

Having just turned 40 myself, I can attest to having both of these thoughts. Now that I’m officially over the hill…

I spent the last day in agony.

Sitting down hurt. Getting up hurt. Every time I tried to lower myself onto the toilet, I’d come crashing down on the plastic seat like a seal belly-flopping on concrete. It’s a wonder the damn thing hasn’t snapped in half under my ass and scattered shattered chunks of porcelain over the bathroom floor.

I knew exactly why.

Just a day earlier, my fitness coach was whispering sweet corrections in my ear while watching me perform back squats through Facetime.

“Squeeze your back. Slow down. Slower! Push your big toes into the ground.”

He…

It happens every year.

All your planning. All your scheduling. All your goals go to shit.

Am I right?

At the beginning of the year, you hit the racetrack with a brand-spanking-new resolution in hand. You have your direction and goals set. You may even break your goals down and prioritize your days to meet them.

But something happens after a bit.

You get tired of the hustle. Work becomes a grind. You lose sight of your goals, stopping all the planning and scheduling that have kept you on track since January.

It happens to me. Every. Fucking. Year.

It…

Why are we fighting?

Why have we dug ourselves in on one side to scream profanities and claim the moral high-ground against the other?

I get it. The other side has faults. They are morally corrupt. They are asleep at the wheel.

But if we thought they were “gone,” would there be any point in arguing with them? If we thought they were irredeemable, would it be worth getting frustrated over their ignorance?

Of course not.

If they were so far gone there was no hope, we’d just ignore them. But we don’t. …

Fact — I hate life hacks.

Case in point, I published an Amazon bestselling book on what true productivity is, and it includes essentially zero life-hacks.

But there are specific things you can do to assist your productivity. Whereas the “system of productivity” covered in my book is a strategy for consistently crushing your goals, consider these 10 tips tactics for tuning your productivity engine.

If you don’t have a productivity system yet, go read this article first. When you’re done, come back here for a 10 synthetic productivity oil tips, starting with our first:

1. Stop treating caffeine like it’ll wake you up (that’s not how it works)

We believe caffeine wakes us…

One moment, you’re working on a project. The next, a phone call comes in.

You get distracted and read an email. Then, forgetting what you were initially working on, you start a completely different task.

Someone stops by your office to chat until you end up at lunch — a lunch you’re likely working through.

Your afternoon is riddled with meetings, which are interwoven with more interruptions.

Every time you sit down to work on something of value, an urgent email comes in, the phone rings, a meeting reminder chimes, or there’s a knock on your door. …

I’m looking for an answer. For all of us.

I’m looking for a platform that embraces the next version of the web for us creators.

Not Web 1.0, where we just put up websites and started blogging. Not Web 2.0, where we used apps to distribute our content and drive engagement. I want Web 3.0: the next version of the web that’s decentralized, allows me to distribute my writing to my followers, then allows them to interact and engage with it (and me) directly.

Facebook feels outdated. It’s post and pray. …

Greek God though he was, the all-powerful Zeus couldn’t seem to make women fall in love with him. At least, he couldn’t make one.

As the myth is told, Europa was a beautiful Phoenician princess living near the Mediterranean coast. She would spend her days in the fields, wandering amongst her fathers' cattle, picking flowers on jaunts with friends. Zeus, upon seeing Europa, was so taken with her beauty that he devises a plan to seduce and steal her away to the island of Crete.

Now, why the King of Olympia and God of Thunderstorms, Lightning Bolts, Wind, and the…