One thing I've been striving to do - often unsuccessfully - is remove moral judgments from my observation of situations.

Most people don't distinguish between observing and judging.

They say, "It's bad that it's raining outside." Well. Maybe, yeah. But there's two things going on there - first, it's raining. That's either true or false. Then there's that "bad" - which is an opinion, a moral judgment on the situation.

I think most people aren't aware of when they're making moral judgments and when they're making observations. That's not good for being able to think clearly.

Analysis and observation needs to be separated from moral evaluation to do it straightforwardly, or else you get blind to effects you don't expect and don't want to see.

"Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair." - Tokugawa Ieyasu, Unifier of Japan, Founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate

I've studied the Sengoku Era of Japanese history a lot. There are so many lessons in it - about courage, about restraint, about going too far, about not going far enough... about honor, about idealism, about pragmatism... about trust and distrust, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal...

It's rare that an era of history has so many unique and varied lessons to teach. The only thing that comes close, in my mind, is the Italian Renaissance. Certainly, there's been eras with a great many lessons to learn from them, but not so many with such a wildly diverse range of views. Sengoku was the crossroads that created Japan. The victors of the era were those who could appeal to tradition while using the most modern advantages - tapping into the samurai culture and spirit, while simultaneously beginning to employ firearms and other newly emergent technologies in war.

Out of Sengoku came Japan's "Three Great Unifiers" - Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. It's a long story and you can read the history article I wrote on Sengoku that I linked if you're curious to see the whole thing.

But the basic idea is, Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were both probably more remarkable and more brilliant men than Ieyasu. But in the end, Ieyasu won and his family and administration ruled Japan for the next 250 years.

Let's draw a distinction between being decisive and being impulsive.

Decisive: As soon as enough relevant information is gathered and analyzed, a decision is made promptly and consistent action immediately follows the decision.

Impulsive: As above, but generated by primarily by emotion.

Impulsiveness is always decisive, but it's decisiveness based on... well, on impulse. On emotion and the first grasp of the situation. Decisiveness can be done without being impulsive, by first gathering and analyzing the information.

Decisiveness is an incredible virtue. It's something extraordinarily worth cultivating and will produce tremendous benefits for you if you cultivate it.

I got this really, really amazing email from a reader. I get a lot of emails, but this one in particular was fantastic. Check out his recommendations in here as well -

Hi Sebastian,

We exchanged a bit of email last year, but I felt the urge to reach out to you again to just say "thanks". When I started reading your site last year, I was a completely different person than I am now. I was 300lbs, unhappy with my life, my work, and my achievements.

Since then, I've completely turned my life around.

Reading your blog has been (by far) the biggest influence in my life changes, and I'm extremely grateful for all of your writings. I really associate with your writing a lot--I feel like I've always had lots of ambition and purpose, but was never able to harness it to do what I wanted to. Your blog has really helped me understand a lot of critical things in personal development.

Got a brilliant comment you need to read. Huge realization shift for me once I saw it. In "Self-Control and Enduring Success," I wrote -

"You know, the victors – the ones who build the really enduring victories – they’re often not the most brilliant or charismatic or brave. They’re the ones who are most patient, who are most rational, who have the most self-control."

Spike Morelli replies -

"As I read that a thought formed around modern culture and patience, rationality and self-control: none of them is very glamorous. In fact you could probably go as far as saying they are stigmatized and thought of as boring. On the other end impulsiveness and ambition are associated with dynamism and I'd argue have an overall positive perception with the large crowds/new generations. I'm wondering if this is leading to larger percentages of early high achievers never reaching their true potential and therefore overall detracting from our societies."

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I saw this thread on Hacker News - "Failed entrepreneur, broke, unemployed, now taking care of aging parents. Help." The guy there is in a big rut. Basically, a lot of things aren't going right for him and he was asking for input/advice. Here's a small section -

Concurrently, I had to move back home to a relatively inactive area - no tech scene, no innovators, no night life, no forward-thinking, no excitement. People here are content with 9-5 jobs and staying home at night (edit, removed: want their safe, comfortable, 9-5 jobs, and their must-see-TV at night). There is no ecosystem to help drive and create new things. Local city and business "leaders" I talk to about doing something politely nod their head in agreement but it never leads to anything.

Now, I understand where this guy is at. Not 100%, everyone's situation is a little bit different. But the general place, yup, I get it. So I wrote up this reply for him -

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Okay, there's a lot of things going on here, but most of them are (gradually) improvable. But it would be difficult to improve until you own responsibility for all of it.

Maneesh Sethi was kind enough to write up a guest post for us on striking off internationally and doing the digital nomad thing.

Here's Maneesh -

Every day, someone says to me: “I wish I could travel like you do.”

And every time I respond: “You can too.”

You see, I’ve been traveling for the last three years as a digital nomad, through Asia, South America, Europe. I move to a new city, learn a new language, and do a cool project. I built an online business that is completely outsourced, so now I can work as many---or as few----hours/week as I want.

Ivan Ilic, a professional pianist, just reached out with a guestpost and reaction after reading "I think the biggest barrier for me to overcome was myself." Some really fantastic observations on breaking through in here -

Sebastian’s last post was inspirational to me, but not because of the story itself, poignant though it was. Although I would love to read a more detailed account of R’s unusually successful turnaround, there was a turn of phrase in Sebastian’s response that really resonated with me.

“The good news and bad news is that there’s almost never a silver bullet. So, you can safely stop looking for [it] and start picking up 1% edges, 2% edges here and there. Trend upwards and establish little good habits, a better environment around you, and so on. R covers this when he says, “Make sure that all the small steps you take are taking you in the right direction. A little bit at a time, over a long period, and you’ll always win.”

The only way to realize the power of incremental positive changes over time is by experiencing it yourself. Although self-discipline has not been my biggest problem, I had a serious slump in the second half of last year. When I needed to move my most important projects forward, I seemed paralyzed. Does that sound familiar?

The past six months have been the first time I have orchestrated my own turnaround, without external factors to motivate me. “Picking up 1% edges, 2% edges here and there” and establishing modest good habits has been so effective that looking back over the past six months, I’m still shocked.

"I want to build this business to add a lot of value to a lot of people's lives."

I'm speaking from experience here. I used to say stuff like that a lot. I've mostly stopped. Why? Because guys who are actually doing a lot of stuff to... add value... don't talk about adding value. It's fluff and marks you down as not having done much yet.

Well, maybe not! It depends on your audience. If you're speaking about business to people who are uneducated and think that capitalism is all about dumping toxic waste on top of endangered species to increase profit margins... then yeah, start talking about adding value.

But when you're reaching out to someone with business experience, you can drop it. It's assumed. Everyone gets it. It's like saying, "I'll be at the meeting at 11 o'clock with the reports, and I'll be wearing clothes."