Chris Jarling

Net wrote down 40 lessons for his 40th birthday. While they're all good (go ahead an read the whole thing, won't be a waste of your time), the following resonated the most with me.

Err on the side of too early over too late. [...] Your conception that it’s too early is just your fear, and once you dive in you’ll figure it out. Old people tend to regret the things they didn’t do, or didn’t do earlier. Not the things they did.

My wife is the driving factor on this. Not sure I ever made any big decision if it wasn't for her. I should probably tell her (I did by now). Here's some of my advice: If you're thankful for something someone did, tell them!

Most of the world is held together with duct tape. The last 5-10% of everything seems to get slapped together at the last minute. It’s just hard to see in any area where you aren’t an expert. Don’t worry about living duct-tape-free.

While working for an agency, I got to see different areas of business and oh boy, are there things held together by very old, very worn duct tape.

Another water bottle won’t fix your hydration problems. A new note taking tool won’t make you a better writer. If you find yourself looking for a tool to solve a problem, you’re probably just procrastinating.

Just do the damn thing first. Do it a bunch of times. If you really identify pain points that some tool can help you with, change tools. But only after you did the work.

Trust your negative gut, not your positive gut. If you have a great feeling about something, you might just be excited or gullible or not thinking it through, so take your time. But if you have a bad feeling about something, you’re almost certainly right about it.

I made this mistake too often. It hasn't to any real harm yet, so I take it as a learning opportunity.