Career Advice From a 1637 Jesuit (Still Holds Up)
Baltasar Gracián wrote a career playbook in 1637. Six of his aphorisms map almost perfectly onto solo work today. Sharper than any modern guru.
Hub · Thinking
Mental Models & Self-Work
Frameworks that survive contact with reality. And the limits they don't advertise.
There's a version of "mental models" that's mostly LinkedIn theatre. Invoking second-order thinking the way other people invoke their CrossFit times. This shelf is the other version. The frameworks are real. The limits are stated. The application is to actual work and life, not to sounding smart in a meeting.
Some of the posts are about classic models like opportunity cost, sunk-cost reasoning, base rates, and second-order effects. Applied to freelance and solo-work decisions where they earn their rent. Some are about the smaller, quieter models that don't have viral names but that I keep going back to. Some are about self-work. Habits, attention, motivation. The honest reading there is that there's no clean framework. Just a few patterns that hold up if you respect them.
If a model in a post makes you nod and want to share it but doesn't change anything about your Tuesday, the post failed. The bar isn't insight. The bar is something you can use.
114 posts in this hub · Personal Development · Timeless Lessons
Start here
A short shelf to begin with
If this is your first time on this hub, these are reasonable entry points.
The Skill That Makes You Hard to Replace
Being useful is generic. Being useful to a specific person, in a specific way they can't get elsewhere. That's the unfakeable career moat.
Books About Decision-Making When the Stakes Are High
High-pressure moments reveal your actual decision-making system. These books teach you to build one that works when everything's on the line.
How to Drop a Grudge (When You're Right and They're Wrong)
I held grudges against bad clients like trophies. Here's what they cost me, and the move that finally let me set them down.
What the Stoics Knew About Worry (That Your Therapist Won't Say)
Therapists soften worry. Stoics triage it. Here's how a 2,000-year-old framework cuts through freelance anxiety faster than any breathing exercise.
Why I Regret Not Starting Sooner (And Why You Shouldn't)
Hindsight is cruel. I lost years to waiting, planning, and convincing myself I wasn't ready. Here's what I'd tell myself then, and what you need to hear now.
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