Whenever I mentioned to people that I was working on a story about friendship in midlife, questions about envy invariably followed. It’s an irresistible subject, this thing that Socrates called “the ulcer of the soul.” Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, told me that many years ago, he taught a seminar at Yale about the seven deadly sins. “Envy,” he said dryly, “was the one sin students never boasted about.”

He’s right. With the exception of envy, all of the deadly sins can be pleasurable in some way. Rage can be righteous; lust can be thrilling; greed gets you all the good toys. But nothing feels good about envy, nor is there any clear way to slake it. You can work out anger with boxing gloves, sate your gluttony by feasting on a cake, boast your way through cocktail hour, or sleep your way through lunch. But envy—what are you to do with that?

Die of it, as the expression goes. No one ever says they’re dying of pride or sloth.

This is one of those articles that is hard to pull one single quote from, because it’s just so damn good.

The whole piece hits me right in the chest, and I’m sure you, dear reader, have someone you should be reaching out to after reading this too.

In the best case scenario, we create routines to hypnotize ourselves into repetition. We have loved ones and mentors who tell us to keep going, and help us figure out when we’re on the wrong track. We look for signs that we’re getting better, but we also understand that the process of getting really, really good at something sometimes just feels like a incoherent slog. If we’re lucky and resourceful and creative, we’ll eventually break through the membrane and find ourselves on the other side we’ve been clawing towards for so long.

I read Good to Great a few years ago, but I admittedly never finished it. After hearing this interview though, you'd better believe I'm gonna go back and pour over it.

This interview with Jim Collins was absolutely awe-inspiring. Among the nuggets I took away from this episode:

• You should strive to be a "Level 5 Leader", which means you are simultaneously headstrong and humble. You have to put your organization before any personal gain.

• Jim organizes his time according to the 50/30/20 rule, which means he spends 50% of his time in a given 365 day period on creative activities, 30% of his time teaching, and 20% of his time on everything else.

• On that same vein, Jim has a spreadsheet where he tracks how many hours a day he gets creative pursuits, and in any given 365 day period, he has to have over 1000 total hours. He also tracks what he did on a given day, as well as a rating from +2 to -2 for how he felt on that day. I've been trying to do something similar with tracking the big three things I need to get done each day, and I think I should expand that out a little bit to include these variables.

• You should not do what you’re good at, but do what you’re coded for. This really struck a chord with me, because I think I'm pretty good at developing, but I'm pretty sure I'm coded to be a leader.

• There was a lot mentioned around the flywheel principle, and I think this is something we're just starting to see happen with our own business pursuits.

There's a ton in this episode, so I'm going to stop writing in order to let you start listening.