I'm always interested in what tools highly successful people use to do their work. While the tool itself can't magically do the work (as Seth Godin reminds us), top performers have usually thought more about tool selection than the rest of us, and we can often learn something from them.

Exhibit A is George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire (on which Game of Thrones is based) and one of the most successful living authors. George R.R. Martin does all of his writing in a program called WordStar.

Ever run out of clean underwear?

Happened to me a few weeks ago. It was almost time to leave for work, so I had only one option. “Woe is me!” I thought, as I plucked the previous day’s pair from the laundry pile, thoroughly grossed out.

Since then, I’ve read Endurance by astronaut Scott Kelly, and it’s helped me adjust my perspective on dirty underwear and hardship in general. Kelly spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (340 days, to be exact), and he wore each pair of underwear up to four days in a row. Turns out there’s no laundry in space. And no showers, either—he and his colleagues bathed with moist towelettes (or, as he put it, “moved the dried sweat around”). Endurance is a compelling book about perseverance and enduring hardship, and it’s important to read such books for two reasons.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the US. Thanksgiving is all about gratitude—pausing to reflect on all we’ve been given instead of focusing on getting more.

Gratitude is a fascinating emotion. Like regular exercise, sufficient sleep, and many other things that are good for us—and science increasingly shows that gratitude is good for us, both psychologically and physiologically—it’s easy to recognize the value of gratitude yet fail to make it part of our daily lives. Feeling grateful around Thanksgiving is easy; feeling grateful all year is not.

A couple months ago, Sarah and I were hanging out with four close friends, three of whom have graduate degrees in mathematics. (For someone with no advanced math chops, I seem to get along great with people who do. Maybe I figure they can cover for me if some sort of math emergency arises.)

At one point in the conversation, I asked the group one of my favorite questions: “What do you wish ‘regular’ people knew about your field?” This is a great cocktail party question, by the way. It gives folks a chance to share their hard-won, domain-specific expertise, and everyone learns something interesting.

My niece, Emma, gave a TEDx talk last Sunday.

Giving a TEDx talk is an honor, especially for a college sophomore. But what I find most impressive isn’t the fact that she gave a TEDx talk—it’s that she applied to give one in the first place.

The fact that Emma’s talk was chosen wasn’t in her control. She maximized her chances by submitting an excellent proposal, yes, but she couldn’t directly control whether the selection committee chose her talk. Applying, though—that was all on her. She chose to set aside many hours to craft a compelling proposal with no assurance that her effort would pay off. She created something designed to benefit others—a gift—and then she put her ego on the line by submitting it for judgment.