My Weekly Learnings #65 (19.06.22 – 25.06.22)

The concept of ‘My Weekly Learnings’ is to share highlights and/or content pieces that caught my eye this week and provided more value than I could imagine.

1. The best way to make things better is to see how they are. And then do something about it.

Acknowledging the problem is not the same as giving up.

Too often, we’d rather not hear about it, or we choose to catastrophize as a way of protecting ourselves from the reality of what’s actually happening.

Denialism isn’t a long-term strategy. [Seth Godin]

2. In most people’s minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn’t. Luxuries seem self-indulgent. And unless you got the money by inheriting it or winning the lottery, you’ve already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence leads to trouble. Investing bypasses those alarms. You’re not spending the money; you’re just moving it from one asset to another. This is why people trying to sell you expensive things say “it’s an investment.”

The solution is to develop new alarms. This can be a tricky business, because while the alarms that prevent you from overspending are so basic that they may even be in our DNA, the ones that prevent you from making bad investments have to be learned, and are sometimes fairly counterintuitive. [Paul Graham]

3. People with poor boundaries typically come in two flavours: those who take too much responsibility for the emotions/actions of others and those who expect others to take too much responsibility for their own emotions/actions. [Mark Manson]

4. If we grow up in an unstable environment, our brain starts to predict our future based on that experience. We see this at the neuronal level.

People think you’ll automatically grow up and be in a different context than you were growing up, so therefore, you’ll just automatically adapt. But that’s not how the brain works.

We actually have to learn to trust again. We have to go through the hard work and the process of recognizing the goodness in our partner when it truly exists. We have to recognize mindsets where we see the world happening to us as victims. [Scott Barry Kaufman]

5. What alcohol does to your body and brain?

Source: Business Insider

My Weekly Learnings #53 (27.03.22 – 02.04.22)

Amidst all the content I consume every week, through this weekly series of ‘My Weekly Learnings’, sharing highlights of content pieces that caught my eye and provided more value than I could imagine.

(P.S. Every Sunday, I share a list of what to read, listen to, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. The tendency to dwell on the negative more than the positive is simply one way the brain tries to keep us safe.

Earlier in human history, paying attention to bad, dangerous, and negative threats in the world was literally a matter of life and death. Those who were more attuned to danger and who paid more attention to the bad things around them were more likely to survive.

That’s cool, but most of us no longer need to be on constant high alert like our early ancestors needed to be in order to survive. And yet, the negativity bias still has a starring role in how our brains operate. Research has shown that negative bias can have a wide variety of effects on how people think, respond, and feel.

Neurohacking such mindsets is a crucial part in optimizing our relationships, decision-making, and perceptions. [Neurohacker]

2. Anger magically shrinks our vocabulary when communicating.

Persuasion automatically makes us use most of our vocabulary.

It is maybe easier to anger someone with a limited vocabulary than someone with a vast one. [Kunal Shah]

3. Here’s all the life advice you’ll ever need, without a thread.

Stop living “hour-to-hour”, and start living from “experience to experience”

Get OFF of time. Time makes you feel behind. Stressed

Life is a menu. Choose your experience like choosing an appetizer, main, & dessert. [Shaan Puri]

4. Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, on the importance of giving value before you ask for value:

“I quit my job on August 15, 1899, and went into the automobile business…

The most surprising feature of business as it was conducted was the large attention given to finance and the small attention to service. That seemed to me to be reversing the natural process which is that the money should come as the result of work and not before the work…

My idea was then and still is that if a man did his work well, the price he would get for that work—the profits and all financial matters—would care for themselves and that a business ought to start small and build itself up and out of its earnings.”

Source: My Life and Work

5. How sugar affects your brain and body?

Source: Business Insider

My Weekly Learnings #35 (21.11 – 27.11)

Amidst all the content I consume every week, through this weekly series of ‘My Weekly Learnings’, sharing highlights of content pieces that caught my eye and provided more value than I could imagine.

(P.S. Every Sunday, I share a list of what to read, listen to, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. Anything that uplifts your consciousness is spirituality. Anything that brings you more peace of mind, that’s spirituality. Anything that gives you confidence, self-confidence, is spirituality. Anything that helps you to communicate better with people and anything that promotes a better understanding of yourself, of others, and of the universe, that’s spirituality. (Listen here more to understand about spirituality) [Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar]

2. Beware of confusing attention with admiration. Being noticed isn’t a substitute for being respected.

Don’t mistake recognition for appreciation. Knowing who you are doesn’t mean people value what you do.

The point of sharing isn’t to gain followers. It’s to make a contribution. [Adam Grant]

3. “Many people use deliberate cold exposure specifically to increase their metabolism and fat loss. Because many people also combine deliberate cold exposure with a sauna or hot showers, I asked Dr. Susanna Soeberg, Ph.D. (expert in human cold therapy science and first author on a recent landmark study about cold exposure for metabolism), whether or not heat should be done before or after cold exposure.

Dr. Soeberg’s answer is what I now call “The Soeberg Principle”: which states that even though you can alternate heat and cold *if your main goal is to increase metabolism then you should end with the cold* because it forces your body to use its own energy to heat back up.

Remember: you can still get benefits from a cold exposure if you end with heat but you won’t get as great a metabolic effect.” [Andrew Huberman]

4. The Illusion of Self

Source: grantdraws

5. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, isn’t a fan of the phrase “work-life balance.”

Bezos said new Amazon employees shouldn’t view work and life as a balancing act. Instead, Bezos said it’s more productive to view them as two integrated parts.

“It actually is a circle,” Bezos said. “It’s not a balance.”

“And my view is, that’s a debilitating phrase because it implies there’s a strict trade-off.”

“If I am happy at home, I come into the office with tremendous energy,” Bezos said. “And if I am happy at work, I come home with tremendous energy.” [Jeff Bezos via Business Insider] (Read more here)

#5 of The Last 7 Days (05.04-12.04)

With another Sunday, here’s the fifth edition of my weekly series, The Last 7 Days.

What’s it about?

It’s a weekly series where I talk about what I read, what I listened to, and what I saw in the last seven days.

I’ve been told my choices are pretty good to consume and I should share them with everyone, so you don’t have to just browse through.

If any of the below-mentioned topics interest you, let’s chat – @rth24 on Instagram.

---

What To Read:

1. Yuval Noah Harari talks about the world after coronavirus and it’s an interesting one.
   
   Read here.
   
2. TOI has an article on ‘Small Maharashtra town shows how cluster containment works‘
   
   Check it out here.
   
3. A NY restaurateur talks about laying off his entire staff and his hopes of the future on Business Insider.
   
   He tried to do everything right, but against natural circumstances, what can one do. Give it a read here.
   
4. AdWeek writes about 18 Tips on Advertising During the Coronavirus Crisis.
   
   Read here.

---

What To Listen:

P.S. I listen to my podcasts on Spotify, thus the links attached redirect to that platform. However, you can search for the titles wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1. Rocky & Mayur of Highway on my Plate now have a Podcast, titled Highway on my Podcast! For those who don’t know, I’m like a mad fan and I’m not missing the opportunity to listen to this.
   
   Check out the podcast here.
   
2. The Today, Explained Podcast has a episode on ‘The Loneliness Pandemic‘ and they talk about how the coronavirus crisis is affecting elderly during this time.
   
   Listen here.
   
3. On the Tim Ferriss Show, he discusses with Ryan Holiday on ‘How to use Stoicism to choose Alive Time over Dead Time?‘
   
   Listen to it here.
   
4. Dr. Steven Gundry talks about the Healthy Foods you should never eat and boosting your immune system during COVID-19 with Lewis Howes on his podcast, The School of Greatness.
   
   Don’t miss it out; check here.
   
5. I recently discovered this podcast, WTF with Marc Maron and his interviewing style is quite unique. I heard his episode interviewing Ashton Kutcher and it was a good one.
   
   Listen here.

---

What To Watch:

1. If you read books too, you’ll love this one – ‘How Bill Gates reads Books‘ on YouTube.
   
   Watch here.
2. If you’re like me who hasn’t seen Bad Boys 2, Will Smith uploaded the first 9 minutes of ‘Bad Boys For Life‘ on his channel.
   
   Check it out here.
3. I saw The Platform on Netflix, and that film is wow. It’s a metaphorical take on capitalism and believe it or not, quite relatable too to the current times.
   
   It’s short in duration and interesting. Give it a watch here.

---

There is a lot of insightful, engaging and entertaining content mixed in all of this.

If any of these topics interest you, then your time will be well-spent.

You can check out the previous editions of The Last 7 Days – here.