My Weekly Learnings #58 (01.05.22 – 07.05.22)

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. Some situations seem to call for an opponent.

It might be our personality, the structure of the engagement or the way we’ve been taught to behave, but having an enemy seems to focus individuals and groups.

For fifty years, America decided that the USSR was the enemy and spent a great deal of time and money and attention maintaining that threat.

For many people, the boss is the enemy, the controlling managerial authority, the opponent to be bested in a fight over work, effort and passion.

Or it might simply be the hockey team we’re skating against tonight.

Pick your enemies, pick your future. [Seth Godin]

2. Novelist Doris Lessing on the various ways to succeed:

“We all of us have limited amounts of energy, and I am sure the people who are successful have learned, either by instinct or consciously, to use their energies well instead of spilling them about. And this has to be different for every person, writer or otherwise. I know writers who go to parties every night and then, recharged instead of depleted, happily write all day. But if I stay up half the night talking, I don’t do so well the next day. Some writers like to start work as soon as they can in the morning, while others like the night or—for me almost impossible—the afternoons. Trial and error, and then when you’ve found your needs, what feeds you, what is your instinctive rhythm and routine, then cherish it.”

Source: Walking in the Shade​

3. Husband and wife combo, Benjamin Zander, a longtime conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and Rosamund Zander, a family therapist, on the power of point of view:

“Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.”

Source: The Art of Possibility​

4. When you ask a great master or a real expert for advice, they give you seemingly vague or non-specific answers, they shun being prescriptive. What they think matters is not what you believe matters. Further, they know you will misinterpret a specific answer.

They know you will take any advice and blindly follow it.

Any great architect, artist, or cook goes through the rote stages of learning until they improve to a high level, after that they ‘abandon’ all knowledge and go by feel, pure essence.

This is what you need to do if you want a lifetime of health and fitness. NOT calorie counting, 300 mins of Zone 2, ‘cardio’, incline bench, Tabata, etc.

You REWILD yourself. Smell the flowers, climb trees, eat natural, get the sun, sleep, and swim in the sea. [Guru Anaerobic/ Mark Baker]

5. Experience is the frequency and quality of feedback loops and not elapsed years.

Many people stay the same for years and many evolve 10x in a single year. [Kunal Shah]

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 #45 (30.01.22 – 05.02.22)

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. LEARN WHILE YOU SLEEP (OR NAP)

Learning anything is a two-step process: we must focus intensely to trigger the learning but it is only during periods of deep sleep or shallow naps, that the circuitry of the brain changes— a process called neuroplasticity.

To learn faster, focus intensely then make sure to nap for 20-90min later that day (or immediately after the learning trigger session). Also: focus on getting deep sleep the next 2 nights.

If napping hinders your nighttime sleep don’t do it, and never nap for more than 90 minutes— that can really alter your sleep cycles and impair learning. [Andrew D Huberman]

2. A mastered being never does anything under the charm of Motivation.

He does what he wants to do when he wants to do it.

He’s neither pushed by motivation nor stopped by procrastination.

He decides. He plays. He achieves. [Kunal B Sarkar]

3. When you play the game of life, intuition is the currency you get by taking risks.

Intuition is the same currency you need to win the next level of risk.

No real hack to build intuition without taking risks.

Those who are bad at self-reflection learn little from the risks taken.

Intuition and Reputation are slow currencies of life. No way to hack them without taking risks.

Reputation is the currency you get bankrupt on if you don’t use your intuition to calculate risks and second-order effects of your actions.

You’ll never meet a person with a reputation in the game of life without strong intuition as well.

All those with intuition but no reputation are often incapable of playing long term games due to poor emotional control. [Kunal Shah]

4. 5 Ways to Deal With a Narcissist:

1. Stay away.
2. Don’t try to convince them they’re wrong. Stay away.
3. Don’t try to “fix” them. Stay away.
4. Don’t argue with them. Stay away.
5. Oh, uh, stay away. [Mark Manson]

5. Don’t ask the barber if you need a haircut — a simple reminder that asking someone with a vested interest in the outcome isn’t likely to give you an impartial answer.

[Source: sketchplantations]

My Weekly Learnings #44 (23.01.22 – 29.01.22)

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. Most people refrain from risk thinking they’re worried about financial downside but they’re mostly worried about reputation drop.
Many people who have disproportionate success are wired to worry less about ridicule. Risk appetite is often connected to the shame one feels. [Kunal Shah]

2. When we make everyday decisions on the spot we often make suboptimal choices.
Saying no to dessert every time it is offered is hard.

An effective solution is to make a simple rule. “My rule is I don’t eat dessert.”

Simple rules turn desired behaviour into default behaviour. [Shane Parrish]

3. Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, on life:
“When you are a young person, you are like a young creek, and you meet many rocks, many obstacles and difficulties on your way. You hurry to get past these obstacles and get to the ocean.

But as the creek moves down through the fields, it becomes larges and calmer and it can enjoy the reflection of the sky. It’s wonderful. You will arrive at the sea anyway so enjoy the journey. Enjoy the sunshine, the sunset, the moon, the birds, the trees, and the many beauties along the way. Taste every moment of your daily life.”

Source: Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society

4.

Source: Rujuta Diwekar

5. The notion that the mind and body are separate is simply false. The nervous system bridges them both and they communicate in both directions to direct our states. States include emotions but are a larger umbrella for emotional responses that include bodily responses too. States are also more objective to define.

This is a heat map from a study described in the book The Neuroscience of Emotion by Adolphs and Anderson from Caltech.

People vary in how they express emotions verbally but the body representations are relatively stereotyped.

We are sophisticated animals but we are still animals and these maps are established by our genome, modified by experience but nonetheless relatively hardwired. Learning to recognize your bodily responses to different mental states is powerful. [Andrew D Huberman]

My Weekly Learnings #42 (09.01.22 – 15.01.22)

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. Long hours spent staring at screens underworks panoramic vision, predisposing us towards flight-or-fight sympathetic nervous system activity.

This is another reason that prolonged screen time can leave us feeling fatigued; the nervous system has been using a lot of resources to keep us alert, which can leave us feeling wired and tired and the eyes feeling exhausted. ⠀
⠀
The eyes are doing a lot of work when we engage in prolonged screen time behaviors. We aren’t aware of this work, but it is still physically (and mentally) fatiguing. This work involves blink and near triad reflexes and everything needed for high visual acuity foveal vision. It also involves dealing with glare, making sense of confusing focus and depth cues, and greater visual workloads. But that’s not all; screens also place extra demands on eye defenses from blue light. [Neurohacker]

2. “The longer you’re a teacher, the less you remember what it is like to be a student.

The longer you’re a doctor, the less you remember what it is like to be a patient.

The longer you’re a coach, the less you remember what it is like to be a player.

Change positions. A new perspective can improve your old methods.” [James Clear]

3. Writer David Chapman on how to improve your thinking:

“Learn from fields very different from your own. They each have ways of thinking that can be useful at surprising times. Just learning to think like an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a philosopher will beneficially stretch your mind.”

Source: How to Think Real Good

4. A song becomes catchy if a few words are repeated enough.

A lie starts becoming truth if it’s repeated enough.

A faith becomes blind if rituals are repeated enough.

We accept everything as safe & normal if an experience is repeated enough.

Repetition is the human kryptonite. [Kunal Shah]

5. What you do on the bad days matters more than the good days.

What you do when you don’t feel like it — when you’re not motivated, when everything seems hard — matters more to the ultimate outcome than what you do when you’re motivated and it is easy.

Maintain the momentum. [Shane Parrish]

My Weekly Learnings #34 (14.11 – 20.11)

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. “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
— Epictetus

Humility is the antidote to arrogance.

Humility is a recognition that we don’t know, that we were wrong, that we’re not better than anyone else. Humility is simple to understand but hard to practice.

Humility isn’t a lack of confidence but an earned confidence. The confidence to say that you might not be right, but you’ve done the diligence, and you’ve put in the work. Humility keeps you wondering what you’re missing or if someone is working harder than you.

And yet when pride and arrogance take over, humility flees and so does our ability to learn, adapt, and build lasting relationships with others.
Humility won’t let you take credit for luck. And humility is the voice in your mind that doesn’t let small victories seem larger than they are. Humility is the voice inside your head that says, ‘anyone can do it once, that’s luck. Can you do it consistently?’

More than knowing yourself, humility is accepting yourself. [Shane Parrish]

2. ‘Why You Should Be Prolific’
As a writer, you need to remember that your favorite creators are likely more prolific than you think.

Don’t compare your early ideas to other people’s edited and refined published works. When | interviewed the Grammy-nominated musician Logic, he said he has thousands of unreleased songs. From him, | learned that the vast majority of what every creator makes is junk. There’s no way around that.

Gobs of nonsense are part of the creative process, which is why excellence comes not from raising standards for your first drafts but from knowing what to publish and what to discard.

It’s easy to feel like a failure when you’re stuck. It’s easy to feel like you’ll never achieve your creative ambitions or your best days are behind you.

Keep making stuff. No matter how stuck you feel, commit to sitting down at the keyboard and putting ideas on paper. If your creative well is dry, surround yourself with art that stirs your soul.

Remember that the frustrations you feel in the present are the price you pay for the joy you’ll feel in the future. Progress is usually felt in retrospect when you look back at all the hours that felt like a road to nowhere. [David Perrell]

3. Whoever is worthy of teaching is sharing their knowledge for free on the internet but their content is unstructured.

But most of us are conditioned to think that only an expensive degree giving structured knowledge is worthy, making it a fantastic business. [Kunal Shah]

4. The Three Layers of the Self-Awareness Onion:
Layer 1: A simple understanding of one’s emotions.

“I’m angry… I’m really fucking angry.”

Layer 2: An ability to ask why we feel certain emotions.

“Why am I so angry all the time? What is this doing for me?”

Layer 3: Our personal values – how we measure ourselves and the world.

“I’m angry because I constantly feel as though I’m being disrespected. Am I really though?” [Mark Manson]

5.

Source: sketchplantations

My Weekly Learnings #22 (22.08 – 28.08)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. LeBron James didn’t always have thick calves, a raging six-pack, and arms like the Incredible Hulk. Ask LeBron about his off-season training regime, and he’ll share a detailed run-down of his workout plan and on-the-court practice routine.

Athletes train. Musicians train. Performers train.

But knowledge workers don’t.

Knowledge workers should train like LeBron, and implement strict “learning plans.” To be sure, intellectual life is different from basketball. Success is harder to measure and the metrics for improvement aren’t quite as clear. Even then, there’s a lot to learn from the way top athletes train. They are clear in their objectives and deliberate in their pursuit of improvement.

Knowledge workers should imitate them. But right now, they don’t. Even the most ambitious knowledge workers don’t take their work as seriously as they could. Learning plans are rare. What’s the equivalent of watching game film? Stretching. Or, working out for 90 minutes every day?

Just as LeBron structures his training to win Championships, knowledge workers should train to build skills, generate leverage, and increase their productive abilities. [Learn like an Athlete, a mini essay by David Perrell]

2. Anger is often seen as an irrational emotion. But it’s not due to the absence of logic—it’s due to the presence of threat or harm.

Getting mad is a sign that something important to you is at risk.

Understanding what makes you angry is a prism for understanding what you value. [Adam Grant]

3. Folks with substance, don’t like to give and receive compliments unless truly deserved.

Folks without substance, tend to constantly form mutual admiration club to belong. [Kunal Shah]

4. “Today I escaped from all bothering circumstances – or rather I threw them out.
They were nothing external, but inside me, just my own judgements.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.13

5. Ego gets in the way of learning. You can’t learn if you’re not open to being wrong.
Two ways to identify people who learn:
(1) When they’ve made a mistake, they quickly correct it rather than hoping things will get better; and
(2) They change their mind. [Shane Parrish]

My Weekly Learnings #20 (08.08 – 14.08)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. Sociologist, historian, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois with some life advice in a letter to his daughter: “The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.

Don’t shrink from new experiences and customs. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bedroom. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not.

Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.”

Source: The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois (via James Clear’s newsletter)

2. There are countless ways to make a point. You can clearly demonstrate that you are angry, smart, concerned, stronger, faster, or more prepared than the person you’re engaging with.

But making a point isn’t the same thing as making a difference.

To make a difference, we need the practical empathy to realize that the other person doesn’t know what you know, doesn’t believe what you believe, and might not want what you want. We have to move from where we are and momentarily understand where they are.

When we make a point, we reject all of this. When we make a point, we establish our power in one way or another, but we probably don’t change very much.

Change comes about when the story the other person tells themselves begins to change. If all you do is make a point, you’ve handed them a story about yourself. When you make a change, you’ve helped them embrace a new story about themselves.

And even though it’s more fun (and feels safe, in some way) to make a point, if we really care, we’ll do the hard work to make a difference instead. [Seth Godin]

3. Time away from something or someone gives us perspective on that something or someone. [Mark Manson] (Check out more here – https://markmanson.net/newsletters/mindfck-monthly-91)

4. Most people disagree on social media in the most undesirable way either because they’ve not learned about superior methods of disagreeing or just wish to outrage to get likes. This chart by Paul Graham is a good way to know if you disagree well. [via Kunal Shah’s Twitter account]

5. Things people aren’t afraid to say when they have psychological safety:

• I don’t know
• I made a mistake
• I disagree
• I might be wrong
• I have a concern
• I have an idea

[via Adam Grant’s Twitter and image from @ lizandmollie on Twitter]

My Weekly Learnings #16 (11.07 – 17.07)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. The wind gets all the attention. The wind howls and the wind gusts… But the wind is light.
The current, on the other hand is persistent and heavy.

On a river, it’s the current that will move the canoe far more than the wind will. But the wind distracts us.

Back on land, the current looks like the educational industrial complex, or the network effect or the ratchet of Moore’s Law and the cultural trends that last for decades. The current is our persistent systems of class and race and gender, and the powerful industrial economy. It can be overcome, but it takes focused effort.

On the other hand, the wind is the breaking news of the moment, the latest social media sensation and the thin layer of hype that surrounds us. It might be a useful distraction, but our real work lies in overcoming the current, or changing it.

It helps to see it first, and to ignore the wind when we can. [Seth Godin]

2. We may want what others have, but perhaps without having gone through what they have. Focussing on others’ success and feeling resentment towards them causes unnecessary negativity, we should instead be satisfied with what we have and focus on our own growth and contentment. (Listen more here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/4697Gfy5gbjXusQd3trYdS) [Gita for the Young and Restless Podcast]

3. Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.
—Morgan Housel

4. A parable from priest and therapist Anthony de Mello on the stories we tell ourselves:
“A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we’re chickens.”

So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.”

Source: Song of the Bird

5. Those who love gossiping have a deep need to be interesting at all costs. [Kunal Shah]

My Weekly Learnings #14 (27.06 – 03.07)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. “If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with.”
— Jeff Bezos

2. A fantastic piece by Balaji Srinivasan, on the problem with social media today and the evolution of the space with the help of a decentralized blockchain. (Shared this via Amol Telang)

3. The absence of mental illness doesn’t mean the presence of mental health.
Even if you’re not depressed or burned out, you might be languishing—feeling a sense of emptiness and stagnation. Meh. [Adam Grant] (Read more here – https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html)

4. In absence of future data, we use conventional status signals to indicate trust, be it money, power, good-looks or degrees. Quite weirdly “wasting money” signals massive status. [Kunal Shah]

5. Andre Agassi shares how he started beating Boris Becker regularly after his initial losses. Check it out here – https://youtu.be/3woPuCIk_d8

My Weekly Learnings #12 (13.06 – 19.06)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. Your mind is a suggestion engine. Every thought you have is a suggestion, not an order.
Sometimes your mind suggests that you are tired, that you should give up, or that you should take an easier path.
But if you pause, you can discover new suggestions. For example, that you will feel good once the work is done or that you have the ability to finish things even when you don’t feel like it.
Your thoughts are not orders. Merely suggestions. You have the power to choose which option to follow. [James Clear]

2. Author Gretchen Rubin on how to rebound from a mistake:
“Instead of feeling that you’ve blown the day and thinking, “I’ll get back on track tomorrow,” try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoon, evening. If you blow one quarter, you get back on track for the next quarter.
Fail small, not big.”

3. The right response to feedback is, “thank you.” Or perhaps, “that’s a great point.” Even if it’s not your job to change the system, or not your fault that things didn’t work as expected, both of these responses are valid and useful.

Feedback is a gift. It lets you know precisely what the other person wants or needs. After you receive the gift, it’s up to you to accept it or not. But shutting down feedback with an argument or by appearing ungrateful makes it less likely you’ll be offered it again. And if you’re getting feedback from a customer or a prospect, shutting it down makes it likely that they’ll walk away and take their attention and their trust somewhere else.

When you say, “no problem,” you’re letting yourself off the hook, refusing to acknowledge what was said, and closing the door for a useful interaction. Because there is a problem. Exploring what the problem is is far better than denying it. [Seth Godin]

4. A Netflix binge is a temporary escape from languishing, not a cure.
Passive engagement in a fictional world doesn’t offer a lasting sense of meaning, mastery, or mattering.

Flourishing depends on active participation in the real world: creating, connecting, and contributing. [Adam Grant]

5. People who project a higher status than their actual substance, don’t miss an opportunity to dramatically complain about all minor inconveniences. [Kunal Shah]

My Weekly Learnings #6 (02.05 – 08.05)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. All bad behavior comes from an absence or momentary lapse of long-term thinking. [Kunal Shah]

2. 3 Things School Taught You Without You Even Realizing It:
A. You learned success is determined by the approval of others
B. You learned failure is a source of shame, rather than a stepping stone to success
C. You learned to depend on authority for thoughts & interpretations [Mark Manson]

3. The most unhappy person on an Olympic medal podium is the silver medalist.
Because silver medalists focus on what they failed to accomplish (win gold), while bronze medalists focus on what they accomplished (winning a medal).
This isn’t theoretical.
A study proved it true.
It’s the difference between “I almost…” and “At least I…”
Turns out that difference in mindset represents a significant amount of happiness. (an excerpt from the book Stretch) [Josh Spector]

4. 7 Productivity Recommendations by Elon Musk were a good read, in the form of a Twitter thread by user, Gabriel Gruber. Check it out here.

My Weekly Learnings #5 (25.04 – 01.05)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. No sense in being a puppet, especially if you can’t be sure who is pulling the strings or why. [Seth Godin]

(Read more here)

2. Writer Alice Walker on the discomfort of growth:

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger than we were before.

Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant.

But what is most unpleasant is not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be… for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

Source: Living by the Word: Essays

3. If you are going to be jealous of someone, you must be willing to swap your *entire* life for theirs. You can’t cherry-pick the aspect of their life you want.
You must give up *everything* you have and know. [Summarized for context; Naval on The Knowledge Project podcast]

4. Demonstration of success creates trust, which unlocks opportunities for further demonstration of success. The loop goes on, and that’s just the way it is. Hating people and complaining doesn’t do you any favours. [Kunal Shah on Paras Chopra’s Bold Conjectures podcast]

5. Fragmented attention is an enemy of engagement and excellence. [Adam Grant]

My Weekly Learnings #4 (18.04 – 24.04)

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, and watch, in my weekly series, The Last 7 Days. You can check out the editions here).

1. Your first impression isn’t your appearance, it’s your energy. (Ascendant Power)

2. Intelligence isn’t a substitute for knowledge. Being smart doesn’t mean you’ve taken the time to be informed.
Knowledge isn’t a substitute for wisdom. Being informed doesn’t mean you’ve developed good judgment.

Good judgment requires the humility to know what you don’t know. (Adam Grant)

3. Only the one who has faced failure is able to tell where you are bound to fail as well. (TVF Aspirants)

4. “Like our stomachs, our minds are hurt more often by overeating than by hunger.” — Petrarch

5. When you deal with an angry person or an angry mob, they are in a state of amygdala hijack.
It’s often not helpful to talk to their prefrontal cortex of their brain and try to rationalize that time but easier to communicate in childlike sentences and calm their amygdala first. (Kunal Shah)