My Weekly Learnings #56 (17.04.22 – 23.04.22)

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 worst golfer in town came in last in the club tournament.

Actually, that’s not true. The worst golfer didn’t even enter.

Well, that’s not true either. The worst golfer doesn’t even play. [Seth Godin]

2. Any technique that helps us shift the state of our fight-or-flight stress response is interesting to us. The physiological sigh is the fastest, hardwired way for us to eliminate a stress response quickly and in real-time.

The double inhale of the physiological sigh pops open the alveoli air sacks, allowing oxygen in and enabling you to offload carbon dioxide with the long exhaled sigh.

1-3 reps are generally enough to slow HR to baseline and 10-15 cycles can be useful for sleep. [Neurohacker]

3. How does your brain look under stress?

Source: brainchat

4. How to optimize for luck:

– Fall in love with problems, not solutions
– Hang/work with the smartest people possible with diverse opinions
– Be consistent
– Cut distractions
– Failure happens. Whatever
– Mindset & belief in yourself
– Try to be optimistic
– Be kind to people [Greg Isenberg]

5. Entitled people who blame others for their own emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they constantly paint themselves as victims, eventually someone will come along and save them, and they will receive the love they’ve always wanted. [Mark Manson]

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 #39 (19.12 – 25.12)

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. “If I aired a highlight reel of your most selfish life moments and most shameful thoughts, you’d seem like an awful person. If I aired a reel of your best, kindest moments, you’d seem like a saint. But people aren’t highlight reels, and the unedited cut is always a messy mix!”

[Tim Urban]

2. – have a glass of water
– eat a fresh fruit
– defer your decision by 15 mins

The 3 step formula to know whether you are actually feeling like a cake/ chocolate/ cookie or simply giving in to the craving out of habit. [Rujuta Diwekar]

3. The desire to avoid rejection at all costs, to avoid confrontation and conflict, the desire to attempt to accept everything equally and to make everything cohere and harmonize, is a deep and subtle form of entitlement. [Mark Manson]

4. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

– Elie Wiesel

5. We spend too much time trying to change people’s minds and too little energy aiming to open them.

Changing minds assumes they’re wrong. You’re pushing them to accept your views.

Opening minds assumes there’s more to learn. You’re inviting them to question their views. [Adam Grant]

My Weekly Learnings #37 (05.12 – 11.12)

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. Seven signs that you’re actually the problem…
a. You feel like no one understands you.
b. You always complain you’re not appreciated.
c. You believe you rarely get the attention you deserve.
d. You assume other people have it easy while you’re barely scraping by.
e. You have little interest or curiosity in the lives of others.
f. You often fight with close friends and loved ones.
g. And it’s always their fault. [Mark Manson]

2. When people ask for your feedback, it’s a mark of respect. They value your knowledge, skill, or taste.
When they don’t hesitate to give you feedback, it’s a sign of trust. They have faith that you’ll take it as an opportunity to grow, not a threat to your ego. [Adam Grant]

3. “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness.” – Mary Shelley

4. We generally adopt a posture of optimism or pessimism as a response (or reaction) to external events. We see how things are unfolding and make a decision about what to expect. We feel like we need to justify our response based on the facts on the ground.

But that doesn’t actually explain why different people, similarly informed, might adopt an optimistic mood or a pessimistic one.

In fact, that mood is a choice. And it’s one that determines how we’ll behave.

Optimism is a tool that permits us to solve problems more effectively. If used wisely, it brings enthusiasm, inspiration, and hope to projects that benefit from them.

[And pessimism is a tool as well–it can help you with budgeting, scheduling, and other projects. If it works for you, that’s great. Choose your tools wisely.]

As a universal default, either mood will certainly lead to misguided energy and poor decisions. But if we can be thoughtful about optimism as a tactic, the focus, and energy it brings can solve problems that others might simply walk away from.

Our pessimism might not be an accurate diagnosis of the past. It might simply be a way we’re using to produce a future we’re not happy with. [Seth Godin]

5. The real fun of life is in living it with a mastered mind.

For those who live enslaved to their mind, life is a mere vessel of suffering. [Kunal Sarkar]

My Weekly Learnings #36 (28.11 – 04.12)

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. Your brain has a limited capacity to store readily accessible information. This storage is called ‘Working Memory’ and the ability to utilize this working memory is called Attention. Think of it as your shopping trolley. It only has a fixed amount of space. And if you fill it up, and something important comes up, something has to leave the trolley to make space.Another way to think of this is that attention is a torch. A torch can only illuminate a certain amount of things in your environment. Wherever you turn that circle of light becomes visible to you while the rest of the world disappears.

We can only pay attention to a fixed number of things, which makes attention a precious resource. And like every other precious resource, everyone wants a piece of it. Your friends, family, boss, employees, the supermarket, amazon, Netflix, cricket, news channels, social media, your health apps, even your watch. Everything and everyone is competing for that precious attention of yours. [Siddharth Warrier]

2. Discipline is cheaper than regret. [Shane Parrish]

3. We develop low-level addictions to junk that fuels our insecurities: junk information, junk activities, junk friends. Quitting means exposing emotions and triggering weird cravings but the goal is to stay focused on things that add value to your life. [Mark Manson]

4. ‘The first one never knows’
The first sponsor of an American TV sitcom was Anacin.

At the time they did it, no one had any idea how many people watched TV or would watch a sitcom.

They had no way to measure what they would get for their sponsorship dollars because it was a new and untested medium.

But Anacin tried it anyway.

In an attempt to measure the size of the audience, they offered viewers the chance to get a free mirror if they wrote a letter after seeing the show.

The company guessed 200 people might send a letter and bought 400 mirrors just to be safe.

They wound up getting more than 8,000. [For the Interested Newsletter]

5.

Source: lizandmollie

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 #32 (31.10 – 06.11)

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. In my experience, not body weight but these are the factors that improve health — healthy mother
– good education
– strong family bonds
– access to doctors
– well-paying jobs
– athletic childhood
– living in green walkable cities

Health is multidisciplinary, not a number. [Rujuta Diwekar]

2. Charcoal & Diamonds are both carbons. The difference lies in the configuration of the carbon atoms in them.

There’s a big lesson in here.

You can increase the value of something by changing its very nature by re-organizing its building blocks.

Inputs <> Outputs [Kavin Bharti Mittal]

3. Tips To Building Your Emotional Intelligence:

– Accept that you can’t be happy all the time
– Start to identify emotions in other people and yourself
– Accept that not all emotions have to mean something
– Identify when zero response is the best response [Mark Manson]

4. “MOTIVATION” = EFFORT + (INTERMITTENT) REWARD

Dopamine is the common currency of motivation, pleasure, and pursuit of pleasures. Everybody enjoys pleasure. That said if you achieve pleasure from food or experiences without having to put in any effort pretty soon those pleasures lose their potency. That doesn’t mean we stop pursuing pleasures but it lowers our baseline level of dopamine and causes us to pursue progressively smaller goals. That is not good.

These days pleasure is available to us without any work: High potency food, experiences, etc. that don’t require any strain or effort to achieve.

Some small amount of that is fine of course but the best way to keep your dopamine system tuned up for ongoing motivation and pursuit is to periodically avoid pleasures that are easy to access, focusing instead on pleasures that take effort to achieve. And sometimes it can even be useful to not reward yourself at all for hard work and instead just cycle right back into another round of effort. Of course, get your rest and your sleep too so you can continue to be motivated and in pursuit (and pleasure) for all your days and years. [Andrew Huberman]

5. “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”

‘Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, “This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.” [Louis L’Amour – The Walking Drum]

My Weekly Learnings #28 (03.10 – 09.10)

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. Five words we misuse/overuse :
A. Happiness
Most people mistake pleasure for happiness. They think moments of heightened satisfaction mean they’re happy, when really, all it means is they’re satisfied. True happiness is fulfillment – finding things you care about so much you’re willing to sacrifice for them.

B. Love
People mistake affection and validation for love. They assume love is occurring when something is making them feel so good they can’t imagine doing something else. True love is determined by what you feel good about, even when you feel bad.

C. Need
We all overestimate what we need in the world. We need to do good in school. We need to make our friends happy. We need to see the new Netflix show.

We don’t need any of these things. Thousands of people have lived without much of what we believe we need.

D. Best
The idea of “best” is an arbitrary designation based on whatever values we choose to hold. The idea of best is the enemy of growth. There is no such thing as best. There is only “better.”

E. Friend
Stats show there’s a growing sense of loneliness in the world. Perhaps some of this is due to the unreasonably low bar we have for our friendships. A friend is not simply someone who is nice to you. A friend is someone who is willing to sacrifice something for you. [Mark Manson]

2. “I’m just being honest” is a poor excuse for being rude.
Candor is being forthcoming in what you say. Respect is being considerate in how you say it.

Being direct with the content of your feedback doesn’t prevent you from being thoughtful about the best way to deliver it. [Adam Grant]

3.

Source: lizandmollie on Twitter

4. Two men once needed to cross a sea.
One asked: ”Better to row or sail?”

The elder replied: ”Rowing will be quicker at first. But sailing will ultimately be faster and more enjoyable if we can align ourselves with the winds and currents.”

Don’t confuse motion with progress. [David Perell]

5. There is a difference between moving fast and rushing.
You can move fast and be thoughtful. When you rush, you sacrifice thoughtfulness.

Conversely, when you are thoughtful but not moving fast, you are overthinking it. Procrastination in disguise.

Don’t rush, but don’t wait. [James Clear]

My Weekly Learnings #24 (05.09 – 11.09)

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. Saying “that’s a good point” doesn’t lose the argument. It wins trust.
Acknowledging a valid observation is a display of respect.

It signals that you’re listening with an open mind, and motivates them to follow suit.

You don’t have to agree on everything to agree on something. [Adam Grant]

2. Excitement comes from the achievement.
Fulfillment comes from the journey that got us there. [Simon Sinek]

3. Pleasure is a false god. It’s the most superficial form of happiness, therefore the easiest to obtain and the quickest to go away. [Mark Manson]

4.

@ lizandmollie

5. Creative have two ways of working : beer mode and coffee mode.

Beer mode is a state of unfocused play where you discover new ideas. It’s filled with intellectual surprises that are impossible to predict. On most days, you feel like you wasted time because you don’t make a breakthrough discovery. But once in a while, beer mode leads to an intellectual breakthrough that you would’ve never discovered in coffee mode.

In contrast, coffee mode is a state of focus where you work towards a specific outcome.

The problem with traditional productivity advice is that it doesn’t take beer mode seriously. Standard tropes like turn off the internet, tune out distractions, and turn towards your goals are all examples of coffee mode thinking.

The see-saw or beer mode and coffee mode is like breathing.

Your best ideas emerge when you balance the inhale of beer mode with the exhale of coffee mode. Beer mode rewards laughter, while coffee mode rewards action
Beer mode rewards conversation, while coffee mode rewards focus.

Our best ideas rarely arise when we’re busy. They spring to Life in aimless contemplation.

In beer mode, you find inspiration. In coffee mode, you harvest it. If you only spend time in coffee mode, you’ll shut yourself off to transformative ideas because the fruits of genius are sown with the seeds of beer mode serendipity. [David Perell]

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 #17 (18.07 – 24.07)

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. “It can be easy to think you’re going down the wrong path, that you’re making a huge mistake, that nobody gets it, that you’re the only one. The reason for this is simple: We hear a lot more from the people who disagree with us than the people who agree with us.” [Ryan Holiday]
(Listen to this in-depth here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/6FkCPauGZqUuimk11ipiPI)

2. The physiological sigh is a pattern of breathing that we all engage in in deep sleep. When levels of carbon dioxide in our bloodstream get too high, we, or our dogs, you can see your dog do this, will do a double-inhale, followed by an extended exhale. Children, or adults for that matter, that are sobbing and lose their breath, so to speak, will also do a double-inhale, exhale. That’s the spontaneous execution of what we call the physiological sigh. The reason it works so well to relax us is because it offloads a lot of carbon dioxide all at once, and the way it works is the following: Our lungs are not just two big bags of air. We have all these little millions of sacks of air, that if we were to lay them out flat, they would be as big as about a tennis court or so. The volume of air, therefore, and the volume of carbon dioxide that we can offload is tremendously high, except that we get stressed as carbon dioxide builds up in our bloodstream, and, it’s kind of a double whammy, these little sacks deflate.
Now, when we do a double-inhale, so I’ll do this now twice through my nose, or you could do this. You could do it through your mouth, but it works best through the nose. It’s inhale, and then you sneak a little bit more air in at the very end. When you do that, you reinflate those little sacks, and when you exhale, then you discard all the carbon oxide at once. So the simple way to describe this protocol is that, unless you are underwater, you do a double-inhale, followed by an extended exhale, and you offload the maximum amount of carbon dioxide. And we found in our laboratory, and other laboratories have found, that just one, two, or three of those physiological sighs brings your level of stress down very, very fast. And it’s a tool that you can use any time. [Andrew Hubberman, a Neurobiologist on Optimizing Sleep, Performance, and Testosterone on The Tim Ferriss Show] (Listen to the full episode here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Ac19ix9yioyJDXtTtNp2V)

3. Working on a better Mindset over 2021 while neglecting your Heartset sets up a situation of self-sabotage where your intellect knows what you should do yet your emotional world keeps you limited. [Robin Sharma] (Understand this in depth here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/5BwmXSljMOfuNwX0EhrKs2)

4. THE DREAM:
You want something. Month after month, year after year, you dream you are going to get it.

THE REALITY:
Nothing happens. You never come any closer to it…

THE TRUTH:
You didn’t actually want it. You wanted the idea of it. [Mark Manson]

5. When you only listen to the smartest person in the room, you miss out on discovering what the rest of the room is smart about.
Everyone you meet knows something you don’t—and has wisdom from experiences you haven’t lived.

Every conversation is a chance to learn something new. [Adam Grant]

My Weekly Learnings #13 (20.06 – 26.06)

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. If you have to ask if you’re happy, then you’re probably not.
If you have to ask if someone loves you, then they probably don’t.

If you have to ask if you are successful, then you’re probably not.

If you have to ask if you are healthy, then you probably are not. [Mark Manson]

2. Show up and do your job.
Don’t speak for anyone else.
Don’t criticize others.
Put the team first.
Pay attention to the details.
Avoid the drama.
Focus on getting better than yesterday.
Repeat. [Shane Parrish]

3. Jerry Seinfeld’s recipe for good writing

4. If work is guided by utilitarian outcomes, leisure is driven by intuitive awareness. Leisure is not a time to retreat from the world. Rather, it’s a time for poetry, prayer, and philosophy — a chance to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. [David Perell] (https://perell.com/essay/dont-kill-time/)

5. Identity is a work in progress. Your past self shouldn’t constrain your future goals.
Comfort comes from maintaining your identity. Growth comes from evolving your identity. [Adam Grant]

My Weekly Learnings #11 (06.06 – 12.06)

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. There is no life of only pleasure and no pain, of only success and no failure, of only acceptance and no rejection. To have one, you must have the other. [Mark Manson]

2. The moral panic over social media will continue to distract us from more important, less sensational problems like sleep and family closeness. Is this moral panic justified? [Nir Eyal] (Read more here – https://www.nirandfar.com/social-media-and-teens)

3. The purpose of life is the life of purpose [Robin Sharma] (Learn more here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/7jKed5UOAgPUBHCwmvP0ax)

4. The faster you jump to conclusions, the more likely you are to default to fashionable thinking. [David Perell] (Read more here – https://perell.com/essay/how-philosophers-think/)

5. Most people don’t want accurate information, they want validating information. Growth requires you to be open to unlearning ideas that previously served you. [James Clear]

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 #2 (04.04 – 10.04)

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. There’s no such thing as a “good” or “bad” emotion. There are only “good” and “bad” reactions to emotions. (Mark Manson)

2. Not doing it because somebody else has done it is like not eating because somebody else is full. (Jack Butcher)

3. A list of 6P’s that provide a useful framework for anyone who wants to sell something.

Product – what are you selling
Pricing – at what price
Person – to whom
Purpose – why are they buying it
Priority – why now
Prestige – and why from you? (Balaji Srinivasan)

4. Intelligence can be analogized to computers. Belief in a singular intelligence implies that humans possess a single general-purpose computer, which can perform well (high IQ), average (normal IQ), or poorly (low IQ). Multiple intelligences theory implies that human beings possess several relatively independent computers; strength in one computer does not predict strength (or weakness) with other computers.

Read more here – https://www.multipleintelligencesoasis.org/a-beginners-guide-to-mi

5. “Italy is known for tomatoes. Thailand for chilies. Germany for sauerkraut.

But tomatoes originated in Peru. Thailand imported chilies from Central America. Sauerkraut started in China.

Everything is a remix—and the world is better for it. Share what you know. Learn from others.” (James Clear)