My Weekly Learnings #111 (07.05.23 – 13.05.23)

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. A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is. in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that’s not the same thing.

When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. “You can’t make the pie larger,” say politicians. When you’re talking about the amount of money in one family’s bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year’s tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less. 

I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population has y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you’re planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.

What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It’s just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on
balance, created) for all of human history.

Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is– and you specifically arc– one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you’ll get more for it. 

In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven’t made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was. [Paul Graham]

2. This is your brain on sleep deprivation.

On the left is a normal night of sleep. 
On the right is what it looks like when it’s deprived of 4 hours of sleep.

The coloured areas are the activity happening in your brain. Notice the lack of activity on the right side.

Researchers at the University of Oslo found that lack of sleep leads to reduced clearance of substances from the brain.

These substances are many of the same waste products that are seen to accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Takeaway #1 – You make worse decisions when sleep deprived

Researchers found there was less activity in the frontal & parietal lobes, which are crucial for decision-making, problem-solving & mood control.

You are just not at your best when you don’t get enough sleep.

Takeaway #2 – Long term brain health

Some recent studies suggest that poor sleep contributes to higher levels of beta-amyloid protein in the brain, which lead to the amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer’s brain.

If you want a healthy brain avoid long-term sleep deprivation.

What should you do?

• When deprived of sleep avoid making big decisions & pause before reacting to an emotion.
• Fix your sleeping habits. If you can’t get enough hours, focus on increasing your sleep quality to make up for it. [Dan Go]

3. Do the job before you hire for it. You know nothing about X, so you think you need to hire an expert in X. But you can’t tell which experts are any good until you’ve learned enough to be dangerous yourself. [Emmett Shear]

4. Douglas Adams on the cycle of human reaction to technology:
i. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 
ii. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
iii. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

5. Doing a single bout of at least 30 minutes of continuous cardio within 6 hours of eating decreased glucose and insulin levels in the six hours after a meal. (Sports Medicine, 2021)

Here’s another reason to love cardio: it provides both short-term and long-term metabolic health benefits.

In the long-term, regular physical activity helps, in part, because it increases the number of muscle cells, which means more mitochondria to turn glucose into energy.

Regular exercise also prompts the liver to metabolize glucose more efficiently and reduce insulin clearance, which can help improve glycemic variability. In other words, your muscles become primed to absorb more glucose. [Neurohacker]

My Weekly Learnings #110 (30.04.23 – 06.05.23)

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. Napoleon on winning:
All great events hang by a single thread.

The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity;

the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

2. Systems engineer and environmental scientist Donella Meadows on nonmaterial needs:

“People don’t need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect. They don’t need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth.

Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs—for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy—with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to never-satisfied longings. A society that allows itself to admit and articulate its nonmaterial human needs, and to find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them, world require much lower material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human fulfillment.”

Source: The Limits to Growth​

3. To stop being triggered you must distance your response from the trigger so that the strength between communicating neurons weakens over time.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl

If you can pause after being triggered, and you leave enough time between that and your response, then over time, the connections weaken so that the response is no longer automatic. [NicolesNeuroscience]

4. The most important habit is focus. 

There is no focus without sacrifice. 

Focus is defined by what you say no to. [Shane Parrish]

5. People think they don’t have time to learn today,

but they are precisely so busy today because they didn’t take the time to learn yesterday,

and missed the life-changing opportunities they could have caught if only they had been a bit more curious and open-minded. [Orange Book]

My Weekly Learnings #105 (26.03.23 – 01.04.23)

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. Few things are more important in life than avoiding the wrong people.

It’s tempting to think that we are strong enough to avoid adopting the worst of others, but that’s not how it typically works.

We unconsciously become what we’re near.

If you work for a jerk, sooner or later you’ll become one yourself. If your colleagues are selfish, sooner or later you become selfish. If you hang around someone who’s unkind, you’ll slowly become unkind. Little by little, you adopt the thoughts and feelings, the attitudes and standards of the people around you. The changes are too gradual to notice until they’re too large to address. [Shane Parrish]

2. You’re having a spiritual awakening. Here’s what to expect:

Most of us live on autopilot. Lost in the constant stream of thoughts in our mind, living out the conditioned patterns of who we were told we are. This is our false self or the persona we create to get approval or acceptance.

We do all the things we were told to do. Yet, we’re not happy. Sometimes we’re miserable. We get the degrees, the job, find the relationship, and one day we wake up and realize: we don’t know who we actually are. Or whose life we are living.

This is the beginning of waking up. We start asking who am I living my life for? What do I actually care about? What is the true meaning of my life? What am I here for?

We finally see through the illusion that society is not set up for the benefit of our emotional health. What’s normalized is avoiding, numbing, and repressing in order to ‘fit in’ to a culture that strips us of our individual nature.

Maybe it’s not that we’re depressed, or anxious, or ‘crazy.’ Maybe it’s that we’ve been conditioned to exist as a persona. What becomes important to us is the meaningful connection, truth, self-acceptance, and no longer playing a role for other people.

People picture a spiritual awakening as something that happens with monks on a mountain, but it actually happens to anyone who has the courage to see themselves, fully. It’s the journey home to our authentic self.

We start to trust ourselves. We start to listen to our intuition. Our relationships shift, and there’s room for new people in our lives. We’re no longer interested in betraying ourselves. Not everyone will understand, and that’s ok. We are awake. [Dr Nicole LePera]

3. Blaming and shaming doesn’t stop people from making mistakes. It stops them from admitting mistakes.

If people can’t share their blunders, they can’t learn from them—and neither can the rest of us.

The best way to prevent errors is to make it safe for people to discuss them. [Adam Grant x M Shandell]

4. 5 Stoic don’ts
– Don’t suffer imagined troubles
– Don’t always have an opinion
– Don’t be overheard complaining
– Don’t be all about business
– Don’t focus on outcomes [Daily Stoic]

5. Your understanding of other people’s emotions peaks in your 40s and 50s.
Source: Association for Psychological Science [8fact]

My Weekly Learnings #100 (19.02.23 – 25.02.23)

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. Everyone is gambling, all the time. 

The “risk takers” have the courage to attempt something and gamble with the possibility of failure.

The “risk averse” avoid failure, but gamble with the opportunity cost of what they could have achieved—had they found the courage to try. [James Clear]

2. Have you been put in a middle of a conflict that didn’t involve you? This is a common manipulation called triangulation.

Here’s how to protect your peace:
Triangulation is when someone brings another person into a conflict or gossip that doesn’t involve them.

People triangulate to:
– gain sympathy from others
– confirm their view is “right”
– to paint someone in a specific light
– to elevate their own sense of self
– protect their ego

Examples of triangulation:
– telling a child all about how awful the other parent is
– talking negatively to one child about their sibling (“Tom makes horrible decisions”)
– asking a friend to get in the middle of a conflict with a partner
– a parent asks a sibling to talk to another sibling to get them to do something (“tell Becky she needs to call me more”)
– telling a partner what a close friend said about them (“well Ashley says you’re selfish!”)
– – airing out issues with someone on a social media post telling one part of the story
– a sibling comes to you about an issue with your parents (“you need to get dad to do x”)

In triangulation, a person uses a third party to communicate with someone else. It’s a form of passive-aggressive communication that is quite common in many homes. Because it’s so common, many people don’t know they’re being triangulated. They may consider this type of communication normal, and not see they’re being used for someone else’s gain.

People who triangulate tend to:
– have binary thinking patterns (black and white) thinking patterns. They struggle to see people’s humanity or nuance in people.
– easily fall into “all bad” or “all good” thinking and side-taking. 
– have issues with control
– lack the ability to directly communicate their issues with the person and seek validation from others
– struggle to trust their own self-perception (need perceptions of others)
– thrive off of: conflict, chaos, and interpersonal issues between people

If you recognize someone is triangulating you, it’s time to set boundaries. People who triangulate lack boundaries and see the connection as something that comes through conflict and gossip.

Boundaries around triangulation:
– “I don’t want to be involved with that”
– “I don’t know the whole story, so I feel uncomfortable sharing my opinion”
– “I don’t think I’m able to help with this, it’s really not my place.”
– “I don’t like being put in the middle, and I would rather not hear about this anymore.”
– “I think having a direct discussion with them would be best, this isn’t something I can navigate”

Remember, peace is the product of clear boundaries. 

While many people are addicted to conflict and the false sense of power it gives us, we can always choose not to take part in it. And to prioritize our emotional wellness. [Dr Nicole LePera]

3. Mountaineer Alex Lowe on how to be the best:

“The best climber in the world is the one who’s having the most fun.”

Source: Outside Magazine​

4. Thinking in decades avoids a lot of bad behaviour.

If you think about relationships lasting decades, you’ll often handle the current moment differently. This works for co-workers, partners, suppliers, customers, friends, etc.

Think twice before you interrupt time. [Shane Parrish]

5. There are fools everywhere. If you get angry every time you meet one, you will spend most of your life angry, and that’s not a smart way to spend your life at all. [Orange Book]

My Weekly Learnings #90 (11.12.22 – 17.12.22)

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. If you don’t have all the facts yet, you shouldn’t have a strong opinion yet.

Motivated reasoning is believing what you want to be true. Critical thinking depends on wanting to believe whatever ends up being true.

A key to learning is refusing to let your hopes bias your views. [Adam Grant]

2. What is Narcissistic Supply?
Narcissists are very insecure people. They don’t think very good about themselves. To combat those feelings of contempt and self loathing they create a false self. This is an all powerful, perfect being who is superior to everyone else. In order to keep this pathology alive they need narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply can be attention, money, image, your tears, your anger, your frustration, applause, approval, awards and anything else positive or negative that makes them feel significant and superior to others. Narcissistic supply is the oxygen that gives narcissists life. [Maria Consiglio]

3. The biggest generator of compounding results is learning to do things when you don’t feel like doing them.

If you let excuses or emotion drive behavior, you’re cheating yourself.

Put aside the excuses and start doing what you need to do. [Shane Parrish]

4. The Forgetting Curve

The graph illustrates that when you first learn something, the information disappears at an exponential rate. In other words, you lose most of your newly acquired knowledge in the first couple of days, after which the rate of loss tapers off.

5. 5 Things to Remind Yourself of Regularly:

1. The opposite of misery isn’t happiness, it’s gratitude.

2. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, including yourself.

3. Your successes won’t feel as good as you hope. Your failures won’t feel as bad as you fear.

4. Usually the way to get more out of life is by focusing on less.

5. A healthy body is the most underrated factor to creating a healthy mind. [Mark Manson]

My Weekly Learnings #87 (20.11.22 – 26.11.22)

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. No matter what you do for work, no matter how you live your life, no matter what your stances are—there will be some crowds who respect you for it and others who don’t.

If you live true to your values, you’ll win the respect of the people you respect. That’s all that matters.

On the other hand, if you live by someone else’s values instead of your own, you’ll end up losing the respect of the people you respect and winning over the wrong people. [Tim Urban]

2. Chances are, your natural born talents are different than the ones you wish you had because people undervalue what comes naturally to them.

When you’re a kid, people ask what you want to be when you grow up and the possibilities are endless.

But in adulthood, you need to work with the grain of your talents and surrender to what you’re naturally good at. Like dry concrete, you have to work with what you’ve got.

The biggest gains from mentorship come from having somebody you admire say: “You’re really good at this!”

In an instant, you can come to appreciate the same talents you took for granted two minutes before. But the praise has to come from a high-status person. [David Perell]

3. How long is “never”?

It changes. It changes as we age, and it changes depending on the situation.

A second-grader might think that a boring class is never going to end.

A bad cold might feel endless, unless we have the perspective of someone who has experienced a chronic problem.

Some things actually deserve “never.” But most of what we’re worried about probably would be better categorized as “eventually.” [Seth Godin]

4. The most useful way to reduce risk is patience.

A lot of risk comes from trying to speed things up. 

A lack of patience changes the outcome. [Shane Parrish]

5. Truth-seeking burns energy.

People like conserving energy.

Thus the sport that’s played the most: jumping to conclusions. [Kunal Shah]

My Weekly Learnings #71 (31.07.22 – 06.08.22)

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. Taking occasional daytime naps may lower the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

Napping once to twice weekly for between five minutes and an hour showed an almost halving in heart attack, stroke and heart failure risk (48 per cent) compared with those who didn’t nap at all.

Source: Department of Medicine at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland

2. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book, winning a championship, or achieving any other goal, we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.

The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more. [James Clear]

3. “That’s just the way I am” is a missed opportunity for growth.

Personality is not your destiny. It’s your tendency. No one is limited to a single way of thinking, feeling, or acting.

Who you become is not about the traits you have. It’s what you decide to do with them. [Adam Grant]

4. To change your behavior, change your environment.

The better designed your environment is, the less you need conscious effort.

Your environment should be a tailwind, not a headwind. [Shane Parrish]

5. Those who internalize and retain extreme conclusions from past setbacks, often keep getting more rigid in life with age. [Kunal Shah]

My Weekly Learnings #67 (03.07.22 – 09.07.22)

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. A fascinating study confirms that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s “fight or flight” center, the amygdala, shrinks. The amygdala, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress.

As the amygdala shrinks, the prefrontal cortex – associated with higher-order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker.

The “functional connectivity” between these regions – i.e. how often they are activated together – also changes. The connection between the amygdala and the rest of the brain gets weaker, while the connections between areas associated with attention and concentration get stronger. The result? Our more primal responses to stress seem to be superseded by more thoughtful ones during mindfulness practices. [Neurohacker]

2. Gaslighting is psychological abuse. Typically, it’s a pattern of consistent behaviour, something a person engages in over + over to control situations. This looks like denying something occurred for personal gain, creating false narratives about someone (to shame or humiliate), and weaponizing a person’s trust to manipulate. Gaslighting is done by insecure, fearful people who know no other way to get their needs met aside from controlling other people.

THINGS TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT GASLIGHTING

A. Disagreeing with someone’s perspective IS NOT gaslighting (disagreement is a natural + healthy part of human relationships)

B. Telling someone what they think, how they feel, or what their intention was + they then state what *they* think, feel, or what their intentions were isn’t gaslighting. People are able to clarify things from their own perspective— especially when being spoken for.

C. Remembering experiences or events differently is something that makes us human. It’s one thing to deny the event entirely and say “you’re crazy!”— it’s another to say “for me, this is how this happened.” Learning to listen empathetically is key to healthy relationships.

D. With mature communication skills a person is flexible, open, and does not feel as though they are personally being attacked if someone does not see things the way they do.

E. Many people have been raised in homes where the communication was: invalidating, shaming, name-calling, and overall hostile. It’s common for people raised in these homes to feel highly emotionally activated during a disagreement. This doesn’t necessarily mean gaslighting is taking place. Learning open, empathetic communication heals.

F. The core function of gaslighting is to over time, chip away at a person’s sense of self-trust + to question their own sanity. Always consider someone’s intention.

G. Your reality is always valid simply because you experience it. AND, multiple realities do exist. This is key to a peaceful, compassionate existence. [Dr. Nicole LePera]

3. Afternoon naps can help rest our brains and clear out our jumble of daily thoughts. The best nap is 10 to 30 minutes taken between 1 and 3 pm.

Source: General Psychiatry

4. People signal what they don’t understand.

The person who signals they’re wealthy doesn’t understand wealth.

The person who signals how busy they are doesn’t get anything done.

The stronger the signal the weaker the understanding. [Shane Parrish]

5. Hope – More than a Feeling

[Framework: CR Snyder Source: sketchplantations]

My Weekly Learnings #60 (15.05.22 – 21.05.22)

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. What is an amygdala hijack?

Amygdala hijack is an emotional response to stress, often thought of as losing control of one’s emotions.

An example of this is where you are talking to a friend and they do not appear to be listening to you, ignore what you say, or maybe talk over the top of you.

This kind of interaction can make you ‘snap’. You may suddenly have an outburst such as shouting at them for not listening. Afterwards, you may realize that you overreacted and that the way you acted was unnecessary and you may say to yourself ‘what was I thinking?’.

You may not have been thinking at all as what actually happened is that your amygdala hijacked you.

Amygdala hijack refers to the situations where the amygdala overrides control of a person’s ability to respond rationally to a perceived threat – the logical brain gets impaired due to emotional outbursts caused by the amygdala.

[Guy-Evans/ Simply Psychology]

2. The process of learning and remembering things often feels hard and indeed can evoke agitation. Most people don’t realize it, but agitation is the entry point to learning. Literally, the adrenaline that causes agitation signals the nervous system that it should be ready to change. Without it the nervous system is not as primed for change— the process we call neuroplasticity.

Once you understand this, you will more likely embrace (as opposed to avoiding) agitation. Also, after a period of challenging focus and learning, there is an associated increase in feel-good molecules such as dopamine (and to a lesser extent, serotonin).

The takeaway: learning is a process that starts with focus, alertness, and agitation, …and the process is consolidated during sleep and non-sleep deep rest (NSDR).

We all have the capacity for neuroplasticity. Don’t hesitate to lean into it as a process. Recognise the agitation as part of that process. The feel-good part arrives at the end, or days later when, as if suddenly, you have acquired new abilities. [Dr Andrew D Huberman]

3. Movement is literally an expression of the way in which we think and feel. The way you move affects the way you feel, and the way you feel is inseparably tied to the expression of your internal chemistry.

A fascinating study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University showed how posture during communication not only informs the way others perceive you but may even shape your own self-belief.

Researchers asked the participants to list three positive and three negative traits they possess that would impact their professional performance at a future job. Half of the participants were asked to write these traits while they were in a hunched-over position, while the other half were asked to assume an upright posture during the process.

The results were striking. Their posture not only impacted whether or not they identified with the positive things they were asked to write about themselves but also affected a participant’s belief in the statements, positive or negative. [Neurohacker]

4. Lack of sleep can create an imbalance in the body that increases ghrelin levels and lowers leptin levels. This can cause you to feel hungrier during the day. This imbalance caused by sleep deprivation may lead to a higher calorie intake during the day. [Source: Sleep Foundation]

5. The greatest threat to results is impatience.

If you let it, a tiny daily advantage will compound into a massive generational one.

A lack of patience changes the outcome. [Shane Parrish]

My Weekly Learnings #54 (03.04.22 – 09.04.22)

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. Look around your environment.

Rather than seeing items as objects, see them as magnets for your attention. Each object gently pulls a certain amount of your attention toward it.

Whenever you discard something, the tug of that object is released. You get some attention back. [James Clear]

2. Writer Jenée Desmond-Harris on how to divide your to-do list:

“I started dividing my to-do list into 1) things I have to do, 2) things I want to do, and 3) things other people want me to do. Life-changing! I often don’t get to #3 and I finally realized… this is what it means to have boundaries.”

3. People can subconsciously become their favourite fictional characters. Psychologists have discovered that while reading a book or story, people are prone to subconsciously adopt their behaviour, thoughts, beliefs, and internal responses to that of fictional characters as if they were their own. [8fact]

4. The person who makes you smarter isn’t always the smartest one in the room. Often it’s the most curious one in the room.

“Why do we do that?” leads you to question old assumptions. “What if?” opens your eyes to new possibilities.

Inquisitive people are catalysts for learning. [Adam Grant]

5. Depth of understanding:

– I have been told
– I have been shown
– I have done
– I have demonstrated
– I have taught someone else

The thresholds you cross are:

– Awareness
– Knowledge
– Understanding
– Skill
– Mastery [Shane Parrish]

My Weekly Learnings #48 (20.02.22 – 26.02.22)

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. The most expensive tasks that brains do are (1) moving your body and (2) learning something new. They have a metabolic cost that may feel unpleasant. So, feeling bad doesn’t always mean that something bad happened. You might just be doing something really hard. [#LisaFeldmanBarrett]

The brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system can change in response to experience — a process we call neural plasticity or neuroplasticity. In general nervous systems are shaped by mere experience in our early stages of life and until about age 25 (in humans) although that is not a strict cut-off. After age 25 neuroplasticity is still possible but requires intense focus followed by periods of deep rest which could be comprised of deep sleep, naps or their combination. Long bouts of sleep (~5- 8+ hours) are when most rewiring of neural connections occurs aka neuroplasticity.

As this post from Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett points out, triggering neural plasticity can sometimes be an unpleasant experience even if the thing we are learning is something we want to engage in. This is important to keep in mind when you experience agitation, frustration, and confusion when trying to learn something. Those feelings are actually reflective of the neuroplasticity process. [#AndrewDHuberman]

2.

Source: #BrainChat

3. Poet #MaySarton on remaining a beginner:
“It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, that the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work.”

Source: Plant Dreaming Deep

4. Superpowers you can have:
– Ability to change yourself & your mind
– Not taking things personally
– Not needing to prove you’re right
– Careful selection of all relationships
– Staying calm
– Being alone without being lonely
– Being ok being uncomfortable
– Thinking for oneself [#ShaneParrish]

5. When things go wrong, is your instinct to hide in a corner and hope you won’t get noticed–or to lean into the situation and make it clear that this one is on you?
“I’ve got this,” is a phrase that some people will go out of their way to avoid saying. At work, where it’s incredibly valuable, or in personal relationships, where it creates a deep connection.

The movies are filled with heroes who take responsibility. Organizations are miserly when it comes to handing out authority, but most of them are eager to pay attention (and give respect) to anyone who is willing to take responsibility.

Like our control preference, responsibility is a learned skill. You might be born with an instinct for it, but mostly it’s something we’re taught or choose to learn.

Sadly, this is a line that’s missing from every resume I’ve ever seen. It seems to be that a bias toward taking responsibility is one of the most important things to look for when hiring an employee, finding a doctor or building a team. [#SethGodin]

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 #43 (16.01.22 – 22.01.22)

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. “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” — Sun Tzu
This lesson goes beyond war.

For example, a little extra time upfront finding a great employee changes the outcome.

What seems like a great outcome in hindsight is often just better preparation.

There are so many examples.

Hiring a great architect avoids problems. Hiring a great lawyer avoids problems. Investing in your relationship makes inevitable conflict easier to resolve.

Preparation today creates more favourable circumstances tomorrow.

The thing a lot of people miss is that a little time spent before problems crop up avoids them entirely or creates a better position to deal with them.

You can spend time fixing problems or avoiding them entirely. Knowing where to apply effort yields a 10x return. [Shane Parrish]

2. Picking someone as your role model in life sets unrealistic expectations. Eventually, you’ll learn they don’t belong on a pedestal.
It’s better to admire people for specific strengths. It reminds you they have weaknesses too.

Knowing they have vices put their virtues in reach. [Adam Grant]

3. How to remember if you did something?

Source: sketchplantations

4. Would you rather write the script, read the script, watch the movie or write the review?
When someone commutes by train, they’re giving up control over the journey. On one hand, that means that they can’t actively impact how fast the train arrives. On the other hand, it means that they don’t have to be fully present and in command of all the decisions involved.

There’s a huge diversity of control preferences, and it varies across the many areas of our lives. Perhaps you need to be in control over your work, but have no interest in controlling what you eat for dinner–or vice versa.

I remember a restaurant in the Bronx where the waiter would ask you one or two questions about which food you liked, and then walk away and bring you back a series of dishes that you didn’t expect or choose. Some people really enjoy this, others are frustrated by the lack of control it requires.

While it may be that each of us has an inherent bias away or toward control, it’s pretty clear that it is also a skill that can be learned, and that different industries allocate control to people as part of their hierarchies. It’s also true that different cultures have evolved to allocate and teach control preference in different ways. Sometimes it’s based on gender and caste, but there are also cultural mores that have been fueled by industry, the patriarchy and governance.

One of the things we certainly have control over is deciding whether we’ll seek to spend our days in control or not. We might have make sacrifices along the way, but the feeling is up to us. [Seth Godin]

5. Thomas Mitchell, a farmer, on productivity:
“It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day, if we go by the rule—map out our time, divide it off, and take up one thing regularly after another. To drift through our work, or to rush through it in a helter-skelter fashion, ends in comparatively little being done. “One thing at a time” will always perform a better day’s work than doing two or three things at a time. By following this rule, one person will do more in a day than another does in a week.”

Source: Essays on Life

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 #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 #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 #21 (15.08 – 21.08)

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. There are many types of wealth:
– you have a healthy body
– you grew up with loving parents
– in a position to donate and help
– you spend your time as you wish
– the people you love love you back
– freedom from envy, peace of mind
[@ Orange Book on Twitter]

2. One mark of a smart person is the ability to learn from people they don’t like. [Shane Parrish]

3. Resting is not a waste of time. It’s an investment in well-being.

Relaxing is not a sign of laziness. It’s a source of energy.

Breaks are not a distraction. They’re a chance to refocus attention.

Play is not a frivolous activity. It’s a path to connection and creativity.
[Adam Grant]

4. Ironically, the more we imitate others, the more we discover our unique style.

There’s a long lineage of comedians who tried to copy each other, failed, and became great themselves : Johnny Carson tried to copy Jack Benny, but failed and won six Emmy awards. Then, David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson, but failed and became one of America’s great television hosts.

Reflecting on his own influences, Conan O’Brien sair: “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.”

All these comedians learned that imitation reveals our identity, especially when we fall short of those we admire. To improve your writing, binge-read your favorite writers and imitate their style when you write. Spoiler alert: You won’t be able to do it perfectly. Your voice will reveal itself when you try to imitate them – which is exactly what you want to have happen.

Don’t seek originality. Instead, imitate others so passionately that the glitter of their brilliance shines upon your craft. Imitation the closest you can get to a conversation with the writer. Aim for perfection but pay attention to your shortcomings, for they hold the seeds of your individuality.

Imitate, then innovate. [A mini-essay by David Perrell]

5. Emotions usually only last 90 seconds when you observe them without judgment and gently breath in and out. Many people create and reinforce disempowering emotional loops by getting sucked into thinking about what they are feeling. Then… they feel what they are thinking about and unknowingly create a self-fulfilling disempowering doom loop that gets reinforced and cemented deeper and deeper into the subconscious. [John Assaraf]

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 #9 (23.05 – 29.05)

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. The bad days are more important than the good days.
If you…

– write
– exercise
– meditate
– cook
– whatever
… when you don’t feel like it, then you maintain the habit.

And if you maintain the habit, then all you need is time. (James Clear)

2. When you can’t decide between two choices, pick the one with short-term costs and long-term benefits. (Shane Parrish)

3. What I write ≠ what you read. (Jack Butcher)

4. Happiness comes from WHAT we do. Fulfillment comes from WHY we do it. (Simon Sinek)

5. When you see a journalist writing articles to impress other journalists or a restaurant owner trying to impress other foodies and restaurant owners, it’s usually not practical or high-quality.

The journalist or restaurant owner may receive accolades within certain elite circles, but that doesn’t reflect reality.

A scientist or an experimentalist gets feedback from Mother Nature, and an entrepreneur gets feedback from a free market in which people vote with their money and time. Those are much better predictors. [Naval] (Listen more here – https://nav.al/optimism)