I recently completed a full semester graduate-level psychology course of Jordan Petersen’s MAPS OF MEANING online – based on his book of the same title. This course spans a number of topics rooted in Petersen’s personalized map of belief systems and in ways his own version/interpretation of Joseph Campbell’s take on The Hero’s Journey with … Read more
* Mental Models For a Pandemic: “Mental models help us understand the world better, something which is especially valuable during times of confusion, like a pandemic. Here’s how to apply mental models to gain a more accurate picture of reality and keep a cool head.”
* The Three Sides of Risk: “Once you go through something like that, you realize that the tail-end consequences – the low-probability, high-impact events – are all that matter.”
* Nobody Cares About Your Failures: “The world isn’t watching you as closely as you think. Take more chances. Your failures will mostly go unnoticed. And those who do notice rarely care.”
* Emotions, Integrity, and Wisdom: ” If feelings are natural, why is the nature of feelings so obscure?”
* Empathy Starts with Curiosity: “There is a way in which this pandemic may be calling us to slow down and listen. What if we resist the urge to act — to just do something — and, instead, stop doing? Just be present.”
* My Favorite Picture of You (video): “A Man Looks Back On Life – On The Ebb And Flow Of Memories”
* Marcus Aurelius Helped Me Survive Grief And Rebuild My Life: “Aurelius reminded me that where I was wasn’t just where I was but when – and that there was no advantage to be found in unsticking myself from time.”
* Focus On The Inputs: “All you need to do is define the result and accept nothing less from yourself.”
In this dialogue we discuss:
* The power of listening
* How positive thinking increases resilience, how to align tasks with goals
* How to balance feelings and facts
* The role of self validation and external validation for future focused leadership
* When You Have No Idea What Happens Next: “How do you think about a world where fundamental assumptions about the future are so fragile?”
* Sugar Ray Leonard Interview: Resilience: “Most people look at boxing or any contact sport and say, “Wow, I couldn’t do that,” because they don’t possess the thing inside of us that makes us go through pain. It takes something to activate that. That’s what separates fighters from other people.”
* Winning the First Battle in the Lifelong War of Art: “A true story from the writing trenches by Steven Pressfield.”
* Learning To Let Go: “This should not be an extremely painful process. Learning to let go of things is mainly about questioning the actual value of your stuff and letting go of unnecessary things.”
* Why We Worry: “Coming to grips with our lack of control can be frightening. But focusing on the present is extremely powerful.”
* How to Get Out of a Rut in About 20 Minutes: “It doesn’t solve your problems, but dissolves any sense of being bogged down by unexamined concerns, precisely because you have just examined your concerns.”
* Why We Focus on Trivial Things: “Why is having a clear purpose so critical? Because you use it as the lens to filter all other decisions.”
* History is Only Interesting Because Nothing is Inevitable: “Nothing that’s happened had to happen, or must happen again. That’s why historians aren’t prophets.”
Recently I had the privileged to be a guest on Dylan Slattery’s podcast – Dylan is a Stage 4 cancer survivor, one of the most resilient-minded people I’ve ever met, a great motivational speaker and an amazing human being! Links to all formats below. Episode 26 Description: From working on Wall Street in his early … Read more
* Scarcity (from the archives): “Time is scarce. There isn’t enough of it by half. There’s so much I want to do, I have to do. It’s a good problem to have but it’s still a problem.”
* You And Your Mind Garden: “The garden metaphor is particularly apt: taking care of your mind involves cultivating your curiosity (the seeds), growing your knowledge (the trees), and producing new thoughts (the fruits).”
* How We See the World Shapes How We React to It: “Our psychological state, our mindsets, and the environment around us all influence whether we will find our lives filling or not.”
* For The Full Life Experience Put Down All Devices And Walk: “‘Walking with a purpose’ is usually regarded as a positive thing. But the art of walking is not about purpose or aim. The art of walking is all about this purposeless purpose.”
* Why Steve Jobs Stole His Ideas “Innovative ideas have to come from somewhere. No matter how unique or unprecedented a work seems, dig a little deeper and you will always find that the creator stood on someone else’s shoulders.”
* How to Take a Break from Your Mind: “A small amount of imagination-induced pain goes a long way, however. We don’t need to suffer as much as we do.”
* Non-Ideal Productivity: “It’s not a productivity failure to have only 24 hours in the day, and more uses for your time than can ever possibly fulfilled. Instead, productivity failures come from the mismanagement of existing resources: time, energy, motivation.”
* The Polymath Advantage: “Range over mastery — people who embrace diverse skills, experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.”
* Preparing for the Unknown: “We’re often advised to excel at one thing. But as the future gets harder to predict, preserving optionality allows us to pivot when the road ahead crumbles.”
* How Rituals and Focus Can Turn Isolation Into a Time for Growth: “The response to COVID-19 suggests one answer: care for yourself and others. So take a breath and take the time to change the daily rituals that make up life. Throw yourself into them as if your life were at stake, which it is.”
* Two Things We Know With High Confidence: “Unknowns exceed knowns even in the best of times. Today, that’s increased exponentially.”
* Time Alone (chosen or not) Can Be A Chance To Hit The Reset Button: “In a culture fueled by fast-paced lifestyles and convenient technologies, we are easily pulled by our devices and our obsession with productivity. When we are alone, we find ourselves working, and when we have a free moment, we want to catch up with what other people are doing by picking up our phones.”
* Take The Long View: “If you’re too close to see the edges of a problem, you lose the sense that there’s anything outside of it, before it, or after it.”
