What I’m Reading

* The Optimal Amount of Hassle: “If you recognize that BS is ubiquitous, then the question is not ‘How can I avoid all of it?’ but, ‘What is the optimal amount to put up with so I can still function in a messy and imperfect world?'”

* Better Thinking & Incentives: Lessons From Shakespeare: “Before we reinvent the wheel, it’s worth looking back to leverage what we’ve already figured out.”

* Self-knowledge Is A Super Power – If It’s Not An Illusion: “It would be impossible for poker players to bluff if they didn’t have control over facts about their own mind.”

* Play Your Own Game: “Your family’s different from mine. Your job’s different from mine. You have different life experiences than I do, different role models, different risk tolerances and goals and social ambitions, work-life balance targets, career incentives, on and on.”

* When All Moments Have Equal Value: “All moments can be appreciated, on a basic level at least, when you value the two opportunities each one offers – to respond skillfully to what’s happening, and to experience being alive for another moment.”

* Decision Fatigue: “How a burden of choices leads to irrational trade-offs.”

* Deliberate Practice Guide: How to Be the Best: “The key distinction between doing and practicing is that we’re only practicing something when we do it in a way that makes us better at it—or at least with that intention.”

Below are some of the most intriguing, thought-provoking and actionable performance-related content pieces I read, watched or listened to this week. [pic: IG @legacymentorofficial] Efficiency is the Enemy “There’s a good chance most of the problems in your life and work come down to insufficient slack. Here’s how slack works and why you need more … Read more

* How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught: “Schools don’t teach you a method of thinking. Thinking is one of those things that can be learned but can’t be taught.”

* A Starter Kit for the Stoicism-Curious: “David Cain provides a list of the best resources he’s found, roughly in order of how accessible they are, although you can start anywhere.”

* Anthony Hopkins Expects Nothing and Accepts Everything: “A conversation about happiness.”

* 99 Additional Bits of Unsolicited Advice

* A Few Short Stories: “It’s easy to underestimate how social norms stall change, even when the change is an obvious improvement. Change eventually comes, but agonizingly slower than you might assume.”

* Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed: “A heartfelt rant about how our work makes us so tired and unfulfilled that we give the money right back.”

* Why to Believe in Others – Viktor Frankl (Video Clip): “If we take man as he really is, we make him worse, but if we overestimate him …. If we seem to be idealists and are overestimating, overrating man, and looking at him that high, here above, you know what happens? We promote him to what he really can be.”

* The Ancient Art of Using Time Well: “Most days of my adult life have been characterized by a sort of pervasive disappointment over how I’ve used my time, with little success in adjusting for it.”

* What Information Do You Need In Order to Change?: “Knowing when to ignore feedback that isn’t useful or is badly intentioned can be just as useful as knowing when to seek out the kind of feedback that is instructive.”

* Hiking Is An Ideal Structure For Friendship: “Without this hike … it would have been one of those college friendships where you get together and talk about the old days.”

* How To Avoid Half-Heartedness:

“If you want to be loved, find something you love. People can sense it when you have something dedicated to. No one wants the burden of being the answer to your dissatisfaction.”

* The Big Lessons Of Last Year:

“The big lesson is to realize that you will again be hit by things you didn’t see coming, that no one was talking about, and that will move the needle more than all the things you expected to happen combined.”

* A Lot Of The Woo Probably Works:

“We’re beginning to re-examine some of these hidden assumptions, which is why there even is research on meditation, yoga, and other formerly woo-woo Eastern practices.”

* The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking (Audio):

“There may be no better formula for living the best life you could possibly live.”

* Avoiding Bad Decisions: “Our evolutionary programming conditions us to do what’s easy over what’s right. After all, it’s often easier to signal being virtuous than to actually be virtuous.”

* Pure Downside, No Silver Lining: “Pessimism is usually just extrapolating bad events without considering the offsetting reactions that push things in the other direction. That’s why it’s often wrong.”

* On Going Deep Versus Going Broad: “Depth wasn’t so much a game of persistently striving to top myself, it was more like a new lens for looking at the tools and opportunities that had always been there.”

* On Being Alone: “I don’t believe it’s a sign of weakness to feel lonely.”

* The Velocity of Skill Development: “Focused repetitions give you feedback. Feedback makes you better. Each repetition builds upon the ones you’ve already done. This is how greatness happens.”

* Good And Bad Procrastination: “I think the way to “solve” the problem of procrastination is to let delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you.”

* Goldilocks of Giving: “I encourage everyone to accept themselves and to accept others as they are. However, true growth comes from having a continuous and honest conversation with yourself. Self-evaluation can guide your path, and help you bloom.”

* The Science Behind Journaling: “By knowing who we were, it’s easier for us to reflect on who we want to become, providing us a clearer picture of the future and allowing us to map out exactly how to get there based on all that we’ve learned from before until now.”

* How to Do the Things You Keep Avoiding: “Tasks you’re avoiding never leave your consciousness for long. They hang there like clouds, some distance away, watching you.”

* Solve Problems Before They Happen: “It’s worth asking why, if we think something is worth saving, we don’t put more effort into protecting it ahead of time.”

* Best Story Wins: “Not who has the best idea, or the right answer. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads.”