What I’m Reading

* The Myth of Grit and Determination: “Behavioral goals are difficult because they tend to revolve around conflicting desires.”

* Appearances vs Experiences: What Really Makes Us Happy: “In the search for happiness, we often confuse how something looks with how it’s likely to make us feel.”

* How Smart People Make Better Decisions: “Thinking about your thinking — most decisions require a deeper level of exploration.”

* Willpower And Self-Control: “Self-control and discipline operate the same. Just because you may get briefly distracted by the urge to stay in bed or binge on Netflix instead of getting in your workout doesn’t mean you actually have to do it. “

* Don’t Try – Intend: “Why try when you can intend? Well, tries are much cheaper than intentions, and they do accomplish things — just not usually the task itself.”

* Improve Your Memory And Maintain a Healthy Brain: “Life-long learning is a journey, not a destination — there’s never a shortage of new things to learn.”

* It’s OK to Be Good and Not Great: “Trust comes from vulnerability.’ Recent experimental data suggests that this is because deep down inside, most everyone dislikes having to pretend they’ve got all their shit together. When you let your guard down and get real, others feel relieved and gain the confidence to do the same.”

* Focus On Your Legacy Now – There Is No Later: “If you were to ‘depart’ tomorrow, when your peers and loved ones gather to discuss what is your lasting contribution, what you are to be remembered for, what will they say?”
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* On Loneliness: “We must be aware and see the difference between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is the result of influence and oneself being so malleable, easily shaped. Aloneness is complete freedom from the known.”

* Decision Making Lessons From Great Tennis Players: “A wise decision requires reflection, and reflection requires a pause.”

* 50 Lessons Learned Writing 50 Newsletters: “Whether you currently run a newsletter or are thinking of starting one, I hope you find these thoughts helpful.”

* Changing Perspective: “Who you are versus what you’ve done.”

* Regrets: “There is a chance the world might be a slightly, ever so slightly, different place today had I said yes.”

* One Way to Stay Centered in a Divided World: “Because existing beliefs feel so much better than ideas we don’t yet believe, we all drift naturally toward the comforts of the echo chamber.”

* Lots Of Things Happening At Once: “Stories are more powerful than statistics because they’re memorable and easy to contextualize.”

* Mindsets: Optimism vs. Complacency vs. Pessimism: “A real optimist wakes up every morning knowing lots of stuff is broken, and more stuff is about to break. Big stuff. Important stuff. Stuff that will make his life miserable. He’s an optimist because he knows all this stuff does not preclude eventual growth and improvement.”

* Self-Doubt Is Good: “Self-doubt is an indicator. It’s the proof of a hidden positive. It’s the flip side of our dream.”

* Breaking Bad Habits (Video)

* Why You Feel At Home In A Crisis: “During the worst times of our lives, we can end up experiencing the best mental health and relationships with others.”

* Which I Am I?: “I’m not lonely because I’m with this other “me,” who is me and not-me at the same time and whom I have spent my entire life trying to find, to prove myself worthy of, and to labor in collaboration with.”

* The Creative Element of Conflict (Podcast): “Even on a hostage rescue team I carried a book of sonnets everywhere I went. The guys who make it into Special Operations are a cerebral set.

* The Law Of Reciprocity: Closing The Loop On Generosity (Video): “Your goal should be to close the loop of generosity whenever it’s opened.”

* Same As It Ever Was: “People spend too much time on the last 24 hours and not enough time on the last 6,000 years.”

* Stop Preparing For The Last Disaster: “The same disasters tend not to happen twice in a row. A more effective approach is simply to prepare to be surprised by life, instead of expecting the past to repeat itself.”

* A Body Of Work: “It exists inside you … and has existed from the moment you were born, and possibly even before that.”

* Why Do People Avoid Facts That Could Help Them?: “Deliberate ignorance is a widespread preference not only in relation to painful news and events, such as death and divorce, but also pleasurable ones, such as birth. Research shows that people enjoy the suspense.”

* On Luck Relative to Hard Work: “Absolute success is luck. Relative success is hard work.”

* How to Feel Better When You Don’t Know What’s Wrong: “Like many people I’ve spoken to this spring, I don’t know how I’m doing, only that some things feel off.”

* Yes, It’s All Your Fault: Active vs. Passive Mindsets: “The hard truth is that most things in your life – good and bad – are your fault.”

* Permanent Assumptions: “If you were told in January what April would look like, you wouldn’t have believed it. If you were told in April that in May we’d face a nationwide protest so important it would crowd out almost all COVID-19 news, you wouldn’t have believed it.”

* If You Feel Like You’re Regressing, You’re Not Alone: “For a leader, a crisis can be both the finest hour and the darkest day. Teams will remember their actions and decisions — good and bad — for years to come.”

* The Habits of Happiness (video): “Our control of the outer world is limited, temporary and  often illusory.”

* The Art of Being Alone: “Loneliness, longing, does not mean one has failed but simply that one is alive.”

* How to Get Rich in the Kindness Economy: “You produce goodwill, rather than indifference, and send it out into the world. This wealth reaches others, and supports them in producing more of it.”

* Emotions, Integrity and Wisdom: “I used to think that relationships were about being liked. This was an error.”

* 35: “Am I a good father? Am I a good friend? Am I taking care of myself?

* 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?”