Forever Grateful

 I wonder if the cascading type of goal setting recommended by Steve Kotler in his The Art of Impossible aligns with what Burkeman suggests in his Four Thousand Weeks. I think it does.  Kotler suggests tiered goal setting to live a fulfilling life by conquering what he calls small I and Upper case Iimpossible.  Small I impossible things are small scaled challenges while the upper case I impossible are massive things like a single individual organizing a space expedition. For Kotler, there are three tiers when it comes to setting goals: massively transformative purpose; hard high goals; Clear goals. Massively transformative purpose could be to write books that transform lives.  Besides being a giant goal, such a purpose acts as an activities filter.  Whatever aligns with it is embraced.  Whatever isn’t is set aside or procrastinated.  This keeps limited amount of things on our plate.  Limiting the number of items on our plate is indeed what Burkema...

Finitude: it is a new word that I learned while reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.   We have limited time on this earth.  We can only do so many things.  We need to prioritize things that are important to us.   The rest, we have to procrastinate on them. This is one aspect of procrastination.  This is a good kind of procrastination.  It will let us focus on what we have determined to be important. There is another aspect of procrastination, and it rears it’s ugly head when we start on difficult tasks.  This kind of procrastination is the kind to avoid.  It could be driven by perfectionism.  It could be fueled by what Burkeman identifies as our inability to reconcile our perfect plans with the challenges the real world imposes on us. There is a remedy for this: execution.  I am not sure who said that a good plan violently executed is better than a perfect plan is not realized.  It is our duty ...

 Seth Godin emboldens us to ship our work. In his books and videos, for example, he bluntly tells us that there is no such thing as writer’s block.  If someone claims to have a writer’s block, it implies that person is a perfectionist.    The writer’s well can. never suffer such a draught.  Claiming writer’s block is embracing fear.  There is a decent alternative.  There is an enlightened approach. Ship.  Maintain the discipline of shipping.  Of course we need to put in decent work ethic, something that shows that we are grateful to our audience for caving out time from their lives to read our work.  At the same time, we should also be humble enough to show our human vulnerability. Our works may be masterful or end up as examples of redemption stories - works that emphatically state we refused to quit. The key thing is to ship...

MihalyCsikszentmihalyi, in the first chapter of his audiobook on flow, mentions that happiness goes beyond material well being.  It is great that since the publication of that book we have mental models like PERMA, Martin Seligman’s model that underpins subjective well being.  Subjective well being, as a term, describes a state beyond the smiley face of happiness.  It captures what the Greeks termed eudaimonia. PERMA is an acronym that spells positive affect; engagement; relationships; meaning; and finally, achievement.  Engagement is typified by flow.  Flow defines a state of rapt attention where the sense of time disappears and we are fully enmeshed into what we are doing.  It is no surprise that flow is a big chunk of what brings us subjective well being. Flow demands that we set ourselves stretch goals and map out our execution strategies.  A core part of these strategies is establishing frequent feedbacks to ensure that we are aligned with our goa...

 Stephen H. Covey was interviewing Dan Pink on this episode.  In the early part of the exchange, Dan reveals that he was into writing for a while,   While in law school, for example, he mentions that he wrote more articles/stories than papers.  He also advises us to watch what we do when we have some ‘spare’ time.  Those moments can reveal who we are aspiring to be. Writing on the side takes commitment.  Churning out articles and stories demands fierce work ethic.  Each writing session, each work completed can be considered a datapoint.  The data points aggregate to reveal a fact based or data driven portrait of Dan as a writer.   I think what Dan did is what Cal Newport calls developing career capital.  The two seem to agree that follow your passion is a poor career advice.  Rather, discovering what we are good at through the works that we do is a better way to go. Indeed, watching what we do during our ‘spare’ time is a better yar...

 This is a captivating idea from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic.  She gives a powerful example through Brenee Brown.  But I just put the cart before the horse did I not? Let me do a bit of unpacking.   Elizabeth offers us two camps when it comes to creativity - Martyrs versus tricksters.  Martyrs are heavily into suffering to produce results.  Tricksters, on the other hand put in a bit of impish playfulness into the work they do.  More importantly, they keep discovering novel way of handling projects. Coming from the demanding academic work culture, Brene has often found herself in the martyr’s camp.  Toiling until the work was done was the way,, period. When she got “in tune” with the Trickster way, she hit on a novel way of finishing a book.  She enlisted the help of two of her friends.  She took them to her beach house in Galveston and tasked them to take notes while she narrates stories. This Trickster Move allowed her to leverage her...

 I think having an audio book on my phone is a gem of an idea.  Being able to blog from my iPhone is not too bad either. Earlier, I was listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic.  She was talking about the curse of perfection.  She mentioned that even the great emperor Marcus Aurelius was afflicted by it.  The emperor was aware of  it too, it seems.  He writes “ And don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress…” Elizabeth rightfully asks who does not find that endearing.  I certainly do.   We do put much care into the work we do.  I think feeling inadequate comes with the package.  I think not quite knowing if our work is good benefits is.  I think complacency is an enemy of art.   Letting go of our work is critical…and I think showing our vulnerability is a vital antidote against the pitfalls of complacency and overconfidence.

 In his fascinating book Smarter, Faster, Better, Charles Duhigg contrasts students who take hand written notes with those who take notes with lap tops.  According to him, research shows that students curating lesson materials using hand written notes out perform their more tech savvy counterparts. Hand writing slows these students, and proves to work against fluid actions.  This difficulty assists learning. I a aware of the benefits of hand written notes from other previous readings to.  In addition to disfluency it promotes better connection without ever fascinating brain. I think this knowledge has benefitted me.  For example, unlike tech savvy smart phone users, my typing skills suck on smart phones.  I had to retype the word typing three times in the previous sentence, for example.  I kept fat fingering it to”ryping”.  My iPhone cannot even come up with a suggestion. Slowing down this way or being challenged by disfluency really slows me down...

 In his book The Brain, David Eagleman portrays the skills of Austin Naber.  Austin, then aged 10, could stack cups in a dazzling arrays of formations. After undergoing a brief training, Eagleman dares to compete against the young pro.  The kid was, of course, the convincing qinner. I would think that the kids brain was firing with different strategies.  I would think that a brain scan will show a fiery pattern in the kid rather than David Eagleman’s. The case turned out to be the opposite.  Despite my initial surprise, reading the book further made me make sense of the brain scan results. Think of driving; once you master it you can go from point A to point B without really thinking about how you made the journey.  The route has to be a well trodden one-like a short commute from home to work and vice versa…you get my point. Our brain creates  neural pathways to simplify things for us. Practice has eased cup stacking for young Austin.  I guess we ...

During an interview on Fora TV, Winifred Gallagher talked about the power of denial.  In one of her examples she cites a. Village in China and their custom surrounding mourning.  She said that villagers distract the bereaved by visiting them, keeping company, and bringing them food.  The community shares the burden of the loss. I find that interesting.  Where I come from, there is also a sense of community when death visits a family. Death is a part of life.  We anticipate it and be as prepared for it as possible.  I do not mean that in the morbid, philosophical, or religious sense even though the latter, namely religion, dictates the rituals and customs of mourning the dead. People, for example, become members of what are known as Edir.  These are like membership based associations that help people when death takes one of theirs. Growing up, I was more than woken up by a town crier announcing that a person has passed away and the date and time of the ...

 I was watching a TED Talk by David Epstein.  The figure above was part of that presentation. I already knew about this optical illusion.  For me, the middle circle on the left appears smaller.  This, inspire of already knowing the two circles in the middle are equal in size. I used to think that this illusion tricked everyone.  But no. According to Epstein, living in the modern world requires adaptable thinking.  Our modern conceptual work forces our brain to focus on relationships between objects. Hence. we are more likely to be influenced by the relative sizes of the circles. People not exposed to such conceptual work, in fact, are able to immediately perceive the middle circles as being equal in size. Intriguing…

 In a Ted Talk, Neil Connor expresses gratitude to a biology teacher who forced him to keep a journal.  In that speech, he tells us that he initially thought that the idea was dumb.  In fact, his first few entries expressed his youthful resistance. Once the idea sunk in, however, he maintained his journaling.  According to him, at any point in time he is the sum however many years he has been writing. Why read (or watch Ted Talk)? Data gathering, really.  By reading books (the most condensed form of knowledge) or watching thought provoking videos, I am gathering data.  I am part of our magnificently gifted species partaking in our continually evolving thoughts and outlooks. By writing, I am curating my thought process so that I am the sum of the hours it takes to compose these blogs.

 As James Clear and B.J. Fogg have shown, atomic or tiny habits matter.   This morning, I am trying to tie atomic or tiny habits with deep work.   As Cal Newport indicated through deliberations on this topic (through his blogs, podcasts and his eponymously titled book) rituals are vital components of deep work.  Without our customized habits that support deep work, it is difficult to succeed.  I mean what is the alternative? Will power?  Definitely no.  Experiments have proven that willpower is an exhaustible resource.  Habits, on the other hand, are based on our natural inclination to save extra effort. Let us say that I want to be a writer.  I can break down my efforts and use blogging as a means of fostering an identity as a writer. The ingredients are there: blogging demands active research as does longer writing; it requires sustained and regular effort; it demands bite sized or infinitesimal spans or dozes of disciplined moments... Atom...

In an interview with Stephen H Covey, Dan pink underscores the importance of doggedness over success orientation.  Covey had just asked him this question: if a young person starting a career asked Dan Pink how to be a success how would Dan respond? Dan simply stated that he would tell r the novice not think about success at all.  Instead he would advise our novice to be dogged in approaching tasks.  He would advise the novice to especially focus on what that novice is performing well. I think that is a powerful message.  I gathered similar message from John C Maxwell.  He stated that the footprints to success are actually the footprints OF success. When you graduate from school people may see an outward image of your success.  But in as much as you commit yourself to powerful daily milestones, each day you hit your milestone is an instance of personal success. To Maxwell, daily agendas are paramount as he envisions success as driven by processes fueled by y...

 In the opening of this program with Stephen H Covey, Sr Angela Duckworth mentions that McKinsey Consulting was the digression rather than the career path.   She has been tutoring for a long time before joining the consulting firm.  Even though it is easy to perceive the move from a reputable consulting firm to become a teacher, the author of Grit does not see it that way.  It is like returning to her roots. I keep wondering, however, if she ever left her roots or if ever McKinsey was a digression.  Is not consulting in a way “tutoring” for business people?  Could not the drive that led her to tutoring also help her choose consulting? Interesting questions…

 In a presentation about atomic habits, James Clwarr briefly recounts the Princeton Experiment.    Theologians were asked to give sermon on the parable of The Good Samaritan.   In that parable, two pious men pass a suffering person while a Samaritan, a person belonging to a group held in low esteem, stops to help the sufferer.  One of the group giving the sermon during that Princeton experiment was told that that they only have few minutes to give the sermon.  As each person went to five the sermon, an actor posing as a sick person lay on their path imploring for their help. Each of them rushed past the actor to deliver the sermon.  In fact, one of them walked over the actor! Each person tunneled into their goal and missed the big picture.  Their attention was focused on delivering but not living the teachings of the sermon. I think the experiment shows a danger of incorrectly directed attention.  I also think this is a case of cognitive...

 I started these posts as expression of gratitude.  I am writing this piece as a reminder of my why. The blogs I write may not be the best, but they have to be done.  I have become a happy consumer of ideas that humanity has to offer.  I need to thank someone or create a platform for expressing my gratitude. Thank you all for changing my view…

Dilettantism has always dogged me.  However, late in life I have decided to use that positively.  I have had to reframe my outlook. I used to be enthused, for example, by You Tube videos like Simon Sinek’s Start with Why and try to dive into the book version.  The video and the book, however, are two different animals.  I get emboldened by the videos only to be mailed by the books. Still, kept watching videos in their entireties while cagily dabbling with the books.   Two books influenced the way I approach books now.   One is Kotler’s The Art of Impossible.  In it, he states that books are the most consdenaed forms of knowledge.  That makes the return on investment on books the highest.  Kotler even specifies an effective way of using books.  He even includes a powerful and novel way of creating notes from the books. The other one is Range by David Epstein.  In it he writes about kind and wicked learning environment.  Best exa...

 The other evening I was listening to an audiobook by Joe Dispenza.  He was discussing about neural networks.  They get reinforced by firing together - provided we are focused. Attention or focus is pivotal for evolving our brain.  I bounce that against Cal Newport’s definition of deep work - performing work that aligns with our values in a distraction free environment. Both parts of Newport’s definition are imortant.  Aligning work with our core values fuels our intrinsic motivation.  Distraction agree environment let’s the right set of neurons fire together.  Without focus and eliminating distractions it is hard to develop neural connections. As stimulating as I find these ideas, I am wracked by regret about not discovering them earlier in my life.  Despite the agonizing regret, I wonder if I am able to appreciate Dispenza’s and Newport’s writings without the pain induced by that regret. Am I looking at regret’s positive tints?  Am I lookin...

Attention is a vital resource.  It requires skill to use attention to craft a life that we want even when faced with tough circumstances. However, if not skillfully used, well the results can be disastrous.  One way in which this could happen is through cognitive tunneling.  In his book Smarter, Faster, Better, Charles Duhigg cited this as contributor to an I’ll fated flight - Flight 447. The aircraft was a modern marvel of technology.  The autopilot was sophisticated and reliable.  The pilots were on yet another routine flight when the autopilot disengaged. This was not alarming in itself.  On this particular flight the autopilot disengaged as it is designed to do when it lost signal from air speed sensors.  However, this event shook the pilots out of their reverie.  Unfortunately, they did not have the right mental models to deal with the situation. The result was cognitive tunneling.  The mind in such situations latches to a course of acti...