Without self-acceptance, self-improvement is only noise.
Tim Ferriss has made a wildly successful career out of improving himself, quantifying his progress, and pushing the boundaries of human productivity.
But in a recent interview with Clay Skipper from GQ, Ferriss acknowledges that he’s been responsible for much of what he calls “the noise in the self-improvement or self-optimization space.”
The “noise” of self-improvement are the aspects that are a distraction from what truly matters. …
If you like personality tests or psychometric assessments, you’ll want to check this out.
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, who wrote the #1 bestseller, Principles, has just launched a free personality assessment with well-known writer and psychologist Adam Grant, as well as psychologists John Golden and Brian Little.
Right off the bat, what’s interesting about the test is how Dalio uses his own experience at Bridgewater within the test. …
Open your hands and let everything fall.
If you’re anything like me, you often feel as if you’re at war — trying desperately to find a sense of peace.
You breathe. You meditate. You do all the things just to keep some semblance of calm. Sometimes you feel better, sometimes you don’t.
Why? Maybe you’re looking for peace in the wrong place.
You see, peace is not something that you can find externally. It’s not something you can buy or be gifted. Peace is your inner reality unburdened and freed from concern. It’s something you already have — something you’ve always had.
The minimalist’s approach to finding…
How knowing yourself is the key to moving forward.
Before he was sentenced to death, the philosopher Socrates uttered the now-famous line, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That’s ancient-speak for… “If you live on autopilot like a zombie, you’ll waste your life.”
Here’s the deal: lots of us are chasing success like zombies — totally unaware that what we’re hustling to find might not actually be success.
But there’s something we can do about it.
Success is about the accomplishment of a purpose.
You can’t find your success if you’re pursuing someone else’s purpose. …
#2 — They expect resistance from those they lead.
“Learning to lead is a process of learning by doing. It can’t be taught in a classroom. It is a craft primarily acquired through on-the-job experiences — especially adverse experiences in which the new manager, working beyond his current capabilities, proceeds by trial and error.”
— Dr. Linda Hill, Harvard University
A quick search on Amazon for books about leadership returns roughly 10,000 results. That’s a lot of information…
But the good news is, you don’t need to read all those books to become a good leader. In fact, you don’t need to read any of them.
But the bad…
How your brain sabotages public health measures
There are plenty of people that don’t mean well. They don’t want to wear masks or do anything that they’re told to — unless, of course, they’re encouraged to do it by a far-right media outlet or, unfortunately, the current president of the United States.
But there are other people — maybe they’re you and me — who mean well, but who are still in danger of, albeit unknowingly, helping to spread COVID-19.
Specifically, it’s your brain’s fault.
You Are Not a Freethinker
In order to survive, your brain has evolved to help you make decisions faster, and simplify the way you process incoming information…
Six simple habits to build into your life
Many of our issues arise only because we don’t know what we really need.
When you don’t realize what you really need is to talk to someone about what happened to you, you can end up burning yourself out, working to distract yourself from the pain. Likewise, when you don’t realize what you really need is to deal with your commitment issues, you just end up breaking up (again).
Not knowing what you need is dangerous. Instead of getting a diagnosis and taking the correct medication, you end up reaching for whatever is fast, easy, and cheap. …
You don’t need to have an opinion.
There is a way out of the culture wars that plague our nations. Although it may feel like it, there hasn’t been a draft and you don’t need to enlist. There’s no need to dodge. You can stay where you are. Plant a garden. Raise a family.
It feels overwhelming to have an opinion about everything that’s going on. At one point in our history, it would have been understandable. But with the rate that information is increasing, there’s no way to be properly informed about every issue affecting our world.
So what are you to do when people want…
Trick yourself into an easier flow of words
If you’re like me, your anxiety inflates what you focus on.
You sit down to write your daily blog post, aiming to produce one high-quality article. Your mind focuses on what you have to do. And almost immediately, your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. The pressure of the task becomes overwhelming. You can’t come up with a topic or a title. You’re stuck and overwhelmed.
Writing is difficult. And there’s a cognitive bias that often makes it even more difficult.
Anchoring Bias
Your mind has many built-in biases. And one of the most common is anchoring bias — which…
And it’ll always beat consuming information.
You could spend all day reading articles about how to improve. You could listen to lots of podcasts. You could watch lots of videos.
But most of what you’ll get from doing those things is more information.
And information alone won’t help you.
Yes, you’re right. What’s missing is applying that information. But there’s something else missing without which the information and the application will be useless.
“If more information were the answer, we’d all be billionaires with six-pack abs.” — Derek Sivers
Without awareness, you have nothing. If you don’t see where you need to grow, you will not…
