Timeless Ideas | February 28, 2021
Here’s your weekly dose of timeless ideas to sharpen your mind, make smarter decisions, and live better.
Quotes
I.
There is only one success—to be able to spend your life in your own way.
— Christopher Morley
II.
You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.
— Marian Edelman
III.
Everyone can taste success when the going is easy, but few know how to taste victory when times get tough.
— Byron Pulsifer
Ideas
I.
You must engrave deeply in your mind and never forget: your emotional commitment to what you are doing will be translated into your work.
If you go at your work with half a heart, it will show in the lackluster results and in the laggard way in which you reach the end.
If you are doing something primarily for money and without a real emotional commitment, it will translate into something that lacks a soul and that has no connection to you.
You may not see this, but you can be sure that the public will feel it and that they will receive your work in the same lackluster spirit it was created in.
If you are excited and obsessive in the hunt, it will show in the details. If your work comes from a place deep within, its authenticity will be communicated.
Robert Greene in Mastery
II.
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.
Steve Jobs
III.
The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves. So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or “incentives” for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Black Swan
Articles Worth Reading
I.
If smiles are so easy to fake, why do we trust them?
Alexander Danvers | Psyche
To follow someone’s words, tone, posture and facial expression, and to respond in a way that they actually believe – is genuinely hard to fake. Smiling is generally an honest signal of someone’s intent and character because to do it convincingly means actually being engaged and attentive. That’s why smiling takes more effort than it first appears to – and why we trust people who do it.
II.
Andy Owen | Aeon
Killing and dying for nonsensical ideas is how many human beings have made sense of their lives. John Gray promises respite from our all-too-human world if, freed of the perpetual need for meaning and transcendence, we become more like other animals.
III.
How Your Heart Influences What You Perceive and Fear
Jordana Cepelewicz | Nautilus
The heartbeat and other bodily processes play a surprising role in shaping perception and cognition. Scientists are studying how information sampling and sensory processing, as well as behavior, might be adaptively coupled to other physiological rhythms, such as breathing and digestion. What’s readily apparent in that work, is that the world isn’t just a stable thing. How we perceive it is based on our own bodies.
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