How People Make Big Decisions
We all go through psychological steps when we make big decisions. Some people call this the “existential cycle,” which really has four stages: doing, contemplating, preparing, and experimenting. *** …
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A Visual History of Human Knowledge
Infographics expert Manuel Lima, who brought us the amazing The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, has a TED talk on how knowledge grows, which ends up being a fascinating history of …
Stronger: Developing Personal Resilience and Becoming Antifragile
How is it that some people come back from crushing defeats while others simply give in? Why does adversity make some people and teams stronger and render others ineffective? These are the questions …
The Map Is Not the Territory
The following is an edited excerpt from The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Tools The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps are imperfect. That’s because maps are reductions …
Why Early Decisions Have the Greatest Impact and Why Growing too Much is a Bad Thing
I never went to Engineering school. My undergrad is Computer Science. Despite that I’ve always wanted to learn more about Engineering. John Kuprenas and Matthew Frederick have put together a …
Lifelong Learning
Your education shouldn’t end when your schooling does. If you want to get an edge in life, you must be constantly learning, not coasting along on what you already know. Lifelong learning requires the …
Emilie Wapnick: Why Some of us Don’t Have One True Calling
What do you want to be when you grow up? Well, if you’re not sure you want to do just one thing for the rest of your life, you’re not alone. In this illuminating talk, writer and artist …
The Creative Process in 10 Acts
“It’s good to understand that it’s all a process and it’s going to take you to a new place. And I try to remind myself … to enjoy the process.” *** In this short …
The Simplest Way to Achieve Simplicity is Through Thoughtful Reduction
A close friend of mine argues that while we love the first part of Einstein’s quote, “Everything should be made as simple as possible,” we ignore the second part “but not …
To Learn, Retrieve
Mike Ebersold is a neurosurgeon. In neurosurgery and indeed life there is an essential kind of learning that only comes from reflection on personal experience. In the book Make It Stick: The Science …
Charlie Munger: 2008 DuBridge Lecture (Transcript)
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The 11 Essential Attitudes for Meditation
This comes courtesy of Mindfulness in Plain English, one of the best books on meditation and mindfulness that I’ve ever come across. *** The very process of observation changes what we observe. …
Bias from Self-Interest — Self Deception and Denial to Reduce Pain or Increase Pleasure
Our desire to feel good about ourselves permeates everything we do. Wanting to maintain a positive self-image often leads us to adopt a biased image of the world. If we want to learn to align …
Peter Thiel: Zero To One
Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, is about building companies that create new things. But more than that, there is a lot of wisdom in this book. We …
The Biological Bases of Human Resilience
In Stronger: Develop the Resilience You Need to Succeed there is a section on the Biological Bases of Human Resilience that is fascinating. It turns out the key to developing resilience at the …
The Physics of Relationships: Going Positive and Going First
Isaac Newton’s third law states that, without exception, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” What most people don’t know is that Newton’s law is …