No. 584 – July 7 2024
Welcome to Sunday Brain Food, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in life and work. (Read the archives). Not subscribed? Learn more and sign up.
FS
“Diversity isn’t about appearances but rather different perspectives shaped by experience.”
Insights
“When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not fear poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely. And because Dante says that no one understands anything unless he retains what he has understood, I have jotted down what I have profited from in their conversation and composed a short study, De Princi- patibus, in which I delve as deeply as I can into the ideas concerning this topic, discussing the definition of the princedom, the categories of prince- doms, how they are acquired, how they are retained, and why they are lost”
— Niccolo Machiavelli in a letter to his friend Francesco Vettori
“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
— Dale Carnegie
“People are afraid of success. You could have some people really bright, and they just, somehow when they get to the end of the year they just haven’t somehow performed at a level that they expect themselves to.
People have a funny way of looking at the world in the way they cut the data. They’re not honest with themselves … they are not looking at the way the world really is as opposed to the way that they want the world to be.
This is the internal war that people have to fight to get to what the truth is and ultimately what success looks like, and how you get closer to success.
The more truthful you can be with yourself and the more that you can be reflective and get to real transparency with yourself, the more likely that you will fix the problems that you have and deal with the issues that you have so that you can perform at a level of maximum performance. The more you’re willing to ignore it, the more that you’re willing to blame the outside world for your problems.
You always hear people say, “Well, it’s the market, it’s the market.” What the hell does that mean? I don’t even know what that means as opposed to what did you do to … I mean, the world’s going to exist whether you like it or not. I always say I got to live in this world; I don’t create it. The world’s happening, what are you going to do about it? It’s amazing how people attribute outside forces to what’s happening to them as opposed to being accountable and dealing with it.”
— Steve Cohen
Tiny Thoughts
“We often fixate on the visible and exciting, overlooking that most success comes from consistently doing the mundane, unglamorous work that few notice.
The 98/2 Rule: people spend 98% of their time talking about flashy things that contribute only 2% to the results, while overlooking the fact that 98% of the results come from consistently doing the boring basics that few notice.
Ask yourself: Does the attention you give to something truly reflect its true importance?”
“If you can’t be a fan, don’t be a critic.”
“It can be difficult to appreciate how much avoiding the standard ways of failing dramatically increases the odds of success.”
Reading
Despite the cringy title, I enjoyed Jim Rohn’s book, 7 Strategies for Wealth and Happiness.
“The real value in setting goals is not in their achievement. The acquisition of the things you want is strictly secondary. The major reason for setting goals is to compel you to become the person it takes to achieve them.”
— Members have access to my Kindle highlights.
Thanks for reading,
— Shane
P.S. Cute.
P.P.S. All four books in The Great Mental Models are available for pre-order. The first three volumes have been revised, including all new conclusions to each model. The fourth version was never published before.