Brain Food – No. 569 – March 24, 2024
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Welcome to Brain Food, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in life and work. (Read the archives).
FS
“While we naturally understand that writing is a good way to share ideas with others, we under-appreciate just how much good writing helps us think about an idea ourselves. Writing is not only a means of communication, it enables us to practice reasoning.”
— Source
Insights
1.
“Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.”
— Will and Ariel Durant
2.
“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.”
— Neil Strauss
3.
“Our investment in reading changes the book because the book has changed us. … If books are merely a means of transferring information, then perhaps, yes, a book is a waste of time. If a summary of its thesis and key points could be presented in a brief article or Substack post, why not just save the hours and read the Substack post? All the more if the information is outdated or questionable for one reason or another. But that mistakes what a book is for. A book is a tool. It’s a machine for thinking. And “all machines,” as Thoreau once said, “have their friction.” The time it takes to engage with ideas—whether factual or fictional, emotional or intellectual, accurate or inaccurate, efficient or inefficient—might strike some as a drag. But the time given to working through those ideas, adopting and adapting, developing or discarding, changes our minds, changes us. It’s not about the wisdom we glean. It’s about what wisdom we grow.”
— Joel Miller
Tiny Thoughts
1.
“You can’t achieve greatness by doing what everyone else is doing.
If your choices resemble those of your friends, you’ll get the same results they get.”
2.
“The biggest decision you make daily is what to focus on.”
3.
“Common causes of bad decisions:
1. Not asking, “and then what?”
2. Blindness to large trends (blind spots)
3. Assumptions based on small sample sizes
4. Conforming to expectations/authority/group
5. Wanting the world to work the way we want rather than the way it does.”
(Share Tiny Thought one, two, or three, on X).
Asking Better Questions
I asked Brad Jacobs, who has started multiple billion-dollar companies, what he’s learned about asking better questions that he wishes he knew sooner, and part of his answer stood out because of how rare it is these days:
“The single most powerful thing you can do in a relationship, whether it’s personal or professional, is to give someone 100% of your attention.”
— This episode will leave you motivated and ready to take on whatever challenge you face. Listen to the entire episode (Apple Podcasts | Spotify ) or watch the part on asking better questions on YouTube.
Thanks for reading,
— Shane
P.S. How beautiful.
P.P.S. Join me in May to unlock your personal and professional leadership and position yourself for the next step.