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Doing the Work

October 24, 2021

Welcome to Sunday Brain Food: a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights for life and business.

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FS

Doing the work required to hold an opinion means you can argue against yourself better than others can.

— The Work Required to Hold an Opinion

TKP

“I think people are afraid. They don’t recognize the power of this rule. And they’re afraid that by going first and giving resources, giving time, giving attention, giving samples, and so on, they might just be losing that. They’re not cognizant of the fact that there’s such a strong rule in every human culture that says you must not take without giving in return.”

— The master of persuasion, Robert Cialdini came on The Knowledge Project to discuss the seven principles of persuasion in detail ( YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript).

Explore Your Curiosity

“They build in excess capacity to enable an effective response to crises, and to stay well ahead of the astonishing growth of internet demand. In the process, the internet’s near-perfect uptime has become an operating characteristic of the internet itself … That design philosophy is very different from the way much of the rest of the U.S. economy operates. The pandemic has shown us the downside of perfectly optimized systems.”

— The System That Actually Worked

“I think these days there could be a tendency for people to think that things come easy,” he says. “It does not. No, it’s actually quite the opposite. You know, I stay up at night, putting in the work, but also really deeply contemplating the next move, and the multiple moves, and the impact and effect that this one thing will have.”

— Dwayne Johnson Lets Down His Guard

Insight

“If we are sincere in wanting to learn the truth, and if we know how to use gentle speech and deep listening, we are much more likely to be able to hear others’ honest perceptions and feelings. In that process, we may discover that they too have wrong perceptions. After listening to them fully, we have an opportunity to help them correct their wrong perceptions. If we approach our hurts that way, we have the chance to turn our fear and anger into opportunities for deeper, more honest relationships.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm

Tiny Thought

Spend the best hours of your day on the biggest opportunity, not the biggest problem.

Et Cetera

  • Look at yourself first.
  • I threw out all my socks and replaced them with the most amazing socks in the world. I’m not kidding.
  • What newly released information reveals about what actually happened during the Cuban missile crisis.

P.S. A monkey snapping green beans.

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