Multitasking kills memories

Multitasking kills memories. No wonder distractions are soothing during rough times. Get away from what you want to forget. Don’t go back to the places that traumatized you.

Your brain is always building collages

How many of us can recall a specific day of a year-long commute, but can recall a specific road trip? Your brain is always building collages and most of them are only partially truthful.

The term “influencer” can inspire a few eye rolls

The term “influencer” can inspire a few eye-rolls. I picture someone posting reels on Instagram telling everyone to buy a daily soap, or whatever the hot product of the moment happens to be. But fundamentally, influence means having the ability to shape someone else’s behavior. That is a rather powerful thing to be able to do! Influential people can convince others to work with them. They can convince organizations to make needed changes. They can convince people they’ve never even met personally to do good things in the world. 

You don’t know what you don’t know

You don’t know what you don’t know. The beauty of learning new things is seeing where it leads, and all the doors that are still waiting to be opened. What a gift to keep seeing how much more there is to know! That’s what keeps life from getting boring.

Becoming an empathic listener

Becoming an empathic listener indeed takes time, but it doesn’t take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you’re already miles down the road, to redo, and to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems.

It often looks like you're working slower

The most practical skill you can learn is working smarter. But here's what people need to tell you about working smarter: it often looks like you're working slower. Your first thought is what everyone else thinks. Your best thought comes after you've thought long enough to forget what everyone thinks. The difference between good and exceptional isn't hours worked – it's the depth of thought applied to the right problems.

The hard part isn't knowing what to do

The challenge isn't knowing you should work out; it's putting on your shoes and running in the cold when you'd rather sit at home under a warm blanket. The challenge isn't determining the most important project; it's sitting down and doing it when you'd rather browse social media. If you're waiting for inspiration, you've already lost.

We each inhabit a particular web of experiences

Two people can look at the same event and come away with vastly different interpretations based on their unique frames of reference. Consider two people standing in the same room: They experience the same absolute temperature differently. One can feel hot while the other feels cold, even though the temperature is the same.

We all have blind spots

We all have blind spots—­ things we cannot see. Understanding that our perceptions are relative allows us to open ourselves to other ways of seeing. If you’re wondering where to get started, try asking others what they see that you can’t. Apply your judgment to their responses and update your beliefs accordingly.

Don't curse the obstacle

Don't curse the obstacle; find a way around it. Elite special forces don't complain about defenses—they adapt their tactics or create new ones. When a primary route is compromised, they don't waste time lamenting. They quickly shift to another approach. Elite athletes don't complain about defenses—they find the gap or create one. Face the obstacle. Find the gap. Or make one.

The most dangerous competitor

Going all in on something for a month gets better results than dabbling in it for a decade. The dabbler spreads their energy over many things. The focused person concentrates their effort on one. The most dangerous competitor is the one with a single goal.

Frustration is bargaining with reality

Frustration is bargaining with reality, hoping it will change. While you're busy fighting what is, you're blind to what could be. All the energy you put into arguing with reality comes at the expense of improving your situation. The mountain doesn't care how much you yell at it, but you'll find a path around it if you stop and look.

Mastery isn't making the simple complex

We attach prestige to what mystifies us. Mastery isn't making the simple complex—it's finding the elegant simplicity that cuts through the complexity.

Determining the actual problem

Determining the actual problem indeed takes time, but it’s far quicker than solving the wrong one and starting over.

The Power of the Perfect Pause

The quietest person at a dinner party often leaves with a reputation for brilliance, while others talk themselves into corners. You see it in boardrooms too - the executive who tilts her head thoughtfully during presentations, somehow radiating wisdom without speaking a word. Even therapists build their practices more on artful silences than clever words. The wisest among us have learned that saying nothing often says everything.

Stop fighting your nature

Your instincts, personality, and preferences aren't flaws - they're features. When something seems to be holding you back that you can't change, the key is to change your environment. What's a headwind in one situation is a tailwind in another.

You are someone’s ancestor

Most immediately, you are the ancestor of the you of tomorrow. That’s why we don’t spend every penny in our bank account, why we put leftovers in the fridge, why we earn a degree–it’s a gift to the you of tomorrow. Each of us have a way of thinking about our ancestorhood. How many people you’re considering in the actions you take today?

When we pick our fuel

When we pick our fuel, we pick our companions for the journey ahead. Choosing to care about what other people care about surrenders your agency. You’ll find that success feels hollow, because it’s their success, not yours. And blaming the false metrics for losing your way is not as useful as simply walking away from them in the first place. We thrive when we find a goal and a metric that’s resilient and easily replenished. It turns out that making a contribution is something we can do, again and again, and it never gets old.

How are we choosing to spend our precious time?

It’s worth checking in with ourselves and the people we care about. What are we signing on to and supporting? How are we choosing to spend our precious time? Is it riskier than we’re comfortable with? And mostly, what sort of new world are we endorsing? It might make sense to choose stability when we can.

The way things are around here

You might not have thought you’d be spending seven hours a day reading the internet, or most of your free time posting and responding, but that’s what the social media companies have pushed us to do. And you might not embrace some of the extreme views that we’re exposed to every single day, but the pressure can feel relentless. It feels like we come out just a bit ahead if we go along with the latest angry meme.

Real life is more muddled and less scripted

Consume enough media and we may come to believe that our life is carefully scripted, and that we’re stars of a movie someone else is directing. This distracts us from the truth that real life is more muddled and less scripted. There is no soundtrack. We’re actually signed up for a journey and a slog. Nothing happens ever after. It’ll change, often in a way we don’t expect.

There’s a lot of pressure to make things dumber

Four year olds easily learn to speak, and many kids in second grade can read. Not because they have a dumb version, but because someone cared enough to make the method simple. There are simple explanations for quantum mechanics and for auto mechanics as well. They simply take a while to understand well enough to teach them to other people. Start with basic principles, go slow and build. No need to dumb it down. Simple it up instead. We have enough dumb. We need more simple.

What should I do now?

The culture of a generation or two ago told you where to study, what to study, how to cut your hair, what to wear, where to work, how to present within your class or identity, what to listen to, what to eat, what to drive, where to live and more. Owning our choices is a privilege that we can learn to dance with.

Take good notes

Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes) our understanding of the world. Good teachers are storytellers, and storytellers are teachers. Notes, then, aren’t recitations of facts. They’re story prompts. A good note reminds you of a story that you already understand.

When we change the comparison

Emotions are often tied to events and events feel absolute. But events are rarely absolute. They’re almost always relative. How does this compare to what I was expecting? How does it compare to what others like me are experiencing? How does it compare to yesterday? When we change the comparison, the event itself is changed as well. It’s often difficult to find the relative, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

If you need perfect visibility

The most useful work we create causes a change to happen. And the more profound the change, the less predictable it is. If you need perfect visibility into the future, you’re limiting the impact and power of your work.

“Thank you” is a complete sentence

It’s a way to offer connection or acknowledgment. It’s a recognition of feedback and the time it took someone to consider us. We can use it after we share something important, or someone shares with us. More than the end of an exchange, it can be the beginning of a relationship. “Thank you” helps someone feel seen and understood. It reminds us that we’re not alone. Most of all, it’s a chance to to be kind.

What if they’re right?

We spend a lot of time in our own heads, certain that our path and our method make sense. We often become more certain in the face of criticism or even suggestions. This confidence is essential, as it allows us to lean into our project. Once in a while, though, it might help to model the alternative. What if they’re right? How would that play out? If they’re right, what could I do with that insight? If it’s helpful, run with it. We can always go back to being right tomorrow.

Doing things is the highest intellectual pursuit

Doing things is the highest intellectual pursuit. True geniuses are not spending as much time as we think thinking. They are in action, trying things, writing things, and designing things. As they are in motion, they receive the best thoughts, without trying, creating the illusion they are doing a lot of thinking.

Developing a skill and learning a craft

A star might simply be someone who persisted long enough to combine skill and luck in a way that others celebrate. Persistence, skill and luck, over time.