The easiest way to ride a horse is in the direction it’s already going. Then, with all resistance dropped for a while, it begins to let you turn it. And the same applies to conversations with people.
“There’s a way to do it better – find it.” Thomas Edison My favoutite quote of all time. So it gets its own post. There’s always a way to do it better. Why always? Because things change fast. And the best way has a use by date. Then there’s a new way to do it…
“Everything is the way it is because it got that way.” – D’Arcy Thompson What better way is there to summarise evolution? And to explain literally everything. Now how it got that way is worth exploring.
A helpful thought experiment: Imagine a huge audience were watching your life on a screen. And they’ve been fully briefed on what you want and don’t want to happen in your life. They know it better than you do. Not only that, they get to see every single thought you have in subtitles on the…
Most people you interact with invest heavily in the first thoughts that come to them. That’s it. In the moment, live, in real time, or when under pressure, they think of the first thing that enters their head….and then they back it. They go with it. They believe it. And then they double down on…
I heard someone say that it’s a shortcoming to be focused on truth and accuracy. That’s just not true, they’re wrong. P.S. The accurate truth is that many situations need truth and accuracy. Not pedants, but people shining a light on what’s real, so that we all have a chance. The growing mass of people…
Your mind is cloudy. And heavy. And noisy. You know why? Because it got that way. Because it likes to add stuff. And then a bit more. And a bit more… It just can’t leave the most simple of its observations alone. It just has to tamper with them. It quickly takes what it notices…
One (of many) useful ways of making a decision is to ask yourself and write the answers to: 1. What’s important about this outcome? 2. What else? (Ask 3-5 times) 3. Of those listed, what’s THE most important? The least negotiable? 4. If you get that thing, what will it ultimately do for you? 5….
“Pie. I wish I could determine pi, ‘Eureka’ cried the great inventor” Time someone learning the number pi fluently to 11 decimal places. How long would they take? 10 minutes? Longer? To get it accurate? That’s 14 digits. Takes some effort. Time yourself repeating the title (Pie.) and first two lines of the poem above,…
This two step formula is one of the most useful things I ever learned. It helps you improve any situation. It’s a command you give yourself that’s particularly useful when you’re facing a challenge. And it was distilled from a couple of quotes from General Norman Schwarzkopf. The command is, “Take charge. Do the right…