Category: Life
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Ignorance premium and the idiot index
When you want to do something and don’t know how to get it done, you’re going to have to pay whoever can do it for you. Let’s call it the ignorance premium. For example, if you want to eat a specific dish and you don’t know how to cook it, you will have to order…
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Three ways of seeing reality
Coming to terms with reality, and working with it—not against it, or distorting it—is generally good advice. It’ll help you get to where you want to go. Here are three ways to discern between what’s real and what you are imagining (or desiring, stressing over, or overthinking): “Reality doesn’t need you to help operate it.”…
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Prioritizing
Every CEO’s job is to prioritize. It’s to decide what to do, and more importantly, what not to do. Once they do that, they communicate the priorities to their teams—sometimes tens of thousands of people—and those teams get it done. I want to repeat this: the leader’s most important task is to prioritize. Even thousands…
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Action vs. declaration
The smallest action is worth a thousand bold declarations. A declaration merely tells somebody else what you want; an action shows them what you want and your drive to make it happen. Championship coach Bill Walsh puts it this way in The Score Takes Care of Itself: Someone will declare, “I am the leader!” and…
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On personal change
Your first steps to changing yourself for the better may be inspired by somebody else in your life. You think you’re changing for them. In actuality, there’s a good chance that the main beneficiary of the change is you. Let’s say you used to handle conflicts poorly. After a lot of classes and constant practice,…
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Signs of maturity
A bias for calmness and inner peace. A stronger confidence that things will work out in the long run. Patience. An open-mindedness to what’s new, while still preferring your own taste. An ability to feel small for a short time, knowing that’s what it takes to be the bigger person. Appreciating youthful energy, as you…
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A letter from the past
8 years ago, I wrote a letter to my 35-year-old self. I expected to find it embarrassing (some of it is!), so I was surprised to find that there was some good stuff in there. I really emphasized, “Your opinion of you is really the only [thing] that matters.” In a way, I told myself…
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Making mistakes, with grace
You’re going to make a lot of mistakes. If you didn’t learn how to make mistakes gracefully, here’s one way to do it: Acknowledge the mistake. Apologize to someone if you’ve caused them pain or done something wrong. Make an effort to make things right and to lower the odds of it happening again, and…
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Old friends
Old friends know the past versions of you very well. However, those experiences and images make it difficult for them to see new versions of you. If they are opposed to change, and don’t want to lose you as a friend, your desire to grow in a different direction will feel painful to them. They…
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Trust summaries (AI or otherwise) at your own risk
A very specialized, expert, government trial suggests that AI underperforms compared to people at summarizing information. Reading a book summary is not the same as reading a book. In fact, you miss the most important parts of the book when you read the summary. Worse yet, you may even fool yourself into thinking you know…