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Suspension of disbelief
Part of the magic of stories—RPGs, films, improvised comedy—is they require you to temporarily suspend disbelief. You need to put aside the heuristics that pop up in your mind that are incredibly useful for the real world, and be open to a new set of rules. There’s a use for this in the physical world,…
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Rereading
Your brain isn’t a hard drive. Taking notes will prompt your mind for a memory of what you learned, though it’ll never serve as a full catalog of a book. You’re not only going to forget stuff—you’ll actually realize how different the things you noticed were when you first read the book. What stands out…
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This TV show was too real
I watched the first couple episodes of American Born Chinese, and found them really great. I’m going to finish the series. I highly recommend watching it, and reading the wonderful original graphic novel as well. In 2017, I interviewed creator, author, and TV series executive producer Gene Luen Yang. While I was born and raised…
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What would you do if you were a rich kid?
I really appreciate Donald Glover’s definition of what corruption would mean for his new company: “I guess corruption for Gilga would be when we stop moving like a rich kid.” When interviewer Mark Anthony Green asks him what he means, he elaborates, “Rich kids don’t do shit for money. They do things based on if…
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Brag
If you have a problem bragging for yourself, don’t brag for yourself. Brag for your work. Your work deserves to be bragged about, not because you made it. It’s because it will need other people’s attention and interest to sustain its life and reach its potential. Brag for your team. You work with people who…
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Nirvana fallacy
That’s the name of a documented tendency to negatively compare actual, real, solutions and situations with unrealized, idealized, ones. A person can use this fallacy to compare an imaginary, perfect, plan with a realistic alternative. It’s a fallacy because the imaginary plan is imaginary, and will inevitably be plagued by the constraints of reality. The…
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It’s not supposed to go according to plan
Planning is always a good idea. The adage goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” There’s another saying, attributed to Peter Thiel, “A bad plan is better than no plan.” Things get weird when our plans create a byproduct: expectations. It’s like we forget that our plans are just guesses; it can…
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Playoff mode
In amateur and professional sports, the year is typically structured into a series of games known as a regular season. Not to be confused with a season in nature, a sports season can last the majority of the year. For example, in the NBA, each team plays 82 games from October to April in a…
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Pronoia
Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. In ambiguous situations, you’re probably better off biasing your thoughts in favor of positive outcomes. When you believe that the world is conspiring in your favor, you start behaving in ways that contribute to a positive outcome. Your attitude is more positive and expansive; you’re open-minded, mindful, and relaxed.…
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The action imperative
A bias for action can be a powerful way to drive change. It can also be an excuse to stay busy; to cave into impatience, and to avoid the difficult work of gathering information, learning, and thinking. In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins calls this the action imperative, describing it as, “You feel as…