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On developing your capacity for self-doubt
A few years ago, a bunch of college students visited Conan O’Brien. One asked him, “When does the nervousness and self-doubt end?” O’Brien’s response was, “I have really bad news for you. There’s always some of that.” When O’Brien debuted on late night television, nobody knew who he was. “I had to learn how to…
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The squeeze
Whether it’s rising Uber rates, declining organic reach at Facebook, Netflix cracking down on shared passwords, companies are squeezing now. They do this because they believe they don’t have to worry about customers leaving; people are too used to the service and will endure the new terms, increased prices, or lowered surplus benefits. You can…
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Obviousness fallacy
Obviousness fallacy is the notion that the options that are most convenient, most popular, and most easy to understand and manage, are the best ones. By extension, the less convenient, less popular, and less visible options seem riskier, require more effort, and are just generally lower quality in some way. One example of obviousness fallacy…
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Permission: To wait, or not to wait?
Generally, if you wait around for permission to change in your professional career, to start a creative project, or to improve yourself in some way, you’re going to be waiting a long time. It’s better to try to make a change today, as soon as you can—even now, if possible. The adage, “Ask forgiveness, not…
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20 years of writing daily
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok’s work at Marginal Revolution is a core reference for this little blog I write. I’m really enjoying this interview that David Perell put together:
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Montage fallacy
The training montage of Rocky was the most outstanding part of the story to me. It was inspiring to watch Rocky’s personal transformation, from a bum to a champion, effectively take place in several minutes. This kind of montage is a common element in all sorts of movies. It’s an incredibly boring part of the…
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Confidence, from within
A few months ago, I read this piece by Kunal Gupta on conditional confidence. He observes that he reached a state of confidence after an event, like a successful outcome or an achivement. For example, one statement would be, “Once I hire people to work with me, then I can feel confident in my business…
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Manifesting works as an initial step
Chris Do asks, “Do you believe in manifesting?” He expands, “About 10 years ago, I started telling people that I wanted to travel the world, and have other people pay for it. Now, I’m invited to speak (all over the world) and am paid for it.” Chris shares a couple of additional examples, like daydreaming…
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Take an inventory of your top ten memories
There’s a saying, “You’re only as good as your last performance.” For example, an author might say, “You’re only as good as your last article.” That’s all good until you experience a setback—or perhaps an unfortunate streak of them. If you buy too heavily into the statement, “You’re only as good as your last performance,”…