The Art of Impossible

When you combine items on your curiosities list like this, you’re amping up your engagement and identifying passions. As you begin to explore and act on your passions, you receive a reward: more dopamine.

A truth filter is a way of evaluating the quality of a piece of information. Being able to trust the information you’re receiving reduces anxiety, doubt, and cognitive load, which are all things that can block learning. The author’s personal truth filter is the five-expert rule: he interviews five experts to confirm some information as fact. But fe

What you need is passion, which provides a much greater dopamine boost. Often, you can find your passions by looking for intersections among your curiosities. Let’s say one of your curiosities is the left-tackle football position. Another is the potential for using grasshoppers as a sustainable food source. Putting these two together, your passion

The key message here is: Find a niche that activates all your intrinsic motivators.

Completing your clear goals will reward you with dopamine. Even so, endless persistence can be tough. That’s where grit comes in –⁠ the energy it takes to push through years of hard work. Some people are more naturally gritty than others. But don’t worry if that’s not you. It’s a skill you can improve.

One way to cultivate grit is to work around you

The key message here is: Learning requires a growth mindset, a truth filter, and lots of reading.

The “other people” part is more important than you might realize. That’s because the brain is innately –⁠ that is, neurochemically –⁠ motivated to care for and connect to other people. When you have a purpose, you satiate that innate desire –⁠ and your brain rewards you for it. The reactivity decreases in various regions of the brain, like the amyg

Break up the impossible into large and small goals.

You’ve unearthed your passions and discovered your purpose. Now, how do you find the strength to act on them consistently over time?

The answer is: by having clear goals. In the late 1960s, psychologists Gary Latham and Edwin Locke conducted a study that showed just how powerful goals can be. In it,

After you’ve identified your passions, you can begin to explore them by reading articles, listening to podcasts, or watching videos on the subject. This will help to feed your curiosities and allow you to explore them a little bit each day. That’s important, because it gives your brain time to process the information. Next, it’s time to transform t