Christian Baaki

He was well aware of his own considerable abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his self-conceit.

Monks have long been people with limited options, intentionally. They’re like people who ride on planes (without buying Internet) — they can read, write, pray, eat, clean, meditate (or commune with God, depending on their religion). All day, every day. And usually, they have spots in the day for each of these.

This makes pristine focus easy.

What if

“The person who creates better information flows gets better thoughts.” James Clear

I’m convinced that storytelling, taste, and design will be the most differentiating business skill of the 21st century

“General Motors had come to own the manufacturers of 70 percent of everything that went into its automobiles—and had become by far the world’s most integrated large business. It was this prototype keiretsu that gave General Motors the decisive advantage, both in cost and in speed, which made it within a few short years both the world’s largest and

Even if you can’t experience the thing directly, try going for information-dense sources with high amounts of detail and facts, and then reason up from those facts. On foreign policy, read books published by university presses -- not The Atlantic or The Economist or whatever. You can read those after you’ve developed a model of the thing yourself,

People learn by creating their own understanding. But that does not mean they must or even can do it without assistance. Effective teaching facilitates that creation by getting students engaged in thinking deeply about the subject at an appropriate level and then monitoring that thinking and guiding it to be more expert-like.

For the secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for.

Study what you enjoy and what genuinely interests you. Pick something real that teaches you how to think in both a structured and creative way. My bachelor’s is in history (ancient Rome), and my master’s focused on classical art (Greek and Roman sculpture, mainly). I’ve always loved that stuff, still do, and always will. I personally think majors l

We should, therefore, read only when the source of our own ideas dries up, which will be the case often enough even with the best minds. On the other hand, to scare away our own original and powerful ideas in order to take up a book, is a sin against the Holy Ghost. We then resemble the man who runs away from free nature in order to look at a herba