Personal mastery
Meta skills towards continual self improvement. Self awareness, learning, unlearning, emotional intelligence, discipline, commitment, adaptability, clarity, good judgment
Personal mastery
Meta skills towards continual self improvement. Self awareness, learning, unlearning, emotional intelligence, discipline, commitment, adaptability, clarity, good judgment
his book The Folly of Fools, Trivers argues that a contradiction lies at the heart of human intelligence. Our brains are simultaneously designed to seek out information and destroy that information after we acquire it. Specifically, our minds evolved to make sense of the world not in ways that are true, but in ways that help us survive. But once
... See moreThe term “autotelic” derives from two Greek words, auto meaning self, and telos meaning goal. It refers to a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward. Playing the stock market in order to make money is not an autotelic experience; but playing it in
... See moreFor burst taskers like Thomas, I often recommend two tactics. One is to see the benefits that greater predictability can bring. When you’re working toward more steady-as-she-goes goals, you, your team, and your loved ones at home can count on knowing when you’ll deliver and when you’ll be available. As one colleague described, it’s like a squirrel
... See moreIf you find out that you were wrong, correct it immediately. Build a reputation as a rapid course corrector. You don't need to be right all the time to succeed if you can admit quickly when you're wrong. This will set you apart from the majority of people who get wedded to narratives too quickly and then refuse to revisit the analysis for fear of
... See moreOne client said his top two processes reminded him of a hammock: with these routines in place, he could be at ease, knowing not only what was ahead, but how he was going to tackle the many tasks of the day.
We are all prisoners of our past to some extent. We bring our frame of reference, shaped by our unique combination of experiences, into any new role. But the most valuable leaders are those who can combine the scrappiness of a start‐up leader with the organizational and diplomatic discipline needed in a big company. Those who can scale up or scale
... See moreIf we accept that what we see and know is inevitably flawed, we must strive to find ways to heighten that awareness—to fill in the gaps,
The roots of the word “compete” are the Latin con petire, which meant “to seek together.” What each person seeks is to actualize her potential, and this task is made easier when others force us to do our best. Of course, competition improves experience only as long as attention is focused primarily on the activity itself. If extrinsic goals—such as
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