Jason Shen
@jasonshen
Exec coach helping founders and creative leaders rebound and reinvent so they do more of what matters most.
Jason Shen
- In 2018, reeling from simultaneous breakups with a co-founder and a girlfriend, Zerfas signed up for a 10-day silent meditation retreat. “I quickly learned things could get worse,” he tells the room at Applegate with a grim laugh. After eight days of migraines, he changed techniques and stumbled into the most euphoric experience he’d had in a year.... See more
from My Week at the Buzzy Meditation Retreat That Promises Bliss on Demand by Naina Bajekal
- Other studies published in 2006 and 2009 showed something similar—that people who read a lot of fiction tend to be better at empathizing with others (even after the researchers had accounted for the potential bias that people with greater empathetic tendencies may prefer to read novels). And, in 2013, an influential study published in Science found... See more
from Can Reading Make You Happier? by Ceridwen Dovey
Evidence that reading makes you more empathic
- In his 1905 essay “On Reading,” Marcel Proust puts it nicely: “With books there is no forced sociability. If we pass the evening with those friends—books—it’s because we really want to. When we leave them, we do so with regret and, when we have left them, there are none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: ‘What did they think of us?’—‘Did we m... See more
from Can Reading Make You Happier? by Ceridwen Dovey
Books were like early version of AI therapist / friends
- So even if you don’t agree that reading fiction makes us treat others better, it is a way of treating ourselves better. Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels... See more
from Can Reading Make You Happier? by Ceridwen Dovey
The healing power of reading—The New Yorker
Soul Painting 🎨📱 shot w @xiaomi #Xiaomi14Ultra #tutorial #photography
Creativity and Sign off content
Cool concept for a self portrait
- Don't Edit Before You're Done with a Draft
On that note, don't waste time editing ANYTHING -- not even a misspelled word -- until you're done with a full draft.
When I finished the first draft it was about 100,000 words. The first thing I did was go back to the beginning and delete the first 30,000 of them. They were boring and unnecessary but I had... See morefrom On Writing Better: 43 Things I Learned from My Insane 2 Years of Study
Bold advice to just put everything on the page before any editing
- If you’re totally lost on what to focus on getting better at, focus on braiding.
Narrative-style writing (fiction and nonfiction) has four major components:- Action: Things happening
- Dialogue: What people are saying
- Description: The environment around the people and events
- Interiority: The characters internal reactions to the place and action
And you co... See morefrom On Writing Better: 43 Things I Learned from My Insane 2 Years of Study
Nat Eliason on how to improve your narrative-style writing
- As a first point, the Hook, we get to know Harry Potter and the story’s context. He lives with his aunt and uncle in a basement. He later discovers that he is a wizard and that his destiny is to go to Hogwarts, the school of magic. This phase is Plot Turn 1, i.e., the first turning point in the plot.
The antagonist begins to be recognized. A troll a... See morefrom The 7-Point Story Structure
The 7 Point Story Structure
