Jason Shen
@jasonshen
Exec coach helping founders and brilliant misfits build companies and partnerships they’re deeply proud of.
Jason Shen
jasonshen.com
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... See more
Ceridwen Dovey • Can Reading Make You Happier? | the New Yorker
Books were like early version of AI therapist / friends
They found that in the opinions of managers, computer use increases the need for skilled workers, computers tend to increase workers’ autonomy, and computers increase the need and ability for management to monitor their workers. All of those features will feed into the need for workers who are smarter, better trained, and more conscientious.
Tyler Cowen • Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation
Replace the word computer with AI and every point is magnified. AI powered workers gives more autonomy, requires more skill, and needs more oversight (lest things go sideways)
Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another: ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’”—C. S. Lewis
Gatherings & Relationships and be goddamn yourself
The only way to connect with people on a deep level is to exposure yourself vulnerable.
What it’s like to be fully dialed in to your role
- The argument is that accountings of history are not accurate, and can never be accurate, thanks to the narrative fallacy . By its nature, narrative necessarily compresses reality into some coherent tale, meaning that accountings of history tend to overemphasise intention and action, instead of the more plausible ‘random actions by actors in a compl
Cedric Chin • Don't Read History for Lessons
Read history for examples of concepts, not direct lessons
You probably aren’t—and don’t want to appear in any case—perfect. As long as the quirks you display are irrelevant to the core of your reputation and why people select you—in the case of Summers, for his brilliance in the field of economics—the flaws and foibles can actually strengthen people’s commitment to you.
Jeffrey Pfeffer • Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don't
Accentuate certain flaws to underscore your strengths
Generative AI combines the encoding of vast corpuses of text and images—which act as training data—and a series of machine learning algorithms to turn text prompts into incredibly creative, intelligent, and useful visual and text responses.
I would rank this among the 3 most transformative pieces of technology I've encountered in my lifetime
... See moreJason Shen • 131: How to Be Human in the Age of Generative AI
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... See more
Ceridwen Dovey • Can Reading Make You Happier? | the New Yorker
The healing power of reading—The New Yorker
Writer and programmer Simon Sarris on the value of effort:
"If you make lists of lofty goals, it can be easy to leave them to accumulate, as happens sometimes, into a mountain of to-do's and notes and half-forgotten plans. Dreaming alone is seductive, even a little sweet, since it lacks the pain of trying. So it feels proper to prize attempts more... See more
"If you make lists of lofty goals, it can be easy to leave them to accumulate, as happens sometimes, into a mountain of to-do's and notes and half-forgotten plans. Dreaming alone is seductive, even a little sweet, since it lacks the pain of trying. So it feels proper to prize attempts more... See more