Month: February 2023

Applying ‘Goldilocks Rule’ To Stay Motivated

Neera

You can apply the ‘Goldilocks Rule’ to stay motivated. Here is how:

Imagine you’re playing a new board game with some friends. The game is so challenging, you can’t even win a single point. And no matter how many hours you put into it, you don’t get any better. Chances are, you’d grow frustrated and want to give up.

Now imagine the flip side.

The game is so easy, you win every single time without any effort. While your ego may get a boost, it would probably get pretty boring. And you give it up.

Either way, you lose your motivation.

Because motivation requires just the right amount of challenge. Not too much. Not too little. Just like Goldilocks!

‘Goldilocks Rule’ is worth considering with whatever you do. If things are too easy, you’ll get bored. If they’re too hard, you’ll get frustrated. Do you need to add a new challenge to spice things up?

Alternatively, do you need to purposely make things EASIER so you can actually get some quick ‘wins’ under your belt?

There’s no right answer. This is something to regularly calibrate each day.

How to Fail at Almost Everything And Still Win Big

Neera

Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone you or I have met or even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world’s most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years?

In “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,” Adams shares the game plan he’s followed since he was a teen. Here are 7 things I took away ‘from the Adams book:

  • Do creative work first. “The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main metric: my energy. I make choices that maximize my personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all the other priorities. One of the most important tricks for maximizing your productivity involves matching your mental state to the task.”
  • Don’t expect people to be reasonable. “If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion. You’ll find yourself continually debating people and never winning, except in your own mind. Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational.”
  • Being selfish can be good. “The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends.”
  • Withholding Praise is Immoral. “Children are accustomed to a continual stream of criticism and praise, but adults can go weeks without a compliment while enduring criticism both at work and at home. Adults are starved for kind words.”
  • Don’t read the news to find the truth. “I read the news to broaden my exposure to new topics and patterns that make my brain more efficient in general and to enjoy myself, because learning interesting things increases my energy and makes me feel optimistic.”
  • System trumps goals. “One should have a system instead of a goal. The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavors. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.”
  • Every adult should gain a working knowledge of some skills. “I wouldn’t expect you to become a master of any, but mastery isn’t necessary. Luck has a good chance of finding you if you become merely good in most of these areas. They are:
  1. Public speaking
  2. Psychology
  3. Business Writing
  4. Accounting, Design (the basics)
  5. Conversation
  6. Overcoming Shyness
  7. Second language
  8. Golf
  9. Proper grammar
  10. Persuasion
  11. Technology ( hobby level) and
  12. Proper voice technique.

If you haven’t read the book, you should.

Image from Amazon

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The First Principle Thinking

Neera

In 2002, Elon Musk began his quest to send the first rocket to Mars. He ran into a major challenge right off the bat. After visiting a number of aerospace manufacturers around the world, Musk discovered the cost of purchasing a rocket was astronomical—up to $65 million. Given the high price, he began to rethink the problem.

So, he asked himself, what is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Then he asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the price he was quoted.

Instead of buying a readymade rocket for tens of millions, Musk decided to purchase the raw material at a fraction of the cost and build his own rockets and SpaceX was born. Within a few years, SpaceX cut the price of launching a rocket by nearly 10x while still making a profit.

Musk used first principles thinking to break the situation down to the fundamentals, bypass the high prices of the aerospace industry, and create a more effective solution.

First principles thinking is about acquiring knowledge about a problem or a thing by knowing its first causes by decomposing it into its most basic elements. They are the first causes. The final cause is about the purpose that the things serve.

“I tend to approach things from a physics framework,” Musk said in an interview. “Physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. So I said, okay, let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of?

The normal way we conduct our lives is to reason by analogy. We try to find out what other people are doing or by asking if has it been done before. With first principles, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there.

How can we utilize first principles thinking in our life and work?

Let’s look at cooking. There’s a big difference between knowing how to follow a recipe and knowing how to cook. People who know how to cook understand the basic principles that make food taste, look, and smell good. They have confidence in troubleshooting and solving problems as they go—or adjusting to unexpected outcomes.

That’s what Julia Child, the renowned Frech Chef, did all her life. Rather than just following the recipes, she understood how every element of French cuisine worked.

If you can master the first principles within any domain, you can go much further than those who are just following recipes.

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle defined a first principle as “the first basis from which a thing is known.” It is a basic assumption that cannot be deduced any further.

It is a fancy way of saying “Think like a scientist.” Scientists don’t assume anything. They start with questions like, What are we absolutely sure is true? What has been proven?

The first principle thinking requires you to dig deeper and deeper until you are left with only the foundational truths of a situation. It is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibilities.

Break down things into smaller levels and then make something completely different from it. That’s what Bernard D. Sadow did. For centuries humans have been carrying their stuff in bags. We have had trunks, leather bags, and suitcases. They are heavy to lift and carry. Then in 1970, Bernard D. Sadow used the first principle thinking and came up with the idea of adding wheels to them. Now nobody carries their suitcases at airports anymore, they wheel them.

Rather than the ‘monkey see, monkey do,’ approach, apply the first principle thinking to solve your problem:

  1. Identify your problem.
  2. Dig deeper and deeper into the problem, breaking it down into its most essential concepts (the first causes).
  3. Reassemble them from the ground up, thinking of all possible ways they can be reassembled (the final cause or the purpose they serve).
  4. Choose the best solution.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!” — Richard Feynman

The 10 Essential Writing Principles from ‘Writing Down the Bones’ by Natalie Goldberg

Neera

Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down The Bones” is a classic book in the world of writing.

Natalie Goldberg wrote ‘Writing Down the Bones’ after many years of practicing writing as a form of meditation and self-discovery. In the book, she shares her experiences and insights on how writing can be used as a tool for personal growth and artistic expression.

Goldberg was initially inspired to start writing as a way to deal with her own feelings of anger and frustration. She found that the act of putting pen to paper helped her to release these emotions and gave her a sense of clarity and peace.

Over time, she developed a writing practice that incorporated Zen meditation and became a way for her to connect with her inner voice and explore her thoughts and emotions.

Here are ten lessons I learned from it.

  1. Write as if your life depends on it. Approach your writing with a sense of urgency and importance, as if it’s a matter of life and death.
  2. Don’t worry about writing well or making sense. Let go of the pressure to write perfectly. The goal is to free your mind to explore new ideas and techniques.
  3. Keep your hand moving. Keep your hands moving across the page, no matter what. This helps to keep the momentum going and prevents you from getting stuck in your thoughts.
  4. Don’t cross out or edit while writing. Embrace the idea that writing is a process and that it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s about trusting the process and letting the words flow without worrying about making mistakes.
  5. Write for a set amount of time. Set a timer and write for a specific amount of time, without stopping. It will keep you focused and encourage you to keep writing, even if you aren’t sure where your writing is going.
  6. Be specific. Write concrete, specific details rather than vague, abstract ideas. It will bring your writing to life and make it more interesting and engaging for the reader.
  7. Use your five senses. To make your writing immersive, memorable and a vivid experience for readers, use all five senses.
  8. Write about what is right in front of you. Write about what is happening in the present moment, rather than what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. This helps to keep the writing focused and grounded in reality.
  9. Don’t write what you think you should write. Write what you want to write, rather than what you think you should write. The goal is to free the writer’s mind from the expectations of others and to allow them to explore their own unique voice.
  10. Trust the process. Writing is a journey and the process of writing is just as important as the end product. The process will lead to growth and discovery, even if the end result isn’t what you had initially envisioned.

The success of Writing Down the Bones can be attributed to Goldberg’s ability to articulate the connection between writing and mindfulness in a way that resonates with readers. The book has become a classic in the world of writing and continues to inspire and guide writers of all levels.

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