š” Psychological Concepts | Idea Flows | Substack | Mental Models | Happiness | Fasting
Hiāŗļø How are you doing today?
Yesterday, I published a new video āCreate More, Consume Lessā, which is one of my favourite principles. Check it out if you havenāt yet :)
Anyways, hereās everything I found interesting this week!
Itās a long list, so Iād recommend using a read-later service like Pocket and Instapaper.
Save them, read them later, take notes, and create your own content!
Mind
1. [Tweet] 40 Psychological Concepts by Emily Anhalt
In this tweet storm, Anhalt explains some of the core concepts in Psychology that therapists use to better understand patients and human behaviour in general. All of the concepts are worth diving deeper!
š¤ Psychosomatization: physical manifestations of emotional states - often happens because weāre unable to feel things emotionally. Ex: feeling nauseous when what you really are is anxious. āWe store our issues in our tissues.ā
2. [Article] Get Better at the Things You Do Every Day by Scott Young
I found Scottās blog recently, and there are so many gems in there!
In this article, he explains how learning is a critical skill that affects various aspects of your life - relationships, work, health and your sense of meaning in life.
Then he talks about how people misunderstand the 10,000 hours rule and the best way to learn anything, that is deliberate practice.
The idea that ten thousand hours is a āruleā for expertise has always been somewhat silly. First, the research the rule was based on suggested it was only an average, not a fixed amount. Second, the rule implies just getting a lot of hours is the key. In fact, the research showed pretty much the opposite.
Deliberate practice means overcoming automaticity and new innovations to push performance higher.
3. [App] Inoreader
Last week, I asked on Twitter about Feedbin (a RSS reader app). But some people suggested to try Inoreader instead. And Iām so glad they did. Itās fantastic!
@ShuOmi3 Inoreader is like a content hub of everything. I can save web pages, subscribe to feeds, social media, and filter them according to the rules. Really powerful and happy to be a Pro user
4. [Article] Improving Idea Flow by Nat Eliason
A great article on how to effectively diversify your inputs and thereby improve your idea flow.
One easy change is to reduce the overlap in idea sources. Go through your Twitter, Feedly, Podcast, or YouTube feed and see what sources are saying the same things in different ways. Now of those, which are your favorites. Keep one or two, and ditch the rest.
He also talks about creating things from your ideas, which I thought was truly well said.
If youāre not in the habit of creating things from your ideas, your ideas are never forced into some kind of coherency. They never become memes: idea-viruses that can reproduce in the brains of other people.
The best writing is the writing you donāt care if anyone reads. Itās what you create to help yourself understand and clarify whatās bouncing around in your head. If someone reads and finds value in it, great, but simply by creating it youāve gotten most of the value.
5. [Article] The 10 Most Useful Mental Models by Scott Young
Another one by Scott Young. If youāre a sucker for mental models like me, you might like this article where he explains his favourite mental models in plain words.
You might have heard of most of them before, but itās amazing to see how these basic mental models can be used to explain lots of things in the world.
Why is hotel bedding white? Why do we pay more for medicine than prevention? Why would most people rather have credentials than an education? The answer is signaling.
Signaling is taking visible actions to change what other people think. The fact that you can lie, creates strange incentives for would-be signallers to choose things that make lying harder. Bedsheets in a hotel are white, typically, because patterned sheets hide stains. If youāre worried about cleanliness, a pristine white sheet is harder to fake.
We tend to be suspicious of signaling, as it feels less authentic. But it is likely embedded into our psychology at a very basic level. Much of our behavior may be optimized for sending signals, rather than merely reaching direct ends.
6. [Article] Maker vs. Manager: How to make a schedule that supports your working style by Jory MacKay
The concepts of āMaker Timeā is useful for anyone who creates (e.g. writing, filming, codingā¦). If youāre familiar with the ideas like āDeep Workā and āSingle-taskingā, you might find it interesting.
More and more, our jobs require creativity and innovative thinking. Yet few people take the time to engage in real creative thought during the day.
who can āget creativeā in a 15-minute slot between their mandatory lunch meeting and the hour-long call with the sales team at 1:30?
If your job is to think up new and innovative ideas, this just doesnāt work. So what does?
Money
1. [Tweet] Advice on Quitting Job by Salman Ansari
Recently I quit my data scientist job. But before that happened, Salman gave me a few great pieces of advice which I thought were worth sharing.
If youāre considering quitting your job, perhaps you might find this helpful.
If you want to explore something and you have 3 months runway, it might be worth doing it for 2 months if you can. 2 months is a really long time to do something full-time, and you will learn a lot about what you want to do during that time.
2. [Article] How Substack has spawned a new class of newsletter entrepreneurs by Steven Perlberg
Seems many people are now starting their own Substack newsletter. In this article, Perlberg explains how Substack is helping many people to earn a descent income from writing while building an audience.
He also touches upon bundling - an emerging trend in newsletter as an effective way to increase paid subscribers. I think there are going to be more newsletter bundles in the future.
OāNeil encourages writers to give Substack a try. āMaybe you only get 150 subscribers and it doesnāt work out. OK, no big deal. Weāre all working constantly for free all the time anyways,ā he said. āLetās say all you can get is 100 people subscribing giving you $5 a month. For most freelance journalists, $500 a month is something.ā
As more writers join the platform, he doesnāt think there is necessarily a subscription bubble for newsletters. ā¦ ā[People] feel good about giving people they like money so they can continue to make stuff they like.ā
3. [Article] Building a Million Dollar Business ā 10 Tips for Entrepreneurs by Ali Abdaal
A few days ago, I was casually browsing the articles Ali wrote and I really liked this one. It says 10 tips for entrepreneurs, but I find most of them also apply to those who starting Youtube, blog, newsletter etc.
Donāt Wait For Permission
When weāre thinking of starting something weāre often waiting for someone to give us permission or a certificate to say that weāre allowed to start. But waiting is not going to help. ā¦ in fact, the act of ādoingā is the best form of learning. If youāre providing a good service thatās all the qualifications you need.
Also his new website looks sick! Check it out if you havenāt yet.
Relationships
1. [Article] What We Get Wrong About Happiness, According To A Real Happiness Professor by Stephanie Barnes
Everybody wants to be happy, but Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale, says there are a few common misconceptions about happiness.
Social scientists have a particular definition of what they call subjective well-being.
āThey typically think of [happiness] as having two parts: a cognitive component ā whether youāre satisfied with your life ā and an emotional component ā whether you have lots of positive and not so many negative emotions, which is sort of whether you are satisfied in your life,ā
Santos said one of the most common misconceptions is that āwe canāt change our happiness.ā In other words, we think weāre predisposed to a certain level of joy.
2. [Article] How Teen Relationships Impact Your Adult Relationships by Robert Taibbi
This article was an interesting read. It introduces several studies about the impact of teen relationship and stress on adult romantic relationships.
Having close relationships with same sex best friends gives you a foundation of learning about intimacy, opportunities for being assertive and learning how to handle differences.
While some teens find a stable group of supportive peers through clubs, sports, etc., many do not ā they suffer the emotional blows of falling in and out of various peer groups, and often develop āmasksā to fit in and hide their true feelings. ā¦ As a result, they enter the adult world with unhealed social and emotional wounds that continue to impact them.
Health
1. [Article] Fasting Science
Iāve been doing intermittent fasting for 2 years now, and the effect is amazing. Iāve literally never caught a cold or felt sick in the past 2 years. Before that, I always caught a cold at least 2-3 times a year. But that just completely stopped. This sounds like a complete lie, but itās not!!
If youāre interested in fasting, this website run by Jason Fung might be the best starting point.
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My 4 months old doggo got his first trim!
I just find the first picture hilariousš https://t.co/YMrSM9HKMT