Articles Categorised with "Personal Development"

• 11-06-2024

  172 - The difference between informing and evoking

  This newsletter has talked about the difference between feedback and observations. Feedback, especially in professional settings, has got the air of walking on eggshells. It is hard to get it right and harder for it to be consistently effective. ...

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• 11-05-2024

  171 - Why is it so hard to say NO?

  The difficulty in saying NO is a common one. I have family who’ve never refused a dinner invitation. Friends who would rip out a fingernail than turn someone down. ...

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• 21-04-2024

  170 - Essence of strategy, rationalization, and a question on processing emotions

  For anyone who has worked in Business Development or in Ops, they would be familiar with a tension that simmers all through the year. ...

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• 11-04-2024

  169 - Feedback, observation, and coaching

  Over the last six months or so, I’ve clocked hours doing, what I’ve come to learn is, internal and external coaching. At work, I’ve done consistent hours of mentoring/coaching and I’ve been lucky enough to have a few paid coaching clients. ...

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• 18-03-2024

  166 - Learning from my younger selves

  My eyes are shut. I’m wide awake in my head. I know it. I also know that at this moment before day break, as the darkness bleeds under my eyelids, on this already warm summer morning, I’m dead and buried. Before I’ve wrapped my fingers around my phone on the bedside table, I know. It’s another night of broken sleep, another one of those broken R90 sleep cycles as all those podcasts say. I open my eyes to check why. ...

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• 14-03-2024

  165 - What's the big deal about being independent?

  Seth Godin says in a recent episode on his podcast Akimbo that every big problem that seems to have been solved solo has actually been solved by a non-coordinated group. Even Einstein, Godin cites as an example, stood on the shoulders of giants before him to come up with a new paradigm for spacetime. ...

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• 11-03-2024

  164 - Three questions for your work and life

  Here are three ideas to consider and three questions to ask yourself this week: ...

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• 24-02-2024

  159 - Tracking a lion, or a life

  We adopted a rescue a couple of months ago. Before, we had Scotch, a British cocker spaniel, for fourteen years. He lived a full life, giving us no trouble with his eating or with his docile temperament....

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• 18-02-2024

  157 - Searching for Originality

  When Thomas P F Hoving, the late celebrated art historian, writer, and Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—the fourth largest art museum in the world, was a second-year undergrad art student (the Americans call it sophomore year)...

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• 09-02-2024

  154 - Two stories about humility training

  On Wednesday, I met a friend who was visiting town. Over breakfast, he shared a story with me. ...

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• 31-01-2024

  151 Would you rather be disciplined or devoted?

  Why do we value one at the cost of the other? ...

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• 19-01-2024

  147 - Shepard tone - how to run multiple projects in parallel

  I’m working on a longer piece and that’s keeping me occupied far longer than what I had accounted for. I think there’s enough potential juice in that squeeze so I aim to keep going. Meanwhile, here’s a thought that’s ready for you....

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• 13-01-2024

  146 - Why is the quest for mastery embarrassing?

  The human cost of pursuing mastery: The hard apprenticeships of Robert Caro and Leonardo da Vinci ...

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• 07-01-2024

  144 - The power of putting first things first

  After Christopher Nolan had finished the script for Oppenheimer, he first took it to his longtime visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson. The fulcrum for the story, as Nolan calls it, was the Trinity Test. Nolan, as always, didn’t...

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• 04-01-2024

  142 - The casually curious die early at the altar of pragmatism

  It’s a December afternoon. I’m sitting in my living room, my straightened-out legs making a bridge between the couch and the coffee table, with the laptop balanced on it, when the thought occurs to me: I’ve been here before....

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• 01-01-2024

  141 - The inefficiency is the point

  Friction and intentionality ...

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• 23-12-2023

  139 - What you didn’t know about your emotions

  How to get your brain to reconstruct reality the way you want it to ...

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• 14-11-2023

  123 - Six rules that I follow as personal commandments

  Part 1 of 2 on how to use rules to your advantage ...

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• 11-11-2023

  121 - Getting Better by Goofing up (Intentionally)

  How to Get Better by Going against Company Policy ...

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• 06-10-2023

  107 - Chasing Greatness: Shoot for the Moon but Only If You Can Train the Monkey First (Part 2 of 2)

  Henry VIII ruled over England with an iron fist for thirty-six years. For much of the second half of his reign, their king’s foul mood concerned Parliament. Word went that Henry VIII’s famed temper was down to leg ulcers. Painful and...

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• 03-10-2023

  106 - Two proven ways of chasing greatness (Part 1 of 2)

  You have permission to follow your curiosity (Part 1 of 2) ...

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• 30-09-2023

  105 - The Art of Learning

  I faced a crisis at sixteen when I entered junior college. I was thrust into a period of intense preparation for competitive exams for undergrad admissions. A ranker through school, I was unsettled by the depth in competition. I...

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• 21-09-2023

  102 - Keep calm and be like Van Gogh

  The perils of making up your mind too early ...

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• 16-08-2023

  90 - Power laws

  Doing something the best way possible is 10X better than doing something in just a good way ...

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• 10-08-2023

  88 - Two principles I aim to follow moving forward:

  The way to a (wo)man’s mind is through stories. ...

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