My goal is to learn things once and use them forever.
Information without emotion isn’t retained.
Much like you would train your body, you can train your mind.
To learn is to live. I see no other option. Once the learning curve flattens out, I get bored.
Though you can upgrade your brain domestically, traveling and relocating provides unique conditions that make progress much faster.
Learning is such an addiction and compulsion of mine that I rarely travel somewhere without deciding first how I’ll obsess on a specific skill.
It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.
Thinking is mostly just asking yourself questions and answering them.
I know nothing. I am a beginner. But I ask a lot of questions.
BrainQuicken was a real learning on the job MBA.
Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.
Quite aside from the fact that it is impossible to understand a foreign culture without understanding its language, acquiring a new language transforms the human experience and makes you aware your own language: your own thoughts.
Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.
Here are a few books that have affected me or made me think differently in the last few years. None of them are directly related to business: Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach — this is an important book, originally recommended to me by a neuroscience PhD who benefited from it. The Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda. The Body Keeps The Score by Van Der Kolk.
The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths.
Top academic institutions are wonderful, but there are unrecognized benefits to not coming out of one. Grads from top schools are funneled into high-income 80-hour-per-week jobs, and 15–30 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path. How do I know? I’ve been there.
If you want great mentors, you have to become a great mentee. If you want to lead, you have to first learn to follow.
