Generations – Jean M. Twenge

Generations by Jean M. Twenge
Date read: 3/11/24. Recommendation: 9/10.

Questions the previously held view that generations are forged by events and instead suggests that generations are shaped, to a much greater degree, by the technology we grow up with and the underlying trend toward individualism and a slower life. Twenge’s goal is to demystify generational differences. She analyzes a huge amount of data over the past 100 years, covering gender, income, politics, marriage, etc. The entire book is fascinating but the recurring theme around the deterioration of mental health is particularly interesting to explore. Reading between the lines, there are lessons on how to protect your own well-being and better relate between generations. It’s relevant to everyone, but particularly important for parents.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Generational differences:
Major events don’t shape generations, technology does: “Generations differ because technology has radically changed daily life and culture, both directly and via technology’s daughters individualism and a slower life.” Jean M. Twenge

Focus of this book: demystifying generational differences may help reduce intergenerational conflict. 

“Gen Z doesn’t believe that gender is fluid because they were born after 9/11; they believe gender is fluid because that is the next step for an increasingly individualistic and online culture. Millennials aren’t marrying later because they were young during the Great Recession; they are marrying later because adult development has slowed as technology created the triple trends of more protected children, more years of education to prepare for information-age jobs, and medical advances enabling longer life spans. Gen Z isn’t depressed because of the economy; they’re depressed because smartphones and social media created an atmosphere of constant competition and severed them from in-person human interaction.” Jean M. Twenge

“Rising individualism waves through the story of each generation.” Jean M. Twenge — Silents harnessed this went they fought for abolition of racial segregation and overturned laws that discriminated based on gender. Boomers did when they protested the Vietnam War draft and challenged rules about what women could/couldn’t do. Gen X’ers valued self-confidence and harbored distrust. Millennials took positive self-views to another level and supported LGB rights. Gen Z makes the argument that everyone can choose their gender, and there are more than two. 

Individualism: “Mask mandates were a difficult sell in a culture that had embraced full-throated individualism for five decades.” Jean M. Twenge

“All cultural systems have trade-offs, and individualism has brought Americans a culture with unprecedented freedom, diverse voices, and a belief that people can be who they want to be. However, it also created more distrust of others, and a fragmented social fabric. Leaving social rules behind to favor the individual brings both freedom and chaos, both liberation and disconnection.” Jean M. Twenge

Slow life: This has grown with each generation, delaying traditional milestones. Children are now safer but less independent. “By the time Gen Z came along, the slow-life strategy was at full scream, with driving, working, and even sex delayed.” Jean M. Twenge

“We have taken technology’s priceless gift of time and used it to watch funny videos and lust after other people’s lives—diverting but not always enlightening or beneficial.” Jean M. Twenge

“As the primary instigator of generational and cultural change, technology presents the ultimate trade-off. Technology has given us instant communication, unrivaled convenience, and the most precious prize of all: longer lives with less drudgery. At the same time technology has isolated us from each other, sowed political division, fueled income inequality, spread pervasive pessimism, widened generation gaps, stolen our attention, and is the primary culprit for a mental health crisis among teens and young adults. This is the challenge for all six generations in the decades to come: to find a way for technology to bring us together instead of driving us apart.” Jean M. Twenge

Silents (born 1925-1945):
The most mentally resilient generation we’ve seen…they married young, which created challenges but led them to have children and value family, key protective factors against mental distress as you age. 

Boomers (born 1946-1964):
Whether or not someone experiences depression, has an enormous amount to do with the surrounding culture. It’s extremely rare in traditional hunter-gatherer tribes, as well as traditional agricultural societies. It’s what clinical psychologist Steve Ilardi calls “a disease of civilization.” 

Boomers were far more likely than previous generations to suffer from depression and poor mental health. Contributing factors were unprecedented acceleration in individualism and technology. More specifically, television allowed people to begin forming unrealistically high expectations. Boomers were the first generation that grew up with TV and were bombarded with advertising from a very young age of all the things they should want or aspire to be like. Trend would only accelerate with rise of social media and reality TV in the 21st century. 

“We blindly accept soaring expectations for the self—as if some idiot raised the ante on what it takes to be a normal human being.” Martin Seligman, Psychology Today, 1988

Boomers explored individualism through groups (seminars, protests, festivals): “For Boomers, self-focus was new: Most grew up in the more collectivistic 1950s and early 1960s, so the individualism of the late 1960s and 1970s was uncharted territory. To this day, Boomers frequently talk about the self in terms of a ‘journey’ or a ‘voyage.’” Jean M. Twenge

Generation X (born 1965-1979):
“For Gen X, though, individualism wasn’t a journey—they were born at the destination…Gen X learned from their Silent and Boomer parents that the self came first.” Jean M. Twenge

Rise of self-confidence: In early 1950s, 12% of teens agreed with statement “I am an important person.” By the late 1980s, 80% of teens agreed. And while self-confidence doesn’t predict success, it does help protect against depression. And depression plateaued between Boomers and Gen X’ers. Potentially because of resilience built during their free-roaming childhoods and independent teen years.

Millennials (born 1980-1994):
Raised the stakes on the individual self…went from important to paramount. 

First generation in American history where the majority of 25-39 year-olds are not married (roughly 45%).

Mental health: happy as teens, depressed as adults. Last generation that remembers growing up and not being connected all the time. Shaped their lives, but did not define their earliest memories.

Mid 2010s, rates of depression among Millennials began to soar. Lots of contributing factors, but again, ballooning expectations had something to do with it and the level of disappointment many faced in their adult lives. Social media and the online outrage machine was in full swing. Marriage and religion tanked, and along with it social bonds and community offered by those institutions. Technology changed the way people judged their lives and stripped away in-person interactions.

“In the individualistic culture Millennials have known all their lives, individual freedom is valued over the tight social bonds of institutions like marriage and religion. Although individualism has many upsides, its risks include isolation and loneliness and their bedfellows unhappiness and depression. The lone self is a weak foundation for robust mental health: humans need social relationships to be happy and fulfilled in life. That is especially true as people age past young adulthood. This might be why Millennials were happier as teens but not as adults—individualism and freedom feel good when you are young but empty when you are older.” Jean M. Twenge

Outrage machine: “Bad news, anxiety-provoking news, and news that incites anger sells, none of which is good for mental health.” Jean M. Twenge

“Millennials’ lives and mental health have been influenced by online interaction, but most spent their formative years before it completely took over. Who did spend their teen years in the age of the smartphone? That would be Gen Z.” Jean M. Twenge

Generation Z (born 1995-2012):
Concerned with authenticity, confronting free speech issues, pushing the norms of gender, and struggling with mental health.

Gender: Gen Z young adults are much more likely to identify as either trans or nonbinary than other generations. Only 1 out of 1,000 Boomers identify as trans, 23 out of 1,000 Gen Z young adults do. 

Mental health: Number of teens and young adults with clinical-level depression more than doubled between 2011 and 2021—full-blown mental health crisis that was building long before COVID. Increase in mental health issues is a generational shift. And it began appearing in the early 2010s. 

Early 2010s were defined by smartphones and social media. Went from optional to mandatory. “The case for technology, especially social media, causing the rise in mental health issues among young people relies on four primary pieces of evidence: 1) timing, 2) impact on day-to-day life, 3) group-level effects, and 4) the impact on girls.” Jean M. Twenge

“Teen depression and digital media use increased in lockstep. Internet use, social media use, and smartphone ownership rose as depression rose.” Jean M. Twenge

Consistent across countries and geographies…UK, Canada, Australia, US. 

Isolation: Average teen spent more than 8.5 hours a day with screen media in 2021. Digital communication took over, became the norm, and squashed in-person gatherings. Teens spend less time with each other (hanging out, driving, going to parties). 

“TV time is only weakly linked to unhappiness and gaming (which is more popular among boys) is pretty much a wash until it reaches 5 hours a day. But unhappiness starts to trend upward after just an hour a day of social media use for girls.” Jean M. Twenge

“Believing that the cards are stacked against you is an example of what psychologists call external locus of control. If you have internal locus of control, you believe you are in control of your life. An external locus of control is the opposite: the belief that nothing matters, because it’s all up to luck and powerful other people to determine what happens. That is unfortunately occasionally true, but it’s also a defeatist way of looking at the world—and it’s more common among Gen Z.” Jean M. Twenge

Be Water, My Friend – Shannon Lee

Be Water, My Friend by Shannon Lee
Date read: 11/9/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

Be Water, My Friend captures a loyal Bruce Lee fan base, but Shannon Lee’s enthusiasm for her father’s philosophy and her personal commentary delivers a book that holds its own. The core tenet of the book is that fluidity leads to growth and evolution. Martial arts reflect personal growth in this way and there’s no better teacher than Bruce Lee. The emphasis on “life is motion, find a way to move with it” builds upon ideas in the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, but in an accessible way for an audience who might be more interested in philosophy than martial arts. Beautiful sections on awareness, enthusiasm, experimentation, purpose, and movement. One of my favorite books that I’ve read all year.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Bruce Lee’s background:
Martial arts was his chosen love, started practicing wing chun gung fu in Hong Kong at 13 years old, and he practiced every day until his death at 32. 

His sifu (teacher) was Yip Man, who was trying to teach a fiery young Bruce Lee the importance of gentleness, fluidity, and pliability, not just strength and cunning. 

“Never assert yourself against nature. Never be in frontal opposition to any problem, but control it by swinging with it.” Yip Man

Movement:
Bruce Lee lived every aspect of his life according to the philosophy of movement. He was interested in concepts and tools that applied to real-life situations. “He didn’t deal in points earned or light touches landed, as was the style of the day in high-level competitions. He called that kind of point-oriented, competitive fighting, with so many rules on how to score without causing injury, ‘dryland swimming.’” SL

“Like flowing water, life is perpetual movement.” Bruce Lee

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Heraclitus

Awareness:
“For many of us, life happens to us. We get trapped in unconscious patterns of living and forget that there are, in fact, many choices and many ways to be fully involved in the creation of our lives. To say it another way, we want to be fully alive versus merely subsisting. And to do that, we have to be paying attention.” SL

Movement is life: “Pliability is life; rigidity is death, whether we are speaking of the body, the mind, or the spirit. Be pliable.” Bruce Lee

“Don’t put all your focus and energy into your career so that one day you will be content and happy. Work on being content and happy and bring that into your career and the rest of your life.” SL

Purpose:
What you do and who you are is not as important as how you express your “what” and your “who” in everything you do. SL

Self-actualization: “It is to know oneself and express the uniqueness of oneself for the world with such skill and with such ease that, like water, it will flow naturally from you.” SL

“And you don’t get to express your best self out in the world without a healthy dose of personal inventory and integrity. It takes work to make your insides match your outsides.” SL

“But only you will really ever know whether your life was good for you.” SL

“All goals apart from the means are an illusion. There will never be means to ends, only means.” Bruce Lee

“Life is a process, not a goal; a means but not an end; a constant movement rather than an established pattern.” Bruce Lee

Letter at age 21: “I feel I have this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all of these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force, which I hold in my hand.” Bruce Lee

Martial arts:
“Proficiency in martial arts is the practice of keeping centered and skillfully responsive under the direst of circumstances: the threat of physical harm.” SL

Yin and yang:
Not opposites, but complements. They work together to form a whole. “And so it is with water. Water is gentle yet powerful. Soft, yet strong. Flowing, yet deep. And so it is with life.” SL

Experimentation:
(Before JKD) By 1964, Bruce Lee had established a second martial arts school in Oakland, CA, called the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute (another was in Seattle) where he taught a slightly modified form of wing chun, the martial art he had learned in Hong Kong as a teenager. “I say ‘slightly modified’ because my father had started to contemplate and experiment with shifts in technique—these were very small deviations from the traditional norm, such as a slight angling of the foot here, more movement at the waist there, quicker initiation of movement in response to an opponent.” SL

But he was still just 24 years old at the time and a bit of a loudmouth. “He was also bucking tradition in ways that annoyed the Chinese kung fu old guard in San Francisco’s Chinatown community. My father would give demonstrations at the Sun Sing Theater in Chinatown, and he would talk loudly and brashly about how many of the Chinese Martial arts were bogged down by unnecessary, wasted motions, using the term ‘classical mess’ repeatedly to disparage other traditional kung fu styles. He would then challenge people to come up onstage and see if they could best his technique.” SL

“As if that weren’t enough to ruffle feathers, he also opened his schools to people of all races and backgrounds. In the eyes of the kung fu establishment, traditions were meant to be adhered to, and while the occasional non-Chinese might find their way into Chinese kung fu classes from time to time, there was certainly not an open-door policy to the general public. Bruce was disrespectful ‘ruining’ the old ways, and for the traditionalists in Chinatown, this would not stand.” SL

“In late 1964, the San Francisco Chinatown community issues a challenge against my father. They’d had enough of this bold young man and his rebellious ways, and they were going to do what they could to silence him. They proposed a challenge match to be fought at my father’s school in Oakland. If their champion won, Bruce Lee would cease teaching, and if my father won, he could continue on unimpeded.” Page 57 for full story. 

Bruce Lee won the fight, which lasted three minutes, after his opponent took off running after the exchange of initial blows. Lee had to grab hold and attack him from behind while running, something traditional martial arts hadn’t prepared him for. Despite the victory, he was disheartened that traditional wing chun hadn’t prepared him for this “anything goes” scenario. The traditional practices were too specialized, too rigid. This was the great revelation of his martial arts career and led to the seeds of jeet kune do. 

Jeet kune do (JKD):
Jeet kune do = the way of the intercepting fist.

“When my father created his martial art of jeet kune do (JKD), he took great care to establish deep philosophical principles to accompany it. These philosophies were meant to engage the mind and the spirit as well as the body and were a key component to guarding against rote drilling and perfunctory training. JKD emphasizes formless and non-telegraphic movement—movement that happens so instantaneously and in perfect response to the actual situation that the opponent cannot see what’s coming. The philosophy attached to JKD is meant to root the practitioner in a fluid and present state to keep him or her flexible and capable of initiating and responding to change. And one can only respond to change if one has enough mobility in approach to do so.” SL

Starting ideating on JKD in 1965, formally named it in 1967. 

One of the first teachings of JKD is the on-guard position. It was the starting stance from which all movement ignites. It was based on his study and understanding of the laws of physics and biomechanics, as well as other combative arts—wing chun, boxing, fencing. Bruce Lee saw a certain amount of tension as a necessary component of being on guard. You’re coiled, ready to strike. Not too rigid, not too relaxed. 

Purposefully unbalancing yourself: “To be balanced is to be more or less at rest. Action, then, is the art or method of unbalancing toward keeping oneself moving forward, learning and growing.” Bruce Lee

When Bruce Lee started JKD, it was an extremely unorthodox approach for fighting arts of the time. He advocated for forgetting what you think you already know, emptying your mind, and making room to let knew information in. This doesn’t mean forgetting. It means opening your mind and your approach to each experience with a willingness to consider something new. 

“Never be for or against. The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease. Do not like or dislike, an all will then be clear.” Bruce Lee

When developing JKD, looked to standard martial arts for inspiration and information, but also looked beyond at Western boxing, fencing, biomechanics, and philosophy. 

“He admired the simplicity of boxing, incorporating its ideas into his footwork and his upper-body tools (jab, cross, hook, bob, weave, etc.). And from fencing, he began by looking at the footwork, range, and timing of the stop hit and the riposte, both techniques that meet attacks and defenses with preemptive moves. From biomechanics, he studied movement as a whole, seeking to understand the physical laws of motion while understanding biological efficiencies and strengths…He was open to all inspiration and all possibilities.” SL

Core tenants of JKD: “Research your own experience. Reject what is useless. Accept what is useful. And add what is essentially your own.” Bruce Lee

Art of relaxed concentration: “The warrior’s instinct was not to be confused with animal instinct. Like a visceral reaction, it came from a combination of wisdom and discipline. It was an ultimate reasoning that went beyond reason, the ability to make the right move in a split second without going through the process of thinking.” Eiji Yoshikawa

Jeet kune do requires us to be the quintessential version of ourselves. 

Reality is your friend:
Despite feeling troubled after the Oakland fight, he could have pushed that off to the side without examining it. But he did examine and turn it over. “But because he took heed and gave serious attention to the entirety of his experience, in particular the troubling bits, he created a new art form and philosophy and went on to change the landscape of martial arts globally.” SL

Let the problem lead you: “We shall find truth when we examine the problem. The problem is never apart from the answer; the problem is the answer.” Bruce Lee

Pure seeing versus sticky mind:
Pure seeing = not projecting your own preferences and opinions during an experience so you can see it for what it is. Similar to Scout Mindset by Julia Galef.

Sticky mind = moment in an encounter when you get stuck trying to enforce some strategy you have that’s separate from what’s actually happening in the present moment. In martial arts this often reveals itself when fighters get caught up in what they want the fight to be, rather than what the fight actually is as its unfolding. And this spells disaster, as you’re unable to demonstrate the flow, presence, maturity, or ability to respond appropriately. Your mind is stuck. Your cup is too full. Bruce lee advocates for “emptying your cup.”

Workouts:
March 27, 1968, Bruce Lee did 500 punches with his right hand, 250 punches with his left, series of ab exercises, 7 sets of leg raises, sit-ups, sidebends. Did another 500 punches with his right hand, 250 with his left. Cycled two miles, followed by one more set of 500 punches with his right hand. 

Enthusiasm is king:
“When we are enthusiastic, we are inspired by life. We are in joy; we are eager.” SL

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Date read: 5/20/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

Another favorite by one of the best biographers—David McCullough. The Wright Brothers tells the fascinating story of an unlikely duo—Wilbur and Orville Wright—who defied the odds with limited resources and connections to become the first to master human-controlled flight. It’s an incredible tale of humble beginnings, resourcefulness, calculated risks, and seeking meaning over influence. While the Wright brothers faced competitors who poured upwards of $100,000 into failed experiments in aviation, all said and done, the Wright brothers spent a little less than $1,000 in their efforts, all self-funded through their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Great lessons on the advantage held by outsiders—when you don’t have to play by the same rules or face the same level of obligations or pressure that industry insiders might, you operate with a level of freedom and flexibility that drives innovation. Brilliant biography and well worth your time.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Beginnings:
“What the two had in common above all was unity of purpose and unyielding determination. They had set themselves on a ‘mission.’” DM

“The Wright family book collection, however, was neither modest nor commonplace. Bishop Wright, a lifelong lover of books, heavily championed the limitless value of reading.” DM

“But it isn’t true to say we had no special advantages…the greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity.” Orville Wright

Wright Cycle Company:
In the spring of 1893 Wilbur and Orville opened their first small bicycle shop selling and repairing bicycles. By 1895 they were selling about 150 bicycles per year. They soon began making their own bicycles which sold for $65 and the model was called the Van Cleve.

Bicycles were the sensation of the time but were proclaimed morally hazardous. “Because of bicycles, it was said, young people were not spending the time they should with books, and more seriously that suburban and country tours on bicycles were not ‘infrequently accompanied by seductions.’” DM

Even after they became interested in flight, they kept the bicycle shop going so they had a steady source of income to pay for their own experiments. Octave Chaunte tried to talk them out of it and offered to provide financial assistance to the brothers but they were unwilling to accept. 

Sharpened ice skates (15 cents each) during the winter to create additional income at the shop. 

Early inquiries into human flight:
1899 Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington requesting documents or books on the subject. The Smithsonian sent a generous supply of pamphlets on aviation. Wilbur and Orville started studying. 

“In the Summer of 1899, in a room above the bicycle shop on West Third Street, the brothers began building their first aircraft, a flying kite made of split bamboo and paper with a wingspan of five feet. It was a biplane with double wings, one over the other…” DM

“On May 13, 1900, Wilbur wrote a letter to Octave Chanute—his first letter to the eminent engineer—asking for advice on a location where he might conduct flying experiments, somewhere without rain or inclement weather and, Wilbur said, where sufficient winds could be counted on, winds, say, of 15 miles per hour. The only such sites he knew of, Chaunte replied, were in California and Florida, but both were ‘deficient in sand hills’ for soft landings.” DM

“In an answer to an inquiry Wilbur sent the United States Weather Bureau in Washington about prevailing winds around the country, they were provided extensive records of monthly wind velocities at more than a hundred Weather Bureau stations, enough for them to take particular interest in a remote spot on the Outer Banks of North Carolina called Kitty Hawk, some seven hundred miles from Dayton….To be certain Kitty Hawk was the right choice, Wilbur wrote to the head of the Weather Bureau station there, who answered reassuringly about steady winds and sand beaches. As could be plainly seen by looking at a map, Kitty Hawk also offered all the isolation one might wish for to carry on experimental work in privacy.” DM

The first full-sized glider they would ship to Kitty Hawk and reassemble cost $15 and had a wingspan of 18 feet. 

They were relentless in their work ethic, never sat still. During times that they were in Dayton working at their bicycle shop during the day, they would work every single night on their scientific investigations into human flight. Built a wind tunnel in the back of the bicycle shop. 

Calculated risks: 
“The man who wishes to keep at the problem long enough to really learn anything positively must not take dangerous risks. Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.” Wilbur Wright

Never flew together for this reason. They knew how dangerous it was to fly. If one was killed, the other would have to be on the ground to carry on the work. 

Competition:
Samuel Langley, eminent astronomer and head of the Smithsonian. One of the most well-respected scientists in the nation. “His efforts in recent years, backed by substantial Smithsonian funding, had resulted in a strange-looking, steam-powered, pilotless ‘aerodrome,’ as he called it, with V-shaped wings in front and back that gave it the look of a monstrous dragonfly. Launched by catapult from the roof of a houseboat on the Potomac River in 1896, the year of Lilienthal’s death, it flew more than half a mile before plunging into the water.” DM

Langley maintained extreme secrecy about his efforts. Cost $70,000 to build an airship called “The Great Aerodome.” $50,000 was public money—Smithsonian resources and grants from the US War Department. Langley, Graham Bell, and other friends contributed $20,000 of their own money. Could only fly in perfectly calm weather. When it came time to launch a public demonstration it was launched 1,000 feet then came crashing into the Potomac River. On his next attempt, its wings crumbled, it flipped backward, and plunged into the river 20 feet from where it was launched on a houseboat. The experiment had covered more than 8 years, was a complete failure, and didn’t advance human flight in the slightest. 

“Neither brother was ever to make critical or belittling comments about Langley. Rather, they expressed respect and gratitude for the part he had played in their efforts. Just knowing that the head of the Smithsonian, the most prominent scientific institution in America, believed in the possibility of human flight was one of the influences that led them to proceed with their work.” DM

Dozens of other engineers, scientists, and thinkers had tried to tackle the problem of controlled flight: Sir George Cayley, Sir Hiram Maxim (machine gun), Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison. None had succeeded. “Hiram Maxim had reportedly spent $100,000 of his own money on a giant, steam-powered, pilotless flying machine only to see it crash in attempting to take off.” DM

As outsiders, the Wright brothers faced less pressure, had less to lose than some of the aforementioned figures. 

What the Wright brothers learned in their early experiments was that so many of the long-established, supposedly reliable calculations and tables prepared by early authorities in aviation were blatantly wrong and couldn’t be trusted. 

Later expeditions to Kitty Hawk:
Fall of 1902, had a third iteration of their glider. In two months, made nearly a thousand glides and resolved the last major control problem. “All the time and effort given to the wind tunnel tests, the work designing and building their third machine, and the latest modifications made at Kill Devil Hills had proven entirely successful. They knew exactly the importance of what they had accomplished. They knew they had solved the problem of flight and more. They had acquired the knowledge and the skill to fly. They could soar, they could float, they could dive and rise, circle and glide and land, all with assurance. Now they had only to build a motor.” DM

In December of 1903, Wilbur made the first successful powered flight and flew a quarter mile through the air in 59 seconds.

“It had taken four years. They had endured violent storms, accidents, one disappointment after another, public indifference or ridicule, and clouds of demon mosquitoes. To get to and from their remote sand dune testing ground, they had made five round-trips from Dayton (counting Orville’s return home to see about stronger propeller shafts), a total of seven thousand miles by train, all to fly a little more than half a mile. No matter. They had done it.” DM

Resourcefulness + Scrappiness:
“The Langley project had cost nearly $70,000, the greater part of it public money, whereas the brothers’ total expenses for everything from 1900 to 1903, including materials and travel to and from Kitty Hawk, came to a little less than $1,000, a sum paid entirely from the modest profits of their bicycle business.” DM

“It wasn’t luck that made them fly; it was hard work and common sense; they put their whole heart and soul and all their energy into an idea and they had the faith.” John T. Daniels 

“No bird soars in a calm.” Wilbur Wright

“All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden to others.” Bishop Wright

Reception:
At first, no one believed they had actually flown in their machine or they were completely disinterested—the public, the US press, and the US government. “Few took any interest in the matter or in the two brothers who were to become Dayton’s greatest heroes ever. Even those riding the interurban line (past Huffman Prairie) seem to have paid little or no attention to what could occasionally be seen in passing, or to the brothers themselves as they traveled back and forth from town on the same trolley looking little different from other commuters.” DM

Dayton papers didn’t break the story or report on successful flights, but a local beekeeper, Amos Root, who ran a trade journal, Gleanings in Bee Culture, was the first to report the story and recognize the genius of what they had done. Root sent a copy to the editor of the Scientific American saying it could be reprinted at no cost—they ignored it. 

Transition to Huffman Prairie:
Practice field near Dayton, decided since they had the concept down for their flying machine, they would reduce costs of travel and shipment by staying closer to home to continue to master the art of launching themselves safely into the air, banking, turning a motor-propelled machine, and landing safely. 

The brothers finally generated interest as people began to witness demonstrations of the machine firsthand. Only after this did the Dayton press finally catch on. 

“By the time the experiments ended, the brothers had made 105 ‘starts’ at Huffman Prairie and thought it time now to put their creation, Flyer III on the market.” DM

By the end of their time at Huffman Prairie, they were making controlled flights of 25 miles or more. 

Seek meaning over influence:
When Wilbur was in France, preparing to demonstrate the flying machine, and getting pressure from the reporters to fly before he was ready: “I did not ask you to come here. I shall go out when I’m ready. No, I shall not try to mislead you newspaper men, but if you are not here I shall not wait for you.” DM

After his first successful flight (2 miles, 2 minutes in the air): “Then, very calmly, his face beaming with a smile, he put his hands in his pockets and walked off whistling. That night, while the normally sleepy town of Le Mans celebrated, the hero retired early to his shed.” DM

“That summer Saturday in Le Mans, France, not quite eight years into the new twentieth century, one American. Pioneer had at last presented to the world the miracle he and his brother had created on their own and in less than two minutes demonstrated for all who were present and to an extent no one yet had on anywhere on earth, that a new age had begun.” DM

On Wilbur’s strength of character: “In spite of the sarcastic remarks and the mockery, in spite of the traps set up from everywhere all these years, he has not faltered. He is sure of himself, of his genius, and he kept his secret. He had the desire to participate today to prove to the world he had not lied.” Léon Delagrange

“He went his way always in his own way, never showing off, never ever playing to the crowd. ‘The impatience of a hundred thousand persons would not accelerate the rhythm of his stride.’” DM

The Road to Character – David Brooks

The Road to Character by David Brooks
Date read: 4/28/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

Brooks examines the generational shift from humility to the “Big Me”—where everyone’s now encouraged to see themselves as the center of the universe. As part of the “Big Me,” we’ve become obsessed with resume virtues—wealth, fame, status—things that exist beyond our control and don’t necessarily correspond to living a meaningful life. When in fact, we should be focused on eulogy virtues—kindness, bravery, honesty. But to get here, we must get out of our own heads, stop asking ourselves what we want out of life, and instead ask ourselves what our lives and circumstances want out of us. Brooks cites examples of those throughout history who faced crucible moments and used the struggle against their limitations to develop more enduring virtues.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Resume virtues versus eulogy virtues:
Resume virtues: Skills you bring to the job market that contribute to external success.

Eulogy virtues: Exist at the core of your being, whether you are kind, brave, honest, or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed. 

One book that helped him think about these two sets of virtues was Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik who observes two accounts of creation in Genesis and argues these represent two opposing sides of our nature, Adam I and Adam II.

“If you are only Adam I, you turn into a shrewd animal, a crafty, self-preserving creature who is adept at playing the game and who turns everything into a game. If that’s all you have, you spend a lot of time cultivating professional skills, but you don’t have a clear idea of the sources of meaning in life, so you don’t know where you should devote your skills, which career path will be highest and best.” DB

“This book is about Adam II. It’s about how some people have cultivated strong character. It’s about one mindset that people through the centuries have adopted to put iron in their core and cultivate a wise heart. I wrote it, to be honest, to save my own soul.” DB

“Good, wise hearts are obtained through lifetimes of diligent effort to dig deeply within and heal lifetimes of scars. You can’t teach it or email it or tweet it. It has to be discovered within the depths of one’s own heart when a person is fairly ready to go looking for it, and not before.” Dave Jolly

Adam II: “Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable.” DB

“They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline.” DB

“These are the people who have built strong inner character, who have achieved certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to deepen the soul.” DB

Rites of Passage:
“The road to character often involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. When they were in crucible moments, they suddenly had a greater ability to see their own nature. The everyday self-deceptions and illusions of self-mastery were shattered.” DB

“Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.” Kierkegaard

“Such people don’t come out healed; they come out different. They find a vocation or calling. They commit themselves to some long obedience and dedicate themselves to some desperate lark that gives life purpose.” DB

Resist self-promotion:
When George H.W. Bush was running for president, if a speechwriter put “I” in one of his speeches, he would cross it out. In speeches he didn’t, his mother would call the next day and tell him he was talking too much about himself again. 

Shift from a culture of humility to a culture of “Big Me” where everyone’s encouraged to see themselves as the center of the universe. 

Purpose:
Don’t ask what you want from life, instead ask: “What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do?” DB

You have been thrown into a specific place with specific problems and needs. “Your job is to figure certain things out: What does this environment need in order to be made whole?” DB

“We don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.” DB

“The true self is what you have built from your nature, not just what your nature started out with.” DB

Putting lower loves above higher ones:
“If someone tells you something in confidence and then you blab it as good gossip at a dinner party, you are putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship. If you talk more at a meeting than you listen, you may be putting your ardor to outshine above learning and companionship.” DB

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” Immanuel Kant

“The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage in moral struggle against yourself.” DB

Inner scorecard:
“Adam I achieves success by winning victories over others. But Adam II builds character by winning victories over the weaknesses in himself.” DB

“Self-respect is produced by inner triumph, not external ones.” DB

“The central fallacy of modern life is the belief that accomplishments of the Adam I realm can produce deep satisfaction. That’s false. Adam I’s desires are infinite and always leap out ahead of whatever has just been achieved. Only Adam II can experience deep satisfaction.” DB

“Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one.” 

Legacy:
“The message is the person, perfected over lifetimes of effort that was set in motion by yet another wise person now hidden from the recipient by dim mists of time.” DB

“But if you serve work that is intrinsically compelling and focus on just being excellent at that, you will wind up serving yourself and the community obliquely.” DB

Maturity:
“Maturity does not glitter. It is not built on the traits that make people celebrities. A mature person has moved from fragmentation to centeredness, has achieved a state in which the restlessness is over, the confusion about the meaning and purpose of life is calmed.” DB

Flaws:
“We are all stumblers, and the beauty and meaning of life are in the stumbling—in recognizing the stumbling and trying to become more graceful as the years go by.” DB

Boyd – Robert Coram

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram
Date read: 3/10/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

The story of one of the greatest fighter pilots and military strategists in history. John Boyd was such an entertaining character—he never backed down, he didn’t operate according to conventions, and he lived life on his own terms. He was the first man to codify maneuvers, tactics, and strategies of air-to-air combat, changing the way every air force in the world fights and flies. He was a founder of the military reform movement, challenging the careerists and bureaucracy in the Pentagon to reconsider their outdated mental constructs. After retirement, he immersed himself in the study of philosophy, theory of science, military history, and psychology, packaging everything he knew about all forms of conflict into a briefing called “Patterns of Conflict.” Entertaining cover to cover and a book that will help hone your own strategic thinking.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Background:
“He was first, last, and always a fighter pilot.” Wore the Air Force uniform for 24 years. Career spanned the last half of the 20th century. 

Childhood interests: During third grade, Boyd showed a strong interest in aviation, drawing airplanes after he finished working on class assignments. Rummaged through magazines at a friend’s house after school looking for stories or pictures of airplanes. In fifth grade, he rode in a small airplane with a local Erie man who owned a chain of drugstores that he knew through his sister.

In high school, he took a series of tests that told him he had an IQ of 90. He refused to retake the test and always cited his low IQ to bureaucrats so they would underestimate him. “I’m just a dumb fighter pilot. I don’t know any better. I had an IQ test in high school and they gave me a ninety.” 

Legacy:
Ideas greatly influenced the Gulf War in 1991. Became the first man to codify maneuvers, tactics, and strategies of air-to-air combat in 1959—the “Aerial Attack Study” which was the equivalent of the Bible of air combat. Changed the way every air force in the world flies and fights. At Georgia Tech, established the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory. Then founded the “military-reform movement” after retiring from the Air Force in 1975. Then immersed himself in the study of philosophy, theory of science, military history, and psychology, packaging everything he knew about all forms of conflict into a briefing called “Patterns of Conflict.” 

Greatest military theoretician since Sun Tzu: “The academics who know of Boyd agree he was one of the premier military strategists of the twentieth century and the only strategist to put time at the center of his thinking.” 

Self-perception:
Even from his earliest years, Boyd saw himself as “the man of principle battling superiors devoid of principle; the idealist fighting those of higher rank who have shirked their responsibilities; the man who puts it all on the line, and after receiving threat of dire consequences, prevails.” 

Fighter pilots:
“Aerial combat favors the bold, those who are not afraid to use the airplane for its true purpose: a gun platform. There is nothing sophisticated about sneaking up on someone and killing him. Aerial combat is a blood sport, a knife in the dark. Winners live and losers die. Boyd instinctively knew this and his flying was, from the beginning, that of the true fighter pilot.” 

“Fighter pilots fly with their fangs out and their hair on fire and they look death in the face every day and you ain’t shit if you ain’t done it.” 

Codifying aerial combat:
Pilots were intrigued by his handling skills and ideas. They asked him to write his tactics down and prepare diagrams of various tactical maneuvers. 

“American pilots believed that both they and the enemy had such an infinite number of maneuvers at their disposal that aerial combat could never be codified. Air combat was an art, not a science. After simulated aerial combat, a young pilot would be defeated and never know why. Nor could his instructors tell him.”

“When Boyd said he was going to “tweak up the tactics,” what he meant was that he was going to develop, and codify, for the first time in history, a formal regimen for fighter aircraft. He went about the job with a passion. He worked far into the night devising a series of briefings on fighter versus fighter and began to develop his skills as a lecturer.” 

In February of 1956, he published an article in the Fighter Weapons Newsletter entitled ‘A Proposed Plan for Ftr. Vs. Ftr. Training.’ Focused on teaching pilots a new way of thinking, illustrated maneuvers and results of those maneuvers. What were the effects on airspeed? What countermoves were available to an enemy pilot? How do you anticipate those counters?

Boyd became a legend for his skills as a fighter pilot, as well as his abilities as a teacher. 

Created a 150 page single spaced manual that he called the “Aerial Attack Study.” This became the official tactics manual for fighter aircraft. “For the first time the high-stakes game of aerial combat was documented, codified, and illustrated. While all other fighter pilots used their hands, Boyd used mathematics.” The first 600 copies disappeared almost overnight and although it was a classified document, pilots would hide them and take them home to study.

“Within ten years the ‘Aerial Attack Study’ became the tactics manual for air forces around the world. It changed the way they flew and the way they fought.” And it was written by a 33-year-old captain—Boyd. 

Thermodynamics + E-M Theory:
Boyd was studying at Georgia Tech studying mechanical engineering after his time working on the aerial attack study and his time here would seed his eventual E-M Theory. 

“The E-M Theory, at its simplest, is a method to determine the specific energy rate of an aircraft. This is what every fighter pilot wants to know. If I am at 30,000 feet and 450 knots and pull six G’s, how fast am I gaining or losing energy? Can my adversary gain or lose energy faster than I can?”

“When people looked at it, they invariably had one of two reactions: they either slammed a hand to their forehead and said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Or said it had been done before—nothing so simple could have remained undiscovered for so long. 

Realized that if E-M could quantify the performance of American aircraft, it could do the same for enemy aircraft. And eventually use it to design a fighter aircraft. 

“Boyd’s Energy-Maneuverability Theory did four things for aviation: it provided a quantitative basis for reaching aerial tactics, it forever changed the way aircraft are flown in combat, it provided a scientific means by which maneuverability of an aircraft could be evaluated and tactics designed both to overcome the design flaws of one’s own aircraft and to minimize or negate the superiority of the opponent’s aircraft, and finally, it became a fundamental tool in designing fighter aircraft.” 

Drawdown period:
E-M Theory: “He added more notes, more thoughts, more equations. And then he put it away and went into what he called his ‘draw-down period,’ thinking, ‘Oh, hell. Somebody has already done this.’ If what he had discovered was work done by someone else, he did not want to waste more time….Then it registered: if someone had reached the same conclusions he had reached and applied it to tactics, he would have known about it when he was at Nellis….He became excited all over again. The enormity of what he was in the process of discovering would change aviation forever.” 

Retired from the Air Force on August 31, 1975. He was 48 years old. Drove back to his hometown of Erie, PA. “For several weeks Boyd stayed, walking the beach, thinking about his new project and how he would go about researching and writing it. He let the ideas bubble, mulled them over, turned them back and forth, and examined them from all angles and then discarded most of them and began again. By the end of his visit he was rejuvenated. The Peninsula did that for him. He was overflowing with thoughts about the books he wanted to read and the ideas he wanted to explore. And then he returned to Washington. Even though he arguably had more influence on the Air Force than any colonel in Air Force history, his greatest contributions were yet to come. He was about to enter the most productive and most important part of his life.” The next chapter would focus on his learning theory.

“If you want to understand something, take it to the extremes or examine its opposites.” John Boyd

“He practiced what he preached. He considered every word and every idea from every possible angle, then threw it out for discussion, argued endless hours, restructured his line of thought, and threw it out for discussion again. Creativity was painful and laborious and repetitive and detail-haunted.”

Focusing on solutions, not problems or use cases:
Too big, too expensive: “Boyd had done some preliminary E-M calculations on the F-111 and knew what a terrible mistake the Air Force was making. Boyd knew that, left to its own devices, the bureaucracy always came up with an aircraft such as the F-111. The Air Force looked at technology rather than the mission.” 

Know your audience:
E-M charts: Boyd had to determine how to present his E-M theory and its implications to Air Force brass. He decided to take the data and map it on graphs that showed the differences between American fighter’s energy rate and the energy rate of its Soviet counterpart. Blue areas were where differences favored American fighters, red showed where Soviets held an advantage. “Blue is good. Red is bad. Even a goddamn general can understand that.” 

But his outspoken nature would always limit his trajectory and promotions in his career. He wasn’t willing to play politics and make people feel good about shitty decisions. 

Hard work and success:
“But hard work and success do not always go together in the military, where success is defined by rank, and reaching higher rank requires conforming to the military’s value system. Those who do not conform will one day realize that the path of doing the right things has diverged from the path of success, and then they must decide which path they will follow through life.” 

“To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?” John Boyd

“All the things that make the Pentagon so prized by careerists make it loathed and detested by warriors. The self-promotion and sycophancy and backstabbing treachery are all anathema to a warrior.” 

Guiding principle:
“Boyd was guided in his work by one simple principle: he wanted to give pilots a fighter than would outmaneuver any enemy. He didn’t become fixated on technology or ‘one-point’ numerical solutions.”

“Boyd was not as interested in his career as he was in the fate of the American fighting man, the man who—as the military says—is at the pointy end of the spear. He wanted these men to have the best possible equipment, whether it was an airplane or a tank. That was his life.”

“Boyd made men believe they could do things they never thought they could do. And most of them were men of integrity and accomplishment even before they met Boyd.”

Learning theory:
Started voracious reading program and his search for the nature of creativity. The next major focus in his life. He was trying to get a grasp on his learning theory. For Boyd, learning didn’t mean studying, it meant creativity. 

Wrote draft after draft of his learning theory on yellow legal pads. Told his friends he didn’t know where he was going with his research and was just letting it carry him along. 

Destruction and Creation: Spent more than four years researching and writing then distilling his work down to 11 pages. Core thesis focuses on “the danger of our mental processes becoming focused on internal dogmas and isolated from the unfolding, constantly dynamic outside world, we experience mismatches between our mental images and reality. Then confusion and disorder and uncertainty not only result but continue to increase.” If you use this to your advantage, you can stoke chaos in the enemy and leave them constantly off balance. Whoever can handle the quickest rate of change survives. This was the beginning of his ‘time-based theory of conflict.’

Four areas drew most of his attention: general theories of war, the blitzkrieg, guerrilla warfare, and the use of deception by create commanders. 

As he studied history, he found that very rarely would victorious commanders throw their forces head to head against the enemy. They didn’t fight wars of attrition. Instead, they used deception, speed, fluidity of action, and tactics that disoriented or confused, causing the enemy to unravel before the fight ever took place. 

O-O-D-A Loop: Observe-orient-decide-act cycle. Speed is the most important element of the cycle. Whoever can go through it the fastest prevails. And once the process begins, it must only continue to accelerate. “The key thing to understand about Boyd’s version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather the need to execute the cycle in such fashion as to get inside the mind and the decision cycle of the adversary. This means the adversary is dealing with outdated or irrelevant information and thus becomes confused and disoriented and can’t function.” 

The key to victory is operating at a quicker tempo than the enemy. 

“To take the least-expected action disorients the enemy. It causes him to pause, to wonder, to question. This means that as the commander compresses his own time, he causes time to be stretched out for his opponent. The enemy falls farther and farther behind in making relevant decisions. It hastens the unraveling process.” 

Between Two Kingdoms – Suleika Jaouad

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
Date read: 3/7/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

A beautiful and inspiring memoir about Jaouad’s diagnosis with a rare form of leukemia in her early 20s and her struggle to survive. Four years later, she had survived. But she was then faced with the question of how she could possibly begin living again. So she borrowed a friend’s car, subleased her apartment, and set off on a 15,000-mile road trip over 100 days. Along the way she visited strangers who had written to her while she was sick in order to uncover her way back to herself. The book is full of thought-provoking sections on mortality, meaning, recovery, and how to reconcile our past with our present in order to find a path forward. Jaouad’s a brilliant writer and her story will steal your heart.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Moving to Paris and diagnosis:
“If Manhattan is where people move to jump-start careers, Paris is where they go to live out the fantasy of a different life.”

Itch (first symptom) had lessened since she moved to Paris, but the exhaustion was all consuming. She was drinking up to eight espressos a day. “I started to worry that my deep weariness might be something else. Maybe I just can’t cut it in the real world, I’d written in my journal.” 

Found herself returning to the clinics dreary waiting room multiple times for various colds, bouts of bronchitis, UTI’s. 

After her red blood cell count dropped significantly, she returned to the hospital in Paris, they stabilized her, then she flew back to the US where she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. An aggressive form of cancer that attacks the blood and bone marrow. Only 1 in 4 patients survived beyond five years past diagnosis. Suleika was 22 years old. 

“The diagnosis had formed an irreparable fracture: my life before, and after.”

Treatment:
“How strange to be here, in this depressing room, I thought with incredulity, while my peers were out there, starting careers, having babies, traveling the world, and hitting all the other milestones of young adulthood.” 

Isolation: Suleika was a year too old for pediatrics, but decades younger than most of the other patients in adult oncology. 

One afternoon, after more than five weeks in the hospital, she was going into bone marrow failure. The standard treatments were not working. She was enrolled in a phase II experimental clinical trial, meaning it was not yet known whether the new chemo drug combination was safe and effective.

Planning for the future:
“With mortality in the balance, one of life’s most delicious activities when you’re young—imagining your future—had become a frightening, despair-inducing exercise.”

“Then I howled into my pillow—a deep, blood-vessel-popping howl of frustration and envy directed at Will, at my friends, at everyone else who was out there starting jobs, taking trips, discovering new things—all unencumbered by illness.” 

Alchemize suffering into creative grist:
“Henri Matisse, while recovering from intestinal cancer, had worked on his design of the Chapel of the Rosary in Venice by pretending the ceiling of his apartment was the chapel, and attaching a paintbrush to a long pole, which allowed him to work from bed.”

Frida Kahlo, once a pre-medical student in Mexico City, was in a horrible accident when the bus collided with a streetcar. She suffered fractures of the clavicle, ribs, spine, elbow, pelvis, and leg. She was pierced by the streetcar’s iron handrail which entered her left hip. She was forced to abandon her plans of becoming a doctor. While she was bedridden, she stole oil paints from her father, ordered a special easel, and started to paint. “Kahlo transformed her confinement into a place incandescent with metaphor and meaning.”

“I decided to reimagine my survival as a creative act….If my body had grown so depleted that I now had only three functional hours each day, I would clarify my priorities and make the most of how I spent the time I had.”

Reorganized her bedroom so everything she needed was within reach—pens, notebooks, papers, bookshelves with her favorite novels, a wooden board to act as a desk while she laid in bed. “I wrote when I was home, and I wrote each day that I found myself back in the hospital. I wrote until the anger and envy and pain bled dry—until I could no longer hear the persistent beeping of monitors, the hiss of respirators, the alarms that constantly went off. I had no way of predicting all the place the Hundred-Day project would take me, but what I knew for now, was that I was starting to find my true power.” 

Started a blog: the concept was to create a platform for young adults with cancer who were often misunderstood and overlooked. Eventually, the New York Times caught wind, read her blog, and reached out to her to write for the paper. 

Prior to bone marrow transplant: “I worked around the clock for a month to draft thirteen columns before I entered the transplant unit, fueled by the knowledge that it was going to be a long time before I was well enough to write or walk or do much of anything else again….To this day, I’ve never been more prolific. Death can be a great motivator.” 

“I worked furiously, eager to get as much as I could done before the side effects of the chemo intensified. Inevitably they did, so as I typed, I kept a yellow commit bucket tucked under one arm.” 

Strangers started to write in as her column and blog gained traction. “Though I wasn’t allowed to leave my hospital room, writing had given me a portal through which I could travel across time, space, continents.”

“These strangers and their stories quickly became my conduits to the outside world. I relished the letters I received…”

“Before the transplant, writing had been a refuge for me; now it most often resulted in frustration and tears. But I was determined to do what I could while I could, even if that meant pushing my body beyond the boundaries of what was prudent.”

“Since the launch of ‘Life, Interrupted,’ it had been syndicated in magazines and newspapers and was gaining a sizable following. I didn’t have the stamina to write a new column each week, but I did keep writing, slowly, every day, even if it was only a paragraph.” 

Mortality:
“We are all terminal patients on this earth—the mystery is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ death appears in the plot line.” 

“Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” Susan Sontag

Meaning:
Meaning is not found in the material realm—dinner, jazz, cocktails, conversation or whatever. Meaning is what’s left when everything else is stripped away.” Howard, a retired art historian from Ohio, who wrote into Suleika while she was sick.

“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning.” 

Recovery:
“It’s where I find myself now, on the threshold between an old familiar state and an unknown future. Cancer no longer lives in my blood, but it lives on in other ways, dominating my identity, my relationships, my work, and my thoughts.”

“After three and a half years, I am officially done with cancer—more than four years, if you start with the itch. I thought I’d feel victorious when I reached this moment—I thought I’d want to celebrate. But instead, it feels like the beginning of a new kind of reckoning. I’ve spent the past fifteen hundred days working tirelessly toward a single goal—survival. And now that I’ve survived, I’m realizing I don’t know how to live.” 

“Even acknowledging this schism feels impossible: I’ve already put my parents through so much, and I don’t want to worry them with the challenges I am facing now…But the contradictions leave me mired in unanswerable questions: Will my cancer return? What kind of job can I hold when I need to nap four hours in the middle of the day…?”

“During my time in treatment, I’d had one simple conviction: If I survive, it has to be for something. I don’t just want a life—I want a good life, an adventurous life, a meaningful one. Otherwise, what’s the point?” 

“Recovering isn’t about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.”

“After you’ve had the ceiling cave in on you—whether through illness or some other catastrophe—you don’t assume structural stability. You must learn to live on fault lines.”

Travel:
“My time in India has given me a glimpse into how travel can hurtle you out of old ways of being and create conditions for new ones to emerge.”

Road trip: “It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that I need to leave the familiar, but I don’t want to do it entirely alone—I want to seek out others who can offer perspective into my predicament, who can help guide my passage. By the time I finally pass my driver’s test, the next step is obvious: I am going to go on a road trip and visit those who sustained me when I was sick.”

Covered 15,000 miles, 33 states, visiting more than twenty people, over the course of 100 days—the maximum amount of time her medical agreed to before her next follow up. 

“I am nothing like the girl who left home nearly fifty days ago. I am a sojourner, an adventurer, a road warrior, crushing the big miles, even if I still go to sleep shattered with exhaustion at the end of each day.” 

When we travel we take three trips. The first is of preparation and anticipation. The second is the trip you’re actually on. The third is the trip you remember. The key is to be present wherever you are in your journey at this moment. 

Threads of past, present, future:
“Maybe the challenge is to locate a thread that strings these selves together.” 

“To be well now is to learn to accept whatever body and mind I currently have.” 

“Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”

Mornings on Horseback – David McCullough

Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough
Date read: 2/14/23. Recommendation: 10/10.

The best biography that I’ve read on Theodore Roosevelt—though it only covers his early years from age 10 to 27. These were the years that Roosevelt grew from a fragile child and naive New York assemblyman into a hardened cowboy in the Badlands of North Dakota. McCullough was one of the best biographers and historians we’ll likely ever see. He breathes life into Roosevelt’s coming-of-age, grief, and transformation.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Childhood:
Extremely frail, sickly, undersized, nervous, and timid as a child. Faced chronic stomach trouble, headaches, colds, fevers, and asthma. 

He found joy in adventuring, watching birds and animals, anything to do with nature.

Filled his notebooks with descriptions and observations of ants, spiders, beetles, and dragonflies.

Created his own “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History” in the back hall of the fourth floor of his family home.

Spent childhood summers in houses along the Hudson, riding, swimming, and running barefoot. Went on expeditions with his father to the Adirondacks. It fueled his love for nature and the outdoors. 

Urgency:
Teddy Roosevelt lived his life with urgency, constantly moving and favoring action.

“Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.” Theodore Roosevelt

“He was a figure of incessant activity, of constant talk, constant hurt, a bee in a bottle.” DM

At Harvard, he busied himself with boxing lessons, dance classes, horseback riding, wrestling, and long hikes. He was always ready to join anything with no questions asked. He held an amazing array of interests. Joined the Rifle Club, Art Club, Glee Club, became president of the Natural History Society, started a Finance Club, was named to the editorial board of the Advocate, the undergrad magazine. 

Purposeful: “The ever-admiring John Woodbury seems to have been alone in his forecast of distinction. Woodbury, as he said later, figured Theodore might amount to something—as a professor of history perhaps—if only because he seemed to know what he wanted. To most others he remained likable but peculiar and much too intense for comfort.” DM

Transforming himself:
Around twelve years old, his father sat him down and said, “Theodore, you have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should…You must make your body.”

Teddy started doing daily workouts and built a gym on their own back piazza.

“It was no good wishing to appear like the heroes he worshipped if he made no effort to be like them. Strength had to come first; one must be strong before everything else.” DM

“There was to be a misconception in later years that he conquered his childhood infirmities mainly through willpower and bodybuilding, that he rid himself of asthma by making himself a strong man. But that is not quite the way it happened. First of all, he never would be rid of asthma entirely, and if there was a point at which he clearly found reprieve from suffering of the kind he had known, it came well before he attained anything like rugged manhood. It came when he went to Harvard, when he left home and was on his own in ways he had never been.” DM

“Look out for Theodore. He’s not strong, but he’s all grit. He’ll kill himself before he’ll even say he’s tired.” Doctor Thompson in 1878 cautioning the guides who Roosevelt ventured into the Maine wilderness alongside. 

Skating expedition:
Indomitable will: One bitter winter’s day while he was at Harvard, Roosevelt went with Richard Welling, fellow classmate and future prominent New York attorney, on a skating expedition to Fresh Pond. It was bitterly cold, windy, and the ice was rough. Any sane man would have turned around, but Theodore kept exclaiming in delight as they beat their way across the pond, despite not knowing how to skate very well. “The harder the wind blew, the more miserable Welling felt, the greater Theodore appeared to be enjoying himself.” Welling felt his own grit had never been put to the test as much as it was that day and finally after being out on the pond for three hours and it was too dark to see, Roosevelt suggested they venture back home. 

Early political career:
At 23, he was the youngest member of the New York Assembly (127 members). But nothing seemed to intimidate him, he plunged ahead, deferred to no one. Spent time mingling with the other assemblymen who were farmers, mechanics, liquor dealers, newspapermen, and lawyers.

During his first term in 1882 (five months), he spoke to everyone he could, grilling them for details on how things were done, issues of the day. He was a voracious reader, working his way through stacks of papers every morning. He saw and formed an opinion on seemingly everything. By his second term in 1883, he knew more about state politics than 90% of the members. 

Was relentless in fighting corruption and championing reform. Went to witness and gather information firsthand, as he did with the Cigar Bill. Was willing to change his mind and do the right thing, even if it went against traditional Republican stance. 

“He never doubted the moral virtue of any of his own positions or the need to punish the wicked. (At one point he called for the return of the public whipping post as punishment for any man who inflicted brutal pain on a woman or child.)” DM

Acted as a gentlemen doing his part in the public interest, never signaled that he was a ‘professional’ politician as that would have been the equivalent of calling himself corrupt. “Oddly, for all his quick success in politics, the passion and energy he exuded, he was still unable, or unwilling, to accept politics as his lifework. He never spoke of it as a career or calling.” DM

Tragedy:
On February 12th, Alice (Teddy’s wife) went into labor and had a baby girl, Alice. They telegraphed Teddy who was in Albany the next morning letting him know that mother and child were doing well. A few hours later a second telegram arrived and Teddy rushed for the next train. When Corinne arrived (Teddy’s sister) Elliot (Teddy’s younger brother) famously said ‘There is a curse on this house! Mother is dying, and Alice is dying too.” Mittie (Teddy’s mother) was dying of Typhoid fever and passed away at 3am on February 14th. Alice died at 2pm that same afternoon while Teddy held her in his arms. 

“The sole, overwhelming lesson was the awful brevity of life, the sense that the precipice awaited not just somewhere off down the road, but at any moment. An asthmatic childhood had shown that life could be stifled, cut off, unless one fought back, and all Papa’s admonition to get action, to seize the moment, had the implicit message that there was not much time after all. Father had died at forty-six; Mittie had been only forty-eight; Alice all of twenty-two, her life barely begun. Nothing lasts. Winter waits.” DM

Teddy’s response: Three days later he returned to Albany and was back at work arguing for his Reform Charter Bill. He poured himself into work—writing, writing, delivering speeches, interviewing witnesses, leading inspections. He worked harder, faster, and longer than he ever had before. He was relentless. 

His newborn daughter, Alice, was entrusted to Bamie (Teddy’s older sister). 

On the day Alice and his mother died, Teddy made a large X on the page in his empty diary on February 14th and wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”

Dakota Badlands:
After the tragedy he faced losing his mother and sister, and losing the fight against deterring the Republican Party from nominating James G. Blaine as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1884, he left for the Dakota Badlands to go ranching for the rest of the summer and part of the fall. He was still only 25 and despite his defeat in not getting the candidate he hoped for, he left quite the impression. 

In the Badlands, he found a way to unburden himself of the things he couldn’t talk about. Out West, he was able to reinvent himself and be someone entirely different from the man he had been back home in New York. His background, family, education, all the conventions of polite society counted for nothing. Nobody knew him or his family. Everybody was a stranger and preferred it that way. 

“Some days he rode as much as a hundred miles. The dust and heat were terrific. On stifling hot evenings the mosquitoes would rise from the river bottoms in great clouds to make the nights one long torture for men and horses.” DM

“Rugged, bronzed, and in the prime of health, Theodore Roosevelt passed through St. Paul yesterday, returning from his Dakota ranch to New York and civilization.” Pioneer Press as he returned to visit home

Spent close to three years in the badlands and had his own ranch, the Elkhorn, built. During this time, the American public, political allies, political enemies, thought he had disappeared from the public eye and political arena for good. 

“When he got back into the world again, he was husky as almost any man I have ever seen who wasn’t dependent on his arms for a livelihood. He weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, and was clear bone, muscle, and grit.” Bill Sewall

Return:
As soon as he returned to public life, the Republicans asked him to run for mayor of New York. He accepted even though he had no chance of winning. Opponents were Democrat Abram Hewitt and Labor candidate Henry George. Hewitt won, Roosevelt finished third. At 28, he was the youngest man who had ever been a candidate for mayor. 

Presidency:
William McKinley’s assassination in 1901 catapulted Theodore Roosevelt into the presidency and he became the youngest President in history at 42 years old. But well prepared for the job. He had served 6 years as a reform Civil Service Commissioner (under Presidents Harrison and Cleveland), two years as Police Commissioner of New York City, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy on the eve of the Spanish American War, as a colonel in the Rough Riders—and ‘hero of San Juan Hill’—as Governor of New York, and as Vice President. 

Increased the area of national forests by 40 million acres, established five national parks, sixteen national monuments (including the Grand Canyon), 51 national bird sanctuaries, and made conservation a popular cause. 

Decoded – Jay-Z

Decoded – by Jay-Z
Date read: 1/25/23. Recommendation: 10/10.

Jay-Z details his own story and deconstructs the lyrics of the most important songs in his career. I couldn’t put this book down—Jay-Z’s rise to become a self-made billionaire is one of the most inspiring stories you will come across. It’s crazy smart and packs a punch. There are great lessons in fundamentals, depth, truth, flow, and motion that are worth reflecting on and instilling in your own life and work.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Origins:
Nine years old, summer of 1978, saw a circle of kids on his way home from playing Little League with his cousin and he moved through the crowd towards the middle, “It felt like gravity pulling me into that swirl of kids, no bullshit, like a planet pulled into orbit by a star…His name was Slate and he was a kid I used to see around the neighborhood, an older kid who barely made an impression. In the circle, though, he was transformed, like the church ladies touched by the spirit, and everyone was mesmerized. He was rhyming, throwing out couplet after couplet like he was in a trance, for a crazy long time—thirty minutes straight off the top of his head, never losing the beat, riding the handclaps…I was dazzled. That’s some cool shit was the first thing I thought. Then: I could do that.” Jay-Z

Natural talent: Started writing rhymes in his spiral notebook that same night. The paper was unlined and he filled every space on every page, writing vertically, horizontally, crowding words together as best he could, scratching out others.

Finding your voice: Jay connected with an older kid and the best rapper in Marcy, Jaz-O. The two would practice their rhymes and record on an old tape recorder with a makeshift microphone attached. “I saw it as an opening, a way to re-create myself and reimagine my world. After I recorded a rhyme, it gave me an unbelievable rush to play it back, to hear that voice.” Jay-Z

Life experiences give you credibility: “I wasn’t even in high school yet and I’d discovered my voice. But I still needed a story to tell.” Jay-Z

Jay wasn’t sure he could get rich from rap, but he knew it would become much bigger than it was before it went away and he leaned into that.

“Manager? That’s a promotion, not a dream.” Jay-Z

Flow:
“From the beginning, it was easy, a constant flow. For days, I filled page after page. Then I’d bang a beat out on the table, my bedroom window, whatever had a flat surface, and practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep.” Jay-Z

“Everywhere I went I’d write. If I was crossing a street with my friends and a rhyme came to me, I’d break out my binder, spread it on a mailbox or lamppost and write the rhyme before I crossed the street. I didn’t care if my friends left me at the light, I had to get it out.” Jay-Z

“I was good at battling and I practiced it like a sport. I’d spend free time reading the dictionary, building my vocabulary for battles.”

Loved rhyming for the sake of rhyming and the challenge of structuring rhymes in the most effective way possible—moving around couplets and triplets, stacking double entendres, and speed rapping.

Fundamentals:
Jay-Z and his early mentor Jaz-O would go back and forth to each other’s houses and write rhymes for hours. They’d lock themselves in a room with pen and paper. They would test new flows and focus on improving their speed, delivery, and composition.

Putting in the work: “It’s true that I’m able to sometimes come up with songs in a matter of minutes after hearing a track, but that’s a skill that I’ve honed over hundreds of hours of practice and work since I was nine. My earliest mentors in rap taught me that making music is work, whether it was Jaz locking himself in a room working on different flows or Big Daddy Kane taking the time to meticulously put together a stage show. There’s unquestionably magic involved in great music, songwriting, and performances—like those nights when a star athlete is in the zone and can’t miss. But there’s also work. Without the work, the magic won’t come.” Jay-Z

“A tour requires stamina, willpower, and the ability to self-motivate, to hype yourself into game mode night after night….When it comes to signing up new talent, that’s what I’m looking for—not just someone who has skill, but someone built for this life. Someone who has the work ethic, the drive.”

First exposure to the record industry:
When Jay-O got a record deal with EMI in the UK, Jay went along and soaked up all that he could in the recording sessions and meetings.

Producers at EMI convinced Jaz-O to record a pop song with a ukulele on the hook, “Hawaiian Sophie” which tanked. EMI stopped returning his phone calls and instead started courting Jay behind his back. Jay was sick to his stomach and thought the business lacked any sense of honor and integrity. So he buried his rap dreams and went back to hustling.

Hustling:
Got into selling drugs because he was already risking his life by living in the projects, he might as well get paid for it. A friend introduced him to hustling (neither smoked nor used their own supply) and communicated that it required vision and hustle.

“In the mirror, all I saw was a hustler—a hustler who wrote rhymes on corner-store paper bags and memorized them in hotel rooms far away from home—but still, first a hustler. It’s who I’d been since I was sixteen years old on my own in Trenton, New Jersey. I couldn’t even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn’t let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn’t stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.” Jay-Z

Find your deep, dark place and create from there:
Jay was interested in the interior of a young kid’s head, his psychology, and bringing that to life through his lyrics. Everything he wrote he wanted to be rooted in the truth of an experience “To tell the story of the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie. To tell the story of the pain without telling the story of the rewards—the money, the girls, the excitement—is a different kind of evasion.” Jay-Z

“I lost people I loved, was betrayed by people I trusted, felt the breeze of bullets flying by my head. I saw crack addiction destroy families—it almost destroyed mine—but I sold it too…But no matter what, it is the place where I learned not just who I was, but who we were, who all of us are.” Jay-Z

Embracing contradiction: “For any image or symbol or creative act to mean something, it has to touch something deeper, connect to something true. I know that the spirit of the struggle and insurgency was woven into the lives of the people I grew up with in Bed-Stuy, even if in sometimes fucked up and corrupted ways….But to have contradictions—especially when you’re fighting for your life—is human, and to wear the Che (Guevara) shirt and the platinum and diamonds together is honest. In the end I wore it because I meant it.” Jay-Z

“The words are witty and blind, abstract and linear, sober and fucked up. And when we decode that torrent of words—by which I mean really listen to them with our minds and hearts open—we can understand their world better. And ours, too. It’s the same world.” Jay-Z

Entrepreneurial mindset:
“You have to make sure the match runs according to your style and rhythm and not get caught up in someone else’s gameplay. You have to be willing to suffer and to make someone else suffer, because only one of you can win.” Jay-Z

A great product and the hustle to move it are the ultimate advantage.

“Success could only mean self-sufficiency, being a boss, not a dependent.”

“I’m also lucky never to have needed the approval of the gatekeepers in the industry because from the start we came into the game as entrepreneurs. That gave me the freedom to just be myself, which is the secret to any long-term success, but that’s hard to see when you’re young and desperate to get put on.” Jay-Z ^ the opposite of this was Jaz-O recording “Hawaiian Sophie” because he trusted producers that got Will Smith airplay even though it didn’t resonate with him.

The depth of hip-hop:
It’s dense with multiple meanings and unresolved layers you might not understand until you’ve listened to it multiple times through. Those layers of meaning help get at complicated truths in a way that straightforward storytelling might not.

“Every hustler knows the value of a feint. It keeps you one step ahead of whoever’s listening in, which is also a great thing about the art of hip-hop. And it makes it all the more gratifying to the listener when they finally catch up.” Jay-Z

Rap is built to handle contradictions: “It doesn’t force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions or opposing ideas…The real bullshit is when you act like you don’t have contradictions inside you, that you’re so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.” Jay-Z

The curse of outrage:
“It’s hard to beat the entertainment value of people who deliberately misunderstand the world, people dying to be insulted, running around looking for a bullet to get in front of.” Jay-Z

Life is motion:
“I’ve always believed in motion and action, in following connections wherever they take me, and in not getting entrenched. My life has been more poetry than prose, more about unpredictable leaps and links than simple steady movement, or worse, stagnation. It’s allowed me to stay open to the next thing without feeling held back by a preconceived notion of what I’m supposed to be doing next.” Jay-Z

The truth is always relevant:
“When it seems like I’m bragging or threatening or whatever, what I’m actually trying to do is embody a certain spirit, give voice to a certain emotion. I’m giving the listener a way to articulate that emotion in their own lives, however it applies. Even when I do a song that feels like a complete autobiography, like ‘December 4th,’ I’m still trying to speak to something that everyone can find themselves in.” Jay-Z

“My songs are my stories, but they take on their own life in the minds of people listening. The connection that creates is sometimes overwhelming.” Jay-Z

Let My People Go Surfing – Yvon Chouinard

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman – by Yvon Chouinard
Date read: 1/10/23. Recommendation: 10/10.

A wonderful autobiography that details Chouinard’s early days as a climber and the origins of Patagonia. Most of the content in the book was originally intended to act as a philosophical manual for employees of Patagonia. But Chouinard makes this captivating for any reader through stories that explore his own life lessons, the trials of building an enduring company, and the trap of short-sighted decisions. The book contains powerful insights on simplicity, disrupting yourself, communicating with customers, seeking inspiration from unlikely sources, and the lifelong search for your guiding principle.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Chouinard Equipment:
Origins: “In 1957 I went to a junkyard and bought a used coal-fired forge, a 138-pound anvil, and some tongs and hammers and started teaching myself blacksmithing. I wanted to make my own climbing hardware, since we were starting to climb the big walls in Yosemite on multiday ascents that required hundreds of piton placements.” 

At the time all climbing gear was European and the pitons used were soft iron—meant to be hammered in once and left in position (and if you tried to take these pitons out and reuse them, they would often break). The prevailing European attitude was to conquer the mountain and leave all gear in place to make it easier for the next person to reach the summit. American climbers modeled themselves after transcendental writers like Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir, and believed in leaving no trace. 

Chouinard made his first pitons from an old chrome-molybdenum steel blade. They were stiffer and stronger, which made them easier to drive into cracks in Yosemite, and they could be taken out and reused. 

“I made these Lost Arrow pitons for myself and the few friends I climbed with; then friends of friends wanted some. I could forge only two of my chrome-molybdenum steel pitons in an hour, and I started selling them for $1.50 each. You could buy European pitons for twenty cents, but you had to have my new gear if you wanted to do the state-of-the-art climbs that we were doing.” 

In 1964, Chouinard put out his first catalog—“a one-page mimeographed list of items and prices, with a blunt disclaimer on the bottom saying not to expect fast delivery during the months of May to November.” 

As demand grew, “We redesigned and improved just about every climbing tool, making each one stronger, lighter, simpler, and more functional.” 

Quality as a top priority: With climbing tools, it is a matter of life and death, and they were often the heaviest users of their own products. 

Despite the volume of sales doubling year over year, Chouinard Equipment showed only about a 1 percent profit at the end of the year because they were constantly coming up with new designs. By 1970 they were the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the U.S. 

Simplicity:
“In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away…” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Good design is as little design as possible.” Dieter Rams

“An illustrator becomes an artist when he or she can convey the same emotion with fewer brushstrokes.”

“I believe the way toward mastery of any endeavor is to work toward simplicity; replace complex technology with knowledge. The more you know, the less you need.”

Disrupt yourself:
By the 1970s, the popularity of climbing had skyrocketed. Particularly on well-known routes in primary climbing areas like El Dorado Canyon near Boulder, the Shawangunks in New York, and Yosemite Valley. On these routes, the repeating hammering of hard steel pitons during placement and removal in the same cracks was beginning to severely disfigure the rock. “After an ascent of the Nose route on El Capitan, which had been pristine a few summers earlier, I came home disgusted with the degradation I had seen. Frost and I decided we would phase out of the piton business. This was the first big environmental step we were to take over the year. Pitons were the mainstay of our business, but we were destroying the very rocks we loved.”

Chouinard started looking into aluminum chocks that could be wedged by hand rather than hammered in and out, designed his own versions called Stoppers and Hexentrics, and piloted them in small quantities until they appeared in the Chouinard Equipment catalog in 1972. “The catalog opened with ‘A word…,’ an editorial from the owners on the environmental hazards of pitons and a fourteen-page essay on clean climbing and how to use chocks by Sierra climber Doug Robinson. 

“Within a few months of the catalog’s mailing, the piton business had atrophied; chocks sold faster than they could be made. In the tin buildings of Chouinard Equipment, the steady pounding rhythm of the drop hammer gave way to the high-pitched, searing whine of the multiple drill jig.” 

Underwear: Wearing quick-drying insulation layers (e.g. pile jackets) over cotton underwear defeated the purpose of outer shells. In 1980 they tested making underwear out of polypropylene, a synthetic fiber that absorbs no water. It was originally intended to manufacture industrial commodities like marine ropes which float. Then it started being used in the lining of disposable diapers for its wicking ability to keep babies dry by carrying moisture away from the skin and transferring it to more absorbent outer layers in the diaper. “Using the capabilities of this new underwear as the basis of a system, we became the first company to reach the outdoor community, through essays in our catalog, the concept of layering. This approach involves wearing an inner layer against the skin for moisture transport, a middle layer of pile for insulation, and then an outer shell layer for wind and moisture protection.” 

But polypropylene had a very low melting temperature. Customers who went to commercial laundromats (much hotter dryers than home) would melt their underwear. When Chouinard was at 1984 sporting goods show in Chicago watching a demonstration of polyester football jerseys being cleaned of grass stains. He realized that the material in combination with the etched jersey worked to wick away moisture. Polyester also had a much higher melting temperature. They then introduced their Capilene polyester underwear. Sales soared.

Know your shit: “Some people think we’re a successful company because we’re willing to take risks, but I’d say that’s only partly true. What they don’t realize is that we do our homework. A few years back when we switched midstream from polypropylene to Capilene for our underwear fabric, we had done our fabric development, we had done our testing in the fabric lab. We made tops and bottoms with half the garment Capilene and half polypropylene and extensively tested them in the field. We knew the market, and we were absolutely confident that it was the right thing to do.” 

Other companies started introducing rip-offs and had to scramble to keep up. They repeated the same move in the early 1980s when they realized how bland all outdoor products were (tan, forest green, gray). So they drenched the Patagonia line in color (cobalt, teal, French red, mango, sea foam)

By disrupting themselves, they set the tone for the entire market. Whereas if they had focused on competitors instead, they would have been locked in a reactive state rather than forging ahead with bold decisions and new ideas. 

Switching to organic cotton: “After several trips to the San Joaquin Valley, where we could smell the selenium ponds and see the lunar landscape of cotton fields, we asked a critical question: How could we continue to make products that laid waste to the earth in this way? In the fall of 1994, we made the decision to take our cotton sportswear 100 percent organic by 1996. We had eighteen months to make the switch for sixty-six products, and less than a year to line up the fabric.” 

Seek inspiration from unlikely places:
Chouinard’s first idea for clothing: “In the late sixties, after crag climbing in the Peak District in England, I stopped by an old Lancashire mill that contained the last machine left in the world that still made a tough, superheavy corduroy cloth…Back then, before denim, workmen’s pants used to be made of corduroy because its tufted wales protected the woven backing from abrasion and cuts. I thought this durable cloth would be great for climbing. Ordering up some fabric, I had some knickers and double-seated shorts made. They sold well to our climbing friends, so I ordered some more.”

Rugby shirts: In the late sixties, men didn’t wear bright clothes. Active sportswear was often a gray sweatshirt and pants. On a winter climbing trip to Scotland in 1970, Chouinard bought a regulation rugby shirt to wear, thinking it would be good for climbing since it was built to withstand scrums in rugby and had a collar to keep hardware slings from cutting into his neck. The basic color was blue with two red and one yellow center stripe across the chest. When he returned home his friends started asking about it so he ordered some from Umbro and sold out immediately. They couldn’t keep them in stock. 

Pile sweaters becoming an outdoor staple: “At a time when the entire mountaineering community relied on the traditional, moisture-absorbing layers of cotton, wool, and down, we looked elsewhere for inspiration—and protection. We decided that a staple of North Atlantic fisherman, the synthetic pile sweater, would make an ideal mountain sweater because it insulated well without absorbing moisture…We sewed a few seaters and field-tested them in alpine conditions. The polyester fabric was astonishingly warm, particularly when used with a shell. It insulated well but also dried in minutes, and it reduced the number of layers a climber had to wear.” 

Entrepreneurship:
“If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, ‘This sucks. I’m going to do my own thing.’”

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” L.P. Jacks

Generalist:
“I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me. Once I reach that 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product line—and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful.” 

Search for guiding principle:
During a period of extreme growth when scale was shaking the company, Chouinard sought advice from Dr. Michael Kami who had run strategic planning for IBM and had turned Harley-Davidson around. 

“Before he could help us, he said, he wanted to know why we were in business. I told him the history of the company and how I considered myself a craftsman who had just happened to grow a successful business…We told him about our tithing program, how we had given away a million dollars just in the past year to more than two hundred organizations, and that our bottom-line reason for staying in business was to make money we could give away. Dr. Kami thought for a while and then said, ‘I think that’s bullshit. If you’re really serious about giving money away, you’d sell the company for a hundred million or so, keep a couple million for yourselves, and put the rest in a foundation. That way you could invest the principal and give away six or eight million dollars every year…So maybe you’re kidding yourself about why you’re in business.’” 

Stick with what you know: “The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to ‘have it all,’ and the sooner it will die.” 

As a recession hit the company had to reset, they were growing at an unsustainable pace. They redefined their values and mission statement. And while managers solved for the sales and cash-flow issues, Chouinard led weeklong employee seminars on the company’s revitalized philosophy. The goal was to teach every employee their business and environmental ethics and values. 

Teaching the classes to his employees on Patagonia’s philosophies finally gave Chouinard his answer to Dr. Kami’s question. “I knew, after thirty-five years, why I was in business. True, I wanted to give money to environmental causes. But even more, I wanted to create in Patagonia a model other businesses could look to in their own searches for environmental stewardship and sustainability, just as our pitons and ice axes were models for other equipment manufacturers…I realized how much Patagonia as a business was driven by its high-quality standards and classic design principles. The products we made, each feature of every shirt, jacket, or pair of pants, had to be necessary.” 

“The history of Patagonia from the crisis of 1991-92 to the present day doesn’t make for such interesting reading, fortunately…The story is really about how we are trying to live up to our mission statement: ‘Make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’”

“We never wanted to be a big company. We want to be the best company, and it’s easier to try to be the best small company than the best big company.”

Make the best product:
“Having high-quality, useful products anchors our business in the real world and allows us to expand our mission. Because we have a history of making the best climbing tools in the world, tools that your life is dependent on, we are not satisfied making second-best clothing.” 

Product design principles: Functional, multifunctional, durable, repairable, simple. “As individual consumers, the single best thing we can do for the planet is to keep our stuff in use longer.” 

Non-obvious application of Occam’s Razor and simplification to establish fewer points of failure: “The best-performing firms make a narrow range of products very well. The best firms’ products also use up to 50 percent fewer parts than those made by their less successful rivals. Fewer parts means a faster, simpler (and usually cheaper) manufacturing process. Fewer parts means less to go wrong: quality comes built in.”

“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” Richard Buckminster Fuller

Communicating with customers:
“Since the publication of the 1972 Chouinard Equipment catalog that contained the ‘Clean Climbing’ essay, we have seen that the primary purpose of our catalogs is to serve as a vehicle to communicate with our customers—whether it is by trying to change climbing philosophy, by rallying them to register and vote for the environment…or just by relating stories.” 

The ‘Clean Climbing’ essay not only encouraged climbers to climb clean but was also the first piece ever written about how to use the new chocks. “As a result, Chouinard Equipment’s piton business dried up, and its chock business exploded, nearly overnight. To show its impact, far beyond a business tool, that catalog was reviewed as a mountaineering book in the American Alpine Journal.”

“Just as Patagonia makes products for a deeper, less distracted experience of the world and its wild places, our image has to convey refuge from, and offer an alternative to, a virtual world of fast-moving, mind-skimming (and numbing) pictures and sound.” 

Washington: A Life – Ron Chernow

Washington: A Life – by Ron Chernow
Recommendation: 9/10. Date read: 4/27/21.

The definitive biography of George Washington. Chernow tracks the entirety of Washington’s celebrated life from childhood to his early experiences in the French and Indian War, and eventually through his role as commander of the Continental Army and years serving as American’s first president. The depth of Washington’s life is awe-inspiring. At every turn, he demonstrated an ability to make difficult decisions by relying on his strong moral compass during turbulent times when outcomes were far from certain—especially through the American Revolution and the early years of a newly formed government. He was a deeply private figure, cloaking himself in mystery despite the fame that followed him in later life. Although reluctant to accept political roles he found his way into, he was purposeful in his every move—a true statesman who put the wellbeing of the nation over his desire for a quiet life.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Cloak yourself in mystery:
“An important element in Washington’s leadership both as a military commander and as President was his dignified, even forbidding, demeanor, his aloofness, the distance he consciously set and maintained between himself and nearly all the rest of the world.” W.W. Abbot

Washington often focused on learning the maximum about other people’s thoughts while revealing the minimum about his own.

“Let all men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly.” Benjamin Franklin

Washington possessed the gift of silence and had great self-command. Exerted more power by withholding opinions than by expressing them. His public role led him to create a barrier that prevented intimacy with all but a few. This secrecy and evasion allowed him to avoid compromising his position and alerting the enemy to weaknesses during the American Revolution when he was (almost always) deficient of men, munitions, and supplies.

Character:
“With command of his tongue and temper, he had the supreme temperament for leadership compared to his scheming rivals. It was perhaps less his military skills than his character that eclipsed all competitors. Washington was dignified, circumspect, and upright, whereas his enemies seemed petty and skulking.” RC

At the end of the American Revolution, Washington resigned his position and return to privacy at Mount Vernon. “The figure hurrying back to his long-forgotten past had just accomplished something more extraordinary than any military feat during the war. At war’s end, he stood alone at the pinnacle of power, but he never became drunk with that influence, as had so many generals before him, and treated his commission as a public trust to be returned as soon as possible to the people’s representatives. Throughout history victorious generals had sought to parlay their fame into political power, whereas Washington had only a craving for privacy. Instead of glorying in his might, he feared its terrible weight and potential misuse.” RC

“He brought maturity, sobriety, judgment, and integrity to a political experiment that could easily have grown giddy with its own vaulted success, and he avoided the backbiting, envy, and intrigue that detracted from the achievements of other founders.” RC

Purposeful:
Young Washington was adventurous (swimming, riding, hunting, fencing) and combined this with an ability to master social etiquette, enabling him to climb the ladder of high society. “He was an unusually sober and purposeful young man.” RC

Moral compass:
“George Washington possessed the gift of inspired simplicity, a clarity and purity of vision that never failed him. Whatever petty partisan disputes swirled around him, he kept his eyes fixed on the transcendent goals that motivated his quest. As sensitive to criticism as any other man, he never allowed personal attacks or threats to distract him, following an inner compass that charted the way ahead.” RC

Decision making:
“Always fearful of failure, Washington wanted to push ahead only if he was armed with detailed knowledge and enjoyed a high likelihood of success. This cautious, disciplined political style would persist long after the original insecurity that had prompted it had disappeared.”

The French and Indian War:
Taught Washington invaluable lessons in frontier warfare which the Indians demonstrated so well—mobile style of warfare that relied on ambushing, sniping from trees, and vanishing into the forest. His defeat on the frontier came be seen as a doomed but heroic defense rather than a military blunder.

“Some men will gain as much experience in the course of three or four years as some will in ten or a dozen.” Washington


“It was this process of subtle, silent, unrelenting self-criticism that enabled him to rise above his earthly defeats.” RC

Must undergo a hard winter training to develop true confidence:

“As a member of the British forces, he had begun to articulate a comprehensive critique of British fighting methods in North America. For a young man, he acquired an amazing amount of experience and these precocious achievements yielded a lasting reservoir of self-confidence. He had proved his toughness and courage in the face of massacres and defeats. He had learned to train and drill regiments and developed a rudimentary sense of military strategy. He had shown a real capacity to lead and take responsibility for fulfilling the most arduous missions. Perhaps, most important, his experience in the French and Indian War made him a believer in strong central government and a vigorous executive. Forced to deal with destructive competition, among the colonies, dilatory legislative committees, and squabbling, shortsighted politicians, he had passed an excellent dress rehearsal for the prolonged ordeal of the American Revolution.” RC

Skin in the game:
Part of the reason that Washington commanded such a deep respect from everyone throughout his life and career is because he was always willing to put himself in the heat of battle. He never shied away from the front lines.

“Washington was no remote leader but an active, rousing presence.” RC

“To obtain the applause of deserving men is a heartfelt satisfaction; to merit them is my highest wish.” Joseph Addison

American Revolution:
Great Britain was bad for local business, which created the unique situation and historical anomaly of a revolution inaugurated by affluent, conservative leaders.

Early on Washington learned to shift his strategy and wage a defensive war in order to keep the cause alive. See retreat from Long Island on page 250. See calamities at Forts Washington and Lee on page 264 (futility of trying to defend positions along seaboard and moved instead into countryside where mobility favored Continental Army).

Crossing the Delaware, 1776: Washington was more concerned about patriotic support tapering off and short enlistments that would allow most of his army to depart at the end of the year than he was about the strength of the British Army. Washington knew without a momentous victory and a daring strike, it would be difficult to inject energy into the cause. Washington and the army crossed the river in treacherous conditions and descended on Trenton. The battle was over in an hour. After this victory and the next at Princeton, the psychology of the war was dramatically reversed. Page 269.

“His military triumphs had been neither frequent nor epic in scale. He had lost more battles than he had won…But he was a different kind of general fighting a different kind of war…His fortitude in keeping the impoverished Continental Army intact was a major historic accomplishment.” RC

“In defining the culture of the Continental Army, he had helped to mold the very character of the country, preventing the Revolution from taking a bloodthirsty, or despotic turn.” RC

Missionaries > Mercenaries:
“The unconquerable resolution of our citizens, the conscious rectitude of our cause, and a confident trust that we should not be forsaken by heaven.” Washington

Moderation:
When Washington was appointed General and Commander in Chief, he acted as the glue that helped bind the colonies together. Hailing from Virginia, he knew how to bridge the North and South. “Many southerners feared that New Englanders were a rash, obstinate people, prone to extremism, and worried that an army led by a New England general might someday turn despotic and conquer the South. The appointment of George Washington would soothe such fears and form a perfect political compromise between North and South.” RC

“He also provided a conservative counterweight to some of the more unruly impulses of the American Revolution, ensuring incremental progress and averting the bloody excesses associated with the French Revolution.” RC

Second-order thinking:
“His overriding goal was to contrast his own humane behavior with the predatory ways of the enemy.” RC

Washington preached fair treatment of civilians, respect for private property, and doled out harsh punishment for anyone who violated this. “The spirit and willingness of the people must in a great measure take the place of coercion.” Washington

Presidency:
Not every decision you face will be a ‘hell yes.’ Washington was extremely reluctant to leave a sense of privacy and peacefulness at Mount Vernon to take on the challenges facing the country. He had serious doubts. The way he rationalized it was that he felt he could serve a couple of years then bow out before he even finished his first term. If he knew he would have served 8 years, he likely wouldn’t have agreed to it.

“The presidency is the powerful office it is in large part because of Washington’s initial behavior. Washington had forged the executive branch of the federal government, appointed outstanding department heads, and set a benchmark for fairness, efficiency, and integrity that future administrations would aspire to match.” RC

The Courage to Be Disliked – Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

The Courage to Be Disliked – by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
Recommendation: 10/10. Date read: 2/23/21.

This is the best book I’ve read in months. The Courage to Be Disliked follows a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man who debate whether or not happiness is something you choose for yourself. The philosopher examines happiness from the theories and frameworks of Alfred Adler and Adlerian psychology. It’s a refreshing perspective that empowers you to escape determinism and avoid allowing yourself to be defined by past traumas or the weight of external expectations. As Kishimi emphasizes, “Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose for yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.” The Courage to Be Disliked is a wonderful resource to improve your relationships, find your courage, and pursue personal growth.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Determinism:
“If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with ‘determinism.’ Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable.” IK

Shift perspective from past causes to present goals to better understand the situation. Instead of “your friend is insecure so they won’t go out,” consider that “he doesn’t want to go out so he’s creating a state of anxiety.” 

Etiology: the study of causation champion by Freud and Jung.
Teleology: the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause. 

“The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” Adler

Trauma:
“No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.” Adler

“Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose for yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.” IK

“An experience of hardship should be an opportunity to look ahead and think, What can I do from now on?” IK

Influence:
“Why are you rushing for answers? You should arrive at answers on your own, not rely upon what you get from someone else.” IK

Change:
“People can change at any time, regardless of the environments they are in. You are unable to change only because you are making the decision not to.” IK

Complacency: People might have complaints but it’s often easier and more secure to leave it the way it is. People become comfortable with being miserable.

Courage:
“When we try to change our lifestyles, we put our great courage to the test. There is the anxiety generated by changing, and the disappointment attendant to not changing.” IK

“Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.” IK

“Freedom is being disliked by other people…It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.” IK

“But conducting oneself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living, and is also impossible. There is a cost incurred when one wants to exercise one’s freedom. And the cost of freedom in interpersonal relationships is that one is disliked by other people.” IK

“The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked.” IK

“For a human being, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself.” IK

Relationships:
It’s basically impossible not to get hurt in relationships…you will get hurt and you will hurt someone. “To get rid of one’s problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone.” Adler

You don’t need to change everyone’s mind and not everyone needs to think identically to you. When you’re hung up on winning and losing, you lose the ability to make rational decisions and clouds your judgment as you’re preoccupied with immediate victory or defeat. It completely breaks your ability to assess long-term strategy. 

“The moment one is convinced that ‘I am right’ in an interpersonal relationship, one has already stepped into a power struggle.” IK

Self-sufficiency:
Two objectives in Adlerian psychology are laid out for human behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Two objectives for psychology that support these behaviors are the consciousness that I have the ability and that people are my comrades.

“You are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations.” IK

“If you are not living your life for yourself, who could there be to live it instead of you?” IK

Recognition can’t be your motivation: “Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be ‘this kind of person.’” IK

Inferiority and superiority:
“The pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are not diseases but stimulants to normal, health striving and growth.” IK

How to compensate for the part that is lacking: “The healthiest way is to try to compensate through striving and growth. For instance, it could be applying oneself to one’s studies, engaging in constant training, or being diligent in one’s work. However, people who aren’t equipped with that courage end up stepping into an inferiority complex. Again, it’s thinking, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed. “ IK

Healthy feeling of inferiority doesn’t come from comparing yourself to others, but from comparing yourself to your ideal self. Competition often only blinds you to your ideal self. You get pulled into races that you’re not willing to run. 

Ego: “Those who go so far as to boast about things out loud actually have no confidence in themselves. As Adler clearly indicates, ‘The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.’” IK

Confidence: True confidence in yourself means there is no need to boast. 

Separating tasks:
All relationship troubles stem from intruding on other people’s tasks or having your own tasks intruded on. Consider ‘whose task is this’ and continuously work to separate your own from other people’s. Similar to the Stoic task of separating internals from externals. 

Intervening in other people’s tasks and taking on other people’s tasks adds complexity, heaviness, hardship, and drama. If you want to optimize for simplicity, discard other people’s tasks and focus on your own. 

Example 1: Studying is the child’s task. A parent commanding their child to do homework is intruding on the child’s task. The parent can only lead the child to their own decision or else they’ll only be successful to a degree because they can’t force this behavior.

Example 2: Not approving is your parents’ task, not yours. It’s not a problem for you to worry about. What another person thinks of you is their task, not yours. You have no control over this. 

Horizontal relationships:
The standpoint of Adlerian psychology is that you should not praise or rebuke another person because both represent an act of judgment. The desire to be praised or give praise is indicative of vertical relationships.

“Instead of commanding from above that the child must study, one acts on him in such a way that he can gain the confidence to take care of his own studies and face his tasks on his own.” IK

Alex: Similar to relationships with managers in the workplace. To treat these are vertical assumes this person is all-knowing. In reality, they’re still learning and growing and you have a unique experience that might provide a better vantage point on a certain problem. 

In horizontal relationships rather than praising or rebuking (as indicated in vertical relationships), express gratitude—thank you, that was a big help, I’m glad. 

Meaning:
“Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.” Adler

Leadership in Turbulent Times – Doris Kearns Goodwin

Leadership in Turbulent Times – by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Date read: 4/25/20. Recommendation: 10/10.

This was one of the best books, if not the best, that I’ve read in the past twelve months. Goodwin highlights lessons in leadership demonstrated by four US Presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Goodwin explores how each president came from a very different upbringing and the role that played in their leadership style. She also looks at how each man responded to extreme hardship during the bleakest moments of their lives—three of the four emerged from catastrophic turns of fortune with an enlarged capacity for leadership. Each president demonstrated their own unique capacity for transformational, crisis, turnaround, and visionary leadership. Goodwin structures the book in an accessible way that proves to be a great jumping-off point to explore both the lives and the leadership principles that helped guide a few of our best presidents.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Formative Years:
“Privilege can stunt ambition, just as the lack of privilege can fire ambition.” DKG

“Temperament is the great separator.” Richard Neustadt

Lincoln: 
Incredible motivation and willpower to develop every talent to the fullest.

Lincoln’s hallmark: the philosophical and poetic depths of his mind.

Honed a clear and inquisitive mind through hard work. He would rewrite passages that stuck him and keep them in a scrapbook. “I am slow to learn and slow to forget what I have learned.” Lincoln

“While his mind was neither quick nor facile, young Lincoln possessed singular powers of reasoning and comprehension, unflagging curiosity, and a fierce, almost irresistible, compulsion to understand the meaning of what he heard, read, or was taught.” DKG

Formal education ended at the age of nine, after that he had to educate himself. He was voracious reader, scoured the countryside to borrow books and read every volume. 

Of the four presidents in this book, “Only Abraham Lincoln, who had actually endured physical danger and the bitter hardships of wilderness life, never romanticized his family’s past.” DKG

Teddy Roosevelt: 
“His ability to concentrate was such that the house might fall about his head and we would not be diverted.”

Teddy’s hallmark: his scintillating breadth of intelligence. 

Franklin Roosevelt: 
Optimistic spirit and expectation that things would turn out for the best were a testament to the self-confidence he developed during the peacefulness and regularity of his childhood days.

FDR’s hallmark: “An uncommon intuitive capacity and interpersonal intelligence allowed him as a child to read the intentions and desires of his parents, to react appropriately to shifting household moods—gifts that he would nurture and develop in the years ahead. While he did not learn as a felling academic often does—by mastering vast reading material and applying analytical skills—he possessed an incredibly shrewd, complicated, problem-solving intelligence.” DKG

His ability in later years to adapt to changing circumstances also proved vital to his leadership success. Adaptability was forced upon him at the age of eight when his father suffered a heart attack. “The need to navigate the altered dynamic of Springwood required new measures of secrecy, duplicity, and manipulation—qualities that would later prove troubling but were at this juncture benign, designed only to protect a loved one from harm.”

After his father’s heart attack, FDR spent more time in the house (rather than sledding, horseback riding, fishing, which he and his father did daily in his early years). Here he began to build collections of stamps, maps, model ships, etc.

Collecting is a way of ordering a disordered world. It holds a special meaning for children, offering a small corner of the world where the child is in charge, experiencing the “thrill of acquisition.” (Summarizing Walter Benjamin)

Test and learn: “He would fling things agains the wall, seeing if they would stick; if they didn’t, he would acknowledge his mistake and try something else.” DKG

Hobbies and Meditative Space:

• Lincoln was able to relax with poetry and theater.

• Teddy was interested in birds, exploration, and the latest novels.

• FDR spent hours away sailing, playing with stamps, enjoying poker and social chatter.

• LBJ, in contrast, could never unwind and let go for a few hours.

“Roosevelt’s childhood hobbies (mainly sorting and arranging his stamp collection) would serve in later years as invaluable tools in nourishing his leadership—providing a meditative state, a space which he could turn things over in his mind, the means by which he could relax and replenish his energy.” DKG

Adversity and Growth:
Growth in the face of frustration and extracting wisdom from experience: “Some people lose their bearings; their lives are forever stunted. Others resume their normal behaviors after a period of time. Still others, through reflection and adaptive capacity, are able to transcend their ordeal, armed with a greater resolve and purpose.” DKG

“Each of these three men (Lincoln, Teddy, FDR) emerged from a catastrophic turn of fortune with an enlarged capacity for leadership.” DKG

Lincoln: 
Alive time vs. dead time (see Robert Greene): The half-decade after Lincoln’s unhappy tenure in Congress was anything but a passive time. “It was, on the contrary, and intense period of personal, intellectual, moral and professional growth, for during these years he learned to position himself as a lawyer and leader able to cope with the tremors that were beginning to rack the country.” 

“What fired in Lincoln in this furious and fertile time of self-improvement? The answer lay in his readiness to gaze in the mirror and soberly scrutinize himself.” DKG

“Leave nothing for tomorrow that can be done today.” Lincoln

One of the key’s to Lincoln’s success was his ability to break complex problems into their simplest elements.

Teddy Roosevelt: 
After his wife and mother died just hours apart in 1884, Teddy set off for the North Dakota where he would remain for two years, working on a cattle ranch and learning how heal, grow, and move past the trauma. He’d later regard this as “the most important educational asset” of his entire life. He built grit and cultivated his new identity as “a hybrid of the cultivated easterner and the hard-bitten westerner.” 

Franklin Roosevelt: 
Trial and error was fundamental to his leadership style. “In the Navy Department, he had flung ideas against the wall to see which ones might stick; during the New Deal he would experiment with one program after another, swiftly changing course if the present one proved ineffective.” DKG

Lessons in Leadership:

Lincoln: 
Team of rivals: Unlike James Buchanan who had chosen a cabinet of like-minded men who wouldn’t question his authority, Lincoln actively sought the opposite. “Lincoln created a team of independent, strong-minded men, all of whom were more experienced in public life, better educated, and more celebrated than he. In the top three positions, at the State Department, the Treasury, and the Justice Department, he placed his three chief rivals—William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates—each of whom thought he should be president instead of the prairie lawyer from Illinois.” Lincoln did this because he knew the country was in peril and these were the strongest men he knew. 

“Lincoln possessed a deep-rooted integrity and humility combined with an ever-growing confidence in his capacity to lead. Most of all, he brought a mind tempered by failure, a mind able to fashion the appalling suffering ahead into a narrative that would give direction, purpose, and lasting inspiration.” DKG

Control anger: When angry at a colleague, Lincoln would write out a letter with all his frustrations and gripes, then put the letter aside until he calmed down and could review what he had written. The act of talking through his frustrations with himself was always enough and he never sent the vast majority of these. 

Other key transformational leadership lessons from Lincoln:

• Gather firsthand information, ask questions.

• Find time and space in which to think.

• Assume full responsibility for a pivotal decision.

• Understand the emotional needs of each member of the team.

• Refuse to let past resentments fester; transcend personal vendettas.

• Shield colleagues from blame and don’t allow subordinates to take the blame.

Lincoln was a master of combining transactional and transformational leadership. He knew how to combine an appeal to self-interest to influence behavior of others while layering on an inspiring vision so people could also identify with something larger than themselves. 

Franklin Roosevelt: 
Make yourself appear confident in order to become more confident: “The remarkable thing about him (FDR) was his readiness to assume responsibility and his taking that responsibility with a smile.” FDR

Fireside chats: Communicated challenges facing the country by translating stories in a way that could be better understood by himself and the average citizen, rather than in highly specialized language of the legal and banking worlds. Used simple, direct communication and identified the questions people asked themselves so he could answer them. 

“Roosevelt’s gift of communication prove the vital instrument of his success in developing a common mission, clarifying problems, mobilizing action, and earning people’s trust.” DKG

Be open to experiment: “Roosevelt stressed the improvisational, experimental nature of the New Deal.” He was adaptable, willing to shift ground, revise, and accommodate changing circumstances, due to the entirely new problems the country faced.

Bias for action: “Do the very best you can in making up your mind, but once your mind is made up go ahead.” FDR

In victory know when to stop:
Theodore Roosevelt announced he would not run for a third term and instead backed William Howard Taft and set sail for a year-long safari. But when he returned he decided he wanted to challenge Taft for the nomination after all and lost. Later Roosevelt decided to run as a third party candidate and allowed Woodrow Wilson to win the election, hurting the progressive cause he stood for. 

The Practicing Stoic – Ward Farnsworth

The Practicing Stoic – by Ward Farnsworth
Date read: 4/11/20. Recommendation: 9/10.

One of the best modern overviews of Stoicism that I’ve read. Farnsworth sets out to organize the ideas of the Stoic philosophers in a logical manner with foundational principles first, followed by their practical applications. He synthesizes the most important points made by different Stoics about each subject. One thing that makes this book particularly unique and resonated with me was the fact that he sprinkles in parallel ideas from other contemporary thinkers and philosophers, like Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, and Arthur Schopenhauer.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Judgment:
“We react to our judgments and opinions—to our thoughts about things, not to things themselves.” WF

Event > judgment/opinion > reaction. Your job is to begin recognizing the middle step. 

“Men are disturbed not by the things that happen but by their opinions about those things” Epictetus

“It is not what things are objective and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.” Schopenhauer

“We can choose to have no opinion about a thing and not to be trouble by it; for things themselves have no power of their own to affect our judgments.” Marcus Aurelius

“It takes greatness of mind to judge great matters; otherwise they will seem to have defects that in truth belong to us. In the same way, certain objects that are perfectly straight will, when sunk in the water, appear to the onlooker as bent or broken off. It is not so much what you see but how you see it that matters. When it comes to perceiving reality, our minds are in a fog.” Seneca

“The work of philosophy is to take responsibility for our own thinking, and in doing so to liberate ourselves from the attachments and misjudgments that otherwise dictate our experience.” WF

Externals:
“There is only one road to happiness—let this rule be at hand morning, noon, and night: stay detached from things that are not up to you.” Epictetus

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them.” Montaigne

Make sure your center of gravity stays within, that way the foundation of your happiness never gets destroyed through loss or disappointment due to things beyond your control. (summarizing Schopenhauer)

Perspective:
“The long view is good for morale. If it is an affront to the ego, it is also an antidote to vanity, ambition, and greed.” WF

“Imagine the vast abyss of time, and think of the entire universe; then compare what we call a human lifetime to that immensity. You will see how tiny a thing it is that we wish for and seek to prolong.” Seneca

“We believe these affairs of ours are greater because we are small.” Seneca

Death:
For the Stoics, meditation on death is a tool to promote humility, fearlessness, moderation, and other virtues.

“Only fools are attached to their bodies by a fear of death rather than a love of life.” Montaigne

“You are mistaken if you think that only on an ocean voyage is there a very slight space between life and death. No, the distance between is just as narrow everywhere.” Seneca

“We must make it our aim to have already lived long enough.” Seneca

Desire:
“You will learn the truth by experience: the things that people value highly and try hardest to get do them no good once they have them.” Epictetus

“We go panting after things unknown and things to come, because the things that are present are never enough. It is not, in my view, that they lack what it takes to satisfy us, but rather that we hold them in an unhealthy and immoderate grip.” Montaigne

“The measure of what is necessary is what is useful.” Seneca

“Natural desires are finite; those born of false opinion have no place to stop.” Seneca

“The desires that have limits come from Nature. The ones that run away from us and never have an end are our own. Poverty in material things is easy to cure; poverty of the soul, impossible.” Montaigne

“Do you not realize that all things lose their force because of familiarity?” Seneca

“We value nothing more highly than a benefit when we are seeking it, and nothing less highly once we obtain it.” Seneca

“That man will never be happy whom the sight of a happier man will torment.” Seneca

“When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.” Samuel Johnson

Wealth and pleasure:
“Lack of moderation is the plague of pleasure. Moderation is not the scourge of pleasure, but the seasoning of it.” Montaigne

“What it has made necessary for man, nature has not made difficult. But he desires clothing of purple steeped in rich dye, embroidered in gold, and decorated with a variety of colors and designs: it is not nature’s fault but his own that he is poor.” Seneca

“On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man’s experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them.” Schopenhauer

What others think:
“Who does not willingly exchange health, tranquility, and life itself for reputation and glory—the most useless, worthless, and counterfeit coin that circulates among us?” Montaigne

“In all we do, almost the first thing we think about is, what will people say; and nearly half of the trouble and bothers of life may be traced to our anxiety on this score.” Schopenhauer

“Soon you will have forgotten everything; soon everything will have forgotten you.” Marcus Aurelius

“The success of the insult depends on the sensitivity and indignation of the victim.” Seneca

“Remember that you are insulted not by the person who strikes or abuses you but by your opinion that these things are insulting.” Seneca

“No one becomes a laughingstock who laughs at himself.” Seneca

“Do I deserve these things that happen to me? If I deserve them, there is no insult; it is justice. If I don’t deserve them, let the one who does the injustice blush.” Seneca

Valuation:
“This why I lost my lamp: because a thief was better than I am at staying awake. But he bought the lamp at a high price. In return he became a thief, he become untrustworthy…” Epictetus

Self-esteem is the price you pay for unethical acts.

“If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.” Seneca

Emotion:
“We suffer more in conjecture than in reality…We magnify our sorrow, or we imagine it, or we get ahead of it.” Seneca

Adversity:
“It is not hardships that are desirable, but the courage by which to endure them.” Seneca

“It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay blame on himself; and one whose instruction is complete to blame neither another nor himself.” Epictetus

“My formula for greatness in a man is amor fati: the fact that a man wishes nothing to be different, either in front of him or behind him, or for all eternity.” Nietzsche 

“Those who are without skill and sense as to how they should live, like sick people whose bodies can endure neither heat not cold, are elated by good fortune and depressed by adversity; and they are greatly disturbed by both.” Plutarch

“Fire tests gold, adversity brave men.” Seneca

“I judge you unfortunate because you have never been unfortunate: You have passed through life without an antagonist; no one will ever know what you can do, not even you yourself.” Seneca

“Pain is neither unbearable nor eternal if you consider its limits, and don’t add to it in your imagination.” Marcus Aurelius

“Pain takes up only as much space as we allow to it.” Montaigne

Virtue:
“Let nothing be done in your life that will cause you fear if it is discovered by your neighbor.” Epicurus

“It is a rare life that maintains its good order even in private. Everyone can play his role and act the honest man on the stage…” Montaigne

“Kindness is invincible, if it is genuine and not insincere or put on as an act.” Marcus Aurelius

Learning:
“No one can live happily or even tolerably without the study of wisdom. Wisdom, when achieved, produced a happy life.” Seneca

“Do you want to know why your running away doesn’t help? You take yourself along. Your mental burden must be put down before any place will satisfy you.” Seneca

“Associate with those who will improve you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for people learn while they teach.” Seneca

“The mind is not like a bucket that requires filling, it is like wood that needs igniting—nothing more—to produce an impulse to discovery and a longing for the truth.” Plutarch

“The last occupation of the preoccupied man is living—and there is nothing that is harder to learn.” Seneca

High Growth Handbook – Elad Gil

High Growth Handbook – by Elad Gil
Date read: 3/21/20. Recommendation: 9/10.

There are tons of resources out there for starting a company, but this book is a resource for scaling one. Gil focuses on tactical advice for scaling a company from ten employees to thousands. He emphasizes that the advice is meant to be painfully tactical in order to avoid the platitudes from investors who have never run or scaled their own company. This book is most valuable for founders, executives, and employees who are facing hypergrowth and scaling for the first time. Gil covers everything from the role of the CEO and managing the board to recruiting, organizational structure, product management, financing, and valuation. An incredible resource filled with dozens of relevant interviews with leaders who have real experience scaling great teams and products.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Focuses on tactical advice for scaling a company from 10-20 employees to thousands. Tons of resources on starting a company, this is a book that serves as a resource for scaling one. 

Most valuable for founders, CEOs, and employees who are facing hypergrowth and scaling for the first time. 

Skin in the game: “The advice presented here is meant to be painfully tactical and to avoid the platitudes you will get from investors who have never run or scaled a company.” EG

Distribution matters:
It’s a myth that most successful tech companies are product-centric. In fact, most are distribution-centric. Startups with better products get beaten by companies with better distribution channels.

“Since focusing on product is what caused initial success, founders of breakout companies often think product development is their primary competency and asset. In reality, the distribution channel and customer base derived from their first product is now one of the biggest go-forward advantages and differentiators the company has.” EG

Viability:
Tactics to stay viable = product iteration, distribution, mergers and acquisitions, moats (defensibility). 

Moats + Pricing:
“The definition of a moat is the ability to charge more.” Marc Andreessen

“Charging more is a key lever to be able to grow. And the companies that charge more therefore tend to grow faster.” Marc Andreessen

If you charge more you can allocate more to both distribution efforts and R&D.

Higher prices = faster growth. 

Product:
“Give me a great product picker and a great architect, and I’ll give you a great product.” Marc Andreessen

Product picker/manager/originator = people who can actually conceptualize new products. Great architects = people who can actually build it. 

“Great product management organizations help set product vision and road maps, establish goals and strategy, and drive execution on each product throughout its lifecycle.” EG

“Bad product management organizations, in contrast, largely function as project management groups, running schedules and tidying up documents for engineers.” EG

Product managers are responsible for:

1. Product strategy and vision (reflect the voice of the customer)

2. Product prioritization and problem solving

3. Execution (timelines, resources, and removal of obstacles)

4. Communication and coordination

Characteristics of great product managers:

1. Product taste

2. Ability to prioritize

3. Ability to execute

4. Strategic sensibilities (how is the industry landscape evolving?)

5. Top 10% communication skills

6. Metrics and data-driven approach

Interviewing PMs:

1. Product insights

2. Contributions to past successful products

3. Prioritization

4. Communication and team conflicts

5. Metrics and data

Product Management Processes:

1. PRD templates and product roadmaps: Build agreement and clarity on what you are building. What are the requirements for the product itself? Who are you building this for? What use cases does the product meet? What does it solve for and explicitly not solve for? What are the main features and what does the product do? What are the main product dependencies? A PRD may include wireframe that roughly sketch out the product user journey.

2. Product reviews

3. Launch process and calendar

4. Retrospectives

Small, self-sufficient teams:
“There are exceptions, but in most cases, you need original thinking and speed of execution, and it’s really hard to get that in anything other than a small-team format.” Marc Andreessen

Design: Usability, how do we design this? Create the optimal user experience.

Engineering: Feasibility, how can we build this? How can technical road map drive product and vice versa. 

Product: Viability, should we build this? Set product vision and road map to ensure the company builds a product that the user needs. Make trade-offs between design, engineering, and business concerns.

Traits to look for in executives:

1. Functional area expertise: Do they understand the major issues and common failure points for their functions?

2. Ability to build and manage a team in those functional areas: Do they know how to motivate people in their functions?

3. Collegiality: Do they do what’s right for the company even if it’s not in their best interest? Create mutually supportive environment.

4. Strong communication skills: Do they have cross-functional empathy?

5. Owner mentality: Do they take ownership of their functions and make sure they are running smoothly and effectively?

6. Smarts and strategic thinking skills: Do they think strategically and holistically about their functions? Are they first principle thinkers? Can they apply their expertise in knowledge in the context of your company, team, and product? Or do they just try to implement exactly what they did in their last role?

External hires: “The way to retain people who are performing and who you really want to retain is to hire someone that they can learn from.” Keith Rabois

Flagship offices in the era of remote work:
Onboarding at headquarters helps to build initial connections and creates significant long-term value. 

With remote teams, create a great teleconferencing setup and consider the timing of your key meetings.

Who to emulate?
“I think people should select carefully the companies they seek to emulate and learn lessons from.” Patrick Collison

With great software companies in China (JD, Tencent, Alibaba), there’s a lack of entitlement, complacency, and a determination that there’s a void of in Silicon Valley.

Interviewing (to remove unconscious bias):

1. Articulate the relevant qualifications for every role.

2. Designing specific questions to assess for each qualification.

3. Limiting the domains that each interviewer has to assess. Don’t go in and try to decide “Should we hire this person?” What you want to focus on is, “Does this person meet what we need on these two things?” When you’re trying to assess people on five different areas, it’s really hard, and you start to take shortcuts/allow biases to factor in. 

4. Create rubrics to help interviewers evaluate answers to the questions that they’re asking.

Thinking in Systems – Donella H. Meadows

Thinking in Systems – by Donella H. Meadows
Date read: 7/9/19. Recommendation: 8/10.

Great introduction to systems thinking – the ability to step back and appreciate the complexity of the interconnected whole. Meadows emphasizes the dangers of generalizing about complex systems and explains the key elements of resilient systems. This includes feedback loops, self-organization, experimentation, and alignment. She also digs into concepts like the tragedy of the commons, bounded rationality, modeling, and how to avoid the pitfalls of each. The benefit of systems thinking is that is helps you avoid isolated, shallow decision-making. With this comes the ability to appreciate the complexity of large systems, their connections, and how to improve or redesign them, when needed. This is an important book for anyone who’s working on complex problems or wants to grow into a more strategic thinker.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

The system lens:
Helps reclaim intuition about whole systems, hone abilities to understand parts, see interconnections, ask “what if” questions about future behavior, and be creative in redesigns. 

Ancient Sufi story about a king visiting a city of blind citizens on his mighty elephant. Each citizen touched a small part of the elephant (ear, trunk, legs) and drew false conclusions. Need a better understanding of the whole, not just the elements it’s made of. 

Questions for testing the value of a model:

1. Are driving factors likely to unfold this way?

2. If they did, would the system react this way?

3. What is driving the driving factors?

Systems studies are not designed to predict, they’re designed to explore what would happen if factors unfold in a range of different scenarios. 

Dangerous to generalize about complex systems. 

Resilience: 
Rich structure of many feedback loops allows a system to thrive in a variable environment. Similar to Taleb’s concept of anti-fragility.

Resilience is similar to a plateau that a system can play safely upon. The more resilient a system, the larger the plateau and the greater its ability to bounce back when near the edges. Less resilient, smaller plateau.

Awareness of resilience allows you to harness, preserve, or improve a system’s restorative powers. 

Self-organization:
Self-organization is the strongest form of system resilience. System that can evolve can survive almost any change. That’s why biodiversity is so important.

“Insistence on a single culture shuts down learning and cuts back resilience. Any system, biological, economic, or social, that gets so encrusted that it cannot self-evolve, a system that systematically scorns experimentation and wipes out the raw material of innovation, is doomed over the long term on the highly variable planet.” DM

Experimentation is key to anti-fragility and innovation. But it’s difficult because this means giving up control. 

Antifragile: “In the end, it seems that mastery has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly, letting go and dancing with the system.” DM

Hierarchies:
DM: “Complex systems can evolve from simple systems only if there are stable intermediate forms.” Why they’re so common in nature. 

Hierarchies are system inventions – provide stability, resilience, and reduce the amount of information system needs to keep track of. Too much central control overwhelms and breaks a system. Unable to achieve more complex tasks. 

Models:
“Our knowledge of the world instructs us first of all that the world is greater than our knowledge of it.” Wendell Berry

Everything we know about the world is a model – languages, maps, statistics, mental models. Usually correspond well with the world (hints our success as a species), but will never fully represent the world with 100% accuracy. If they did, we would never make mistakes or be surprised. 

Mental flexibility = willingness to redraw boundaries.

Alignment + policy resistance:
Bounded rationality: People make reasonable decisions based on information they have about parts of the system they’re closest too. But they don’t have perfect information or ability to see more distant parts of the systems. This is why narrow-minded behavior arises. 

Policy resistance occurs when goals of subsystems are misaligned. Need an overarching goal to tie things together. Feedback loops should serve the same goal. Much of that is identifying what problem you’re trying to solve.

1967 Romanian government decided they needed more people so they made abortions illegal. Short term results saw birth rate triple, then resistance set in. People pursued dangerous abortion which tripled maternal mortality. 

Hungary, at the same time, was also worried about low birth rate. Discovered it was partially due to cramped housing so they incentivized larger families with more living space. Only partially successful because it was only part of the problem, but not a disaster like Romania.

Sweden was most successful because they recognized that the goal of population and government was not family size, but quality of child care. Birth rate has gone up and down since then without causing panic because they focused on long-term welfare and more robust goal, not a narrow, short-sighted goal. 

Silver Rule Example from Garrett Hardin (see Nassim Taleb, Skin in the Game): people who want to prevent other people from having an abortion aren’t practicing intrinsic responsibility unless they’re personally willing to raise the resulting child.

“If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions of systems, pay attention to the rules and who has power over them.” DM

The tragedy of the commons:
Result of simple growth in a system where a resource is not only limited, but erodible when overused. Selfish behavior more convenient and profitable than responsibility to whole community and shared future. 

E.g. uncontrolled access to national park (over-tourism) bringing in crowds that destroy park’s natural beauties.

Three ways to avoid the tragedy of the commons:

1. Educate and exhort (moral pressure)

2. Privatize the commons (makes direct feedback loop)

3. Regulate the commons (mutual coercion agreements, i.e. traffic lights, parking spaces).

A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything – by Bill Bryson
Date read: 6/15/19. Recommendation: 10/10.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is one of the most important books on my shelf. After graduating from university, it’s the first book that reminded me how much I loved reading. It was the catalyst for me to begin building back up my reading habits and I’ve read it multiple times since. At its heart, it’s a book about science and some of life’s biggest questions. Bryson tackles everything from the cosmos and physics to ice ages and evolution. He’s a brilliant writer and storyteller, which helps make complex topics like particle physics more accessible and relatable for novices, like me. The pages are filled with jaw-dropping facts and stories of those enshrined in (or forgotten by) the annals of science. The amount of knowledge in this book is incredible. But the most important thing you’ll come away with is a renewed sense of perspective. It’s a great reminder of just how insignificant we are and how precious life is.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Newton, Principia, and Unlikely Inspiration:
In 1683, Edmond Halley, Robert Hooke, and Christopher Wren made a scientific wager on celestial objects. It was known that planets orbited in a particular kind of oval, but no one understood why. Wren offered a prize worth forty-shillings. Halley became obsessed with the problem and went to Isaac Newton, hoping he could help. Newton had already calculated the ellipse but couldn’t recall where he put the formula. Halley urged him to put it into a paper. The result was Newton’s crowning scientific achievement–Principia–which explained orbits mathematically, outlined three laws of motion, and, for the first time, identified gravity. Halley paid for the book’s publication out of his own pocket when The Royal Society backed out due to financial struggles. Impact of Newton’s laws is hard to overstate…explained ocean tides, motion of planets, the trajectory of cannonballs, why we aren’t lost to space as the planet spins beneath us. 

Lord Kelvin, Polymath, Master of the Long Game:

• Admitted to Glasgow University at the age of 10.

• Graduated from Cambridge, won top prizes for rowing and mathematics, launched a musical society.

• At the age of 22, became professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow for the next 53 years. 

• Wrote 661 papers, gained 69 patents, contributed to every branch of the physical sciences.

• Suggested the method that led to the invention of refrigeration, created scale of absolute temperature, invented boosting devices to send telegrams across oceans. 

Radioactivity and Early Adopters:
Many assumed radioactivity had to be beneficial since it was so energetic. It wasn’t banned in consumer products until 1938. Up until that point manufacturers put radioactive thorium in toothpaste and laxatives. Until the 1920s the Glen Springs Hotel in Finger Lakes (NY) featured the therapeutic effects of its “Radioactive mineral springs.”

Einstein:
Early life revealed little of what was to come. Didn’t learn to speak until he was three. Failed college entrance exams on first try. 

Took advantage of being underemployed: 1902 took job at Swiss patent office and stayed for 7 years. Challenging enough to engage his mind, but not enough to distract him from physics. Here he produced the special theory of relativity in 1905.

Drawdown periods: For originality, tune out. Einstein’s “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” had no footnotes or citations. It was like he reached the conclusions by pure thought, without listening to outside opinion. 

Little recognition early on: As an outsider, he was largely ignored in the physics community, despite solving several of the deepest mysteries of the universe. Proceeded to apply and get rejected as a university lecturer and high school teacher.

Theory of relativity: Space and time are not absolute. They’re relative to both the observer and the thing being observed. Faster one moves, the more pronounced effects become. The faster we accelerate, the more distorted we are, relative to an outside observer. 

Spent the second half of his life searching for a unified theory of physics, but failed. Physics has two bodies of laws, one for the very small, one for the universe at large.

Discovery by Bridging Ideas
Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest-scholar with a Ph.D. from MIT, was the first to suggest that the universe began as a single geometrical point, a “primeval atom” which burst into existence and had been moving apart ever since. Referred to this as his “fireworks theory.” It was the first hint at the Big Bang. Combined his knowledge of Hubble’s discovery of the universe expanding and increasing speed in every direction, and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. 

Plate Tectonics:
“Look at the globe and what you are seeing is really a snapshot of the continents as they have been for just one-tenth of 1 percent of the Earth’s history.” BB

“The history of any one part of the Earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror.” Derek V. Ager

Disasters + Extinctions:
Last super volcano eruption took place 74,000 years ago in Toba, northern Sumatra. It was followed by six years of volcanic winter. Carried humans to brink of extinction, no more than a few thousand individuals. Modern humans arose from a very small population (explains our lack of genetic diversity). Some evidence shows for the next 20,000 years, human population never grew beyond a few thousand at a given time. Huge amount of time to recover from our perspective of time. But not from Earth’s. 

 99.99% of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us. Average lifespan of a species is about four millions years.

 Permian Extinction: 245 million years ago, wiped out the dinosaurs and 95% of animals known from fossil records disappear. Closest we’ve come to total obliteration. 

Life is Precious: 
“From the bottom of the deepest ocean trench to the top of the highest mountain, the zone that covers nearly the whole of known life, is only something over a dozen miles–not much when set against the roominess of the cosmos at large.” BB

Excellent Location: “We are, to an almost uncanny degree, the right distance from the right sort of star, one that is big enough to radiate lots of energy, but no so big to burn itself out swiftly…We are also fortunate to orbit where we do. Too much nearer and everything on Earth would have boiled away. Much farther away and everything would have frozen.” BB

Earth would have been uninhabitable if it had been just 1 percent farther or 5 percent closer to the sun. Think about Venus (sun’s warmth reaches it two minutes before us).

“We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life’s dominant species that it is hard to grasp that we are only here because of time extraterrestrial bangs and other random flukes.” BB

“The one thing we have in common with all other living things is that for nearly four billion years our ancestors have managed to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to.” BB

“If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here–and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also a singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.” BB

The Power of Being an Outsider:
Watson and Crick (no formal training in biochemistry) beat out many top insiders as they worked to discover the structure of DNA. 

Alexander von Humboldt:
Observed that there are three stages in scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.

Origins:
Five million years ago, Panama rose from the sea, bridging North and South America, which disrupted warmer currents between the Pacific and Atlantic, and changed precipitation patterns across 50% of the world. Africa began to dry out and apes climbed down from trees in jungles to find a new way of life in the savannah.

One million years ago, upright beings left Africa and spread across the globe. Averaging 25 miles a year. 

Modern human is still 98.4% genetically indistinguishable from the modern chimpanzee. More difference between zebra and horse. 

Endurance – Alfred Lansing

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage – by Alfred Lansing
Date read: 5/18/19. Recommendation: 8/10.

A brilliant tale of survival that documents Sir Ernest Shackleton’s failed voyage to cross Antarctica from west to east. Shackleton often appears as a larger-than-life character, offering lessons in leadership at every turn. But Lansing balances this by bringing in the perspective of the other twenty-seven crewmen. It’s one of those true stories that you could never dream up. Lansing highlights the importance of meaning, self-reliance, and gratitude in extreme conditions (à la Tribe by Sebastian Junger or Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl). It’s also beautifully written. I stopped multiple times to rewrite passages out of admiration, hoping to steal a touch of Lansing’s style.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition:
Goal was to cross the Antarctic continent overland from west to east. Set out on October 26, 1914 from Buenos Aires with 27 men and Sir Ernest Shackleton at the helm. On January 19, 1915 became trapped in icy wasteland of the Weddell Sea midway between the South Pole and nearest known outpost of humanity, 1,200 miles away. 

After initial departure: “And in the space of a few short hours, with a thousand petty problems, to one of the barest simplicity in which only one real task remained–the achievement of the goal.”

Shackleton:
Purposeful, bold, neat. 

“But if it hadn’t been audacious, it wouldn’t have been to Shackleton’s liking. He was, above all, an explorer in the classic mold–utterly self-reliant, romanic, and just a little swashbuckling.”

“Whatever his mood–whether it was gay and breezy, or dark with rage–he had one pervading characteristic: he was purposeful.”

Intensely aware of those who might undermine unity of group. Knew overall energy and attitude could be difference between life and death. Shackleton made tent, job, crew, and rescue-team assignments based on personality and demeanor. He knew how to motivate each man and preserve the morale of the team. Feared demoralization more than the cold, ice, or sea.

Shackleton believed in his own invincibility. His confidence fueled his men and is what made him a great leader. But it’s also what blinded him to realities and led to occasional poor decisions. 

Plans changed constantly as they drifted one direction or another. But Shackleton always operated with conviction. Being a great leader isn’t about accuracy. It’s about conviction and adaptability (strong opinions, loosely held). 

Frozen in ice:
“Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out–they had to get themselves out.”

After the ship getting stuck (and knowing they were going to have to make it through an entire winter of polar nights), the men grew closer. Built camaraderie through regular social occasions–Saturday night grog, Sunday night music, a lantern chat with a slide-illustrated lecture (once/month), dogsledding, and hockey.

After nine months, abandoned the Endurance and made camp on a large floe. Men responded well because indecision and speculation were over. Knew what needed to be done. Shackleton knew not to let ambiguity linger for too long. Conviction > indecisiveness. 

Gratitude and meaning in extreme conditions:
“The rapidity with which one can completely change one’s ideas…and accommodate ourselves to a state of barbarism is wonderful.” Worsley

“They had been on the ice just a month. And for all the trials and discomforts, these weeks of primitive living had been peculiarly enriching. The men had been forced to develop a degree of self-reliance greater than they had ever imagined possible.” 
*See Tribe (Sebastian Junger) and Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)

“What an ingrate I have been for such jobs when done for me at home.” Macklin

“One of the finest days we have ever had…a pleasure to be alive.” Greenstreet

“In some ways they had come to know themselves better. In this lonely world of ice and emptiness, they had achieved at least a limited kind of contentment. They had been tested and found wanting.”

Boredom is a fiercer foe than hardship:
“The monotony of life here is getting on our nerves. Nothing to do, nowhere to walk, no change in surroundings, food or anything.” Greenstreet

Speed > preparedness:
When they abandoned ship, Shackleton urged the crew to leave behind anything that wasn’t absolutely essential for survival. To demonstrate this, he tore a page from the Book of Job in his Bible, set the book in the snow and walked away. In his studies of past expeditions, knew that crews who brought equipment for every imaginable scenario fared worse than those who sacrificed preparedness for speed. 

Ferocity of the sea:
“But the sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape.”

Creativity, Inc. – Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc. – by Ed Catmull
Date read: 1/22/19. Recommendation: 9/10.

One of the best modern examples of the impact that comes from harnessing creativity and building a culture where the creative process can thrive. Catmull discusses the evolution of Pixar Animation, including the philosophies and strategies that have established them as creative force. Most notably, the team at Pixar embraces the years of ambiguity inherent to the creative process as a story evolves into its own. Instead of becoming attached to a single storyline or character, they seek out a deep truth at the core of the film–the guiding principle–and craft the story around that. Catmull also emphasizes the role of leadership in cultivating creativity. It starts with loosening your grip, accepting risk, trusting your people, and giving them space to do what they do best. See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Problems are the rule, rather than the exception. Even at great companies.
Mentality at Pixar is that they will always have problems, many of them hidden. But they work hard to uncover them, embrace the discomfort, and band together to solve them.

“The desire for everything to run smoothly is a false goal–it leads to measuring people by the mistakes they make rather than by their ability to solve problems.” EC

Blending Art + Technology
Walt Disney embraced new technologies…he would incorporate it into their work (blue screen matting, multi-plane cameras, xerography) and talk about it on his show to highlight the relationship between art and technology.

Catmull and Pixar took the same approach, blurring the lines between disciplines. Result was Toy Story, the first computer animated feature film.

Leadership
Goal is to enable people to do their best work. That means more creative freedom (autonomy + empowerment), less tightening your grip.

The best leaders all have a single trait in common – self-awareness.

People > Ideas (because ideas come from people)
Always try to hire good people who are smarter than you. Then figure out what they need, assign them to projects that match their skills, and ensure they work well together.

“It is the focus on people–their work habits, their talents, their values–that is absolutely central to any creative venture.” EC

Bet on Yourself
George Lucas, instead of demanding higher salary after success of American Graffiti (the norm in Hollywood, bump up your quote), skipped the raise and asked to retain ownership of licensing and merchandising rights to his next film, Star Wars.

Ed Catmull felt like a fraud in his early years as president of Pixar. He didn’t share the aggressive tendencies of other flashy leaders. Imposter feeling finally went away after years later after repeated experience of weathering failures, watching films succeed, building Pixar’s culture, and developing relationships.

Decisiveness
“As long as you commit to a destination and drive toward it with all your might, people will accept when you correct course.” EC

Make your best guess and go with it. Decisions can be made far faster (product development) if you assess them in terms of how reversible they are (*See Shane Parrish’s interview with Shopify’s CEO, Tobi Lütke).

Avoid the temptation to oversimplify (and overcomplicate)
In early days of Pixar while Catmull was selling the Pixar Imaging Computer to make money, he sought advice of experienced professionals because he was unsure and stressed. Simple answers were seductive and prevented him from asking more fundamental questions.

Many leaders assume too much credit in their successes and ignore the role of randomness and luck.
*See Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness + Occam’s Razor

Important to acknowledge role of randomness and luck, because this allows you to keep an open mind, check your ego, and make rational decisions. Not everything you did was a stroke of genius.

Make room for the unknown in creativity. It can bring inspiration and originality. Not everything needs to have a point or be about productivity/efficiency.

Thinking Fast vs. Slow
Steve Jobs would often shoot down Ed Catmull’s arguments when they disagreed because he was a much faster thinker. Catmull would wait a week, collect his thoughts, deliberate, then state his case. Jobs always kept an open mind.

Candor and Trust
“A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Lack of candor, if unchecked, ultimately leads to dysfunctional environments.” EC

Without candor, you fail to establish trust. Without trust, creative collaboration becomes impossible.

You are not your idea. If you emotionally invest and overidentify with your idea, you’ll become defensive when challenged or given feedback.

Guiding Principles
The search for a story is the search for a guiding principle. This allows Pixar’s films to evolve drastically from their original treatments. Once they find the guiding principle, easier to build the characters, storyline, settings to better communicate that.

Don’t become emotionally attached to a single character or storyline, become emotionally attached to the guiding principle. Look for deep truths and build from there.

“Originality is fragile. And, in its first moment, it’s often far from pretty. This is why I call early mock-ups of our films ‘ugly babies.’ They are truly ugly: awkward and unformed, vulnerable and incomplete. They need nurturing–in the form of time and patience–in order to grow.” EC

Pixar’s use of “guiding principles” could be interchangeable with “vision” in product development. Don’t get attached to a single feature. Invest in the vision.

Experimentation and Failure
“Experiments are fact-finding missions that, over time, inch scientists toward greater understanding. That means any outcome is a good outcome, because it yields new information.” EC

Animated shorts are Pixar’s version of prototypes. Relatively inexpensive way to test the waters and see if they’re onto something.

Make it safe to take risks: “Rather than trying to prevent all errors, we should assume, as is almost always the case, that our people’s intentions are good and that they want to solve problems. Give them responsibility, let the mistakes happen, and let people fix them...Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the ability to recover.”

Constraining creativity is a steep price: “The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.”

Depth
“We all know people who eagerly face the unknown; they engage with the seemingly intractable problems of science, engineering, and society; they embrace the complexities of visual or written expression; the are invigorated by uncertainty. That’s because they believe that, through questioning, they can do more than merely look through the door. They can venture across its threshold.” EC

Creativity
“Creativity has to start somewhere, and we are true believers in the power of bracing, candid feedback and the iterative process–reworking, reworking, and reworking again, until a flawed story finds its through line or a hallow character finds its soul.” EC

“Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.” EC

Learn the fundamentals and key players (the map), then rip it up and make your own way (*See Bob Dylan, Chronicles). At its core, creativity is about embracing ambiguity and discomfort.

“There is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.” EC

“Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear.” EC

Multiculturalism
When Disney acquired Pixar, Catmull helped run both animation departments separately. Wanted each to have their own identities and be able to differentiate themselves, as long as they shared a sense of personal ownership and pride in the company.

Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify, has a similar approach. He encourages each group within the company to establish their own culture. He doesn’t try to impart a single homogenous culture across the entire organization.

The Laws of Human Nature – Robert Greene

The Laws of Human Nature – by Robert Greene
Date read: 1/1/19. Recommendation: 10/10.

As close to perfection as a book can get. This is the culmination of Greene’s lifetime of work focused on power, influence, and mastery, brought together in a single text focused on the truths of human nature. It’s an instructive guide to human nature and people’s behavior, based on evidence rather than a particular viewpoint or moral judgment. As Greene emphasizes throughout the book, understanding human nature in a deep way is advantageous for countless reasons. It helps you become a strategic observer, better judge of character, outthink malicious people, motivate and influence those around you, alter negative patterns, develop greater empathy, and recognize your true potential. True to form, Greene pulls stories from both sides throughout history–masters and those who have failed spectacularly–to breathe life into each law. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It’s an incredible resource and an investment that will pay dividends for your entire life. The sooner you read it, the better.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

The book is an instructive guide to human nature and people’s behavior, based on evidence rather than a particular viewpoint or moral judgment. “It is a brutally realistic appraisal of our species, dissecting who are we so we can operate with more awareness.”

Chapter 1: Master Your Emotional Self, The Law of Irrationality

Rational people, through introspection and effort, are able to subtract emotions from their thinking and counteract their consequences. Generates more mental space to be creative and focus on what’s within your control. Irrational people lack this awareness. Rush into action without considering consequences.

Bubbles are the result of an intense emotional pull on people. Stimulate our desire for instant gratification (easy money, fast results).

People of high rationality (Pericles, Marcus Aurelius Leonardo da Vinci, Margaret de Valois, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Mead, Warren Buffett), all share certain qualities–“a realistic appraisal of themselves and their weaknesses; a devotion to truth and reality; a tolerant attitude toward people; and the ability to reach goals they have set.”

Resistance training: resist reacting immediately. The longer you wait, the more mental space you have for reflection and the stronger your mind.

Accept people as facts: Stop judging people and wishing they would be something they’re not. View people as neutral–they are what they are–and you’ll stop projecting your own emotions onto them. Improves your own balance, calmness.

Deliberation + Conviction: “The horse and the rider must work together. This means we consider our actions beforehand; we bring as much thinking as possible to a situation before we make a decision. But once we decide what to do we loosen the reins and enter action with boldness and a spirit of adventure. Instead of being slaves to this energy, we channel it. that is the essence of rationality.”

Chapter 2: Transform Self-love into Empathy, The Law of Narcissism

We were all built for social interaction. Involving ourselves less with others atrophies our social muscle and has a negative effect on the brain.

Give people the same level of indulgence that you give yourself. Tone down your incessant interior monologue and pay deeper attention to those around you. Be eager to hear someone else’s point of view and give them your full attention. Mirror back the things they said.

Understand the value systems of other people and how it differs from your own. Allows you to enter their spirit and perspective when you might otherwise turn defensive.

Chapter 3: See Through People’s Masks: The Law of Role-playing

The harshness of life makes people turn inward. Recognize this level of self-absorption and how little you actually observe.

Detecting hostility or negativity early on increases your strategic options and room to maneuver–lay a trap, win them over, create distance.

Depth: “Cloak yourself in some mystery, displaying some subtly contradictory qualities. People don’t need to know everything about you. Learn to withhold information.” Coupled with some selective absence (not always being visible), this makes people want to see more of you.

Chapter 4: Determine the Strength of People’s Character, The Law of Compulsive Behavior

“It is not spirits or gods that control us but rather our character.”

Character is deeply ingrained in us (our layers), compels us to act in certain ways, often beyond our awareness/control. Layers include: genetics, early childhood, later experiences/habits.

“Train yourself to ignore the front that people display, the myth that surrounds them, and instead plumb their depths for signs of their character.” Patterns from their past, quality of decisions, how they solve problems, how they delegate, how they work with others.

“If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Lincoln

We each face insecurities. But this can be turned to a positive if channeled correctly. It’s about examining the deepest layers of your character, realizing your true potential, and redirecting this energy.

Chapter 6: Elevate Your Perspective, The Law of Shortsightedness

When you face an obstacle, slow things down, take a step back. You lack perspective in the present, but as time passes you gather more information and the truth reveals itself.

“Alarmed by something in the present, we grab for a solution without thinking deeply about the context, the roots of the problem, the possible unintended consequences that might ensure. Because we mostly react instead of think, our actions are based on insufficient information.”

Avoid lazy, non-consequential thinking (action A leads to result B), the world is more complex than that. “You want depth of thinking, to go several degrees in imagining the permutations, as far as your mind can go.”

“And in life as in warfare, strategists will always prevail over tacticians.”

Having a clear sense of your long-term goals allows you to withstand emotional overreactions of those around you.

“The years teach much which the days never know.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter 7: Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-opinion, The Law of Defensiveness

Influence does not come from charming people with your own ideas. Instead, put the focus on others. This validation will lower their defenses and open their minds.

Play the long game by asking for advice. People love the attention and the opportunity to talk about their wisdom and experience. Then you can initiate series of small favors. They will continue to work on your behalf because stopping would call their initial evaluation of you (and their own intelligence/judgment) into question.

“He who goes away pleased with himself and his own wit is also greatly pleased with you.” Jean de La Bruyère

Confirm people’s self opinion to lower defenses and instill a feeling of inner security. What matters most is how people perceive their own character. We all have these ideas of who we are and the values that represent us, but we also struggle with self doubt. Providing people this validation lowers their guard and opens their own mind.

Look at people’s interpretations of situations, ideas, philosophies, films, books for signs of who they are.

Autonomy: “No attempt at influence can ever work if people feel in any way that they are being coerced or manipulated. They must choose to do whatever it is you want them to do, or they must at least experience it as their choice.”

Pick your battles: let the small changes go to bring down people’s guard for more important/larger items.

If you need a favor, do not remind others of the good things you have done for them in the past. Remind them of the good things they have done for you. Helps confirm their self-opinion.

Never follow praise with a request for help. Flattery is a setup and requires passage of time.

The Flexible Mind: Ideal state of mind retains flexibility of youth with reasoning powers of adult. Soften rigid mental patterns that you hold.

Recognize that you are not as good as the idealized image you hold of yourself. This awareness allows you to stop seek validation of others. Instead establishing your own independence and concern for the welfare of others (rather than getting lost behind the illusion you have of yourself).

Chapter 8: Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude, The Law of Self-sabotage

“Freedom comes from adopting a generous spirit–toward others and toward ourselves. By accepting people, by understanding and if possible even loving them for their human nature, we can liberate our minds from obsessive and petty emotions.”

Power of attitude to alter your circumstances: “You are not a pawn in a game controlled by others; you are an active player who can move the pieces at will and even rewrite the rules.”

“You do not need to be so humble and self-effacing in this world. Such humility is not a virtue but is rather a value that people promote to help keep you down. Whatever you are doing now, you are in fact capable of much more, and by thinking that, you will create a very different dynamic.”

The more tolerant you are towards others, the smoother your interactions and the more they are drawn towards you.

Measure people by their authenticity and the depth of their soul.

Chapter 9: Confront Your Dark Side, The Law of Repression

Learn to harness your own shadow by developing deeper awareness and channeling it. It’s a source of authenticity and energy.

Authenticity = self-awareness. The ability to laugh at yourself and admit shortcomings, maintain playfulness and spontaneity. No need to make a great show of your originality. The authentic individuals is someone who has managed to integrate child and adult, dark and light, unconscious and conscious.

Great art expresses depths of human nature (traumas from early years, emotions we try to forget). Powerful reaction triggered by repressed feelings.

Being too nice becomes a habit which can turn into timidity, lack of confidence, and indecision.

Subtract the shadow (assertive, ambitious side) of powerful, creative people and they would be just like everyone else.

“You pay a greater price for being so nice and deferential than for consciously showing your shadow.”

1. Learn to respect your own opinions more than others, especially in your area of expertise. Trust your internal compass and your own ideas.

2. Assert yourself more and compromise less. Do this at opportune times.

3. Care less about what people think of you.

4. You will have to offend or hurt people who block your path, have poor values, or who attack your character. Fuel your shadow in these moments.

Chapter 10: Beware the Fragile Ego, The Law of Envy

To combat envy…

1. Practice gratitude by downward comparison.

2. Move closer to what you envy and you’ll begin to see flaws (nothing is as perfect as it seems).

3. Build confidence in yourself–your ability to learn and improve.

“People who are lazy and undisciplined are much more prone to feeling envy.”

Euthymia: Focus on yourself, your own sense of purpose, and your plans. Satisfaction comes realizing your potential, not earning praise or attention.

Pursue more moments where you experience dissolution of your ego and happiness is derived from beyond you and your achievements (observing beautiful landscapes or contemplating immensity of universe).

Chapter 11: Know Your Limits, The Law of Grandiosity

Recognize the role of luck. With success, raise your vigilance, keep your feet planted.

“The power you will build up in this slow and organic way will be more real and lasting. Remember: the gods are merciless with those who fly too high on the wings of grandiosity, and they will make you pay the price.”

Fantastical grandiosity: flake from one project to the next, believing they can try their magical touch at anything or become anything they want. Big talkers with vague vision.

Practical grandiosity: sense of proportion, recognize your limits, role of luck. Ability to focus deeply on a single project. Look for challenges just above your skill level. Cultivates intense connection/state of flow in your work.

Chapter 12: Reconnect to the Masculine or Feminine Within You, The Law of Gender Rigidity

Depth: Your character has natural depth and dimension. Bring out the masculine (adventurous, exploratory) or feminine (empathetic, sensitive) undertones to be more authentic and draw people in.

To become more creative, blend the analytical with the intuitive.

You lose depth and become rigid when you overidentify with certain gender roles (i.e. hyper masculinity). Power is in the golden mean between masculine and feminine. If you achieve this, mind will recover its natural fluidity.

Defy expectations…expand the roles you play so you’re not easy to categorize. This fascinates and draws people in so you can alter perceptions at will.

As children we had more fluid sense of self…wider range of emotions, open to more experiences, but as we defined our social self, we closed ourselves off this freer-flowing spirit.

The muse lies within. Move closer to the part of you that you’ve closed off (blending mind/soul to achieve depth). Here’s where creativity and a fascination in your work is found.

Chapter 13: Advance with a Sense of Purpose, The Law of Aimlessness

Operating with a high sense of purpose = a force multiplier. Greater connection to cause, higher morale, translates into greater force.

Humans crave a sense of direction…seeking a sense of purpose has a gravitational pull that no one can avoid. Keep watch over whether people have false (external sources, belief systems, conformity) or noble (sense of mission that you feel personally, intimately connected to) purposes.

Strategies for developing a high sense of purpose:

1. Discover your calling - reflect on inclinations in your earliest years, examine moments when activities felt natural or easy, figure out the particular form of intelligence that your brain is wired for (mathematics, logic, physical activity, words, images, music). This will not appear to you overnight, it demands hard work and introspection.

2. Use resistance - “Frustration is a sign that you are making progress as your mind becomes aware of higher levels of skill that you have yet to attain.”

3. Lose yourself in the work - “peak experiences” where you are immersed in your work with a profound sense of calmness and joy. Create more, consume less. Design an environment where you have higher likelihood of achieving this experience.

Chapter 14: Resist the Downward Pull of the Group, The Law of Conformity

“When people operate in groups, they do not engage in nuanced thinking and deep analysis. Only individuals with a degree of calmness and detachment can do so.”

To combat this, develop ability to detach yourself from group and create mental space for independent, rational thinking.

Create a shared sense of purpose: Make people feel like a integral part of a group and you satisfy a deep, rarely met human need.

Infect people with productive emotions: Phil Jackson focused on communicating calmness so team wouldn’t overreact (rather than normal pep talks that overexcited/angered players).

Chapter 15: Make Them Want to Follow You, The Law of Fickleness

“Authority is the delicate art of creating the appearance of power, legitimacy, and fairness while getting people to identify with you as a leader who is in their service.”

Twin pillars of authority: far-reaching vision and empathy. Without these, group will sense lack of direction and constant tactical reactions to events.

Elevate your perspective and presence of mind above the moment and you’ll tap into visionary powers of human mind. Once you have a vision, work backwards with a flexible plan to reach your goal.

Bring out your natural complexity and stir conflicting emotions: make yourself hard to categorize, forces people to think of you more and results in larger presence. Blend prudence and boldness, spiritual and pragmatism (Martin Luther King Jr.), folksy and regal (Queen Elizabeth I), masculine ad feminine.

Balance presence and absence: you cannot project authority with an ordinary presence. If you appear too available or visible, you’ll seem banal. Social media might make you relatable, but also makes you seem like everyone else.

“Silence is a form of absence and withdrawal that draws attention; it spells self-control and power.”

Create more, consume less: “The world needs constant improvement and renewal. You are here not merely to gratify your impulses and consume what others have made but to make and contribute as well….Add to the needed diversity of culture by creating something that reflects your uniqueness.”

Leonardo da Vinci’s motto in life was ostinato rigore, “relentless rigor.”

“We distinguished the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself…” José Ortega y Gasset

Chapter 16: See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Facade, The Law of Aggression

Put your opponents in a position where they feel rushed and impatient, makes them more emotional and less able to strategize.

Sophisticated aggressors cloak their maneuvers and play on emotions. People don’t like confrontation or long struggles so they’re intimidated and worn down by this. Primary motivation of aggressors is gaining control over environment and people. By seeing through their insecurities and anxieties and they will no longer be able to intimidate you.

Aggression is wired into us, but you have to learn how to channel it productively. What sets humans apart is aggressive energy, intelligence, and cunning. This powerful energy made us bold, adventurous and relentless (mentally and physically) in childhood.

Aggression stems from underlying insecurity, deep wound, reverberating feelings of helplessness or anxiety. Aggressors have less tolerance for these types of feelings which become their triggers.

“The more clearly you see what you want, the likelier you are to realize it.”

“Almost nothing in the world can resist persistent human energy. Things will yield if we strike enough blows with enough force.” (Painstaking perseverance: Edison, Marcie Curie, Einstein)

Preserve your bold spirit: losing this means losing a deep part of yourself. Recover the fearlessness that you had as a child. Speak up and talk back to people if they are insensitive or suggest poor ideas. Start small then you can can demand more from people and apply this growing boldness to your work.

Carefully channeling anger into your art (film, music, book, product) strikes a deep chord with people because it provides them an outlet. In our day to day we’re too careful and correct about communicating our own anger.

“In your expressive work, never shy away from anger but capture and channel it, letting it breathe into the work a sense of life and movement. In giving expression to such anger, you will always find an audience.”

Chronicles – Bob Dylan

Chronicles: Volume One – by Bob Dylan
Date read: 11/23/18. Recommendation: 8/10.

Dylan’s career is a master class in embracing the impermanence of identity and authenticity. The fragments of himself that he brought to life shows he understands this in a deep way. Dylan resonates with people because his songwriting tracks his own development as a human being. His songs reflect who he was–his observations, experiences, and imagination–and who he refused to be at each point in time. In Chronicles, it helps to be familiar with Dylan’s work since the chapters jump between different points of his career and he name-drops dozens of obscure folk artists. If that’s not your thing, it’s still worth reading. Just don’t get hung up on the dense sections. Dylan, full of complexity and brilliance, offers insight into creativity, identity and human nature. Chronicles will challenge the way you think and force you to consider things through a new lens–perhaps the highest compliment a book can receive.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Mentors and Influences:
Woody Guthrie: Dylan attributes his beginnings directly to Woody. The course of his life changed when he first heard him on a record in Minneapolis. Felt Woody had such a grip on things and a fierce poetic soul. On criticism that Dylan was trying too hard to be like Guthrie at the beginning of his career: “I wasn’t trying to fool anybody. I was just doing what I could with what I had where I was.”

Dave Van Ronk: “Dave got to the bottom of things. It was like he had an endless supply of poison.” Strong feeling of kinship, because Van Ronk took Dylan in and gave him a real stage with a real audience (Gaslight), a place to crash, showed him around Greenwich Village.

Van Ronk mastered his audience in a way that Dylan would take inspiration from. Would stare intently at someone in the crowd like he was singing just to them. He never phrased the same thing the same way twice.

Gorgeous George: Wrestler who visited Hibbing in mid-50s, walked by Dylan performing in the lobby of the National Guard Armory. Winked and said “you’re making it come alive.” All the recognition he would need for years to come.

“Sometimes that’s all it takes, the kind of recognition that comes when you’re doing the thing for the thing’s sake and you’re on to something–it’s just that nobody recognizes it yet.”

Johnny Cash: “He sounds like he’s at the edge of the fire, or in the deep snow, or in a ghostly forest...”

Environment:
Importance of being in the right place. He moved to Minneapolis to find something new and get away from Hibbing. “Nobody was there to greet me and nobody knew me and I liked it that way.”

Then he moved to New York to be closer to the singers he’d heard on records.

Early days when he got a regular gig at the Gaslight he was completely content. “I could breathe. I was free.”

Authenticity:
“It wasn’t money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn’t need any guarantee of validity.”

“There were a lot of better singers and better musicians around these places but there wasn’t anybody close in nature to what I was doing. Folk songs were the way I explored the universe. They were pictures and the pictures were worth more than anything I cold say. I knew the inner substance of the thing. I could easily connect the pieces.”

Meaning > Influence. “Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn’t care about doing that. With me, it was about putting the song across.”

Never accepted roles placed upon him. More of a cowboy or rebel than a Pied Piper and the voice of a generation that people wanted him to be.

In an effort to create breathing room for himself and his family, he did things out of left field to confuse people. Recorded country album, used a different voice.

Authenticity can be deception (crafting alternate identity) if you know your intentions. Dylan’s were noble, protecting his family, his privacy, create space so he could get back to experiencing, observing, and creating art.
*Benjamin Franklin did this same thing as Silence Dogood and the personas he crafted to submit essays to his brother’s paper.

Much of Dylan’s art and identity centered around who he refused to be at specific points in time and who he wasn’t. And in a backwards way, this revealed truths about him and breathed a different type of authenticity into his work.

Books/Reading:
Foundation that allows you to piece together your own identity/philosophy.

Dylan tore through books in his early days in New York. Whatever happened to be at the house he crashed at...philosophy, history, political, novels, poetry.

Couldn’t put into words what he was looking for at the beginning of his career so he searched for the principles and outline of it in books.

Machiavelli - it’s better to be feared than loved. Dylan - someone who is loved can inspire more fear than Machiavelli ever dreamed of.

Songwriting:
Happens in degrees, don’t just wake up one day and decide you want to write songs.

If you want to resonate with people, help them discover parts of themselves that they didn’t know were there.

Understanding and articulating the complexities and vagaries of mankind: “I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library–everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.”

Full complexity of human nature was template behind everything he would write. *Everything around him in the modern world, with all its myths, seemed absurd.

“Creativity has much to do with experience, observation and imagination, and if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn’t work.” During the Woodstock years, it was impossible for him to observe anything without being observed.

Observation: things you see or hear outside yourself can influence your work. Dylan didn’t feel like he was in every song. But he didn’t feel like he needed to be.

Relaxed concentration: Working on songs for what would become “Oh Mercy” album. “It’s not like they’d been faint or far away–they were right there in my face, but if you’d look too steady at them, they’d be gone.”

Channeling personas into songs: Early days in NYC went to a musical production at a theater featuring songs composed by playwright Bertolt Brecht. Intensity and tough language of the songs drew Dylan in. Singers were thieves and scavengers, roared and snarled. Were like folk songs but more sophisticated. “Each phrase comes at you from a ten-foot drop...”

Transcending the Fundamentals:
“Folk music was all I needed to exist. Trouble was, there wasn’t enough of it. It was out of date, had no proper connection to the actualities, the trends of the time. It was a huge story but hard to come across. Once I’d slipped beyond the fringes it was like my six-string guitar became a crystal magic wand and I could move things like never before.”

In the early days, Dylan did things right. Put himself in the right environment. Acquired the knowledge first hand. But at some point you reach a plateau of incremental improvement and have to learn how to transcend the fundamentals.

Depth: “You have to know and understand something and then go past the vernacular. The chilling precision that these old timers used in coming up with their songs was no small thing.”

Beyond Folk: Dylan transcended folk roots by putting new imagery and attitude to them. Created something entirely new. What he was trying to express was beyond the framework available.

“It dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns...that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn’t have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale...that things had becomes too familiar and I might have to disorient myself.”

Easy to get distracted by minutiae. Claim a larger part of yourself, don’t get bogged down in the trivial details.

“I had the map, could even draw it freehand if I had to. Now I knew I’d have to throw it away.”

Expectations:
Never identified as the mouthpiece, spokesman, conscience of a generation. Those were expectations set upon him.

“All I’d ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.”

Struggled with his image growing out of control: “You learn that privacy is something you can sell, but you can’t buy it back.”

“The landscape burned behind us. The press was in no hurry to retract their judgment and I couldn’t just lie there, had to take the bull by the horns myself and remodel the image of me, change the perception of it anyway.” Authenticity as deception

Authenticity and Identity are Moving Targets:
1987: “There was a missing person inside of myself and I need to find him. Now and again, I did try a few times, tried hard to force it.”

“My own songs had become strangers to me, I didn’t have the skill to touch their raw nerves, couldn’t penetrate the surfaces...I couldn’t understand where they came from. The glow was gone and the match had burned right to the end.”

Inspiration:
Dylan felt like he was at the end of the road, stranded. He walked out of a rehearsal with the Grateful Dead, dejected, and wandered into a random jazz bar. Old jazz singer’s voice brought him back to himself and his own voice. Dylan felt like he had opened a window to his soul. Instead, became a source on inspiration and a new beginning.

Films as inspiration...would go to movies to get out of his own head and get into something else for an hour or two.

In Victory, Learn When to Stop:
“I wasn’t looking to express myself in any kind of new way. All my ways were intact and had been for years...I didn’t need to climb the next mountain.”

“Masters of War,” “Hard Rain,” “Gates of Eden,” – “written under different circumstances and circumstances never repeat themselves.”

“I had done it once, and once was enough. Someone would come along eventually who would have it again–someone who could see into things, the truth of things–not metaphorically either–but really see, like seeing into metal and making it melt, see it for what it was and reveal it for what was with hard words and vicious insight.”