Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

What does the music you love say about you?

s, people can get a decent impression of you by just hearing about the type of music you like. Specifically, music is a very strong predictor of how open to new experiences you are. (Chart via Sam Gosling’s book Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You) You can even predict whether someone is politically conservative or liberal by seeing markers of openness in their music collections: Via Sam Gosling’s book Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You. The bedrooms of liberals reflected the…


3 minutes
Uncategorized

5 top secrets to getting more done:

bsp; 1) Be a Machine The secret to getting more done is to make things automatic. Decisons exhaust you: The counterintuitive secret to getting things done is to make them more automatic, so they require less energy. It turns out we each have one reservoir of will and discipline, and it gets progressively depleted by any act of conscious self-regulation. In other words, if you spend energy trying to resist a fragrant chocolate chip cookie, you’ll have less energy left over to solve…


3 minutes
Uncategorized

What five things can make sure you never stop growing and learning?

bsp; 1) Keep Trying New Things Having lots of hobbies is one of the secrets of the most creative people. Via Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation: Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities— a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity— but they also share one other defining attribute. They have a lot of hobbies… Matt Cutts gives a great talk about how trying new things for 30 days not only…


3 minutes
Uncategorized

What can studying people from birth to death teach you about living the good life?

bsp; One of the most interesting books I read this year was The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study. They studied over 1000 people for the duration of their lives -- from childhood until old age -- giving them regular physical and psychological tests and tracking the results. What they discovered confirmed some things we all believe about what it takes to live a good, long life -- and more interestingly they found out…


3 minutes
Uncategorized

What seven things can geniuses teach us about being more creative?

bsp;   Work hard Hard work (often more than 10,000 hours worth) is vital. Via Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Ghandi: …the lessons that the rest of us can learn from individuals who are highly creative. I culled three: (1) Creative individuals spend a considerable amount of time reflecting on what they are trying to accomplish, whether or not they are achieving success (and, if not, what they might…


3 minutes
Uncategorized

Is the secret to success as simple as just not giving up?

bsp; We all know intelligence is important, creativity is important... but how much do these types of natural talent control really what you can achieve in life? In ~95% of cases, they don't. Via Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: “After forty years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and…


4 minutes
Uncategorized

What do the words you use say about you?

lot. Your personality can be determined just by looking at the way you text message. You can make accurate judgments about your favorite author’s personality just by reading their work. You can probably tell a great deal about my personality from the words I use in my blog posts. Word choice can predict whether you're depressed, suicidal or lying. Swearing makes you more persuasive. It's true, asshole: ...obscenity at the beginning or end of the speech significantly increased the persuasiveness of the speech and the perceived…


4 minutes
Uncategorized

What are the three secrets to finding a great job?

bsp; Networking the Right Way Spend less time talking to close friends and more time with acquaintances. Via Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference: In his classic 1974 study Getting a Job, Granovetter looked at several hundred professional and technical workers from the Boston suburb of Newton, interviewing them in some detail on their employment history. He found that 56 percent of those he talked to found their job through a personal…


4 minutes

Over 500,000 people have subscribed to my newsletter. Join now and get the beginning of my new book free:

I want to subscribe!