Favorites

This is a list of favorites I’ve been collecting for last couple of months - I’ll try and update it regularly. In an effort to share things as I collect them, expect some of my material to be unpolished.

Blog Posts
Word
TV Shows
Artists
Mental Models

Blog Posts

Word

Intuition :)

Artists

The Kid LAROI
Post Malone
AJR
One Republic
Imagine Dragons

TV Shows

The Office
Modern Family
How I Met Your Mother
The Good Place
Emily in Paris

Mental Models

What I can do vs. what needs to be done
Learning to spread a message at scale on the internet (e.g. Lil Nas X with Old Town Road, Logan Paul)
Stoicism - “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so”
- No experience is negative in and of itself, it’s the story we tell ourselves from that experience
- If you’re sad about something, tweak the story you tell yourself about it so you are no longer sad
Education Mindset vs. Learning Mindset
80/20 rule - 20% of inputs lead to 80% of outputs
Most extraordinary experiences are spontaneous ⇒:
- The future is uncertain - you cannot predict or plan what it will look like but you can put yourself in a position where you have the greatest number of options and therefore, the greatest number of possibilities for “spontaneous experiences”
Life is a game
Figure out your objective function and optimize for what you want in life
The Art of Disclosure
Never take no for an answer
The V-method of learning (similar to top-down approach)
- Don’t try to learn linearly (i.e. start from foundations and work up) - inefficient In Max Deutsch’s words:
- I start with a specific, well-documented example of my end goal
- I try understand how this example works
- For everything I don’t understand about the example, I research the underlying concepts
- If I don’t understand the underlying concepts, I research the underlying concepts of the underlying concepts, until I feel I’ve exhausted this path (either by reaching understanding or by reaching a point of diminishing returns)
- Eventually, I pigeonhole down enough different paths to start seeing patterns in the important underlying concepts
- I study these relevant underlying concepts, slowly working my way up the knowledge chain, until I’m back at the level of detail of the original example
- Finally, I reproduce the example based on my new hierarchical knowledge
Hofstadter’s Law
- Always underestimate how much time it takes to get things done
- Therefore find out (by carrying out a series of experiments) what your scale factor (xmultiplier that it will take to actually finish a task if you think it will take x amount of time) to develop an idea for how long things will take
Parkinson’s Law
- “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion”
Speak things into existence
All systems are made by people and governed by people ⇒ there is always someone with enough power to give you a special exception
- Put yourself in other people’s shoes - craft good emails - convince people to help you
Share knowledge whenever you can
- Maybe, hopefully when you publish a paper? How to work on your own research as an undergad?
Message people and ask how can I help? When you find someone you want to work with, don’t let them leave without building a relationship
Every one loves a good story - if you frame anything in the right way, people will want to listen
Eustress
Friendship is about emotional safety - past a relationship with interesting conversations, it’s about feel safe telling and sharing with someone else. Ask yourself is this someone I could call at 3am if I needed to talk?
People want to be friends with people on the same level - avoid putting people on a pedestal
Fundamental Attribution Error
- Tendency to infer external attributes about ourselves from our behavior (e.g. I cut the car in front of me because I was frazzled) and internal attributes about others (e.g. the person cut me cause they’re a bad driver)
Cognitive Dissonance
- Tendency for people to act in ways that are inconsistent with their belief systems
Bi-standard effect
- Tendency to diffuse responsibility on others when in large setting (i.e. less likely to help when there are a lot of people around compared to fewer people)
Halo effect
- Tendency to assume other positive qualities about a person based on quality we find admirable (e.g. if a person is attractive, then they must also have a good personality)
“The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.” - Naval Ravikant
Be wary of weaponized addictions - alcohol, drugs, porn etc. “In an age of abundance, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake leads to addiction.” - Naval Ravikant
Deep Work - intensely focused periods of time on cognitively demanding tasks (writing, coding etc.) → no distractions
Bid for Connection
- A small thing, verbal or nonverbal that someone does to connect
- Pay attention to bids around you
We cannot control what “luck events” hit us but we can increase our “surface area” for us to catch these luck events
When you truly understand something, you don’t need to memorize a definition because you can conjure up the definition from your understanding
Constructionism - “What I cannot create, I do not understand”