"Self-respect has very little to do with self-confidence, but everything to do with self-mastery and self-acceptance." - Hakeem Oluseyi, A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars
My mentor/friend shared with me his trade secret to a colorful and successful career - what he dubbed as "trickling awesomeness". It is about providing others with your good work consistently, with a touch of going above and beyond when people don't expect you to. He wows people at the first meeting, at the 10th meeting, and still 3 years later.
Someone I met today through CodePath shared a quote from FDR, "Calm seas never made a good sailor."
Use your whole senses to do one thing. Don’t create burden to your tasks by adding distractions. If you are running, you want to hear your breath, not the music that can give you a headache. If you are eating, don’t watch TV, which makes you forget what you are eating. Being in the moment gives you the most satisfaction.
Don't estimate what it is that you do. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing it poorly. (Because doing it poorly is still better than not ever doing it.)
Tomorrow is a disease. If you want to do something, honey, do it, at least start it, to-day.
Today, we visited the Jacob Riis Park.
Hidden Brain Ep. You 2.0: WOOP, WOOP! Studies show that optimistic thinking without preparation to match lowers people's chance of actually achieving what they have in mind. It is better to anticipate the potential problems and plan accordingly while maintaining a positive outlook.
Happiness is a radical act.
Notes from The Knowledge Project Ep. 90
Enjoy the process of pushing yourself to the extreme, know that you really have given it all, and have the
satisfaction that you have left nothing on the table. There is not one drop of energy left in you in
pursuing what you set your eyes on. Give your dream its proper dues.
People who are at the top of the population in performance are often focused and singular to a fault. They
put one thing on their mind and don't care about anything else. They may even hurt others' feelings for
being aggressive and competitive in achieving their goal. Being singularly focused may not be the best
approach to life and it is implied that the mentality may be short-lived. However, it is probably the
fastest way of achieving a goal.
Ohno talked about how his sports psychologist helped him spot his tendancy to deteriorate really fast and
give up the whole game as soon as a small imperfection in performance appears. His self-sabotaging also
shows up when he intentionally falls behind and tests to see if he can still make it. He is lucky to have
recognized that is his cause of self-sabotaging in his teen years and was able to overcome that tendancy
and
later became a great athlete.
Notes from NSQ Ep. 17
Are you a thinker, a doer, or a charmer in this world? People with a combination of all three are rare.
On
the other hand, we are not singular entities. Lives are meant to spend on mastering different subjects.
To
be a good researcher, one needs to know how to use the whole toolbox: having a good idea, designing a
study, executing the study, collecting the data, analyzing the data, writing up the results, getting
rejected for publications, rewriting, and repeat.
I am a visual thinker. Often, before putting things into words, an image has appeared in my head.
Sometimes, grand mountains, sands, and icebergs in bright colors appear right in front of me in my
dreams.
Thoughts without actions are, well, just thoughts. The bright side is, it applies to both good and bad
thoughts. I spend a lot of time trying to map the whole story from beginning to end before writing down
one word. That can hinder my ability to act, in fact, it does. The trick to turning thoughts into
actions
is to reduce the friction. Think about what is stopping you from taking the leap. Is it mental or
physical? Know that a humble beginning is the start of many great things. The first draft of a
manuscript
is more likely to be horrible than perfect. But pat yourself on the back that, hey, you started it, and
now you can keep building on it. Physical barriers are usually those easy to solve as long as you take
actions. Building infrastructure (e.g. automated process of data collection) takes time but it makes you
more efficent at what you do.