Summary: The text shares insights on various aspects of life, such as relationships, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence. It emphasizes the importance of authenticity, vulnerability, and effective communication in personal growth and social interactions. The author presents practical tips for self-improvement and building meaningful connections with others.
I know what makes people grow more reliably than anything else. It is: taking on a difficult project with some amount of public accountability. This can be large or small: a lecture series, a business, a blog, a house, a child, etc. (View Highlight)
It’s strange, but I know that it’s common to resist positive emotions, as well as negative ones. Ask yourself, next time you’re doing something enjoyable: are you really surrendering to the full enjoyment available here? The answer will often be no. Perhaps this has something to do with how displays of rapturous delight are often discouraged in adolescence. (View Highlight)
I’ve worked with hundreds of unhappy creative people, and I can boil down most of my transferable insight into one sentence. I know that it feels horrible to create from a place of defense. For example: you will find it exceedingly difficult to write if your motive is trying to convince people that you are not dumb, or not boring, or if you’re hoping that you will not offend anybody. (View Highlight)
being silly is a gift. You un-taboo silliness for everyone around you. (View Highlight)
I know that most people overrate the difficulty of hard conversations, and underrate how good it is to have them. Conflict avoidance slowly rots your whole life, and many people are about eight awkward discussions from a much-improved existence. (View Highlight)
I know that the people who will make you feel warm and fuzzy when you’re sad, and the people who will give you brutally honest feedback, are usually different people. Ideally you want to have relationships with both kinds, and reward them for their strengths, rather than getting mad at them for failing to do what they’re bad at. (View Highlight)
I’m not interested in being publicly mediocre at the performing arts. My life is incalculably better for having let the dream go. The world will be happiest with a certain range of behaviors from you—life will be easier if you find a place in that range where you’re content. David Whyte calls this the conversational nature of reality, and he is correct about the importance of this concept. (View Highlight)
talent doesn’t feel like you’re amazing. It feels like the difficulties that trouble others are mysteriously absent in your case. Don’t ask yourself where your true gifts lie. Ask what other people seem weirdly bad at. (View Highlight)
environmental influence is the most effective form of behavioral control. Accordingly, if you want radical change, radically change your environment. (View Highlight)
I know a ridiculous-sounding tip that could make your whole life more satisfying. You might be breathing too high up in your chest. To correct this instantly, pretend you’re breathing through your asshole. (View Highlight)
Look for people who are fluid with status—who allow themselves to be the butt of a joke, or accept criticism, but also avoid false modesty, and inhabit the spotlight when it falls on them. One might call this a balance between dignity and humility. (View Highlight)
I know that people are too eager to recommend their current lifestyle and disavow their developmentally important previous decisions. For example, you will notice people who had a lot of casual sex when they were young saying later that committed relationships are obviously superior to dating casually—neglecting to notice that their wild young days were psychologically necessary for them. (View Highlight)
Relatedly, I know that men should give combat sports a try, at least for a short time. For men, fighting is as basic as sex, maybe more basic. If you haven’t acquainted yourself with that part of your nature, there is a fundamental element of your psychology that remains mysterious, and a fundamental human ability you haven’t explored. It’s likely that you are engaging in surrogate combat without realizing it, or suffering from suppressed aggression. Two years of BJJ didn’t make me a good fighter, but it did give me more self-knowledge than an equivalent amount of therapy. (View Highlight)
I am not the funniest person, but I am funny enough, and I know how to become funnier if you’re not naturally gifted at comedy. Simply say the stupidest things that enter your head, in a normal tone of voice. (View Highlight)
when people are feeling insecure. Notice how much they are mentioning their positive attributes, material possessions, or important friends, when there’s no conversational reason for this to be occurring other than a status claim. It is harder to spot yourself doing this, but it is worth the effort — you are likely doing it occasionally. I certainly do. (View Highlight)
I know that limerence can be misleading. It can be the beginning of a good relationship, or a complete disaster. If someone feels like the answer to the question of your life, you might want to address the fundamental sense of lack that they are triggering. (View Highlight)
Listening is a neglected social skill. But I know that an even more neglected social skill is candor. (View Highlight)
there are two modes of experience: appreciative, and evaluative. Concrete example: let’s say you’re listening to a piece of music. Are you sinking into it, awash in emotions? You’re in the appreciative mode. Are you the mixing engineer, listening to the snare hits to make sure they’re consistent? You’re in the evaluative mode. Much of sanity, and happiness, consists of finding the right mode for the right moment. The appreciative mode is terrible for debugging your business plan. But the evaluative mode is terrible for having a first date. A lot of capable, intelligent people suffer because they do not have the ability to switch out of the evaluative mode, or even notice that they’re in it. (View Highlight)
Emotional suppression can be a great short-term coping strategy. The problem, long-term, is that it is not surgically precise. I know you can’t suppress pain and anger without also deadening yourself generally. When I started to release my childhood resentments, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by brighter colors. (View Highlight)
I know how to throw a good party. Get everyone in large rooms, ideally one large room. Make it feel almost overcrowded, to increase social optionality and accidental touch. It should spill outside a little bit, weather permitting. Have good food and drink in abundance. The ideal volume level creates pockets of intimacy via noise but doesn’t require shouting. The ideal light level is dim-bright. Invite a variety of archetypes—too many high-achievers and it will feel tediously networky, too many slouchy hippies and it will feel like an inert cuddle puddle. Have party smokes if it’s a night party—even very classy people sometimes want a cigarette when they drink, and they will appreciate it so much. If you want your party to be sexy, do not advertise that you want this, just get the gender balance right and lower the lighting a bit, put on the right music, and perhaps assign a costume requirement that will give people license to be outrageous. (View Highlight)
I know that if you have a serious dispute with someone, it will go nowhere unless you clearly name the underlying emotion that you’re struggling with. If you’re afraid that your partner will abandon you, cataloging their flaws will not communicate this effectively. (View Highlight)
I know that if you are not unusually hard-working or competitive or smart, you can still distinguish yourself. Be unusual in some other noticeable, likable way—unusually honest, brave, generous, curious, or pleasant. All of these attributes are composed of discrete behaviors that can be learned through practice. (View Highlight)
I know that freedom is earned by confronting things that embarrass and trigger you, over and over again, until you are cringe-proof in your desired environment. (View Highlight)
I know that it is powerful to state your weaknesses and limitations. Try this on for size: “I’m abandoning this debate because you are more qualified to have an opinion.” “I’d like to finish this project quickly because I don’t like to work hard.” “I realize that I don’t believe what’s coming out of my mouth.” “I’m worried that I’m taking this decision too seriously and I’m not adding value by fretting over it.” (View Highlight)
I know how to instantly calm yourself, and, in social situations, ground your energy, thus making you more charismatic. Without effort, include the bottom of your feet in your conscious awareness. (View Highlight)
I know how to handle a day when you feel extremely lazy. Decide that, given that you’re a lazy person, you will work diligently for only 30 entirely focused minutes on the most important thing, and then take the rest of the day off. You will do your best work on these days. (View Highlight)
• I know that simplistic stories about happiness leave out crucial details. For example: Yes, relationships are more important than career, ultimately. But some career success might give you a greater ability to locate people you’re compatible with later on, as friends or partners. (View Highlight)
I know that, if you can pull it off, you should continuously have mentors, and be offering mentorship. This can be as formal or informal as you want. (View Highlight)
I know that almost nobody hears too many sincere compliments. Compliment them to their face. Then, compliment them behind their back. Practice naming pleasant feelings you have about people, as soon as they bubble up, in the moment: “It’s always fun to see you.” Lower the resistance around this to zero. (View Highlight)
