My Top 7 Bookmarks From the Last Decade
What if Carl Jung loved to swear and had a thick New York accent?
Stop reading. Ignore the rest of this article. Double your persuasion with The Science of Making Your Story Memorable.
I used this blog post to build a pitch deck which I presented to a senior executive at a company you’ve heard of — as a 21-year-old student. This is a practical guide to infusing your work with persuasive punch.
Scott Adams discusses what he learned from cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Carmen Simon. She writes and consults about making content “impossible to ignore.”
Adams shows us a slide deck he made to promote his book, How to Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big. He worked with Dr. Simon to create the deck. It’s a fascinating, and detailed, case study.
Takeaway: think about your message in terms of 3 factors: attention, memory, and decision.
*you will need to scroll down a third of the page to find the post. It’s not available as a standalone post.
This is the open secret behind exceptional careers.
I’m surprised at how many prominent people this blog post has influenced. Marc Andreessen (who’s worth US$1.4B) wrote about career strategy in 2007. Referring to Career Advice, he said Adams “nails it.” Andreessen even called this “the secret formula to becoming a CEO.”
Tim Ferriss provides an excerpt of Career Advice in his 2016 book Tools of Titans. Ferriss says it’s “effectively [his] mantra.”
This blog post has helped me make scary, long-term career choices. It’s a source of fascination and optimism.
Takeaway: want an exceptional career? Get good — not great — at skills that work well together (e.g. engineering and public speaking). This makes you rare and valuable. It’s also easier to do than being in the top 1% in a single skill.
3. Optimize Interview — The Tools with Phil Stutz
What if Carl Jung loved to swear and had a thick New York accent?
Shrink to the stars Dr. Phil Stutz is a genius. He works with therapist Barry Michels, and the pair boasts an all-star clientele: Jonah Hill, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joaquin Phoenix, etc.
In this interview, Stutz unpacks the spiritual wisdom he teaches his clients. His advice is practical. It expresses deep psychological and spiritual ideas. And it’s delivered in Stutz’s distinctive New York accent — he sounds more like a mafioso than a shrink.
This interview hypnotized me. I’ve listened to it 100+ times. I became obsessed with the ideas and built an app based on the Tools that Stutz and Michels teach. And I cold-called Stutz to pitch the app to him…but that’s a story for another time.
Takeaway: Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner is one of Stutz’s influences. Steiner believed the biggest forces enter life through the smallest actions. Stutz vanquished my nihilism with that one idea.
Joe Lonsdale’s explanation of dialectics enraptured me.
I’m no philosopher, so I’ll let Joe (Palantir, Thiel associate) do the talking. This was a fascinating, deep — but practical — read.
Takeaway: the two opposites of a debate are often both true. The wise person does the hard work of fusing the extremes together.
5. Scott Adams on Affirmations, Positive Thinking, and Norman Vincent Peale.
This is the most shocking item on the list.
I’ve listened to this 100+ times as well. It was a crucial salve during a year of online school. I’d listen to it while going on daily walks around campus. It’s intriguing and puzzling and energizing.
Adams explains why it’s so hard to understand Trump. He begins with a discussion of Norman Vincent Peale. Peale wrote the uber-successful book The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale was a “Master Persuader”, in Adams’ lingo. He was so persuasive that people thought he was secretly a hypnotist. The Trump family, with young Donald in tow, attended Peale’s sermons. Peale’s messages endowed Trump with an irrepressible confidence. Trump’s ability to defy odds is a tell that he, too, became a Master Persuader, and is part of a long line of people who understood the secrets Adams divulges in the video.
Takeaway: positive thinking is a real force — not a cliche. Why? It has to do with the basic nature of reality itself.
6. Do we see reality as it is? | Donald Hoffman
MIT-trained cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman serves up his version of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Hoffman explains why everything you see is an illusion. He dismantles our visual, physics-based view of reality with flair. And then he presents his discoveries about the true nature of reality. I won’t spoil it, but it’s delightfully weird.
Takeaway: reality isn’t real.
7. Kanye West — I Wonder (Extended Intro)
The smokescreens, the chokes and the screams. You ever wonder what it all really means?
I love this song. The extended version is even better than the original.
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