Critical Thinking

• Plus: Find mentors, real (maybe someone from your work) or virtual (from books).  Learn from someone with more experience than you.
• Minus: Explain what you are learning while you are learning it. Teach someone with less experience than you.
• Equal: Find people who love what you love and spend as much time talking about this shared area as you can.

Every skill worth learning has dozens of micro-skills.

List the micro-skills. Figure out what you are good at, what you are bad at, and how you can learn to be better at each.

• Black and White Thinking: There are heaping piles of nuance to most things.
• Unrealistic Expectations: Cynicism is bad, but a little skepticism is essential.
• Selective Attention: If your brain is always looking for the negative, you’re gonna find it.
• Disqualifying the Positive: Sometimes we go into problem-solving mode and focus only on what is broken.
• Predicting the Future: “This will never work” or “They’re going to think I’m stupid.” You don’t know the future. So don’t act like it.
• “Should” thoughts: It’s usually just an insistence that the world bends to your will and is a great way to amplify frustration.

Doing little positive things is better for happiness than occasionally bagging an elephant:

• Enjoyable stuff
• Achievement stuff: Defeat your goals in single combat and feel like a conquering hero
• Meaningful stuff: Do volunteer work or just help someone
• Physical stuff: Exercise. Not only keeps you alive, but it’s like miracle grow for your brain
• Social stuff.

Make choices leading to the life you want to create for yourself. Don't let your past hold you back.

Your life might not seem to be the best fit for someone else, but it should a life you are happy with. Create a life you love.

Start where you are right now.

• Align your life with your own core values - those things that are most important to you personally.
• Find time to do the activities you loved doing as a child. - join an activity group or take a class.

Listen to yourself and take action on what you discover.

Feelings are caused by thoughts. You can access these thoughts by asking “Why? I feel this way?” 

The thoughts behind the emotion can show you your mind’s misunderstandings, because any thought that causes an unpleasant emotion is likely caused by an assumption. And assumptions can be redefined.

Question everything. Ask yourself what you might be assuming.

Dig deeply, and look at every facet of that assumption. It might be helpful to type or write this out.

• Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.
• "I’m not smart enough to figure everything out myself, so I want to master the best of what other people have already figured out."

• Become better at probing other people’s thinking. Ask questions. Simple ones are better. “Why” is the best.
• Slow down. Make sure you give yourself time to think.
• Probe yourself. Try and understand if you’re talking about something you really know something about or if you’re just regurgitating something you heard.

People don’t like it when someone changes or does something that makes them feel awkward or insecure. They will think he’s crazy, selfish, arrogant. If you want to do something incredible, you have to become comfortable with being different from the rest.

As cliche as that sounds. Most of us give up on something we’re passionate about too soon. But anyone who’s been successful has a tale of struggle and perseverance to share.

Professional writers rarely write for more than five or so hours a day because writing is mentally exhausting. This means you can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

You might not have five hours to write, but almost everyone has fifteen minutes. To keep yourself focused as you write, consider writing with a timer.

Many use email as a to-do list, which leaves them reacting to life instead of living it according to goals.

It’s difficult to write when you’re checking email every five minutes. Don’t check emails during your daily writing time.

"… it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. We are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. But with first principles, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there."

You have probably met a large number of friends through just a handful of people. Those are your superconnectors. Rekindle those friendships and ask them if there is anyone you should meet.

Don’t be interesting. Be interested.

• Listen to people and ask them to tell you more. 
• When they mention something you have in common, point it out.
• Be enthusiastic and encouraging.