<ul><li>Collect more experiences and spend time processing them by writing and talking to friends</li><li>By sitting down to make sense of their existing ideas instead of trying to invent new ones, writers at their computer mold the wet clay of experience into a shape</li><li>When they succeed, their stories are well compressed</li></ul>

Experiences become shareable creations

When you're a creator looking for ideas, daily life moves with tooth-gritting slowness. The best you can do is to get better at knowing where to find ideas that will improve your writingIf you don't know where you're going, where should you look?

Driven by Compression Progress

<ul><li>The authors argue that people make sense of the world by making it simpler and more beautiful-by making compression progress</li><li>By doing so, they compress large data sets into elegant deliverables which are easy to share and remember</li><li>Einstein once said that things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler</li></ul>

2008 Cornell University paper called Driven by Compression Progress suggests an answer

<ul><li>Pablo Picasso showed the same process of compression in concrete form. In the image above, Picasso aims to capture the essence of a bull but ends up with a collection of simple lines that illustrate the outlines of his beloved animal</li><li>Had Picasso started with only a small number of lines, the final rendition wouldn't be as pure. It wouldn’t have had the right rhythm or proportions between lines. Only by going through the process of compression can he find the ultimate distillation of a bull. </li></ul>

Driven by Compassion

<ul><li>A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness."</li><li>Rene Magritte highlighted this phenomenon in his famous painting "The Treachery of Images". Below his painting of a pipe are the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," which is French for "this is not a pipe."  As he’s trying to show, it’s a representation of a pipe. </li></ul>

The Map is Not the Territory

<ul><li>Maps can be useful, even if they're inaccurate</li><li>The New York City subway map distorts and compresses the landscape in additional ways. For eg, it only shows the main streets above ground, and it makes them look straighter than they actually are.</li><li>Central Park looks like a square, even though it's much more of a rectangle</li><li>At the cost of accuracy, most of the city’s details have been removed so passengers can focus on getting to their destination</li></ul>

But Distorted Maps Can Be Useful

David shows why compression is the root of expression and how to improve your writing with compression. Read here.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

communication

Communication

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Expression is Compression - David Perell

A startup is a company designed to grow fast…The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.

The key to good “Cold Email Outreach” is not to come across as SPAM. Instead of trying to push a product or send a marketing message, keep the emails short and ask for help. Also, make sure you’re emailing the right person.<ol><li>Scrape lists of companies off the web </li><li>Create a list of all possible “title targets” </li><li>Provide the list of companies and title targets to a Virtual Assistant</li><li>Give the VA an email finder tool like <a href="http://sellhack.com/">SellHack</a> or <a href="https://www.toofr.com/">Toofr</a> so they can get you further details.Email Name etc</li><li>Clean the data with a tool like <a href="https://kickbox.io/">Kickbox</a> to eliminate any bad emails</li><li>Create sequenced email marketing campaigns</li></ol>

Cold Email Outreach

Keep it personal, short, and non-promotional. The subject line “{first name} — quick question” generally yields a 70%+ Open Rate after 3 touches (3 emails).Email content should be extremely brief: 2–3 sentences. Avoid formal language and business buzzwords.Personally, I find that taking the “product research” or “feedback” angle works pretty well. Gets people on the phone or clicking the link, and honestly, you should be just as happy getting feedback as getting the sale.Regardless of your strategy, AB test your messaging to see what happens to your Response Rate and CTR

Content of the email

The goal of the email is not to sell your product or your idea; generally people don’t care what you’re pitching. The goal is to get them to click, or to get them on the phone. Emails should be composed with this goal in mind

<ul><li>Brainstorm topics that would be useful or interesting to your users</li><li>Think of how that content intersects with your product</li><li>Write down the search terms that your users would search to find this info</li><li>Use Google's Keyword Planner</li><li>Cross-reference with Google Trends to find new terms that are gaining popularity</li><li>Create a content plan of articles on helpful topics using the best keywords</li><li>When you write, don't be too promotional about your product.</li></ul>

Content Creation

Start by asking yourself a few questions:<ul><li>What products/companies exist in your space that have similar client bases, but are non-competitive?</li><li>Is there a group of professionals (i.e. marketers, developers, designers, data analysts) that would find your product particularly useful and advocate for your product?</li><li>Are their agencies or other resellers of products and services that have clients who would benefit from your product?</li><li>What can you offer as a partner? Would your product drive more engagement for them? Is your client base valuable? Can you offer commissions on sales? </li></ul>

Partnerships, Affiliate Marketing, and Marketplaces

<ul><li>Set up an incentive program for selling each other's product</li><li>Find a deal that makes sense for both parties</li><li>One time payout: A lump sum of money is paid to the affiliate per conversion</li><li>Recurring: If you have a subscription plan with your client, you pass a percentage of the monthly or annual subscription along to affiliate for a period of time</li><li>Initial payout and recurring: A combination of the two aforementioned.</li></ul>

Affiliate Marketing

The process for gaining your first few clients isn’t so intuitive when you have a product that is less than a week old, and a bank account that’s at least several zeros lower than that of…

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

strategy

Strategy

business

Business

startup

Startups

How to Acquire Initial Clients for your B2B Startup

Psychological storytelling is the story of a person’s internal and external journey to get something they want. They are the centre of the story’s universe, and without them, the story wouldn’t exist. You could say these stories look inward.The vast majority of modern stories are psychological in nature. Hollywood in particular tells almost exclusively psychological stories, mainly because by focusing on one person the story is easier to tell, easier for audiences to get invested in, and has a clear narrative path to follow with a beginning, middle, and end.

Psychological Storytelling

Sociological storytelling is the story of a system; specifically, how the system affects the people within it. Systems can be formal or informal. For instance, a family is a system; capitalism is a system; your workplace is a system; the law is a system, etc. Characters existing within the system still have internal motivations, as they do in a psychological story, but external factors are just as important as internal ones, if not more so. You could say these stories look outward.

Sociological Storytelling

<ul><li>First, you must start with the system that you can critique(have a strong opinion about).</li><li>Once you decide on the system and what you want to say about it, create characters who will test the system.</li><li>Finally, pick a character who will primarily deliver the thesis statement of your story, at least in the beginning.</li></ul>

How to Write a Sociological Story

<ul><li>Contagion: The world is not prepared for a pandemic. (system being critiqued: health care/emergency services).</li><li>Game of Thrones: There’s no such thing as a benevolent dictator. (system being critiqued: government).</li><li>The Big Short: Capitalism makes people do bad things. (system being critiqued: capitalism).</li><li>Star Trek: Humanity can accomplish great things if we work together. (system being critiqued: space exploration, as a metaphor for cultural integration).</li><li>Wall-E: Humanity can overcome the scourge of capitalism if we work together. (system being critiqued: capitalism/consumerism).</li></ul>

Movies And Series That Have Sociological Storytelling

Sociological stories have many complex characters, deep themes, and extremely detailed worldbuilding, no matter the genre. You need to think A LOT about what you’re writing and why you’re writing it. They’re “hard-mode” storytelling.  Nail the basics of psychological storytelling, and then try sociological if you have something to say about the world.

The Bottom Line

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

Sociological vs Psychological Storytelling

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Doing one good thing doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good person.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Reading one book doesn’t make you a reader.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Writing a page doesn’t make you a writer.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Making a sale today won’t mean that you will stay in business if you don’t keep selling every day.</li></ul>Therefore, the hard thing is not doing something once if you want to maintain good results.It’s doing the same thing over an agonizingly long period of time. And more importantly, keep doing it despite the obstacles, the lack of positive feedback, and the absence of results.

Once Vs Everytime

Focusing on the results alone without discipline leads to mediocre results in the future.If your perception about exercising is that you should get fit fast, you won't last long in the gym.Big corporations rely on our tendency to want quick results.

Doing It Once And Having No Discipline

How you act in your lowest moments determines your highest moments.The same is true for the things we do. We are programmed to do things that give us something in return.However, with time, if you don't see results from your efforts, you may give up on your dream.

Doing Something Consistently

<ul><li>Simple things work best to keep progressing.</li><li>Choose something you are genuinely interested in.</li><li>Break big goals into smaller ones.</li><li>Block toxic distractions.</li><li>Preserving a can-do attitude along the way.</li><li>Be part of a support group.</li></ul>The people who stand beside you can make what stands in front of you possible - even if initially felt impossible.

How To Keep Going Even When We Don’t See Results

Staying sane and grounded on your idea until it succeeds is key to staying motivated and productive.If you consume more information about the skill you want to master and associate yourself with people doing the same. You will eventually master what is that you want.

When you show up every day. When you don't stop when others stop, you become unstoppable. Keep this in mind the next time you want to quit.

habits

Habits

Doing Something Once Vs. Doing It Every Day

Analysis paralysis is the state of overthinking a decision to the point that a choice never gets made. You face analysis paralysis when you…<ul><li>are overwhelmed by the available options,</li><li>over-complicate the decision when it’s supposed to be quite a simple one,</li><li>feel compelled to pick the “best” and “perfect” choice, thereby delaying any decision until you do your research, or</li><li class="ql-align-justify">feel a deep fear of making a wrong move, hence stalling yourself from making any decision, in case you make the wrong choice.</li></ul>

Analysis Paralysis

The first step to cracking decision-making paralysis is to differentiate between big and small decisions, after which you give the decision the level of attention based on its importance.
3 questions to differentiate between big and small decisions:
<ul>
<li>How important is this decision?</li>
<li>Will this impact me a year from now?</li>
<li>What’s the worst thing that could happen?</li>
</ul>
If the decision isn’t going to make a big difference a year from now and there are no serious consequences that will come out of it, then it is a small decision. Spend as little time as you need to nail this. Then, let go.

Differentiate Between Big and Small Decisions

If the decision will create a major impact after a year and there are serious implications from making the wrong choice (such as <a href="https://personalexcellence.co/blog/should-i-marry-a-guy-i-dont-love/">marrying someone you don’t love</a>), then it’s a big decision. Set aside time to think over it. Examples of small decisions:<ul><li>Which hair conditioner to buy.</li><li>What colour cable clips to buy.</li></ul>Examples of mid-term decisions:<ul><li>Whether to break off a relationship.</li><li>Whether to collaborate with someone on a project.</li></ul>Examples of big decisions:<ul><li>Whether to marry someone</li><li>What career path to go for</li><li>Deciding what is your life purpose</li><li>Whether to have kids</li></ul>

Decisions: A Checklist

Every option has its pros and cons. Without knowing your end objective, you’ll forever be debating the relative pros and cons of each choice without a meaningful conclusion.Before you dig into the options for your decision, ask yourself: “What is my end objective? What do I want to get out of this decision?” Identify your top two objectives, a maximum of three.Evaluate your choices based on your objective(s).As you do that, you will find that some options will stand out more strongly than the rest. These are the options you want to look at.

Identify Your Objective

Unless you are dealing with a life-altering decision like <a href="https://personalexcellence.co/blog/should-i-marry-a-guy-i-dont-love/">who to marry</a> and what career path to choose, perfection is not the key. Your goal is to pick a moderately “okay” choice in a fair amount of time, and then move on.The 80/20 Rule can be used here:It takes 20% effort to achieve 80% of the gain of a decision. But to nail down the final 20% gain to achieve a 100% perfect outcome, you need to invest a huge amount of effort. This effort needs to be justified by the importance of the decision.

Perfection Is Not the Key, “Moderately Okay” Is

When you have too many options, it clutters the decision-making process. List all the available options. Then, eliminate the bad ones. You should be left with 3-4 options, which makes it easier to choose. Evaluate the remaining options against your end objective (see tip #2).

Eliminate the Bad Options

Certain incidents built up over time — called <a href="https://personalexcellence.co/blog/childhood-stories/">childhood stories</a> — can make us very sensitive about doing anything.  Every decision has its pros and cons,  and it’s more important to learn and <a href="https://personalexcellence.co/blog/happy/">focus on the positive</a>, not the negative.If you constantly freeze when making decisions, perhaps you have a childhood story driving your behaviour. Do you have a childhood story driving your analysis paralysis? Why does it affect you so? How can you let it go?

Let Go of Your Childhood Stories

Parkinson’s Law says, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” What this means is that your work will take however long you allow it to take. If you set aside 15 minutes for a task, it’ll take 15 minutes. If you set aside 30 minutes, it’ll take 30 minutes. If you don’t set a time limit, it may take forever!This is the same in decision making. To solve this, set a time limit. Your time limit should be based on the importance of the decision.

Set a Time Limit

Consult someone with insight into what you’re asking about.It is worthwhile to pay and get expert advice from specialists who know what they are doing. It helps us cut through the noise, get the information we need, and make the right choice.

Get a Trusted Opinion

If you are obsessing about every little thing even though it has no big impact, perhaps you have outgrown your routine. It’s time to channel your energy into bigger goals.If you often face analysis paralysis with little decisions, here is a question for you: What are your goals for the next few years? Is there any goal you are procrastinating on? Work on them instead. As you shift your focus to the higher-level goals, you gain more experience and become better at making good decisions quickly.

Channel Your Energy Into Bigger Goals

Have you faced analysis paralysis before? Do you tend to overthink your choices, to the point where you feel paralyzed and don't make a decision? :)

problemsolving

Problem Solving

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How To Stop Analysis Paralysis: 8 Important Tips

The origin of April Fools’ Day is debated, but its history covers centuries of <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/april-fools-pranks/">April Fools’ pranks</a>, from family high jinks (like <a href="https://www.rd.com/list/april-fools-jokes-to-play-on-parents/">pranks to play on your parents</a> or your <a href="https://www.rd.com/list/april-fools-jokes-to-play-on-your-kids/">kids</a>) to <a href="https://www.rd.com/list/april-fools-office-pranks/">office pranks</a> and <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/amusing-april-fools-humor/">April Fools’ jokes</a> at everyone’s expense. Your pranking ambitions might be a little more modest, but what gave rise to those ambitions in the first place? Let’s look into the origin of April Fools’ Day.

April Fools!

April Fools’ Day is an annual holiday that consists of practical jokes, pranks, and hoaxes. Pranksters often unmask their joke by yelling a loud and proud, “April Fools’!” at their victim. This custom has been observed for hundreds of years, but more on that later.

A Primer On April Fools Day

April Fools’ Day always occurs on the first of April. In 1561, a Flemish poet wrote some comical verse about a nobleman who sends his servant back and forth on ludicrous errands in preparation for a wedding feast (the poem’s title roughly translates to “Refrain on errand-day / which is the first of April”). The first mention of April Fools’ Day in Britain was in 1686, when biographer John Aubrey described April 1st as a “Fooles holy day.”

The Big Prankster Day

There’s no question that April Fools’ Day is one of the most widely recognized non-religious holidays in the Western world. Children prank parents, coworkers prank coworkers, and yes, national news outlets still prank their readers.What is the origin of April Fools’ Day, and how did it become an international phenomenon? The totally legit, not-pulling-your-leg answer to the origin of April Fools’ Day is: Nobody really knows.

The Origin of April Fools’ Day

One likely predecessor to the origin of April Fools’ day is the Roman tradition of Hilaria, a spring festival held around March 25 in honour of the “first day of the year longer than the night” (to us, the vernal equinox, which typically falls on March 20). Festivities included games, processions, and masquerades, during which disguised commoners could imitate nobility to devious ends.It’s hard to say whether this ancient revelry’s similarities to modern April Fools’ Day are legit or coincidence, as the first recorded mentions of the holiday didn’t appear until several hundred years later.

The History Of April Fools

While April Fools’ Day is technically considered a national holiday, many countries have adopted the idea of playing pranks on or around April 1st.For example, France celebrates April Fools’ Day on April first by sticking a paper fish onto the backs of as many people as possible, while yelling “Poisson d’Avril!” This tends to be something children partake in more than adults.In Greece, successfully tricking someone on this day is said to bring the prankster good luck for the entire year. In some parts of the country, rainfall on April 1st is said to have healing abilities.

A Worldwide Celebration

The origins of the prank lovers' favourite holiday are murky. In fact, it's possible that the entire concept of April Fools' Day is itself a prank. Or is it?

The origins of April Fools' Day are murky, but it's clear that humans have been pulling one over on each other for centuries.

entertainment

Entertainment

April Fools’ Day: How Did It Start, and Why Is It April 1?

“The bad side of love? What is this guy talking about? I thought love would be sweet and like the best thing that will ever happen to you?!” Yes, but love is not just the rainbow after the storm. You need to experience the storm first before getting to the rainbow.

BAD SIDE OF LOVE

Love is yet just another idea to a being with feelings and thoughts. Somehow they develop these feelings and thoughts about what the bad things are that they obtain. These are called insecurities.

What Is Love?

The heart and the mind combined can be powerful and dangerous, possibly at the same time, to others and to themselves. When you feel like you’re your physique, your genitals or generally everything in your body is not up to your standards, you must remember that you are born with them and still possesses them.

Insecurity

"I think, therefore I am.You are what you think, and you think what you are. These extends to what you think about other people in general. When you hate/criticize/discriminate against the things you hate about that person, that usually means that they are qualities you have as a person.

René Descartes

If you try to learn how to love yourself, you’ll realize that the things that you’ve been insecured about are not so bad after all. You learn to love all of you, and that leads to loving everyone and everything. You’ll attract yourself to all of you. You’ll attract those who are attracted to all of you. Love is just a byproduct of what it feels like how to be better within yourself and others, and basically everything.

How To Get Over Your Insecurities?

The storm has passed. Do you see the rainbow now?

Question

INSECURITIES
 
“You’ll attract those who are attracted to all of you.”

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

Love

Debates over the length of the workweek are nothing new. In 1926, the Ford Motor Company standardised the Monday-to-Friday pattern; beforehand, the common practice was a six-day workweek, with only Sundays off.Henry Ford’s theory was that [working] five days, with the same pay, would increase worker productivity, in that people would put more effort into the shorter workweek,” says Jim Harter, chief scientist for workplace management and wellbeing at US analytics firm Gallup, based in Nebraska.. The theory was largely proven correct: in the decades since, the five-day workweek is been commin

How the four-day week evolved 

By the 1950s, however, there were calls from labour unions to introduce a four-day week. “People began projecting, if we take out another workday, it’d be even better,” says Harter. But take-up of the four-day workweek has remained slow: by March 2020, a Gallup study of more than 10,000 US full-time employees showed only 5% worked a shorter week.  L

There are different four-day workweek models: from cutting one workday, reducing working hours and being paid the same wage; to intense working hours, where five days’ worth of work is crammed into four longer shifts. The former set-up is generally the goal; achieved by a combination of the introduction of new tools and operating practices that boost efficiency and result in a rise in worker wellbeing that fuels productivity.

Some workers may resist having a compressed workweek, with potentially longer hours and fewer breaks, imposed on them by an employer. Others may already be working at full tilt, meaning a shorter workweek could make their workload less manageable. “There are some employees who’ll end up trying to cram more work into four days where they previously had greater flexibility to work across five days,” says Harter. “If you get to Thursday afternoon, still haven't finished your work and everyone else has gone home, that can create stress and resentment.”

How five days’ work goes into four 

A shorter workweek is being hailed as the future of employee productivity and work-life balance. Is it that easy to make work better?

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

timemanagement

Time Management

The realities of the four-day workweek

Why we always seek for motivation , is it really necessary ?

Lets Think Together ...

For the first time you always seeks motivation for doing a task , but this doesn't help you in the second time . It is not necessary that every time you feel motivated .

A Simple Trick ...

Motivation comes and goes. If you want to do something consistently, then don't pick a level of difficulty that requires great motivation.Start from a lower level of difficulty and then in steps move to the higher ones , this will increase your productivity and your grip on the task and make it simple for you ...

Start Making Steps ..

Make your work easy enough and simple enough that you'll do it even when you don't feel very motivated...

The Bottom Line 

Motivation , we all know this thing , but what we don't is that , the biggest source of motivation is only you. So don't seek outside , see inside of yourself and you will get your answer  ...

productivity

Productivity

Making work simple , instead of finding Motivation ..

It is imperative to narrow the focus to the few most important priorities that will make the biggest difference. Everyone in the organization must understand these priorities and how their daily work connects. With clear goals, strong alignment, and a system for daily focus and accountability, the best organizations make rapid progress even in very uncertain times. Is everyone in your organization clear on the most important priorities? Do you know if their daily actions align with those priorities?

Execute Your Most Important Priorities With Excellence

In low-trust environments, friction grows, the speed slows, and cost increases significantly. The combination of slow speed and high costs is a killer and will greatly diminish the ability of your teams to come up with new innovative ways to work, serve customers, and come together to navigate internal and external uncertainty. Do you have pockets of low trust in your organization that may slow you down when you can least afford it?

Increase Trust to Increase Speed

More than ever, you need your people to be both effective and efficient. There is no time for wasted energy or for people to invest resources in the things that will not have the biggest impact. As most of your people have gone home to work, are you confident they have the tools necessary to focus their time and energy on the tasks and projects that will have the biggest impact?

Achieve More With Less

The combination of fear, anxiety and uncertainty come together to stifle productivity, innovation, and engagement. The best leaders help their people move quickly through the change cycle. As a result, they achieve greater levels of engagement in times of uncertainty. Have you appropriately equipped your leaders and your people to thrive?

Transform Fear Into Engagement

Sales leaders have faced disruptions in the past, but this one is different. While all organizations are facing unique circumstances during this pandemic, one thing is true for every leader: How you fare during this crisis will come down to how well you execute your plan. Great execution isn’t just about knowing what to do, but doing what you know. Your team needs your leadership. Are you ready?

Leading Your Sales Team During Uncertainty 

In times of great uncertainty, leaders are faced with one of two choices. Freeze to the point of inaction, allowing uncertainty to damage culture, performance, results, and significantly slow a return to greatness. Or, transform fear into engagement, execute with excellence, use the uncertainty as a time to actually increase trust, and help everyone in the organization prepare to do more with less. 

In times of great uncertainty, leaders can freeze to the point of inaction or choose to execute with excellence, increase trust, achieve more, and transform fear into engagement.

Achieving Results in Unpredictable Times

Find  Self Improvement Tips - Curated from popular Books like Atomic Habits, 48 Rules of Power, Deep Work, Rich Dad Poor Dad and way more!