Better's Blinkist

Pursuing polymathy enables you to contribute more meaningfully to your community and society at large.

Indeed, if you look back in history, you’ll find that those who’ve made the biggest contributions to society were often polymaths. This is demonstrated by one wide-ranging study of the world’s most influential scientists, which concluded that 15 of the 20 most important scientists were polymaths. Among the most remarkable of such figures was Shen Kuo, a scientist of the Chinese Song Dynasty. He made major contributions in the fields of mathematics, optics, geology, astronomy and anatomy. One of Kuo’s important discoveries was that a compass doesn’t point exactly north, but to the magnetic north pole. Kuo wasn’t just a scientific polymath. He was also a statesman, an accomplished poet, a painter and a musician.

13 October, 2019 04:24 Share

Specialization makes you less able to survive changing, and volatile, work circumstances.

best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari argues in his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century that adaptability – the ability to cultivate a range of skills – will be essential for workers in the future, who will find it necessary to switch frequently between careers and jobs.

13 October, 2019 04:32 Share

How radically will artificial intelligence change the working world? It’s estimated that up to 47 percent of American jobs will become automated in the coming decades. Most of those jobs at risk for automation involve specialized tasks, such as machine operation, data collecting and processing. In the face of automation, it’s the jobs that involve broader, more interconnected thinking that will continue to be the preserve of humans. Therefore, people whose occupations are difficult to define, and whose work encompasses polymathic skills, are more likely to survive the age of AI.

13 October, 2019 04:32 Share

The traits that you need to cultivate in order to develop a polymathic mind are individuality, curiosity and intelligence.

That’s because curiosity is rooted in your biology. As evolutionary biologists confirm, humans are predisposed toward the search for knowledge. In fact, the desire for knowledge has the same roots as the desire for sex – both urges are driven by dopamine, the brain chemical that motivates you to seek gratification. And who says curiosity killed the cat? Actually, some of the world’s greatest polymaths are distinguished by their boundless capacity for curiosity. Martin Kemp, a leading biographer of Renaissance mastermind Leonardo da Vinci, singles out Leonardo’s curiosity as a key aspect of his polymathic genius. Another polymathic genius, Albert Einstein, attributed his own great achievements to curiosity. As he put it, "‘I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.’"

13 October, 2019 04:33 Share

How can you improve your intelligence? Simple – by diversifying your interests and activities. That is, indulging in polymathy will likely have the loop effect of improving your IQ. This is suggested by a recent study carried out at the University of Toronto. This study showed that IQ scores of children improved notably when they diversified their activities. In this case, the children added music to their routines by taking drum lessons. As the children’s improved IQs indicate, diverse skills can translate into greater intelligence.

13 October, 2019 04:34 Share

In order to realize the full polymathic potential of our minds, we also need to develop the qualities of versatility, creativity and unity.

Psychologist Robert Root-Bernstein’s study of polymaths supports these observations about creativity. Root-Bernstein concludes that polymaths make original and groundbreaking contributions to their fields "because of, not in spite of, their broad interests." Indeed, if we want to think like polymaths, we need to recognize that divisions that separate different fields of knowledge are illusory.

13 October, 2019 04:34 Share

Da Vinci’s unified approach was affirmed centuries later by Edwin Hubble, inventor of the device named after him, the Hubble telescope. Hubble stated that the division of knowledge into different fields is misleading, because reality itself is one single whole. In other words, to see the full picture, we need to think holistically.

13 October, 2019 04:35 Share

You should pursue multiple careers simultaneously or successively in order to nurture a polymathic professional life.

Embracing varied interests in adulthood requires pursuing polymathy in your professional life. One way to do so is to actively seek out career changes. In this regard, why not follow in the footsteps of polymaths like Albert Schweitzer? A renowned theologian and philosopher, Schweitzer was also a celebrated organist. In addition, he took up the study of medicine in his thirties to become a physician in later life.

13 October, 2019 04:37 Share

The second discipline of execution: meet your goals by choosing measures that reflect current behavior.

This is why, to achieve your wildly important goals, you should instead focus on lead measures. In contrast to lag measures, lead measures reflect current behavior, meaning you can still influence them to help meet your goal

6 October, 2019 07:18 Share

Motivate your team by keeping score of their performance: the third discipline of execution.

Since motivation is the goal of the scoreboard, you should make sure it’s comprehensible and also easy for your employees to manage autonomously. It should also include lead and lag measures, along with essential information about where the team should be and where it is in reality. With all this information clearly laid out, every team member must be able to tell, at a glance, whether they’re winning or losing.

6 October, 2019 07:20 Share

The fourth discipline of execution is establishing a culture of accountability.

goal. And in order for that to happen, your employees have to be accountable to each other – not just to you. No one wants to disappoint their peers, so staffers will feel a greater sense of responsibility if they have to answer to their colleagues, too. That’s why holding regular WIG meetings will ensure a lasting commitment to the goals. These gatherings should include: 1) an overview of the commitments from last week, 2) a review of the scoreboard and 3) a plan for the following week.

6 October, 2019 07:21 Share

Stoicism attempted to explain the functioning of the universe and humankind’s place within it.

From the Stoic perspective, ethics was fairly straightforward. That is, whatever went against the cosmic order was wrong and bad, and whatever acted in harmony with it was right and good. To be an ethical person, in turn, you had to act in accordance with the order of things and fulfill the duties of your assigned place – whatever that order or place might be. Of course, from a modern perspective, this idea has some troubling social and political implications. For example, according to the Stoics, if you were born a slave, this was your rightful place in the cosmic order, and your task was to accept it.

30 August, 2019 08:26 Share

The scientific revolution unleashed systems of thought that led to modern philosophy.

Descartes took the doubt unleashed by the scientific revolution and molded it into a tool for philosophical inquiry. In a search for irrefutable truth, Descartes examined reality by adopting a position of radical skepticism and critical thinking. In doing so, he invented an attitude crucial to modern philosophy: the critical spirit. And, to examine reality, Descartes used the idea of tabula rasa – a clean slate. He would reject all prior beliefs and assumptions and start his inquiries afresh.

30 August, 2019 08:33 Share

But humanists also need a version of salvation. To achieve this, some turned to religions of earthly salvation – pseudo-religions centered on human beings, rather than god(s). Things like communism, scientism and patriotism are all religions of earthly salvation, promising us utopias. To their adherents, they give meaning to human existence by providing objectives that are supposedly more important than a single individual’s life.

30 August, 2019 08:33 Share

Immanuel Kant took up Rousseau's humanism and applied it to ethics.

For Kant, a truly ethical – a truly human – action requires us to ignore our egotistical impulses and adopt an attitude of disinterestedness. We need to work toward this in our everyday life – and choose to do so freely. If we are forced to act, the ethical aspect of the action is invalidated.

30 August, 2019 08:34 Share

By directing our actions toward a common good, we use our freedom of choice to make disinterested decisions that benefit the welfare of humanity. In doing this, we distance ourselves from our primitive, egotistical impulses and become closer to humanity as a whole.

30 August, 2019 08:34 Share

Friedrich Nietzsche dismantled humanism and ushered in the age of postmodern philosophy.

Nietzsche spent his life trying to expose the futility of nihilism. To that end, his philosophy insists that there are no utopias or values that give meaning to life. Instead, the meaning of life is life itself! In other words, life doesn’t depend on something else – something superior to it – to give it meaning; rather, life gives meaning to itself. Also, Nietzsche saw the world as comprising of two different forces: reactive and active. What’s more, these forces were chaotic and always in conflict – the world could never be reduced to the Greek ideas of harmony.

30 August, 2019 08:37 Share

If we can teach our active and reactive forces to cooperate, we live life intensely and fully – no longer torn apart by our reactive forces of regret and self-doubt. Nietzsche called the attainment of this the grand style – his version of salvation.

30 August, 2019 08:39 Share

Contemporary humanism offers a way past the cynicism of postmodernism.

We know a matchbox has six sides, but when we hold it up to our eyes, no matter how we hold it, we can only ever see three sides at once. This is also true for reality, in that whichever angle we view life from, there are sides to it we can’t see at the moment, some of which are transcendental. The presence of something always implies an absence of something else – however we contemplate reality, we can never totally grasp it. In this way, transcendence isn’t an abstract ideal like in classical humanism – it becomes a proven fact, a very part of the reality in which we live. We can call this transcendence here-and-now.

30 August, 2019 08:40 Share

The images stored in long-term memory help people excel at a variety of complicated tasks.

Mental representations also play a role as a performance booster. We know it takes years of practice to become an expert in a field, whether driving a taxi or playing chess. Only through practice can you develop detailed representations of the situations or movements that matter to your performance.Let’s consider the sport of baseball. Plenty of fans have a handful of mental representations stored away, but they're nothing compared to those of professional baseball players. Because of all the practicing they do, professional players have developed sophisticated representations of all the potential trajectories of a baseball.

4 September, 2019 07:21 Share

Becoming a skilled performer means practicing purposefully, with set goals and constant feedback.

Do you think that a professional musician, athlete, scientist or entrepreneur developed their skills and talents overnight? It’s unlikely. Instead, they probably used purposeful practice to achieve success.This technique pushes you to build skills through several mechanisms, including setting clear, specific goals, being focused, leaving your comfort zone and receiving constant feedback.

4 September, 2019 07:22 Share

How did he achieve this? First, Steve had a clear and specific goal: to memorize more numbers than he could previously. Second, throughout the experiment, he remained focused.Steve also was pushed outside his comfort zone, as he was constantly encouraged to move past his current level of performance. If he managed to memorize 28 numbers in one session, for example, the trainer would start the new session by having him recite another string of the same length.

4 September, 2019 07:22 Share

And finally, Steve also received feedback on his performance, as the trainer would always inform him how he had done.This last mechanism is crucial. After all, how can you improve if there’s no one to tell you how you’re doing? Regardless whether you’re practicing sonatas or German grammar, it’s essential to know if you’re learning it correctly.Through purposeful practice, you can learn all manner of specialized skills. But purposeful practice is just a step toward a greater goal, which you’ll learn about in the next blink.

4 September, 2019 07:22 Share

Informed practice guided by expert knowledge separates good performances from stellar ones.

Now we know that purposeful practice is essential to becoming a great performer. But what sets apart great performers from people who seem to touch genius?They achieve this through deliberate practice, or purposeful practice that’s informed. For your practice to become deliberate, two things need to happen.First, the practice must be applied to a field that’s well-developed, meaning that there are already more experienced practitioners in the world whose level of performance clearly differs from those who are just starting out. Second, deliberate practice requires a teacher or coach who can train a student using the practice activities necessary to improve.

4 September, 2019 07:23 Share

In essence, deliberate practice must not only be based on a field with established experts but also involve guidance on how the student can become an expert. Thus you can take advantage of the specific techniques that teachers have used to achieve excellence to find excellence in your practice.By adopting a teacher’s knowledge, a student is given a template to follow, eliminating the need to start from scratch or waste time figuring out basic facts common to the field.For instance, let’s say you want to become a star high jumper. With a great coach, you won’t have to figure out things like the best place to start your jump, or how to achieve maximum distance.But let’s pause for a moment. If nearly any skill can be learned through intentionally guided practice, what does that say about the concept of talent?

4 September, 2019 07:24 Share

Contrary to public opinion, deliberate practice and not talent is the key to becoming extraordinary.

Yet there’s no evidence that innate talent exists. Rather, the incredible abilities of top performers, even a genius like Mozart, seem to be the result of deliberate practice.In fact, Mozart might not have accomplished that much when he was young. Evidence now suggests that the first compositions ascribed to him when he was eight years old match the handwriting of his father, Leopold Mozart, a composer who trained his son from a young age.

4 September, 2019 07:26 Share

The same holds for many other performers. Talented people don’t take shortcuts. They’ve all practiced deliberately for years, building their brains’ capacities by creating advanced mental representations.

4 September, 2019 07:26 Share

Final summary

Innate talent just doesn’t play much of a role in performance. Instead, the key to performing your best in whichever field you choose is to practice deliberately. By devoting yourself to a methodological training schedule, you can master almost any skill.

4 September, 2019 07:26 Share

For enduring happiness, choose experiences that add to your own heroic story.

By placing yourself in the hero’s role, you can not only recognize what your particular call to action is, but can also begin to be more adventurous and understand that difficulties and struggles are crucial to our stories and shouldn’t be avoided. It is through these challenging experiences that we acquire the tools that allow us to reach our goals and slay our own metaphorical dragons.

2 August, 2019 09:23 Share

Events that provide change and transformation are key to finding fulfillment.

The go and become approach, however, offers a real chance for transformation. In this scenario, your vacation would come with a purposeful intent to learn inspirational things about different cultures and customs, or new skills like painting, boating or traditional sushi techniques. Or it might involve a spiritual retreat of some kind.

2 August, 2019 09:24 Share

Let’s take vacationing, for instance. There are basically three ways you can approach a vacation: fly and flop, find and seek, or go and become.

2 August, 2019 09:24 Share

Being outside and offline has been shown to improve people’s moods directly.

There’s a biological factor at work here. Scientists believe we’re simply predisposed, from an evolutionary perspective, to enjoy the calming sights, sounds and smells of nature and water.

2 August, 2019 09:25 Share

Researchers have long known that humans are susceptible to conditioning. You may be familiar with the psychologist Ivan Pavlov, who over a century ago conditioned dogs to salivate with hunger – not in the presence of food, but at the sound of a metronome that signified the arrival of food.

2 August, 2019 09:25 Share

The problem is that, as multiple studies in the US and Europe show, too much time online leads to feelings of isolation, stress, depression and insomnia. Fortunately, however, if you start spending less time online now, your mood can improve immediately

2 August, 2019 09:26 Share

Engage in activities that connect you with others to avoid the potentially fatal effects of loneliness.

While solitude and some time alone can be a nice change of pace from time to time, no one enjoys feeling lonely. This might sound obvious enough, but what you may not know is just how dangerous loneliness can be.

2 August, 2019 09:26 Share

What’s more, in compiling seven years’ worth of data from nearly three and a half million people, researchers found that loneliness increased a person’s chances of death by 29 percent. Meanwhile, social isolation increased that chance by 26 percent, and living alone by 32 percent. Remarkably, these statistics show that loneliness is deadlier than type 2 diabetes or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

2 August, 2019 09:26 Share

Basically, the way to be less lonely is to do something interesting – anything, really. Most experiences involve other people in some way, whether you’re outside playing sports or indoors playing a board game.

2 August, 2019 09:27 Share

And remember, whenever you have an interesting experience, it gives you a good story to tell, and sharing stories is one of the best ways to form bonds with others.

2 August, 2019 09:27 Share

We’re at our happiest when engaged in intense, immersive activities that allow for good flow.

A handy, simple rule of thumb for telling the difference between good and bad flow – or, as the author calls it, real flow and fake flow – is to know that good flow requires you to put in true, intense effort in order to receive the reward at the end

2 August, 2019 09:28 Share

In fact, the progression of a real flow experience is not unlike the hero’s journey: there’s an initial struggle, followed by a release in which you enter the zone and the flow begins, and then, at the end, you feel physically, emotionally and mentally drained, yet also ecstatic at having slain your metaphorical dragons.

2 August, 2019 09:29 Share

And where can you find such experiences? Well, sports are great for adding flow to your life, but you can also get it from performing in front of an audience, writing, carpentry and any number of other activities that require skill and attention.

2 August, 2019 09:29 Share

How we remember activities has a lot to do with beginnings, peaks and ends.

It’s also worth noting that you can inject a seemingly ordinary moment with extraordinary significance just by appreciating the inherent wonder in nature and human existence. Therefore, while it makes sense to add new and exciting experiences to your everyday life, you can also have a happier life by recognizing the everyday as already pretty special. Consider a cup of tea, for example. On its own it may be ordinary, but if you make each brew part of a daily calming ritual, it can be pretty extraordinary.

2 August, 2019 09:31 Share

Activities that boost our status can lead to happier lives.

All societies contain hierarchies of some sort, and wherever there’s a hierarchy, there are people of different status. In the workplace, for example, we have clerks, supervisors, managers and directors. But there are also two other primary ways for gaining status: there are the experts who gain status through their education, and successful people who’ve earned theirs through money.

2 August, 2019 09:32 Share

The final path to higher status is to turn off the TV. According to the author, it’s no coincidence that the lower someone’s status is, the more TV he or she watches. The more you watch, the fewer story-worthy experiences you’re having. So start thinking of TV as a last resort to turn to when all other options are unavailable.

2 August, 2019 09:32 Share

The monetary mind-set leads to a narrow-minded approach to negotiation.

When you come to the negotiation table with the monetary mind-set, you bring a set of assumptions with you. For one, you see yourself as one side of a conflict between parties with opposing objectives. You also assume that a better deal for one party inherently means a worse deal for the other. In most cases, this leads buyer and seller to seek a compromise, which helps avoid conflict but also means each party takes a smaller slice from a smaller pie.

28 August, 2019 08:53 Share

But what if we didn’t have to compromise when we negotiated? That’s where integrative behavior comes in. Integrative behavior aims to appease opposing parties’ mutual interests by using strategies such as trust building or information exchange. Using integrative behavior, we can widen the scope of our negotiations so that each party gets more rather than both parties meeting in the middle.

28 August, 2019 08:54 Share

We can observe the bartering mind-set in an idealized bartering economy.

Most of the time, Keith’s crops and produce meet the needs of his family’s modest lifestyle. However, when his daughter sprains her ankle, he needs to find a way to trade what he has in exchange for medical attention. So he heads to the market in a nearby town with a wagon full of goods to trade. Because Keith has to sell his goods in order to meet his needs, he implicitly sees himself as both a buyer and a seller. Experience has also taught him that doctors aren’t usually interested in his produce. So in order to get help for his daughter, he first has to trade his corn for iron, which doctors use for their medical instruments. In other words, Keith knows that he has to engage with many different people. But before he approaches anyone, he needs to get a feel for the market as a whole. That’s because he knows that everyone in it has a multitude of possible needs and offerings. Since he can only get a good deal if his trading partners get one as well, he has to be creative in identifying the most beneficial trading relationships. For example, an ironmonger might be willing to trade for less corn if a few eggs are included in the deal. With a broad understanding of the market, Keith is then ready to approach people. With his trading partners’ needs in mind, he’s able to talk to them, trusting them enough to state his needs and offerings and ask for theirs. By establishing trust, he won’t come off as dishonest if he decides that the terms of the deal won’t suffice.

28 August, 2019 08:56 Share

Like a person with a monetary mind-set, a barterer comes to a negotiation with a set of assumptions. To understand these, imagine a farmer who lives with his family on a prairie; let’s call him Keith.

28 August, 2019 08:57 Share

The first step a negotiator with a bartering mind-set takes is to define needs and offerings.

Once you’ve determined the answer, you can define the breadth of your needs by thinking about everything else you might require in order to meet that fundamental need. If you need the money for commuting costs, a raise might be just one route to solving the problem. You might need to buy a more fuel-efficient car or get a Costco membership to save on gas prices.

28 August, 2019 08:58 Share

First, you’ll want to take a look at what value you’re already providing to your negotiation partners. If this means your boss, make a list of the ways you bring value to the company. For example, perhaps you regularly hand in pristine reports thanks to your sharp analytical skills.

28 August, 2019 09:00 Share

Finally, you’ll want to take a look at what you potentially have to offer. Say your boss has been complaining about traveling so often. Could you offer to take on some of the projects that require him to travel? Or maybe there are others who would benefit from your skills – a contact in another department seeking to fill a position in which you would excel, for example.

28 August, 2019 09:01 Share

Define the full spectrum of your transaction partners and identify their potential needs and offerings.

That brings us to the second step: defining the full spectrum of your potential transaction partners. Here, once again, you’ll want to get creative to widen the scope of your possibilities.

28 August, 2019 09:02 Share

Once you’ve done the creative work of considering the full range of your prospective partners, the third step in cultivating the bartering mind-set is to map out their potential needs and offerings. In fact, you’ve already started to do this by thinking about what you have to offer. For example, in step one you established how bringing pastries to the local community establishes your café’s value. You could also easily figure out that your landlord wants timely rent, your customers want bottomless cups of coffee and your local movie theater might need referrals.

28 August, 2019 09:02 Share

Identify power partnerships by assessing relationships and the costs and benefits of trades.

There are three stages to predicting the power of relationships. The first stage is translating the needs and offerings that you’ve mapped out into specific trades. You can do this by making a chart, noting in one column how a partner will fulfill your needs with their offerings and in a second column how you could fulfill their needs with your offerings. So in the first column, you might note the possibility of increasing revenue by advertising before movies at the local theater. Then, in the second, note that your café could distribute fliers featuring the theater’s current program.

28 August, 2019 09:03 Share

In identifying the partners who will be most beneficial and affordable for you, you already have a head start on the third stage: assessing the holistic picture you’ve just created. Though there is no mathematical formula here, the best way to assess the information you have is to separate your partnerships into four categories: high benefit/low cost; high benefit/high cost; low benefit/low cost; and low benefit/high cost.

28 August, 2019 09:04 Share

if your café is branching out into a new partnership by advertising your shop and thus attracting new customers, local artists might be more interested in exhibiting their work with you in order to gain exposure. You might consider reaching out to them as well.

28 August, 2019 09:05 Share

Step five in cultivating a bartering mind-set is to seek out the most powerful potential partnerships.

But before you start making any offers, remember that at this point you’re not trying to secure a deal or even necessarily pave a path for one. Instead, you’re trying to uncover information in order to understand your partners and the market as a whole.

28 August, 2019 09:05 Share

You can do this using a five-step process: introducing yourself, bringing up your needs, meeting the other party’s needs, meeting your needs and concluding.

28 August, 2019 09:05 Share

You should then politely ask to talk about your needs once more, then elaborate on your ideas, framing your questions in terms of a potential trade. You could suggest something like providing him with pastries and printing coupons for his store on your café’s receipts, and ask if he would then consider advertising your café in the window of his store in return.

28 August, 2019 09:06 Share

Bridge the bartering mind-set with the monetary mind-set by using Multi-Issue Offers (MIOs).

Instead, integrate the bartering and monetary mind-sets smoothly; the simplest way to do this is with a multi-issue offer (MIO). Unlike single-issue offers (SIOs), in which you propose one issue at a time, MIOs address all negotiable issues at once. In your negotiation with the grocer, for example, the pastries, window signage and coupons would all be presented together in a single offer. Here’s what that offer might look like: In one column of your offer, you propose to deliver 500 pastries daily to the grocer, and print coupons for his business on your café’s receipts. In the next column, you state that in return, the grocer will give you $0.50 per pastry and a $500 monthly printing fee for the coupons, as well as hanging a sign for your café in his largest window.

28 August, 2019 09:07 Share

And if the grocer plays hardball and won’t accept an agreement that meets your needs? Well, because you incorporated a bartering mind-set into your discussion, you can walk away from the deal with the relationship healthy and intact. You’re then free to fall back on any of your four other potential partnerships, creating mutually beneficial arrangements that keep your business afloat while strengthening the relationships in your network.

28 August, 2019 09:08 Share

What’s in it for me? Be the kind of leader who cuts through the bullshit.

But in these blinks, the case is made for the radically candid boss – the boss who can be both caring and direct and combine bluntness with empathy.

11 April, 2021 07:27 Share

Radical candor develops strong and beneficial relationships between managers and employees.

At the heart of radical candor are two principles: a manager should personally care about their employees and challenge them in their work. While it’s true that there are no simple solutions guaranteed to work for everyone, these principles are a great way of developing trusting relationships in the workplace. And even though different people have unique personalities and reactions, radical candor can help any manager improve their relationship with just about any employee.

23 August, 2019 09:22 Share

the first step is to become more than just a coworker by establishing personal relationships that prove you genuinely care. This means opening up, sharing and talking about more than just business. Contrary to what some may think, a good working relationship is a highly personal one.

23 August, 2019 09:23 Share

a good manager must also be willing to challenge their employees when they’re not meeting expectations. This can be difficult for managers. Being candid and direct doesn’t always feel like friendly and caring behavior. But as we’ll explore further, challenging your staff to be their best is indeed the hallmark of a boss who truly cares

23 August, 2019 09:23 Share

By being honest and direct with your employees, you’ll find that new lines of communication readily open up. Staff will be quick and willing to accept your feedback, and they’ll feel free to offer feedback regarding your work as team leader. This attitude will spread throughout your workforce. When you’re radically candid with your staff, they’ll soon become radically candid among themselves, which makes for a healthy, productive and efficient work environment.

23 August, 2019 09:24 Share

Radical candor is a delicate balance between being direct and honest while not offending.

If you have experience as a manager, then chances are you know what it’s like to have someone react aggressively or defensively to constructive feedback. Even when your intentions are positive, there’s a delicate skill to providing guidance and criticism while coming across as helpful, rather than mean. And this is exactly what radical candor can achieve.

23 August, 2019 09:25 Share

This kind of comment is radical candor at its best. She made her point clear while managing to compliment Scott at the same time, and the author was soon working with a speech coach to become even better at her job. This example shows us how radical candor gets results by being open, honest and direct.

23 August, 2019 09:25 Share

Perhaps most importantly, her boss was honest and direct about both the positive and negative aspects of the work, and she didn’t sugar coat anything. This ensured that Scott got the point and didn’t mistake it for a personal attack.

11 April, 2021 07:28 Share

Radical candor avoids the pitfalls of overly aggressive, lazy and fearful management.

This depiction of leadership is quite the opposite of radical candor; being honest and direct does not give you the right to be obnoxiously aggressive.

23 August, 2019 09:26 Share

Remember, radical candor is about expressing care for your staff, as well as being open and direct. Ultimately, when a boss humiliates an employee with their criticism, they create enemies, destroy morale and cause people to quit their job.

23 August, 2019 09:26 Share

When a boss refuses to be critical of an employee whose performance is deteriorating, that employee will only grow more incompetent until the manager is forced to fire them. So if you truly care about an employee, being honest is always in their best interest.

23 August, 2019 09:27 Share

Other behavior traits that a successful boss should avoid are manipulative insincerity and ruinous empathy.

11 April, 2021 07:29 Share

Bosses shouldn’t manufacture a false meaning for a job; they should provide professional development.

When the author was a manager in Google’s customer support department, she tried to manufacture meaning and convince her staff that their work was of vital importance to Google’s creative workers. But at least one employee saw right through her phony pep talk. And he was absolutely correct when he told her that it would be better to tell the truth and admit that a lot of necessary jobs can be tedious and unfulfilling. There’s no use dodging the fact that some jobs have only one reward: earning enough money to pay the bills and live comfortably. So be honest with your employees and tell them that there is still satisfaction to be had in doing a job well, and make sure that good work is acknowledged. There’s no need to feel you must solve your employees’ existential dilemmas.

11 April, 2021 07:32 Share

Firing someone is a troubling experience, so be sure to take every consideration before it happens.

Firing someone is tough because you’re making someone else’s life incredibly difficult, even if it’s only temporarily. And in many cases, it’s not only the employee who’s suffering but their spouse and children too. Not only are you taking away a source of money, but entire families can lose health insurance, and the whole incident can cause all sorts of marital strife. This is why a manager needs to ensure someone is fired for the right reason. It’s also important to remember that other employees are aware when someone is let go, so the incident should still reflect you as being an honest and caring boss

11 April, 2021 07:32 Share

First of all, every effort should be made to help the employee improve their performance. This shows that you care and that firing is your last resort. As always, you should use radical candor to support their good work and be honest and direct in how they can improve, while avoiding any personal attacks.

11 April, 2021 07:33 Share

Managers shouldn’t tell people what to do; instead, they should practice collaborative leadership.

On at least one occasion, Jobs was furious when an employee gave up and let him win an argument because it later turned out the employee was right. Jobs had to remind the employee that he was hired to ensure Jobs didn’t make these kinds of mistakes, and not back down from a fight. So, how do you lead a team without giving orders? It might sound like a paradox, but the answer is collaborative leadership, and there is an art to practicing it.

11 April, 2021 07:33 Share

The second step is to give your team the time and space to develop their ideas. Otherwise, they can end up being shot down before they ever have a chance to be clearly understood. The third step is to allow for healthy debate so that the best ideas are presented and agreed upon.

11 April, 2021 07:33 Share

Depending on your personality, you can listen quietly or loudly.

If you’re practicing quiet listening, you should spend at least ten minutes of an hour-long conversation patiently listening to what the other person has to say

11 April, 2021 07:34 Share

However, you will need to instill confidence in your teammates if you want them to speak up. For this to happen, you’ll need to respond positively to their opinions, even if you don’t agree with them, so that they’ll continue to speak up and challenge your ideas. Listening to your employees is key to promoting an effective and creative team. And as we’ll see in the final blink, it also puts you in a position to help move their careers forward.

11 April, 2021 07:34 Share

To support your employees, have honest discussions that reveal their true motivations.

While there’s nothing wrong with working a job just to pay the bills, you’re bound to have people in your team who have big dreams they’re hoping to realize. Managers should support the dreams of their staff and help them approach those dreams in a realistic fashion

11 April, 2021 07:34 Share

The first is the life story conversation where the employee tells you everything leading up to the present day, and you try to find their motivating factors. The second is the dream job conversation, where they describe their biggest career desire. The third is the 18-month plan conversation, where they look into the immediate future, and you identify everything that can be done to keep them on the right track.

11 April, 2021 07:35 Share

Final summary

By using radical candor, you can become the best possible boss. Radical candor helps you listen and express genuine care for your employees. It also allows you to directly challenge your staff members in a constructive way to which they’ll be receptive. This makes leadership a collaborative and personal process that brings out the best in everyone.

11 April, 2021 07:35 Share

Have a growth plan for your employees. Don’t just think of your staff as people who are only there to do what you assign them to do. Think of them as individuals on a career path and work with them to develop a plan that keeps that career on track.

11 April, 2021 07:35 Share

What’s in it for me? Help yourself be a better helper.

But why does it so often go wrong? How is it possible that the man who tries to rescue a burning house is sued for damages? Why do patients get angry with their doctors? Why is workplace collaboration sometimes fraught with tension? We’re often called upon to help in our daily lives, and the experience can be unsatisfactory for both the helper and the person being helped.

22 August, 2019 08:47 Share

Helping is intrinsic to human society, and we don’t always recognize it.

Just like in a game of soccer, helping is intrinsic to many aspects of our lives. In fact, it’s so ingrained in our every-day lives that we tend to forget just how important it is. Just think of your workplace. If you couldn’t rely on getting help from your colleagues when you need it, or they from you, you probably wouldn’t be able to accomplish much.

22 August, 2019 08:49 Share

Human relationships are a lot like economics, even when we’re helping each other.

Although it sounds counterintuitive, helping resembles an economic exchange, too. Consider the dynamics at work in the following scenario. If you offered money to a homeless person so they could buy themselves food, you might expect some kind of thanks – even just a grateful nod. And if they didn’t acknowledge your help at all, the whole equilibrium of the "helping relationship" would’ve been upset. Therefore, it’d be necessary to "compensate" for your loss of face, either by consoling yourself with your moral worth or by criticizing the homeless person. You might reassure yourself that you are a good person for acting so charitably or bitterly think of the homeless person as an ungrateful wretch.

22 August, 2019 08:52 Share

Helping – and receiving help – can be problematic.

Conversely, helping transfers status onto the helper, and this can be equally counterproductive. It’s very difficult to say "I don’t know how to help" because when we help people we feel empowered. It’s difficult to refuse the sense of one-upmanship that helping grants us. For instance, if you’re asked to solve a computer malfunction and you don’t know how, it can be tempting to try to fix it anyway. Of course, if you lack the expertise, you might end up making things worse! As helping opens up the possibility of an ego-boosting social encounter, it’s difficult to say no – even when our help might be worse than useless.

22 August, 2019 08:55 Share

As helpers, we can sometimes be seriously unhelpful.

When you’re too eager to help someone, you might fail to see the extent of their problem or even misidentify their problem entirely. This is because people who request help might really be testing the waters and hiding a more serious difficulty that they actually require help with. For instance, if your child asks for help with his homework, it could mean that you immediately jump in to help without a second thought. But if he is still emotionally distraught after you’ve helped him, it could be that the problem wasn’t the homework at all, but perhaps something bigger, like being bullied at school, that he’s disguising.

22 August, 2019 09:01 Share

Another way that we can be unintentionally unhelpful is when we pressure people into taking our help. There are times when, though someone requests help and we’re certain that our advice or practical assistance is just the right thing for them, it’ll actually make things worse. And because the person who requested help doesn’t want to offend, they’ll let us continue regardless. For instance, people may let a friend give them an impromptu massage when they complain of a stiff neck, but are too polite to say when the amateurish masseuse makes it worse.

22 August, 2019 09:02 Share

To find out how to help someone, it’s best to begin with a humble inquiry.

We’re sometimes reminded that we’ve got two ears and one mouth. Or in other words, that we’d be better off listening more and talking less. Helping people is all about listening. But before we listen, we first need to make a humble inquiry. To avoid the misunderstandings intrinsic to helping, it is best first to inquire. As we’ve already seen, the problem that we’re presented with often isn’t the full story. By inquiring in an open-minded way we can tease out the rest.

22 August, 2019 09:02 Share

One of the other crucial functions of this inquiry is to put the helper and client on an equal footing. For instance, when a weakened hospital patient needs assistance to reach their bedpan, if we communicate with humility, we can help them more effectively. Rather than bossing them around in a humiliating fashion, it’s better to ask them if they are comfortable or ready to take the next step. By attempting to alleviate the loss of status, we create a helping relationship that allows the patient to move more confidently.

22 August, 2019 09:03 Share

Another objective of the humble inquiry is to restore confidence in the person seeking help so that they might begin to help themselves. For example, a child might be embarrassed to tell their parents that they’re not able to tie their shoelaces. But by restoring their self-esteem – perhaps by asking them if they knew that we all find it difficult to tie shoelaces at first – they might attempt the knot with more confidence.

22 August, 2019 09:03 Share

Final summary

Social dynamics complicate the way we help each other. When we receive help, we suffer a loss of status and self-esteem, while providing help gives us the upper hand in a way that can be counterproductive. To successfully assist others, we should be sensitive to these dynamics. As help-givers, it’s best to inquire with humility about the problems we’re attempting to solve.

22 August, 2019 09:04 Share

The importance of sleep is overlooked and underrated.

Thus, sleep is not the enemy of productivity or an obstacle to overcome. It is a necessary restorative state, vital for our physical and psychological well-being. We simply cannot be healthy or function at peak performance without good quality sleep.

16 August, 2019 10:41 Share

When it comes to sleep, light is our best friend and worst enemy.

This is why we should try to maximize light exposure during the day. And it’s particularly important to expose ourselves to sunlight early in the morning, because bright light also prompts our brains, organs and glands to wake up and be alert. With this in mind, try getting a short walk in somewhere between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.

16 August, 2019 10:42 Share

At the other end of the day, in the evenings, limit your exposure to screens, starting 60 minutes before bed. Electronic devices pump out a heavy blue spectrum of artificial light. Your body is especially sensitive to this spectrum, and exposure to it in the evening inhibits the release of melatonin, making it harder to sleep. There is software available for phones and computers that filters this blue spectrum out, but it’s better to steer clear of the screens completely and read a book before bed instead.

16 August, 2019 10:43 Share

Studies have shown that light in bedrooms can suppress melatonin levels by over 50 percent, so blackout blinds are a must for those sleeping after sunrise!

16 August, 2019 10:43 Share

To snooze soundly, make the correct lifestyle choices.

Caffeine is a nervous system stimulant, one that on a molecular level is very similar to adenosine. Adenosine is a chemical that our brain produces while we’re awake, and once our adenosine levels hit a certain point, we start to get sleepy. Because of its similar nature, caffeine fits snugly into the very same receptors in our brain that adenosine is trying to enter, blocking its path. That’s why we don’t feel tired after drinking a coffee.

16 August, 2019 10:45 Share

Evening alcohol consumption is another thing we should curb. Although a few drinks might help us to fall asleep, it’s highly disruptive once we’re away, limiting the amount of time we spend in the deeper stages of sleep. In particular, alcohol interferes with REM sleep – the sleep stage responsible for memory processing. This means that alcohol-laced snoozes are terrible for memorizing facts and fortifying intelligence. Sorry, students!

16 August, 2019 10:46 Share

Maintaining a healthy mind and body is crucial for a great sleep.

Supplementing with magnesium is another great way to stay healthy and supercharge your snooze.

16 August, 2019 10:48 Share

It’s estimated that more than 50,000 thoughts run through our minds each day. And although most of them are short-lived, our inner monologue often intensifies when we’re trying to drift off to sleep. But meditation can change this. The simple act of closing our eyes and focusing on our breathing, even just for 10 minutes, is proven to lower stress and release feel-good endorphins into our system, priming us to drift off. In short, meditation is like a tonic for our manic, hyperactive minds. And what better place to start meditating than in your new sleep sanctuary?

16 August, 2019 10:49 Share

Creating a sleep sanctuary gives us the best possible environment to rest in.

Bringing phone calls, texts and emails into our sleeping space is one of the worst things we can do. That’s because it creates a spike in our cortisol levels – a hormone closely associated with stress and wakefulness. It also leads our brains to create a negative association with our bedroom, which subconsciously makes it more difficult to sleep there. We need to be strict with ourselves and not allow work to enter our sleep sanctuary; this is a place for us to switch off and zone out.

16 August, 2019 10:50 Share

For more meaningful leisure, embrace strenuous and virtuous hobbies and schedule low-quality activities.

As the legendary philosopher Aristotle pointed out, to live the good life, one must have the downtime needed for deep contemplation, for no other reason than to enjoy the activity itself. As Aristotle expert Kieran Setiya elaborates, activities that provide a "source of inward joy" are vital to a satisfying life

23 July, 2019 09:44 Share

Engaging physically with real, three-dimensional objects is also key, as Gary Rogowski points out in his book Craftsman. As such, poking your finger at a small screen is unlikely to ever be a truly satisfying or rewarding human endeavor. This is why one of the "leisure lessons" of digital minimalism is to engage with the physical world by applying skills and working to create things of value. And for this, technology can be a great aide. With the abundance of YouTube tutorials out there, you can easily spend a rewarding weekend either building your own wooden headboard or learning some basic techniques to become a weekend carpenter.

23 July, 2019 09:45 Share

Advice from the Attention Resistance includes downgrading your phone and using single-purpose devices.

Now, some people think it’s heretical to revert your computer to a single-function machine like early versions of Macs and PCs as if you were purposefully making your computer less powerful. But whether you make your computer run programs simultaneously or not has nothing to do with its power. In fact, you could say you’re making it more powerful, since you’ll be more productive while using it as a single-purpose device!

23 July, 2019 09:46 Share