Weekly Wisdom #286 - How to make every situation better

Clear Thinking, Extreme Ownership, Tim Ferriss AI & Corporate Speak

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Happy Tuesday!

I've written before about the philosophy of Extreme Ownership, where everything in your world is your responsibility.

It's a mental shortcut, a hard rule that helps avoid one of the most insidious of human biases: our tendency to avoid blaming ourselves.

I was reminded of it this week while I was reading Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish, this passage in particular:

You can’t control everything, but you can control your response, which makes circumstances better or worse. Each response has an impact on the future, taking you either a step closer to or a step further from the outcomes you want and the person you want to be.

One effective question to ask yourself before you act is, “Will this action make the future easier or harder?”

If Extreme Ownership is the strategy, this question helps form the tactics: will the next action I take make the future easier or harder?

Worth asking before you send that email, or respond to that text, or make the snarky comment in the meeting.

Have a great week!

Graham

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Links

📚 Book I'm Reading: Clear Thinking - Shane Parrish - Shane is the author of Farnam Street, one of my favourite blogs (and newsletters), with the tagline "master the best of what others have already figured out."

So far the book hasn't disappointed, and it's a relatively quick read.

If you liked Thinking, Fast and Slow, or The Art of Thinking Clearly, you'll like this book.

📖 Extreme Ownership: Taking Responsibility to Improve - The post I wrote emphasizing the key takeaways from Extreme Ownership (full notes here):

The main takeaway can be summarized in two quotes from the book:

"Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”

"If someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this."

🔧 Tim Ferriss AI - Tim has long been one of my favourite writers, responsible for the book that got me into entrepreneurship (The 4-Hour Workweek) and many of my favourite blog posts and podcasts.

He's produced a crazy amount of content over the years, and now he's got an AI tool which you can ask questions, and will give you a list of the relevant articles and podcasts, along with a summary of what you want to know.

Try something like "how often should I sauna?"

Tweet of the Week

Thoroughly enjoyed this list...scary how many I hear on a daily basis though...

Chris Bakke-->

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@ChrisJBakke

Navigating "corporate speak" isn't easy.

Here's a helpful guide I put together:

"Let me check with my team" = No

"Possibly" = No

"On my roadmap" = Not happening

"This will be done in Q4" = This will be done in Q2 next year

"Disagree and commit" = I hate you

"Per my last… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1719389910577344700

12:24 PM • Oct 31, 2023

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