💎 Friday Gems #43 (Late Bloomers, Building a Second Brain, The De-Shouldifier)
💎 Friday Gems #43 (Late Bloomers, Building a Second Brain, The De-Shouldifier)
Our craft is mastered and our character is defined in those countless hours of unwitnessed and unappreciated preparation.
Hi friends,
Here are the gems to check out in this week’s issue 👀
🌺 The Case for Late Bloomers
🧠 Building a Second Brain: The Definitive Introductory Guide
💡 How ‘Should’ Makes Us Stupid — And How to Get Smart Again
💬 A Gem of a Quote
⚡️ Little Gems
Let’s do this!
💎 The Case for Late Bloomers
Source: Saturday Evening Post
May I have your attention, please?
Will the real late bloomers please stand up?
I didn’t bloom in high school; it was actually painful.
I didn’t bloom in college; I wasn’t focused.
I didn’t bloom early in my career; I had the wrong mindset.
But… now I feel like I am finally getting the hang of life and work.
Yes, I’m a late bloomer and I’m enjoying every moment of it.
I love this part of the article,
Blooming has no deadline. Our future story is written in pencil, not carved in stone. It can be changed. There is no fixed chronology to self-determination, no age limit for breakthroughs. What we accomplish in the marathon of life depends on our persistence, our patience, and an ability to see ourselves as we really are.
Yes, it’s our persistence, patience, and the challenges we have been through that have helped us arrive in this moment and to bloom later in life, and connect with ourselves as we really are.
Here’s to all late bloomers.
May you realize your amazing potential!
💎 Building a Second Brain: The Definitive Introductory Guide
Source: Forte Labs
How many brilliant ideas have you had and forgotten? How many insights have you failed to take action on? How much useful advice have you slowly forgotten as the years have passed?
Each day, we get inundated with information, and some days, we’re drinking from the proverbial firehose both at work and in our personal lives. As a result, the information which is actually useful and valuable to us is in danger of being lost in a sea of noise. We think we will remember a piece of information and can recall it whenever we need it, but our brains aren’t built that way. In some estimates, our brains can only hold on to 7±2 items.
This is why having a system to gather and organize useful information is important and where building a second brain is especially useful.
Imagine recalling a useful fact or an insight you had a few weeks or months later when you actually need it.
What is Building a Second Brain?
It’s a methodology for saving and systematically reminding us of the ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we’ve gained through our experience. It provides a clear, actionable path to creating a “Second Brain” – an external, centralized, digital repository for the things you learn and the resources from which they come.
Tiago Forte, the creator of the Second Brain, suggests using the CODE method to guide you in developing your Second Brain.
CODE stands for
Capture
Collect information in a single, centralized location such as a digital notetaking app like Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Notion, Apple Notes, Obsidian, Roam Research, or others.
Capture what resonates with you.
Organize
When you encounter new information, think about how it can help you in a current project or expand your knowledge in an area of interest.
Tiago suggests using the PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive) to organize the information.
Distill
Summarize and add helpful notes to remind your Future Self of exactly why the information was saved.
Ask yourself, “How do I make what I’m consuming right now easily discoverable for my future self?”
For example, you could define key terms and add links to the source of the information.
Express
Now that you have all this information, you can express your ideas, develop them, make connections, and share your thoughts when you need to.
All this information may leave you with a feeling of overwhelm but you don’t need to have a perfect system with all the parts in place right away.
Take it one step at a time.
You could focus just on the capture part and make sure you have a process and the tools in place to collect the information you come across. That in itself is a big win.
Then you can focus on the next step and start to organize, then distill, and finally work on expressing your ideas.
Play around with it and see what works for you.
Let me know if you decide to try this out or if you already have a system in place. I’d love to know.
💎 How ‘Should’ Makes Us Stupid — And How to Get Smart Again
Source: Hold That Thought, from Kim Witten, PhD
I shared this article last week as a little gem, but this is a challenge that we all face, so let’s dive into it to understand it better.
As soon as we tell ourselves we should be doing something, we turn off the part of our brains that can help us actually do it.
“I should ride my bike more.”
“I should read more.”
“I should floss daily.”
Statements like these are usually followed by not actually doing the thing; as a result, nothing changes. We go back to our old ways after a brief feeling of guilt.
We identify the action we want to take but never solve the problem by taking the time to understand better why we don’t just finally bike more, read more, or floss daily.
In her article, Jane Elliot, Ph.D. introduces a powerful method called “The De-Shouldifier” to help us break out of the vicious “should-ing” cycle we often find ourselves in.
The De-Shouldifier is a way to take action finally. Let’s look at the example statement, “I want to read more,” which is a common challenge I hear.
Step 1: Rephrase whatever thing you think you should do as something you WANT to do.
Let’s take the example “should” statement from above,
“I should read more.” and let’s rephrase it to “I want to read more”
Step 2: Write down the results you would get if you act on this want.
The results I would get if I acted on the want to read more is that
I could enjoy my downtime
take a break from the digital world
reconnect with a favorite pastime
increase my knowledge, etc.
Step 3: Take the opposite angle and ask yourself why, specifically, you want NOT to do this thing.
Instead of assuming that we already know what’s going on (i.e., that we suck at self-marshalling), in this step we investigate the actual, specific reasons we aren’t following our own directions.
When I ask myself, “Why don’t I read more?” my brain responds: Because I don’t have enough time!
Step 4: Compare the results in #2 with the reasons in #3 and decide how you want to proceed.
Now that we know the reasons why we WANT and NOT want to “read more” we can figure out a way to actually solve this problem and make the time or find the time in our busy day to “read more”
We can find a book on a topic that interests us.
We can take the book with us to read instead of scrolling on our phones.
We can look for opportunities to add reading into our daily schedule.
Finally, we can turn the “should” from a guilt-ridden moment to an enlightening moment that opens us up to new ideas, possibilities, and our potential.
✊🏽
💎 A gem of a quote
As thrilling as the big stage is, it’s not out there that the outcome is determined. It is in the lonely training halls where you must perform without recognition or praise and the only audience is your own mind - in sessions as tough as any bout, that the world will never see. That is where your craft is mastered and the outer form that you reveal on stage is molded. What you do on stage belongs to the world; but those countless hours of unwitnessed and unappreciated preparation, are yours and yours alone. They - not the stage - represent your true character.
💎 Little Gems
Love the craftsmanship of traditional Japanese architecture? Then you’ll love the East Wind Higashi Kaze website, which I stumbled upon as I was lost in Google Maps.
How can you create drive in yourself and others? Hint: It consists of autonomy, mastery, and purpose
The 5-pound weight loss swap plus is Zone 2 training for real? It’s another informative, fun-to-read, and research-backed issue of Arnold’s Pump Club newsletter.
Let me know what you think about this week’s gems (just hit reply). I'd love to hear your thoughts. Also, I’m thankful that you read this far. 🙏🏽
Have a fantastic weekend!
Rizwan