Category: Random Thoughts (Page 4 of 4)

Arrogance & Imposter Syndrome

March 23, 2024 / vienna / 0 Comments

Imposter syndrome refers to a psychological pattern where an individual doubts their skills, accomplishments, and talents, and has a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud” or “impostor.”

On the other hand one might have good reason to doubt their skill, and their talents and accomplishments which really may not be worth bragging about.

Reading the Amazon reviews of books I’m reading in my current Themed Read I can’t help but feel as Seth Godin put it in his March 22rd, 2024 post on the arrogance of improvement.

Who are you to make things better?

How dare you raise your hand to help, offer an idea, take responsibility…
Seth’s Blog

But then I remember, I’m not writing book reviews, I’m writing about a book experience, my own. And I’m sharing it, just in case you’d like to follow along.

Seth also said “If not you, who? If not now, when?”

Day 3 – March 23, 2023

Measurement, Streaks and Day 2

March 22, 2024 / vienna / 0 Comments

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein

Day 2 is never as easy as I expect it to be. It ought to be easy, the decision is made, commitment confirmed, it’s written down and points are assigned (more on that in a minute) and yet I’ve missed more day 2’s than I can count.

I am a compulsive counter – 982 Readwise Reviews – 476 notes in my Zettlekasten – 222 days journaling without a miss. You get the idea – I count what I do, I count what I don’t do.

I give myself points in a chart for doing things I should do but don’t, like exercising, writing, reading. Again, you get the idea.

Is there a value? Sometimes, maybe – it probably contributed to my decision to start my current themed read. Superforecasting, Measure What Matters, and How to Measure Anything.

That and these three facts,

I’ve never believed in forecasting – I’ve never understood the point and thought it was a waste of time,
I’m never sure what to measure (in my business)
I’m obsessed with tools of all kinds – so How interests me – a lot.

Day 2 of commitment “Blog Every Damn Day” done.

Blog Every Damn Day

March 21, 2024 / vienna / 0 Comments

That’s what Seth Godin says. And that’s what Seth Godin does – and I think of it pretty much every damn day. But I don’t do it.

Hmm, I looked up the quote and that’s not quite what he said – here is the real quote “”Blog every day. It’s easy, it’s free, and it establishes your identity long before the market cares about who you are and what you do.” (Seth Godin, The Practice)

It’s not easy. It’s hard to feel significant enough to offer my words and my thoughts to the world, at all, let alone every day. And it’s not free. The cost is time, and anxiety perhaps even fear.

But I’ll give it a shot anyway. Just cuz. The same reason I’m creating this website to begin with.

March 21, 2024

Yetzer hara

September 27, 2023 / vienna / 0 Comments

“There is a second self inside you, an inner, shadow Self. This self doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t love you. It has its own agenda, and it will kill you. It will kill you like cancer. It will kill you to achieve its agenda, which is to prevent you from actualizing your Self, from becoming who you really are. This shadow self is called, in the Kabbalistic lexicon, the ‘yetzer hara.’ The yetzer hara, Steve, is what you would call Resistance.”

Rabbi Mordecai Finley, in conversation, July 4, 2010

This is the beginning of the email I received from Steven Pressfield this morning – to read the rest of his post go here https://stevenpressfield.com/2023/09/a-second-bad-self/

If this resonates with you – read his book The War of Art.

Sept 23, 2023

Readwise

March 28, 2023 / vienna / 0 Comments

March 27th, 2023

Back in December my laptop stopped working and I lost everything on it. I didn’t realize when I reinstalled Windows that my Readwise stopped importing my notes. I should have noticed before this, it stopped importing on Dec 22nd 2022, but I didn’t.

In any case I imported all my book highlights for the last three months. I was really surprised to see that I have 96 highlights from Thinking Fast and Slow – and I haven’t even finished the book! Then I noticed a pattern, I have more highlights from books I don’t like than from books I like. I’ll have to see what that is all about.

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket