Nils Salzgeber

All Posts by Nils Salzgeber

Stoic exercise: forgive the wrongs of others

Some Thoughts on Black Friday

Black Friday is controversial. On the one hand, there is nothing inherently wrong with shopping and looking out for good deals. Most of us don’t have too much money, so saving makes sense. On the other hand, there’s the greed, violence, chaos, selfishness, and other troubling aspects associated with it. Let me start by saying that […]

How to Sleep Better: 15 Tips Backed by Science

“Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart […]

Emotion Regulation: 8 Do’s and Don’ts for Managing Difficult Emotions

“Once [anger] begins to carry us away, it is hard to get back again into a healthy condition, because reason goes for nothing once passion has been admitted to the mind . . . The enemy must be met and driven back at the outermost frontier-line: for when he has once entered the city and […]

“Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth – Book Summary

Angela Duckworth is the world’s leading authority on the science of grit, and she’s the author of the New York Times bestseller with the same title: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals,” she explains in her 2013 TED Talk. “Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking […]

“Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work” by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal — Book Summary

Stealing Fire is a book about nonordinary states of consciousness (NOSC), written by the founders of the Flow Genome Project, Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal. You may recognize Kotler as the author of the highly popular The Rise of Superman, his previous book about flow, which is also a nonordinary state of consciousness. The premise of the […]

the rise of superman by steven kotler - book summary

“The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance” by Steven Kotler – Book Summary

The Rise of Superman is a book about flow written by Steven Kotler, a multiple NY Times bestselling author and co-founder of the Flow Research Collective. The story of the book is simple: Over the past three decades, action and adventure sports athletes have “pushed human performance farther and faster than at any other point in […]

“Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Book Summary

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is a 1990 book on happiness and how to obtain it. According to Csikszentmihalyi, happiness is achieved not through external means (e.g., money, fame, influence, or material riches) but by controlling consciousness – by controlling our inner, moment-to-moment experience of life. It’s not about what happens “out there” in […]

How to Stop Procrastinating on Mundane Tasks: 5 Ways to Get the Boring, Unchallenging, and Repetitive Tasks Done

Formatting documents, filling in spreadsheets, answering emails – we all face mundane tasks that bore us but need to be done. While delaying them for a bit is perhaps inevitable, we need to get them out of the way sooner or later, so we can focus our energy fully on purposeful and fun activities. But how do […]

irrational optimism wishful thinking procrastination

Irrational Optimism, Wishful Thinking, and The Hard Truth About Overcoming Severe Procrastination

Here’s what overcoming severe procrastination is not about: Time management, better to-do lists, seeing a therapist, getting organized, setting goals, creating deadlines, ridding yourself of distractions, using rewards, or finding an accountability buddy. While useful, none of them will make a big difference unless you understand the one underlying principle every consistent improvement in any behavior […]

Getting Things Done “the Dysfunctional Way” – Lessons from Tim Ferriss, William James, Ayn Rand, and Other High Achievers

We all use tools to get things done – we eat frogs, set Pomodoro timers, take naps, drink coffee, plan our days, block distracting websites, put our phones in airplane mode, listen to music, wear noise-canceling headphones, swallow caffeine pills. More and better tools mean greater productivity. “Getting things done the dysfunctional way” is another such […]

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