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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Stoicism is not only a rational, but also a social philosophy. Marcus Aurelius often viewed the whole of human mankind as a single organism. Not only as a large human family, in which we’re all brothers and sister, uncles and aunts, but as a single living being, in which we all play an important role. Such […]
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Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus thought practice to be more effective than theory. In support of his own opinion, he asked the following:“Suppose there are two men, one of whom has sailed many times and has already piloted many boats, and the other of who has sailed few times and has never been a pilot. Suppose […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson is an engaging introduction to one of history’s greatest figures: Marcus Aurelius. Thus the subtitle, “The Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.” “This entire book is designed to help you follow Marcus in acquiring strength of mind and eventually a more profound sense of fulfillment,” Robertson writes. […]
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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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