This discussion features Emily Bacletis, a psychology professor at NYU, Ryan Holiday, a Stoic author, Neil Pasricha, a happiness expert, and philosophers Nancy Sherman and Derek Sivers. They dive into the corrosive effects of anger on decisions, explore the Stoic approach to emotional control, and highlight the transformative power of gratitude. The guests share insights on focusing motivation, the importance of clear directives, and how happiness is about growth, not just a static state. A philosophical feast for anyone seeking personal development!
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Managing Anger
Manage anger by recognizing its role in mistakes.
Pause and reflect before reacting to anger.
insights INSIGHT
Perception and Reality
Our visual perception is influenced by our physical state and motivation. Those who weigh more tend to perceive distances as farther.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Improving Performance through Focus
Narrow your focus of attention, like Olympic athletes, to improve performance.
Focusing on a target can make distances seem shorter and efforts feel less strenuous, thereby enhancing motivation and efficiency.
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In this book, Mark Manson argues against the typical self-help advice of constant positivity, instead suggesting that life's struggles give it meaning. He emphasizes the need to focus on what truly matters and to accept and confront painful truths. The book is divided into nine chapters and uses blunt honesty and profanity to illustrate its ideas, encouraging readers to find meaning through values they can control and to replace uncontrollable values with more meaningful ones.
Lives of the Stoics
The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
Ryan Holiday
Stephen Hanselman
This book presents the fascinating lives of twenty-six ancient Stoics, from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius, organized in digestible mini-biographies. It vividly brings to life the stories of key Stoic philosophers, such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Cicero, and demonstrates how their philosophies shaped their actions and legacies. The authors intertwine historical context with philosophical insights, making the book both educational and entertaining. It shows how Stoic principles can be applied to modern life, emphasizing virtues like Courage, Justice, Temperance, and Wisdom[1][3][5].
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert
In 'Stumbling on Happiness,' Daniel Gilbert delves into the human capacity to imagine the future and why we are often poor at predicting what will make us happy. Gilbert argues that our imagination is flawed in several ways: it adds or removes details, extrapolates from the present, and fails to account for the psychological immune system that helps us cope with undesired outcomes. The book uses scientific research from psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and behavioral economics to explain why we consistently misjudge our future satisfaction and how this affects our decisions. Gilbert also suggests that understanding these biases can help us make better choices and gain more control over our pursuit of happiness.
Poor Charlie's Almanack
The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
Charles T. Munger
Peter D. Kaufman
Originally published in 2005, Poor Charlie's Almanack is a collection of eleven talks delivered by Charles T. Munger between 1986 and 2007. Edited by Peter D. Kaufman, this book draws on Munger's extensive knowledge across various fields to provide a framework for rational and rigorous approaches to life, learning, and decision-making. It is renowned for its sharp wit and rhetorical flair, making it an essential read for investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone seeking to enhance their wisdom and critical thinking skills.
In the fourth installment in a series of episodes, The Knowledge Project curates essential segments from six guests revolving around one theme: philosophy. This episode will help you control your anger in heated circumstances, explain how what you focus on makes achieving goals easier, gives you a recipe to increase happiness through gratitude, walk you through the three layers of emotion according to the stoics, teach you the importance of focusing on directives, and will explain how happiness isn’t a rate, but a rate of change.
The guests on this episode are author Ryan Holiday (Episode 128), Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University Emily Bacletis (Episode 154), author and happiness-expert Neil Pasricha (Episode 72), a Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University Nancy Sherman, (Episode 126), “philosopher-king” and author Derek Sivers (Episode 88), and professional heavy-weight boxer, philosopher, and poet Ed Latimore (Episode 22).
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