2 podcasts and biographies
While listening to the How to Take Over the World episode of Rasputin, one of the plugs was for another similar podcast that delves into fictional biographies, it's called Becoming the main character.
Both podcasts, synthesize books on real or fictional characters, to find the hows and whys people became great.
This led me to think about why I read biographies (mainly audiobook format), such as Teddy Roosevelt's, Churchill's, Napoleon's, Hawkings's, Feynman's, Von Neumann's and Gordon Brown's...
I concluded that I look for alternatives that have not crossed my mind and special ingredients that these people may have that took them to a higher level in history.
We are all made of the same stuff, we all have the same 24 hours/day and roughly the same 30000 days/life, though some people achieve greatness, as per historical standards, and others just whiz by without a trace...
Please listen to these podcasts, I am currently listening to the Paul Atreides episode which is very interesting.
Reading long posts
My reading list is quite extensive, 600+ articles, some of them will not be read. Ever. Some are not even articles, more like apps or services that I want to try. And others are very interesting but very long articles that I want to read/listen.
To read the latter kind of articles I use Elevenreader, from Elevenlabs, which turns text into speech in a very smooth, convincing and nice way. This app has allowed me to listen to 40 pages long articles in 90 minutes while walking Pancho.
I highly recommend it, you can choose the voice (even Richard Feynman if you like), the speed... it's very good.
People that inspire me
These are the people on which I have surely read or listened a bio about, and surely read their wikipedia page.
Stephen Hawking: great achievements despite limitations
Winston S. Churchill: Great orator, nobel prize winner, great leader
Alan Turing: Code breaking
Richard Dawkins: scientific "evangelism" ;)
Elon Musk: though less and less
Richard Feynman: Nobel prize, drawing, bongo playing, lock-picking
Isaac Newton: Calculus, Laws of motion, 3-body problem, philosopher's stone (?)
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
Napoleon: Great leader and strategist
Marie Curie: 2 Nobel prizes in 2 different subjects
Carl Sagan: great scientist, great writer
David Hume: great philosopher, great scotsman
Adam Smith: great economist, great scotsman
Benjamin Franklin: very proactive, renaissance man
Pocketmoney
I read this post from Michael Karnjanaprakorn about he handles his girl's allowance.
I think there are some great ideas, that I am taking for Lucas' and Nico's pocket money in a few years:
- How to set the allowance: weekly, 1€/year. i.e: 10 years, 10euros/week.
- Compounding: set an interest rate on savings, i=10%/year. This teaches them about compunding.
- Doubling savings: every year if savings are over 50€, double it to reinforce patience and savings.
This will need a spreadsheet, another great skill to teach.
A thoughtful and great approach on how to handle finance skills and allowance.
Bookending
I recently read a post by Mandy Brown about a best practice that she incorporated into her routine.
She calls it bookending, as in the bookends that open and close the content of a book.
It is an SOP that defines a beginning and an end to the work day. It consists of the following steps:
- At the beginning of your work day, start with a blank sheet of paper or notebook and visualise what the day will look like, before getting into the busyness of emails and notifications.
- At the end of the day, close all the apps, shut down the computer, and review the day.
These simple steps limit and define your workday, especially relevant in a remote work environment.
This concept is something I've seen multiple times, though have not yet fully implemented it.
Many Brown -> Bookending
Sahil Bloom -> Power down ritual
Cal Newport -> Work shut down ritual
Old ->