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How to Improve Your Thinking, Secret to Innovation, What Hinders Greatness
Mario Peshev
March 12, 2022
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Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins
3 Ideas For Better Habits
1
Use Multidisciplinary Thinking to Solve Difficult Problems
Philosopher David Chapman on how to improve your thinking:
"Learn from fields very different from your own. They each have ways of thinking that can be useful at surprising times. Just learning to think like an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a philosopher will beneficially stretch your mind."
2
Focus On Things that Don't Change
Entrepreneur Jeff Bezos on the secret behind innovation:
“I very frequently get the question: ‘What's going to change in the next 10 years?' And that is a very interesting question; it's a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What's not going to change in the next 10 years?'
And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time … In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that's going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,' [or] ‘I love Amazon; I just wish you'd deliver a little more slowly.' Impossible. […] When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”
3
Fear of Embarrassment Hinders Greatness
Investor Paul Graham on what holds us back from greatness:
“One of the biggest things holding people back from doing great work is the fear of making something lame. And this fear is not an irrational one. Many great projects go through a stage early on where they don't seem very impressive, even to their creators. You have to push through this stage to reach the great work that lies beyond. But many people don't. Most people don't even reach the stage of making something they're embarrassed by, let alone continue past it. They're too frightened even to start."
Productivity Tools and Resources
4
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5
Cold Email Templates
Hunter Templates: Find inspiration from best-performing cold emails, sorted by categories.
Brain Food
Today I Learned: If you're in a group of 23 people, there's a 50% chance that 2 of them share a birthday. If you're in a group of 70 people, that probability jumps to over 99%.
Have a productive week,
The Smarter Brain Team