Video: 2-minute version · 9-minute full breakdown. Essay: Medium.
Last week, someone left a passive-aggressive comment on something I’d posted online.
It wasn’t even mean. It was that worse, smaller thing — a polite “actually…” that implied I had no idea what I was talking about. My chest got tight.… Read the rest “You’re Not Anxious. You’ve Been Trained to Absorb Everyone Else’s Stress.”
Reading time: ~12 minutes
In 1990, a Stanford PhD student named Elizabeth Newton ran an experiment that should have permanently humbled every smart person on the internet.
She had volunteers tap out the rhythm of well-known songs on a table — Happy Birthday, The Star-Spangled Banner, songs everyone knows.… Read the rest “Why Your Best Ideas Keep Dying in the Feed — And the Cognitive Trap Behind It”
Reading time: ~12 minutes
In 1990, a Stanford PhD student named Elizabeth Newton ran an experiment that should have permanently humbled every smart person on the internet.
She had volunteers tap out the rhythm of well-known songs on a table — Happy Birthday, The Star-Spangled Banner, songs everyone knows.… Read the rest “Why Your Best Ideas Keep Dying in the Feed — And the Cognitive Trap Behind It”
This is the core principle of via negativa — and it may be the most powerful mental model for focus and productivity that most people have never applied.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was forty days from bankruptcy.… Read the rest “Via Negativa: The Ancient Mental Model That Cures Modern Distraction”
This is the companion piece to Your Brain Has a Creativity Mode. You’ve Been Accidentally Shutting It Off Every Day. on Medium. That article makes the case. This one gives you the implementation — including a downloadable 30-Day Cognitive Rest Tracker at the end.
There is a specific kind of professional emptiness that doesn’t announce itself as burnout.… Read the rest “Why Being Productive Every Day Is Making You a Worse Thinker”
This is the companion piece to Your Brain Has a Creativity Mode. You’ve Been Accidentally Shutting It Off Every Day. on Medium. That article makes the case. This one gives you the implementation — including a downloadable 30-Day Cognitive Rest Tracker at the end.
There is a specific kind of professional emptiness that doesn’t announce itself as burnout.… Read the rest “Why Being Productive Every Day Is Making You a Worse Thinker”
A companion piece to I Got Replaced by ChatGPT — Then Rehired at Triple the Rate
Experience compounds or decays. The difference isn’t the years — it’s whether you know exactly what you’ve built.
The worst professional mistake I’ve made wasn’t a bad decision. It was describing myself wrong for a decade.… Read the rest “The Human Premium: A Career Audit for Professionals with 10–25 Years of Experience”
