NonTrivial

Important things see the light of day, not by some plan or deterministic outline, but by making changes en-route to the goal. It's adaptability that matters in the face of real world situations. Finding the right mix of people, places and things happens as you move. Suggested Reading Related to Intro Example The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age by Steve Olson Epi...

Some performances deliver deep authenticity, with standup comedy being a good example.  Extremely authentic performances show us something we all should have; that ability to reach deep within us and share what we're really thinking, despite the risk this might pose to our normal, settled lives. Humans have evolved to filter for authenticity, as this leads to better information groups can use...

History is loaded with "bad" / "dumb" ideas. And this includes those made by high-ranking officials and government agencies. Looking at the various schemes and plots left on the drawing board one wonders how anyone took them seruously.  But most of today’s useful inventions were deemed absurd at the time. This tells us that we need to have a lot of bad ideas to land on good one...

Our lives are adversely impacted when our interactions are purely transactional. We see this play out in devastating fashion in industry, where certain businesses can cause great harm to society due to their insulation and disconnection from the lives they sell to. But this isn't just for businesses. Our personal and professional lives depend critically on organic, face-to-face interactions w...

People look for stability in the labels we give ourselves. Our job, our title, our salary, the associations we join. But the only thing truly constant in life is its ever-changing nature. Those labels we take comfort in are in constant flux, getting reshaped and redefined by a changing economy, and the technologies that drive it. In this episode I argue that instead of looking for stability in the...

We do things for the mystery more than the facts. Scientists go on into the deepest parts of the ocean, yes to conduct research, but under highly uncertain and dangerous circumstances. What really drives deep sea exploration is the mystery. This is true of anything we create.  If we are writing a book, yes there is structure, yes there are facts, but ultimately we are trying to deliver a kind of m...

School shows us topics worth learning, but it does not, I would argue, impart genuine comprehension. And yet, everyone’s life contains the same patterns that lead to what we are shown in school. This means that the knowledge locked away in textbooks is actually most useful to us later in life. In this episode, I argue that we should look to embrace scholastic information later in life, when our ex...

When we are not in the mood our energy is low. But when our energy is low our mind is better aligned to what matters when it comes to doing good work; contemplation, reflection, prioritization. Critically, not being in the mood means not going down too many wrong paths. In this episode I argue that the best time to work on a given task is when we're not in the mood, and discuss how we should...

Our lives are a product of our thoughts. Our thinking directly latches onto tangible things in our lives. And whenever we think about our thoughts it’s always after-the-fact (introspection, therapy, etc.).  But some thoughts we know do not lead to good outcomes (non-negotiable), and are thus not worth struggling with. In this episode I argue that there is no point in allowing thoughts that we know...

A formidable skill is one that is related to a high level of expertise, surpassing the norm. It is one that is difficult to acquire, requires significant effort and dedication. Formidable skills are ones that are largely automatic.  The automation comes from the mind figuring things out in ways we don't understand. So much of honing a formidable skill is learning which parts are automatically...

Doing more with less means being able to create a decent amount of content in a small amount of time. To create a lot using a small amount of time (and other resources) requires one to find something generative . Something generative is highly efficient because it encapsulates and expresses a high degree of abstraction and complexity in a compact form. We can do a lot more by doing less, if we lea...

Moving slower means we can focus on what matters. But it's also true that moving fast is a signal that we are figuring things out. In this episode I argue that to really get good at something we should find the slowness that moves us. We should seek ways to move slowly, and expect brevity. Support the show Become a Member at dekyon.io/seanmcclure/nontrivial Premium members get access to the f...

So much of life is about searching for answers. Answers have to do with information, but real-world information has no “location" (it does not exist at a single point inside the space of possibilities), meaning that in some sense, answers don't exist. In this episode I argue that we should be looking for conversations, not answers. Conversations provide us the kind of information that ca...

There are 2 kinds of heroes; extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances, and ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The problem with heroes portrayed as extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances is that they are far less relatable, and more rigorously, reveal less useful information. In this episode I argue that our choice in heroes should be aligned to ordinary people in extraor...

Meditation is a practice that has been around for thousands of years and is used for various purposes. But meditation is practiced periodically, once a day at best. This means the state of mind that makes the most difference in our life only makes up a small portion of our life. We need our most important state of mind to always be on, with us as we interact with the world. We need to see meditati...

Logic and emotion are both important. But society often chooses one or the other, rather than having them work together. This occurs because society tries to attend to emotions rather than use them effectively. If I redress my logic in the hopes of appeasing someone who's "offended" we fail to reach a rational solution. If I maintain my logic absent the other person's emotions,...

We all want a better world. But society cannot be forced into a specific governance or morality. In this episode I argue that we need to build our world from within, as individuals with solid moral and intellectual integrity. Only through a better inner world will our collective world reflect the truths we deem most important as individuals. I offer a solution that rises above any specific world v...

We all want our voices to be heard. But the reality is most of us will never live to see much of an audience. We need to realize we’re not really speaking to today’s generation, as much as we are to future people who will encounter our work. There are countless examples throughout history of people who died never seeing their true impact. As long we make our thoughts tangible, our audience will al...

We are told by society to chase happiness; that the "pursuit of happiness" is the most sensible goal in life.  But I argue that happiness has much in common with misery when it comes to pursuing goals. Both happiness and misery are emotional extremes, and both things we cannot control. Making that which we cannot control a goal in life is untenable. I argue that we need to see the pursui...

Our best ideas come unannounced. We might be walking, taking a shower, playing with our children, etc. But this means when we sit down to do our actual work we are missing so much of the original inspiration and energy. We’re missing the quality insight we had in the moment. I argue that we need to capture our ideas the moment they arrive if we are to deliver truly authentic and in-context work. I...

Life is full of narratives. They're how we make sense of the world.  But narratives exist somewhere between truth and nonsense. The challenge is to see past the narratives, aligning our lives with that which is true. I discuss the technique needed to see past the narratives in our lives. Support the show Become a Member at dekyon.io/seanmcclure/nontrivial Premium members get access to the ful...

Temptations are things we desire to do, but are also things we deem wrong or unwise. Temptations take us away from who we want to be in life. Temptations start off harmless, but have a tendency to grow without notice, until we are living an incorrect life. I argue that we must learn to stop problematic distractions early, by replacing our damaging preoccupations with more productive and authentic...

Collaboration is good, but friction is needed to solve tough problems as a group. The quality of information depends on stark individualism, rather than some engineered collaboration based on excess politeness and etiquette. In this episode I argue that  collaboration should not be equated to "being nice", and that the energy and authenticity we need to work well in groups depends on a g...

When we think about the things we want to accomplish, we often frame them in terms of the barriers we need to pass. But this isn't the case for things that comprise our lifestyle. When something is part of our lifestyle we just do it, and often do it well. Exercise, writing, whatever; our goals become far more obtainable when we stop putting them on pedestals and instead just move. I discuss...

We are often told that if we want to be good at something we should focus more. But a single (real world) task has multiple facets that must be honed, and you cannot learn those facets from the task itself; they must come from other areas of life. In this episode I argue that to be good at any one thing we should do many things.  Support the show Become a Member at dekyon.io/seanmcclure/nontrivial...