Curiosity Chronicle

Today at a Glance: The Learning Pyramid indicates that teaching is a much more effective driver of retention than reading or lecture. The goal should be to move rapidly to teaching in order to cement new learning. Richard Feynman developed a learning framework grounded in teaching and iteration that was highly effective for him during his illustrious academic career. The Three-Step Learning Model:...

Today at a Glance: Humans have a tendency to manufacture complexity. We make progress in our lives—personally or professionally—and decide that the best way to celebrate that progress is to sprinkle on a new bit of chaos. We can all laugh at this tendency to complicate life, but we should also find ways to simplify it. Here are 50+ short, timeless insights for simplifying your world—"hacks" for yo...

Today at a Glance: When compared to our ancestors, our lives appear to be filled with significantly more attention-grabbing pulls in a variety of directions. Our attention is more divided than ever. Attention residue is the idea that there is a cognitive cost to shifting your attention from one task to another. When our attention is shifted, there is a "residue" that remains in the brain and impai...

Today at a Glance: The highest performers embrace software updates. They treat their minds like a code base that requires consistent updates and resets to improve upon the old. There are a variety of baseline rules for life that are deeply ingrained into our minds and in dire need of an update. Many of these rules are culturally ingrained, meaning they have been repeated and passed down with no re...

Today at a Glance: Becoming a father has changed a lot of things about my life. My relationship with time—specifically my awareness of the passing of time—has fundamentally morphed. The Paradox of Time: We are aware of the incredible value of our time but constantly take actions that are disrespectful of that value. We know how important our time is, yet we ignore its passage and engage in low val...

Episode at a Glance Ancient culture was marked by an embrace of friction. Modern culture is marked by an avoidance of friction. In our obsessive quest to reduce friction, we may be eliminating some of the moments, experiences, and texture that made us uniquely human. My Prediction: In a world of steadily decreasing friction, it will be those who are willing to embrace friction that will thrive. To...

Today at a Glance A high performer is a person who consistently executes their craft at a top-1% level over an extended period of time. I'm very fortunate to be able to spend time with many such people during the normal course of my "work"—from CEOs to athletes to investors to artists. This means I have a front row seat for direct observation of what makes these people tick. This piece lays out 12...

Today at a Glance: I spent most of my life as the “busy” guy. If anyone asked how I was doing, I would always respond with some variation of “so busy!” or “good, but really busy!” I was actually busy, but it also became part of my identity—a weird brag I developed to try to signal my value and improve my own self-worth. In the modern era, everyone seems really busy. We say we are busy as a status...

Today at a Glance: Whether we admit it or not, we spend a good portion of our lives protecting ourselves from reality. But there are times when our rose-colored glasses hold us back. In certain situations, when we fail to see the world as it is, we make sub-optimal decisions and miss out on critical growth and learning opportunities. Today's piece shares the "harsh truths" I've observed as life ch...

Today at a Glance: The most successful people in the world achieve compounding success through incredible focus on a small number of projects and opportunities. You have a personal flywheel. Before it gets spinning, saying yes will help you identify the actions that will get it moving. Once it gets spinning, saying no will help you ruthlessly prioritize the actions that accelerate its pace. Use th...

Today at a Glance: Warren Buffett is the most famous investor of all time. He is a treasure trove of frameworks, ideas, and insights, most of which apply well-beyond investing. Today's piece shares 8 of my favorite frameworks from the so-called Oracle of Omaha, including their application to your business, career, and life.

A “razor” is a rule of thumb that simplifies decision making. Humans are wired to take shortcuts in our decision-making. These shortcuts can lead us astray—but when used appropriately, the shortcuts can be extremely valuable. Today's piece shares a long list of powerful decision-making razors to help you make better decisions, faster than ever before.

Today at a Glance: Studying the daily routines of people you admire is a worthy pursuit. You can learn a lot about a person's priorities by breaking down their typical day. You may also learn something that will dramatically improve your own systems, habits, and processes. Benjamin Franklin was one of the most prolific entrepreneurs, thinkers, and leaders in history. I expected his daily routine t...

Episode at a glance: Incentives are a powerful and ubiquitous force. "Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome" - Charlie Munger. Thoughtfully-designed incentives are likely to create wonderful outcomes. Poorly-designed incentives are likely to create terrible outcomes. Goodhart's Law says that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Because of Goodhart's Law,...

Episode at a glance: What do you think you're in the top 0.1% of the world at? This question from a friend sparked me to think deeply about my own answer. I would encourage everyone to think about the question for themselves. My response: I legitimately enjoy being wrong. My father once told me that the most important thing wasn't being right; rather, it was finding the truth. From that point forw...

Hank is a 95-year-old man who asked to spend a day at Harvard for his 90th birthday. He arrived early, sat in the front row, took notes, and asked questions. He learns with no end in mind. He learns because he loves learning. The forced structure of our formal education years often saps the innate curiosity and excitement for learning. New knowledge is crammed into closed containers in our brains-...

Episode at a glance Read the full post The letter to your future self is a 10x unlock for life. The process of writing a letter forces deep reflection on the present and thoughtful rumination on the future. Use a baseline time horizon of 5 years in the future, but adjust as you see fit. A basic letter structure to follow: (1) Reflections on the Present, (2) Changes to Make, (3) Goals for the Futur...

Welcome to the 1,070 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 100,000 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week. Thank you to all the subscribers that have joined me on this journey. 100,000 is an amazing milestone—but to be honest, I feel like we’re still at the starting line. Let’s go! Today’s newsletter is brought to y...

Welcome to the 675 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 98,027 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week. Today’s newsletter is brought to you by  Trends ! Trends is my personal cheat code for generating new business and content ideas. It’s a premium newsletter from The Hustle that deconstructs the secret sauce of int...