Sunday Newsletter — 5/31/2020
How 10 Billionaires Surmounted Failure to Build Massive Empires
Notes:
- I’m a firm believer in the the practice of studying people who have achieved great success, and trying to emulate them.
- The article above provides some excellent visualizations of the timelines of the lives of some of the world’s most successful people, several of whom were very late bloomers.
Notes:
- The study above looked at the effects that the consumption of a wide variety of foods had on various indicators of cognitive ability.
- Key takeaway: What you eat can have significant effects on your mental capabilities.
Excerpts:
- “The consumption of noodles showed negative correlation with verbal memory, SDMT, shift attention, and reasoning test results…”
- “The consumption of Coca-Cola showed negative correlation with the results of verbal memory tests…”
- “The consumption of mushrooms showed positive correlation with visual memory and reasoning test results…”
- “Omission errors were negatively correlated with the intake of protein, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin, and vitamin B6 (p < 0.05), as well as with vitamin D and zinc intake…”
Notes:
- This one may seem a bit morbid, but I actually think that reading death statistics can be very enlightening, and can provide an excellent reality check.
- The article linked to above uses data visualization to illustrate how many people die each day from the top causes of death, and gives some good perspective on coronavirus mortality rates.
Excerpt:
- “Each day, there are over 150,000 deaths globally.”
Deaths per day, by cause:
- Cardiovascular diseases — 48,742
- Cancers — 26,1818
- Respiratory diseases — 10,724
- Conflict — 355
- Coronavirus, average number of daily deaths from March 11th to May 15th — 4,517
Journal Excerpts
All creative outlets are a means by which to discover who you truly are.
Who do you trust? Which people? Which organizations? Why do you trust them?
It’s easy to convince yourself that by seeking out and sharing information on issues and stories of injustice you are making the world a better place. And perhaps you are. However, you can do an equivalent amount of good by drawing attention to solutions, and to stories about people who are doing wonderful things. And if you get yourself into the habit of doing the latter, you will probably be a whole lot happier than if you get yourself into the habit of doing the former.
If you want a lot of low quality information, spend some time randomly searching the internet. If you want a few high quality insights, go for a walk in the woods.
Victory doesn’t always feel as great as I imagined it would, but it certainly feels better than defeat.
Either consciousness continues after death, or it doesn’t. To me, either option sounds pretty fantastic.
So often, the best choice is to slow down. So often, the best choice is to just let it be.
Photo of the Week
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