Adam’s 5 Finds: How to Be Happy | Learn to Say No | Learn to Learn

Hi all, here are my 5 Friday Finds.

How to be Happy

People are mostly driven by external goals. We think if we reach a goal we’ll be happy. But reaching external goals will only make us want to reach another goal (a bigger house, a better job title). But there’s a simple trick: try not to focus on changing reality (“I need to earn more money to be able to buy a better car”) but rather focus on lowering your expectations (“Do I really need a better car?”)

Happiness = Reality — Expectations

which in other words means:

“Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.”

Thank you Naval Ravikant (it’s another quote from the podcast episode presented last week).

Exercise: How to Learn New Things as an Adult

This is a great article about the best ways to learn new things or to memorize more of what you’ve read. You might think re-reading and highlighting helps. No, re-reading and highlighting are particularly ineffective, they’re just passive. It makes you feel better, feel comfortable with the material, but you don’t really know the material. Doing things that are a little bit more difficult, that require you to really make connections, is a better way to learn: explain things to yourself, or teach other people.
So this week’s exercise is to explain 3 things you’ve read in this newsletter to yourself or to other people. You’ll remember much more.

‘Learn Better’ Book Shows How to Learn New Things — The Atlantic — www.theatlantic.com
A new book explores the psychology of mastering skills and absorbing information.

What Creates Your Finger Prints?

Your fingerprints are unique to each person on the planet. Do you know how these tiny lines and your sweat glands look like? This macro shows the sweat gland ducts along the ridge tops and the deposit of sweat and natural oil that leaves finger prints on objects. Fascinating!

An up close look at fingerprints and sweat glands | The Kid Should See This — thekidshouldseethis.com

Best Book for People Struggling with Problems

We are frustrated. But it needn’t be this way. There is a formula for success that’s been followed by the most successful people in history — from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs — a formula that let them turn obstacles into opportunities.

In the book “The Obstacle is the Way” Ryan Holiday shows how these icons have applied the ancient idea of stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. It will give you 3 steps to overcome your biggest problems: 1. Perception — how to really see the problem, 2. Action — how to response to the problem with creativity and 3. Will — how to accept that there are things that are bigger than us.

Must read!

The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage: Amazon.de: Ryan Holiday — www.amazon.de

Learn to Say No More Often

This quote might only sound important for product development. How can this quote relate to our lives? Because we just need to learn to say no to more things. If you don’t feel like going to a conference, just say no. But how can I decide when to say no? What helps is the idea of only saying yes to things where you want to scream out hell yeah!!!

So: If it’s not a HELL YEAH! so it’s a NO.

I heard this about this idea in a wonderful podcast episode with Derek Sivers. Read more about Derek Sivers’ HELL YEAH here.

So think about your weekend plans, anything that isn’t HELL YEAH? :-)

Enjoy the week,

Adam