Hi! It’s enthusiasm time again.
Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog here.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
I’m a big fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of such books as Antifragile, The Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness). Here’s a Taleb quote that’s resonating with me this week:
“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behaviour, not because they won or lost.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or in the comments below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
This quote from the wonderful author Philip K Dick never gets old for me:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Read More →
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
The subject of free speech is one that’s incredibly important, and appears to be increasingly under threat. While Noam Chomsky is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, he’s very on-point in this statement about the importance of free speech:
“Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
In a recent ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on his podcast, Sam Harris was answering a question about what careers he would advise. He talked (of course) about the advance of technology, and avoiding jobs likely to be automated soon. He also said that the careers which would likely be the last to be automated were those involving human creativity, taste and insight. This is a point I made in-depth in my book RESULTS. Here’s what Harris said about the importance of relationships:
“I think lawyers and accountants and many other white-collar jobs will be automated away before seemingly more menial jobs will be. Obviously we will want to remain in relationship to other people, so careers that give primacy to relationships – being a psychotherapist, or a coach – seems to me to give much more primacy to the relationship than being an oncologist does.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
In my 2013 book CLARITY, I made the point that “just as factory workers need to keep their machines clean and well oiled, knowledge workers, creatives, managers and leaders need to take similar care of their minds.” I pointed out that individuals and businesses are paying the price as time-scarcity, attention- poverty and information-saturation clog the “mental machinery” we rely on. I just read an article in the Financial Times saying that the Global Risks Report has just arrived at a similar conclusion. Here’s what it said:
“In many ways, the mental health issues we face are similar to the physical health and safety challenges of the 19th century as industrialisation changed the nature of work. In the 21st century, mental health and safety rules could play a similar role in our increasingly knowledge-based economy, according to the Global Risks Report.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
One of the things I do from time to time is transcribe recordings by people who have something interesting to say. The person whose recordings I’ve transcribed the most is Sydney Banks, and I learn a huge amount every time I do it. The one I’ve done most recently is a talk called “The Oneness of Life” from his series, “The Hawaii Lectures”. Here’s a line from it that’s resonating with me and the promise I see these principles holding for humanity:
“Right now, you’re all sitting enlightened… and you don’t know it… you know that saying, ‘I am what I seek’?… that’s the oneness of life… and the oneness of life… is the greatest thing in the world that you can realise… and I hope someday, that everybody in this world can realise that… that’d be a marvellous thing…”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
I came across a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestley written in 1780. While humanity has now gone far beyond what Franklin imagined when it comes to the physical sciences, it seems to me that we’re just on the threshold of what he hoped for in the domain he calls ‘moral science’:
“The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my Regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried in a 1000 Years the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity & give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labour & double its Produce. All Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a Way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
This week saw 8 years since the death of the magnificent Christopher Hitchens. He was a passionate defender of free speech; a voice we need now more than ever. This week’s quote is from one of his influences, John Stuart Mill:
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
Ray Kurzweil is one of the most accurate futurists of all time. In the 1990s he made over 140 predictions about what life would be like today. 86% of them were accurate and timely. One of the things that informs his predictions as a futurist is his understanding of the exponential nature of technology:
“Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
I’ve been listening to an old Syd Banks recording (one I’ve heard many times) but these sentences leapt out at me today. Of course, Banks would be the first to say that you can’t actually get rid of the ego, but the thing that struck me here was this: that phrase, “Oh God, I want nothing to do with it.” I suddenly heard the ‘aversion’ to the ego; the instinctive sense that while it may always be with us, it isn’t worth paying attention to.
“You gotta destroy the ego… throw it away, oh God I want nothing to do with it… really, this is where freedom is…”