Media picks, May 7-18

I. Health & Balance

1. Highly processed foods are among the most addictive.

2. Tony Robbins: The 3 Decisions That Will Change Your [Financial] Life (the text part, not the video).

1. Carefully choose what to focus on ("Where focus goes, energy flows"). 
2. Find an empowering meaning in any event. Epic failure -> epic learn (a fun example by Pitbull).
3. What will you do? ("You can’t change your patterns if you’re not aware of them.")

II. Security

3. How to make it out of a free-falling elevator alive (video). Worth watching to the very end.

4. 11 common tech myths you should stop believing today. Stuff about batteries was enlightening. Also: you should shut down your computer every night if you want to increase its lifespan.

III. Maker Skills

5. Figure out what you are good at (and whether you should change your job/profession) in just 2 steps.

6. 3 reasons to never take another job (I like it for its #3). Scroll down to the actual 1-2-3 list — it is there, but almost in the very end. The pep talk under the list is also helpful.

7. Two powerful exercises from Tim Ferriss:

1. A simple 3-step exercise to overcome fears. As a whole, it fits into "Prepare to be wrong" element of WRAP model of decision-making. Is also a partial how-to guide for Rainer Maria Rilke's "Anticipate change as though you had left it behind you" advice in Sonnets To Orpheus.
2. A simple productivity hack for planning your day.

Media picks, April 12 - May 6

I. Health & Balance

1. This is big: new research shows that saturated fat is bad for your cognitive skills & memory and monounsaturated fat is good. And, apparently, polyunsaturated fat has no effect whatsoever.

2. A TEDx talk (~19 min.) on self-compassion and, particularly, self-esteem vs. self-compassion (I posted its one-paragraph version on tumblr) by Kristin Neff (Ph.D.), who is an author of the pretty popular book I've seen great quotes from, Self-Compassion.

3. Beware social nostalgia. Get rid of your one-dimensional view of the past and you will be able to grow. "…memories, like witnesses, do not always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

II. People Skills & Maker Skills

4. You are an experience. Fits into "be the change you want to see in the world" concept.

5. Patti Smith: Advice to the young (6 min.).

6. Miranda July makes 2 great points about artists' relationships with fans. Plus some fun.