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.

Media picks, March 14 - April 19

I. Health & Balance

1. According to the recent studies, people who frame events in their lives—even negative ones—in positive ways have better mental health. The article provides a description of 4 major themes you should pay attention to if you want to reframe your personal narrative into a healthier one.

2. Brene Brown's another way. I recently got really excited about her book.

3. One more benefit of eating broccoli: "sulforaphane slows down the destruction of cartilage in joints associated with …osteoarthritis. …Sulforaphane is released when eating cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts and cabbage, but particularly broccoli".

II. Maker skills

4. A clear explanation of the WRAP model for decision-making.

III. Warmth

5. "I Followed My Stolen iPhone Across The World, Became A Celebrity In China, And Found A Friend For Life" travelogue by a BuzzFeed writer.

Media picks, March 2-13

I. Writing skills

1. Checklist: Is this content valuable?

2. Sales writing: You don't really know your customers, unless… you can finish their sentences (e.g., "Submit" to be replaced with "Start my trial").

II. Maker skills

3. BigThink video (2:39 min): Neil deGrasse Tyson' advice.

4. BigThink video (2:34 min): The Common Character Trait of Geniuses (answer: deep focus).

5. Video (2 min): Richard Branson's top 5 tips for becoming an entrepreneur (2012).

III. Voice

6. Pauses & voice modulations in this video (3:56 min). Would love some of the pauses to be longer though.

IV. People skills

7. The practice: Bless.

Blessing does not mean approving; you can wish people well while also disengaging from them.

Fundamentally, blessing means treating another person as a “thou” not an “it,” not a means to your ends. Think of “thou” as a verb. To bless people is to thou them.

8. Video, first 44 seconds: Richard Branson' advice.

9. Quiz: Feeling cared about (pdf). One of the statements to be rated:

I’ve reflected a lot on my childhood, and I have an accurate, well-rounded understanding of the ways that my parents and other key caregivers related to me – especially as a young child – and how this affected me while growing up.

Media picks, February 23 - March 1

1. Smiling changes your brain.

2. Two Easy Ways to Feel Like You Have More Time. A set of 10+ deep breaths is one of them.

3. Classifications of satire: Horatian vs. Juvenalian vs. Menippean.

4. See deep wants.

When you recognize the deeper wants of others, they feel seen and are less likely to be reactive.

5. "The price of admission" in long-term relationships.

6. Marion Cotillard's Screen Test with Lynn Hirschberg, 2015.