Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s hard to believe that today makes four years since I started writing every day. It’s also amazing to me that my core purpose for blogging hasn’t really changed either. If anything, I’ve continued to dig even deeper into my reasons for doing this.

In particular, I’m doing and more and more to give myself reasons to revisit old posts and previously-read books. I recently heard Seth Godin mention that he listened to old tapes of Zig Ziglar so often that he had memorized around 75 hours of his talks. Building that kind of repetition into his mind has certainly shaped who he has become.

That leads to my ever-present question of how frequently to tackle new content versus reviewing the old. For now, I’m trying to continue to push forward on both, which is clearly not feasible in the long run. I plan to keep posting daily on here, and then using things like our virtual book club (talking about “Contagious” next; email me if you’d like to join us) and the consistently-growing Stacking Knowledge podcast.

If you’re new here in the past year, here are some thoughts on why I’m doing what I’m doing:

Why I’m Writing Every Day
Some thoughts on why I decided to start doing this.

Get Writing in 2021
Some related thoughts from Seth Godin on why you should blog daily.

Blogging beats journaling
Why I blog in public rather than journal in private.

To write more, read more
How I find ideas for new posts.

How I plan out my future posts
Some thoughts on getting my posts organized.

WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin
A great (free!) plugin that I use to help lay out my blogging schedule.

Sharing the posts I write
My daily plan (at least at the time) for sharing posts after they’re published.

Here’s to the next 1,000 posts!

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Depending on when you read this, we’re somewhere around 31 episodes into the Stacking Knowledge podcast and going strong. Every episode features me speaking with a guest about a business/life book that they got something out of, and the conversations have been phenomenal. The wisdom that my guests have brought has been amazing.

In a few cases, though, it’s clear that we’ve touched on something special. In those cases we’re not talking about “a” book that they enjoyed, but rather the book that shaped their life in incredible ways. Three examples come to mind.

The first time this happened was when Brian Marcos and I discussed “Chess Not Checkers”. I could tell things were different because while Brian certainly used some notes from time to time, 90% of his comments came directly out of his head and he knew this book amazingly well. He’d share quotes from the book and then tie them all back to his experiences in leadership. It was awesome.

It happened again a few episodes later with Moira Vetter sharing her thoughts on “The Art of War”. Her copy of the book was very well-worn and tattered, as she’s read it many times. During the show she shared “Instead of reading a book a day, I read the same books over and over trying to go deeper into the content and trying to find new aspects of applying subject matter” and it was undoubtedly true.

Most recently it happened when Justin Smith and I went through “The Ideal Team Player”. The concept of the book is very simple: the ideal team player is humble, hungry and smart. That’s it. However, unpacking those can get quite deep and Justin shared a wealth of information about the differences between them, what happens when a person is just missing one of those three, and he shared detailed example of every situation. Like Brian and Moira, he had some notes with him but the very best stuff came directly from his brain. He’s taught on this book many times, and his deep understanding of it made for some amazing insights.

Every person I’ve interviewed has been fantastic, and I don’t think there’s bad episode that we’ve published. Sometimes, though, when you get people to talk about their very favorite book it can bring some real magic.

What is the most impactful book that you’ve ever read?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Formal education is essential. Without understanding the basics (with “the basics” meaning “years of schooling”), you have no foundation on which to grow further. However, the further growth is where the real value lies.

In his book “Selling in a Post-Trust World“, author Larry Levine shares a simple quote from Jim Rohn that says:

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”

A solid formal education will add security and value to any life. However, almost everyone that has become wildly successful has done it with a huge focus on self-education. It’s like I shared a few months ago:

I recently decided to dig in to understand the reading habits of some of the most successful people in recent decades, and quickly found one common thread: they all love to read. All of them. I have no doubt that there are exceptions, but my initial digging didn’t find any.

Take your formal education as far as you possibly can, as there are increasing benefits as you go along. However, when that time comes to an end, you have the chance to go even further and surpass almost everyone around you. Take it.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Part of our team just spent a few days at the Digital Summit conference here in Atlanta, and it was excellent. We picked up some great tips and ideas that we’ve already started to use, and I’m sure more will come out as we unpack further.

My thought for today is “what does unpacking really mean?”

More specifically, I saw a number of folks taking photos of slides that had solid content on them. I agree with them taking photos of those, but I’m curious what they did with the photo after the conference was over. In most cases, I think the answer is “not much”.

I think that’s the problem with a lot of note-taking in general. There are noteworthy benefits to simply taking notes when it comes to understanding and memorization, but the real value comes in processing your notes afterward.

I took most of my notes at Digital Summit directly on my laptop into Tana and I’ve spent time working through them, trying out new apps that were suggested, adding some pieces to Anki, and simply making sure that I will remember and utilize the parts that stood out to me.

In a similar vein, I watched Robert take many pages of notes by hand, but he’s since gone back through them and summarized them in a post you can find here. I suspect in the coming days he’ll dissect them further and have some ideas for things we can implement at GreenMellen.

I try to be good about taking solid notes, thought sometimes I fail to do so. When I’m able to get solid notes, though, I always try to take the time to work through them and make sure the gems don’t get forgotten. If I don’t, why did I bother to take the notes in the first place?

Taking a photo of a slide is a good first step, but it doesn’t help much if it never leaves your phone.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

A few years ago I wrote about the idea of intentionally making some things more difficult and I recently discovered that this concept has a name: interleaving.

The book “Hidden Potential” has some great examples of that:

I assumed it would be ideal to practice one skill until you make progress, and only then move on to the next one. But rather than repeating the same challenges over and over, Brandon mixes them up. In twenty-minute intervals, Brandon Payne has Steph Curry bouncing from one shooting-and quickness challenge to another. The variety isn’t just motivating—it’s also better for learning. Hundreds of experiments show that people improve faster when they alternate between different skills. Psychologists call it interleaving, and it works in areas ranging from painting to math, especially when the skills being developed are similar or complex. Even small tweaks, like shifting between thinner and thicker paintbrushes or slightly adjusting the weight of a basketball, can make a big difference.

As with many things, my idea was on the right track but it fell a bit short. I did it simply to help mimic real-world performance, but proper interleaving can actually help with learning.

I’ll continue to interleave in my life where it makes sense, like on the driving range, and I can feel even better that it’ll be helping me to improve in multiple ways.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In Daniel Kahneman’s classic book “Thinking, Fast and Slow“, he said something simple that I’ve been chewing on for a long time. He said:

“Intelligence is not only the ability to reason; it is also the ability to find relevant material in memory and to deploy attention when needed.”

The reason this stuck with me is because it’s something that I strive very hard to do, but continue to struggle to reach. I don’t think it’s something that can be accomplished, but rather it’s a tension that will always exist. I’ll keep pushing toward it, and while I’ll never get there, I’ll always be improving.

Specifically, it’s the idea of being able to “find relevant material in memory”. What can you do to improve that? For me, it’s a few things.

At its core, it’s the struggle between fresh and repeat content. I’m always reading more and trying to learn new things, but better understanding of the things I’ve previously learned is likely even more important.

Anki + Readwise -> Blog

More specifically, two of the tools I use to help with that are Anki and Readwise, both of which I use at least a little bit every day. Anki is where I review specific topics and ideas that I want to remember, and Readwise is a way to resurface items that I’ve highlighted in books over the years. Both are fantastic and are helping me move forward, but I have a long way to go.

Of course, this blog factors in heavily as well. I hope you find value in these posts, but they’re also super valuable for me as a way to resurface old topics (like today’s quote from a book I read four years ago) and unpack them a bit further.

I hope to continue to improve in my ability to “find relevant material in memory and to deploy attention when needed“, and as long as I feel I’m not all the way there that’ll give me the inspiration to keep pushing forward.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I recently read the book “Superforecasting“, which shared the stories and processes of those that are able to make predictions far better than most people can.

While there is a lot of nuance in the book, and it’s well worth reading, one theme that came up over and over was that the best forecasters never stopped doubting themselves. Even for things they fully believed, they’d push at the edges over and over to make sure they were right (or change their mind if they were wrong).

The title of this post comes from this snippet in the book:

“Consensus is not always good; disagreement not always bad. If you do happen to agree, don’t take that agreement—in itself—as proof that you are right. Never stop doubting.”

There are a lot of things that you and I believe that are probably 100% correct, but it’s impossible to know which ideas are right and which are wrong. Always look for ways to disprove yourself and therefore make yourself smarter going forward.

This next quote from the book reminds me of how many of us cling to things like political ideals or smartphone alliances:

“For superforecasters, beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.”

Many people hold things like politicians (and smart phones, and automakers, and many other things) as “treasures to be guarded” and don’t often give them a deep look. The smartest people change their mind quite often (including the superforecasters in this book), so don’t hold too tightly to those treasures.

Lastly, the book talks about how medicine around the world had stagnated for decades, largely because doctors assumed they knew it all:

“It was the absence of doubt—and scientific rigor—that made medicine unscientific and caused it to stagnate for so long.”

The prime example of that was doctors refused to wash their hands between patients as late as the mid-1800s because they “knew” that it didn’t matter. That particular example lead to the idea of the “Semmelweis reflex“, which is the “reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.“

It’s much easier said than done, and I certainly struggle with it a lot, but doubting your own beliefs and frequently testing them accuracy is the best way to be right in the long run.