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I used to be someone who liked things only when they were in a very precise way. I was the kind of person who never felt that things were good enough, redoing emails two or three times and practicing conversations over and over, just so I could slide in the words whose importance only means something to me. I kept pushing myself towards an ideal, against a flawless version that didn’t actually exist. I accepted this as part of my mental make up, thinking it was the cost of havingbyproduct of having high standards. After listening to a conversation on Bren Brown's 'The Gifts of Imperfection' on Dialogue: Podcast discussions on books, I realized it wasn't any inherent personality trait of mine at all. Rather, it was just the defense mechanism I created to avoid the constant feeling of inadequacy.

Here's what I learned:

1. First, Perfectionism isn't about doing your best (even if you might have the same reference). Perfectionism is about seeking approval. According to Brown, perfectionism is not about excellence but about seeking approval. It's a tag we like to impersonate to avoid being seen, a shield we employ to take shelter. Realizing that my need to polish and redo work was less about quality and more about preserving my sense of self helped me make sense of my exhausting behavioral patterns.

2. Second, Your worth isn't something you have to earn, it's where you start. The central thesis of the book is that you are worthy right now. Not after a promotion, not after losing the last 20 pounds, and not after getting your life in order, you do not have to strive to become "good enough." However, we often hold the opposite belief- that we must somehow earn our worthiness before we're allowed to fully feel it. The author explains that this mindset comes from a scarcity of spirit. And this inner feeling of lack bleeds into every aspect of life and always tells us that we are one slip-up away from proving, to ourselves, that we were never enough.

3. Third, there are two different ways of getting over discomfort. One is going through it and eventually surpassing its finish line or boundary (there's always one); the second is actively ignoring it by distracting ourselves or trying to repress it by being indifferent. We live in a culture of numbing, where we're encouraged to be busy and avoid discomfort through distractions (overworking, overeating, shopping, scrolling, etc.). The problem is, you can’t numb just the bad feelings. Numbing unpleasant emotions inevitably numbs the pleasant ones too, and without any of them, we feel no connection to our experience and no joy. Accepting discomfort instead of escaping it is the only way to feel anything good again.

4. Fourth, securing rest and joy are not rewards, they are necessary components of our social functioning. This thought that rest and play are not earned luxuries but essential requirements to become resilient, went against everything I had believed as an adult- that exhaustion proved my worth and that slowing down was something to feel guilty about. I learned that defining our self-worth based on how productive we are is a barrier, not a virtue.

5. Fifth, boundaries are not walls. The act of "setting boundaries" is a practice in kindness. Boundaries are not to be conceptualized as borders but as the compassionate boundaries of a home, which bifurcates different areas within it. My whole life I believed that if I set a boundary or said "no," I was committing an essential but selfish act, something that could disappoint others. But the author makes the argument that not having boundaries doesn’t make you more loving but only leads to resentment toward those you didn’t say no to.

Understanding the origins of my perfectionismand letting go of the need to earn my worth has greatly calmed me down. It's not because I do less. It's because I don't have to justify rest or setting boundaries. The central message of the book is so simple, yet it’s one of the most difficult lessons to live: Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are.

My mental model of a smart person is someone who solves problems by looking at them from different angles, inverts and molds them, and arrives at a favorable and reasonable solution. This person seems to go through this process quickly and effortlessly. But 'Get Smart' by Brian Tracy makes the opposite case- the most effective thinkers are almost always the ones who think slower, longer, and with a great deal more deliberateness than everyone else in the room.

I recently listened to the podcast series of this book on the app Dialogue: Podcast Conversations on Books.

My main takeaway -> "being smart" is only a matter of clearing some misconceptions and habit upgrades. 

Here are the five of my key learnings:

• The first one is long term vs. short term thinking. Generally people are prone to go for the things that have better chances of getting them immediate rewards, or the things that are easy, without thinking about the consequences, even of a week later. But in contrast to this, a ‘high achiever’ asks: "what is this going to look like 5 years from now?". Many outcomes differ simply because of this ‘short term versus long term’ thought pattern. short term is almost always an activity that feels productive, but often isn’t.
• The second is the interval or pause between stimulus and response. Between the moment a trigger is fired and a response occurs, a split second exists when a good decision can be made, and the vast majority of people overtake it. the book asserts that this moment should be preserved. Thinking before reacting and deliberately grasping this interval and, if need be, making a small time delay before you respond will generally result in a better decision. The idea is to gradually make this a habit so it doesn't require conscious extra strain and comes naturally.
• Third is "the way of the solution-oriented thinkers." Most of the people in a ‘problem state’ focus their energy around ‘why me?’, ‘who to blame?’, ‘how it happened?’, ‘how unfair it all is.' Solution-oriented thinking acknowledges the problem, maybe feels a little pity for oneself, but focuses solely on how to resolve it. You cannot hold both ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ simultaneously in your head, whichever one your focus is directed towards is the one that will grow.
• The fourth one is result-oriented thinking. the author very nicely makes the distinction between being busy and being effective. In reality many of the things we do – emails, meetings, meetings about emails, and so on... are just moving around and filling our day with filler. Result-oriented thinking asks the question: "What is the single thing, for me, that I can do right now that will produce visible progress?" The rest is clutter until that question is answered or a way out has been found.
• Finally, we have goal clarity. If you have a goal that’s vague, your mind is free to go off and work on whatever is right there in front of you, which tends to be whatever someone else is urgently pushing or whatever demands immediate attention. A clear written goal helps you actively seek and notice the relevant opportunities that you might have missed otherwise.

What is fascinating is how simple all of these concepts, infact, are and yet how rarely they are practiced.  The book doesn't lay down a straight roadmap for transformation into a "smart person." It only asks you a simple question: are you happy(whatver that may mean for you) with how you are thinking and making decisions? (I suspect, most of the time, the honest answer to this is no.)

When we think of a smart person, a person who seems to be more intelligent than us, we often think of someone who solves problems by looking at them from different angles, inverts and molds them, and arrives at a favorable and reasonable solution. They seem to do this quickly and effortlessly. But 'Get Smart' by Brian Tracy makes the opposite case- the most effective thinkers are almost always the ones who think slower, longer, and with a great deal more deliberateness than everyone else in the room.

Recently I listened to an in-depth discussion on this book in Dialogue: podcasts conversation on books.  Hearing the key insights related to everyday life made me realize that "being smart" is only a matter of clearing some misconceptions and habit upgradation. 

Here are the five ideas that i took away:

• The first one is long term vs. short term thinking. Generally people are prone to go for the things that have better chances of getting them immediate rewards, or the things that are easy, without thinking about the consequences, even of a week later. But in contrast to this, a ‘high achiever’ asks: "what is this going to look like 5 years from now?". Many outcomes differ simply because of this ‘short term versus long term’ thought pattern. short term is almost always an activity that feels productive, but often isn’t.
• The second is the interval or pause between stimulus and response. Between the moment a trigger is fired and a response occurs, a split second exists when a good decision can be made, and the vast majority of people overtake it. the book asserts that this moment should be preserved. Thinking before reacting and deliberately grasping this interval and, if need be, making a small time delay before you respond will generally result in a better decision. The idea is to gradually make this a habit so it doesn't require conscious extra strain and comes naturally.
• Third is "the way of the solution-oriented thinkers." Most of the people in a ‘problem state’ focus their energy around ‘why me?’, ‘who to blame?’, ‘how it happened?’, ‘how unfair it all is.' Solution-oriented thinking acknowledges the problem, maybe feels a little pity for oneself, but focuses solely on how to resolve it. You cannot hold both ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ simultaneously in your head, whichever one your focus is directed towards is the one that will grow.
• The fourth one is result-oriented thinking. the author very nicely makes the distinction between being busy and being effective. In reality many of the things we do – emails, meetings, meetings about emails, and so on... are just moving around and filling our day with filler. Result-oriented thinking asks the question: "What is the single thing, for me, that I can do right now that will produce visible progress?" The rest is clutter until that question is answered or a way out has been found.
• Finally, we have goal clarity. If you have a goal that’s vague, your mind is free to go off and work on whatever is right there in front of you, which tends to be whatever someone else is urgently pushing or whatever demands immediate attention. A clear written goal helps you actively seek and notice the relevant opportunities that you might have missed otherwise.

What is fascinating is how simple all of these concepts, infact, are and yet how rarely they are practiced.  The book doesn't lay down a straight roadmap for transformation into a "smart person." It only asks you a simple question: are you happy(whatver that may mean for you) with how you are thinking and making decisions? (I suspect, most of the time, the honest answer to this is no.)

What is self-esteem? 

Most of us think we know what it means- It's simply how we "feel" about ourselves or how we evaluate our own social standing. Genereally, people think of it as something you have on certain days and sometimes you don’t. It rises when things go well and falls when they don’t. I used to view it that way too.

After listening to Nathaniel Branden's 'The six pillars of self esteem' on the book podcast app Dialogue: Podcast discussions on Books, I realized self esteem isn't a feeling at all but a learned concept made up of a simple set of fundamental components or behaviors. It is a set of daily practices I had never been taught or examined for myself.

• The most important idea in the book is this: self-esteem is not a feeling but a result of behavior. The author emphasizes and makes it clear from the beginning. You do not think and feel your way into self-esteem. Instead, you act your way into it through consistent choices over time. This is a radical change in understanding self-esteem. It is not some state that happens to you depending on the circumstances.. Self esteem is something you actively enact or actively neglect. It is something you actively practice or choose not to. This shifts self-esteem from being a mood to being a skill, which is much more practical interpretation.
• "Living consciously" is the first of the pillars, and it supports all the others. The book does not refer to mindfulness in the superficial, modern sense. Rather, it emphasizes the importance of facing reality, acknowledging things you know but may not want to confront, and being fully present in situations that deserve your attention. the author calls this the foundational practice. If you are not honest to yourself about your perceptions, truth, and the feelings that result from them, you can build nothing of substance. Every other element of self-esteem relies on this.
• Self-acceptance is not identical to  "self-approval," and this distinction is quite important. Accepting yourself does not mean you ‘like’ everything you do or think or that you overlook or ignore your flaws. It means you stop fighting against yourself over them. When you reject parts of yourself, be they your feelings of guilt, your failures, or your unwanted impulses, you don't make them disappear or get rid of them. Instead, you cut off your access to them, making it harder to address them. Self-acceptance leads to honest self-reflection without generating any sense of shame.
• "Self-responsibility" is a pillar that many conversations around self-esteem overlook. The author makes the argument that when you give responsibility for your life to outside factors, such as circumstances, upbringing, or other people's actions and their results, you give up control over your self-esteem. You become reliant on external things to feel like how you think you are supposed to feel. Practicing self-responsibility simply means reclaiming ownership over your own life. This is not taking on excessive blame but rather recognizing that you are the only one who can change your situation and make it favorable.
• Personal integrity is the final pillar that the book enlists. The book defines it as 'the willingness to enact your values in your actions. Each time that the gap between what you say and what you do increases- that’s each time you make a promise (to yourself or others) and fail to keep it, you are sending a message to yourself that you can’t be trusted. This essentially transaltes to that- "if you don’t have anyone else there to damage your sense of self-esteem, you seem quite capable of doing the job yourself." Closing that gap, even in small ways, is one of the most effective paths to feeling better about yourself.

All six pillars work together in support of one central idea on which this entire book rests: self-esteem is earned, not given. It is earned through your choices in everyday life, not through extraordinary experiences or external achievements. Most advice about confidence focuses on and tells you what exactly you should be projecting to your external environment. But this book, on the other hand, shows what you should be doing to cultivate the only lasting internal validation there is- your own.

I’d always considered myself a fairly good conversationalist, until one day I noticed how people would begin to tune out. Not rudely or explicitly, but i could sense that they were now elsewhere, their answer would get shorter, and they would try to end the conversation or interaction on an abrupt note. I thought that whether you are liked or disliked by people speaks directly about your personality.

Recently I listened to an in-depth discussion on the book "How to Talk to Anyone" by Leil Lowndes on Dialogue: podcasts conversation on books. After listening, I realized that it wasn’t personality at all but a was a set of skills I had never learned.

Here’s what I took away from it:

• People don't remember what you said. They remember how you made them feel, and that mostly happens before you even speak. The book begins with the idea that- your body communicates before you do. We do so much evaluating before someone even utters a word, from simply assessing their body language, eye contact, and the energy they exert upon entering a room, that we can’t help but make a decision about them and the potential of their relationship with us on the spot. the author argues that people decide if they like you and want to talk to you within seconds, based mainly on non-verbal signals. this is to say that the outcome of the conversation is often decided before it begins.
• The way you make eye contact may be wrong. Many people either avoid eye contact because it feels intense or maintain it artificially to appear confident. The book describes a different type of eye contact, one that is warm and sustained and that shows genuine interest rather than just forced attention. It's called "sticky eyes." The idea is to let your gaze linger a bit longer than feels natural, it's supposed to convey that you truly find the person worth looking at, over and above what they offer. This seems to automatically translate into the person feeling seen, and people who feel seen want to continue the conversation.
• Stop trying to be interesting. Start being interested. This is the central tenet of the entire book. We enter conversations thinking about what we will say next, how we can come across, and if we sound cool or smart. However, according to the book, this is an entirely wrong approach to conversations; typically the more engaging people are not actually doing the talking - rather they ask better questions, listen without formulating their next response, and ultimately make the other person feel as if they were the most interesting person in the room, and really genuine curiosity is just about as good as social skills can get.
• Before attempting to change the emotional atmosphere, try to match it first. One practical idea in the book is to align or adjust your energy and mood with the person you're talking to before the conversation matures. Approaching someone who is quiet and reserved with high energy and enthusiasm creates awkwardness instead of connection. The book asks to take something called a "voice sample," which is assessing the emotional state of the person in front of you and meeting them there first. You may modify this gradually later on, but start at that same level.
• Compliments often don't land because they are superficial. Most people compliment appearances or achievements, but these are the glittering things that are easily noticed by nearly all parties. The book argues that the best compliments usually take the form of acknowledging something about the person they value about themselves but don’t get a lot of positive feedback for, like their thought process, judgment, or how they approach a challenge. These kinds of compliments resonate more intimately because they feel like earned and deserved compliments. The person doesn't just feel flattered, but they feel understood, and that is what a good conversation should amount to.

What makes “How to Talk to Anyone” compellingly different is that it does not suggest you become a different person or “fake” confidence you do not have. It simply makes the case that the difference between good socializers and awkward ones is a relatively small set of behaviors we all can actually learn, behaviors that nobody explicitly shares. 

Recently I listened to an in depth discussion on 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from Dialogue: discussion on books, and listening to the key insights of the book broken down in relation to everyday life made me realize that happiness might not be as unreal a notion as we take it to be and may be something one can actively construct, almost on demand, if he understands and realizes the mechanics behind it. 

According to my interpretation, the core idea that the book is espousing is this: When we think of what being “happy” means? We often think of it as a passive state of being, “a moment” in time when we realize a kind of satisfaction…or something along these lines. But the book makes the point that most of what we pursue as happiness is only passive, and passive activities do not provide satisfaction. people often look to tv shows and movies, food, recreational activities to seek comfort and attain happiness. All of these actions are passive in the sense that after a very short time they can go on autopilot and carry on just fine and hence require very little effort. The problem is that they feel pleasant in the immediate moment but ultimately come to an abrupt halt, which leaves us unsatisfied afterwards. The author wants to push the idea that most people experience their happiest moments when they are actively engaged in demanding and exhausting tasks, so much so that “comfort” and “enjoyment” are practically antonyms of one another.

What the author means by “Flow” is very precise, it is a state that one can potentially encounter between something that seems like a challenge to him and where his skill lies. The author lists the necessary conditions for flow: 1) one needs to have clear goals, 2) immediate feedback on what your state is, and 3) this activity or pursuit must be difficult enough that you struggle but not difficult enough that you become anxious about not achieving it. If this pursuit is not difficult enough, you will be bored and it may turn passive, and if it is too difficult you will become anxious about it. Flow happens in this narrow space between being bored and anxious, and this space must be constantly shifted, meaning that for a activity to continually keep you in the  “flow” the task needs to get harder as your skills get more developed.

Now this idea will sound absurd, but if you stay with the author, he will make it make sense. The idea is- within flow, your sense of self temporarily disappears in such a way that this disappearing is the reward itself. When you are immersed in your pursuit, the feeling of your self becomes insignificant, your sense of time warps, and your physiological needs of hunger, sex, or any kind of apetite all become dull and rest in the background. The author refers to this state as "autotelic" and claims that the activity itself becomes the reward that you seek, so one might say that he is “seeking nothing out of it but something in it, because there is no external goal.” This chapter I thought was particularly powerful because we tend to thing that the only things we would really love and which will make us happy in this life are money, prestige and status; when really the true prize and what would satisfy is this flow state, and the others are only byproducts. 

Now some people appear to achieve this state of “flow” in everything they do, but how? The book, according to me, stays consistent and coherent in answering this. The author argues that there is a skill to this. Some people have an “autotelic personality” in which people possess traits such as being highly curious, less egocentric, not relying on external stimulus. The autotelic personality can make just about any situation, even an extremely boring or difficult one, into a flow activity, simply by identifying and meeting the balance of challenge and skill demanded. Everybody has the potential to attain or experience this “flow” state because it is less about someone’s peculiar circumstances and more about how they interpret and interact with them.

To sum it all up, if you keep stuck in the notion of “happiness” as a stable state or an instance in time where you get all the deserved satisfaction, then it's only a house of cards waiting for a gust of wind. One has to seek whatever he means by “happiness” within his pursuit or in the flow of it and not as an outcome of it. And one attains this through identifying and realizing the space between something that seems like a challenge to him and where his skill lies. 

I keep coming back to these insights and will keep doing so because they do not claim that flow is an answer to achieving “happiness” or whatever one means by it, but it has the potential by making it more realizable by shifting of the goalpost from outside to inside. It only depends on how you allocate your attention moment by moment, and I find this much more useful and practical then any goal setting approach I have ever read or heard. 

Hope this provided you something.

I found some food for thought in the concept of: "Pleasure versus Satisfaction." Pleasure is momentary and external, and it always requires constant replacement. Satisfaction is created or earned by the process or completion of a creation/task/event, or simply by being present for something. Once you identify this benign difference in what you otherwise would lump together as "happiness," you begin to notice how many hours of your days and life as a whole are dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, and satisfaction receives none of that attention. 

What I found to be unintuitive: The idea that "simplicity is a choice for most people." It didn't sit well with me because, i think, it assumes a baseline of security (financial, geographical, or social) that many people simply do not have. To me, choosing to have less is a privilege. It requires that you already possess a considerable amount. When you are not in possession of an adequate amount, choosing simplicity is not merely an outlook on life, it's a scarcity with a nicer name. 

Both of these perspectives can be true at the same time. The main idea that happiness, or the pursuit of it, doesn't have to be grand or even have a definitive event is definitely worth pondering over. 

What is your opinion of the book? Or my caricature of some of its insights?

btw, Learner's Cabin is on Instagram , follow for book related content

This year on my birthday I sat down to write and analyze in detail all the dynamics ongoing in my life. I noticed I had been planning the exact three goals from the last 4 years. Through different notebooks, different apps, and different new year resolutions, the 3 goals had remained in the same place, with different variations but, nonetheless, the same. I kept telling myself I was waiting for the right moment, sufficient resources, and the right phase of my life. But I can only delude myself for so long, i had to confront the truth. It was "avoidance," and planning was my procrastination.

After conveying this to some of my friends, i got recommended "How to Begin," and here are my learning from it:

Not all goals are worth pursuing. The book refers to the ones that are as "worthy goals." A worthy goal isn't merely your aspiration. They have three specific qualities: they excite you, they slightly terrify you, and they give more than they take. Most of the goals I had been writing for years failed all three tests. They were safe, in my comfort area, and entirely selfish in their orientation. Once I ran my goals through this criterion, there were barely any left. This alone saved me so much time and toil of half-hearted effort that i would have invested in the wrong things.

What's holding you back is not laziness but the comfort of the present. The book makes it clear that the resistance is not because you are lazy or like to procrastinate but because of the psychological comfort of familiar things. You don't stay stuck because you're weak, but you stay stuck because the known feels safer than the unknown, even though the latter may be a better future for you. Understanding this removed much of my self-judgment. It made me look at the resistance that I felt in a much more innocent light instead as a character flaw. This means you shouldn't fight it with willpower but try to work around it.

Stop waiting to feel ready. Readiness is just you affirming that you are doing the task, it's something that tags along with you when you start. This insight from the book was the highlight for me. It argues that most people wait for confidence, clarity, and certainty before starting, but those elements show up during the action and not before. You don't get ready and then start, you start and then get ready. With every day that you delay to begin with, you postpone that one thing that could make you feel ready.

You need people, not just plans. This particular idea is one i am still grappling with, but it feels intuitive. It's says that trying to accomplish something significant alone sets you up for failure. This doesn't relate to your capacity but to the need for witnesses, accountability, and perspective, which you cannot generate on your own.  The author calls these people your "allies" and specifies what you need from them: some who believe in you, some who will challenge you, and some who have relevant experience. A plan without people behind it is just a neat flowchart that will probably never come to bear.

What can actually change when you adopt this:

You stop repeating the same aspirations each year, you will pick ONE worthy goal that you know matches the above criteria, you will acknowledge that discomfort is a prerequisite for growth and you will finally begin without waiting for your feelings to catch up. The goals that make it past this initial filter will be worth the work. Anything else should be let go without guilt.

The simple question "Is this actually worthy of me?" is more difficult than it seems. The book’s real insight lies in providing a clear way to answer it. Highly edifying read. 100% recommended.

Learners' Cabin also has an Instagram Page. Follow the community there to get such insights in condensed format in your feed.

I used to think I was a pretty rational person. Recently I listened to an in-depth discussion on 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman from Dialogue: Podcast discussions on Books, hearing the key insights broken down in relation to everyday life made me realise that I almost never was. The first step towards becoming more rational is understanding who is actually thinking and making decisions.

-You have two brains, one of which makes virtually all of your choices. Kahneman calls these System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast, automatic, and always active. It handles gut feelings, reflexive decisions, and first impressions. System 2 is slow, deliberate, and requires concentration, it is the thinking you do when you decide to carefully evaluate something. The unfortunate news is: System 1 is responsible for about 96% of your decisions. Most of the time, you are not thinking rationally at all. You're just retroactively reinterpreting your immediate and random thoughts and calling it reasoning. 

-Your first instinct isn’t insight. It’s the first exit that our reason opts for. System 1 operates through "heuristics," mental shortcuts it uses to arrive at quicker decisions. They save time, but they tend to make repeated mistakes. Few instances that the author mentions: You often stretch things to their extreme corner and overestimate risks that you can easily picture. You fixate on the first number you hear during a negotiation. You assess how likely something is based on how easily you can come up with an example of it, not on actual odds. The issue is that none of these feel like you have any participation in them, it feels like "common sense."

-You feel loss as having twice the weight of a win, even when they are of some proportion. This directly affects every choice you make. The author calls this loss "aversion." The pain of losing something is about twice as strong as the pleasure of gaining the same thing. This leads you to make poorer decisions, like holding on to bad investments for too long, avoiding reasonable risks, or trying not to cause any commotion in the way things are in the present because any change seems like a potential loss. Once you know that this process is happening, you can’t ignore it.

-The solution that the book offers is wonderful: "Structure the environment." You can't manually override System 1 in the moment, it’s too immediate and almost unconscious. But what you can do is change the environment where decisions are made. Make the better option the default. Increase the difficulty of the impulsive choice. Create checklists for important decisions so System 2 gets involved. The goal is not to force yourself into being smart but to make the right or the better choice possible.

-The other way that you can make your system 1 more controlled is by making it a habit to slow down when you feel most certain. The moments when you feel most confident are exactly when you are likely on autopilot. Confidence does not equal accuracy. The sense of being rational or making a rational decision comes from System 1, not System 2. When a decision seems obvious and intuitive, that’s the sign to pause. Think about what you might be leaving out, about the true base rate of the decision, and about how your thought process would change if the outcome were presented in a different way. The discomfort of slowing down is the key.

These strategies work because Kahneman's main point is that you are not a single rational mind. You are a compilation of two systems that are often in conflict unbeknownst to you. These adjustments can be uncomfortable at first because they ask you to question yourself in a specific way. But that discomfort means System 2 is activating. It gets easier, and the decisions improve significantly.

The reason why I like this book is because while being a self-help book, it doesn't tell you, like most of them, to "Trust your gut," "Grit is all that matters," "Intuition over intellect," and so on... this book asks you to consider making thinking your habit and not just pretend and fool yourself by the appearance of doing it. Not saying that the other advices, which prioritizes action over over-analysis, are not relevant or anything like that, but only that we might be overlooking our full capability by not utilizing our rational ability.

For most of my career, I thought I was being a good leader as long as I won every negotiation. I used to think that if I didn't pressure my team for that extra overtime or beat the other department heads for the bigger budget, I'd would fail. According to me, there was one pie, and if I wasn't taking the largest slice, I was losing. On paper it seemed fine, all the stats were higher actually. But my top talents were leaving one after another to different departments and roles, simply to get out from under the pressure. So I finally had to face that my 'toughness' wasn't really strength at all, but slow and expensive damage.

Recently I listened to an in-depth discussion on 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' from Dialogue: Podcasts on Books. Hearing the key insights broken down in relation to everyday life made me realize that most of what I thought was strong leadership was just scarcity dressed up in confidence. Here is what i learned:

-Win-Win thinking is a position of strength.
Most people assume negotiations are zero-sum games. Covey calls this the scarcity mindset, which silently harms every room it enters. To be clear, win-win does not mean being a nice guy or a pushover. It means working from a foundation of abundance, a mindset that there is enough for everyone, and that a deal only counts if both sides actually benefit from it.

-Win-Win or No Deal. 
If both sides cannot reach an agreement that benefits each one, you have no deal.  We agree to disagree, and we preserve the relationship for the future.This attitude is actually the harder, a more disciplined position. Not a sign of weakness. Forcing a win today only to lose your most effective people tomorrow does not add up.

-Change the script in the room. 
I started saying, aloud in meetings: "I want to find a solution that works for both of us. I cannot accept an agreement that is unfair for me and I do not expect the same of you." Immediately you could feel the shoulders relax and the room’s mood is lighter. Anyone who says that this is "pushover behavior" has simply not understood the corporate dynamic. You didn’t cave in but have simply set a boundary that demands mutual gain, and this has turned out to be one of the most useful things to bring into the meeting. 

What can actually change when you adopt this:
You stop measuring success by what extra margin you got over the other person. You start building relationships that survive the deal. Your best people stop leaving. And the wins you do actually secure are because the other side wanted them for you too.

All of this sounds very simple advice now, but for me, this was truly troubling in the beginning because it meant letting go of a version of strength that I had worked so hard to build my identity around. But Covey's point is clear, abundance is not naive optimism. It's the only approach that actually compounds over time. 

Most of my life I believed that I was just an overly sensitive emotional mess. There were days when my mood would drop without any reason. I would get lost in negative thoughts, waiting for the feeling to pass while feeling helpless. I thought I was just too sensitive or that I didn’t have the happiness gene that everyone else seemed to possess. The book's insights helped me end these spirals, here is what changed:

• I realized this wasn't a flaw in my personality, it was a lack in my mental skills. My stability felt fragile because I allowed my psychology to dictate my reality, reacting to every mood shift as if it were a permanent condition. So instead of just waiting for a bad mood to pass by, I actively began to manage my physiology before the mental spiral could take hold.
• Now, I view my mood as a physical signal rather than a life sentence. When I notice a dip, I return to basics, no overthinking, nothing analytical. I simply assess my sleep, movement, and light exposure. Then I work with deep breathing to bring myself into a calm nervous state. It's essentially me calming down my physical state so that I can trust my mind during the day. The better my physiology, the more stable I am emotionally.
• Next, I moved from passively accepting my thoughts to actively disengaging from them. Instead of believing every anxious narrative or accepting every "what if," I started to observe my thoughts as if they were passing clouds. I focus on quality over quantity. I choose to engage with helpful thoughts rather than being trapped by intrusive ones. I feel so much less tired when I realize I don't have to take all of my thoughts seriously.
• The final change that made a difference was acknowledging the difference between ignoring an emotion and actually letting myself feel it. When I began naming my emotions, saying "I am feeling anxiety" instead of "I am anxious," I felt grounded, clear and somehow invincible. In contrast, when I focused on distracting myself, I felt scattered and even more overwhelmed. This awareness made emotional check-ins with me essential rather than a waste of time.

This combination of biological resets, thought distancing, and naming my emotions has completely transformed my way of being. People often comment that I seem more stable, centered, and present. The secret isn't a mystical path to happiness, I simply stopped wasting my mental energy on what I can’t control and started using the techniques I should have learned years ago. Better late than never, I think.

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Until recently, I wore “busyness” like a badge of honor. For years I'd flick through endless emails, Slack messages, and rapid chats, thinking I was the ultimate multitasking genius. Reading Deep Work made me realize I wasn't even doing productive work at all.

The Wake-Up Call Facts:

- Context switching kills productivity. Each time you check a notification, it takes an average of 23 minutes to return to a focused state. I thought I was just checking in, but I was actually breaking my concentration.

- The "shallow work" trap. Most of us spend 80% of our time on tasks that require little mental effort. If you're not producing rare and valuable output, you're easily replaceable in today’s economy.

- Busyness is not productivity. Being busy often just shows a lack of focus. I felt drained by 5 PM not because I worked hard but because I was overstimulated by trivial matters.

What I Changed:

- The 90-minute lockdown. I now start my day with 90 minutes of focused work without interruptions. No phone, no email, no quick questions. This is where real output occurs.

- I quit “performative” social media. I deleted apps that didn’t offer significant value. If I’m bored, I let myself feel bored instead of reaching for a digital distraction.

- Scheduled my shallow work. Instead of reacting to emails all day, I set aside two 30-minute slots to clear my inbox. Once the time is up, I close the tab.

- Fixed shutdown ritual. I have a strict end time for work. Once I declare my "shutdown is complete," the day's work is over for good, and no more work notifications are checked.

The result: My actual output has tripled while my stress has dropped. I’m finishing projects in days that used to take weeks. I no longer feel that fragmented brain fog at the end of the day. For the first time in years, I feel like I’m actually mastering my craft.

A deep life is not only about productivity but also about meaning. If you don't take control of your attention, the attention economy will devour your thoughts until you are simply a collection of reactions to other people's priorities. The question isn't, “Can you do the work?” It’s, “Are you still capable of wanting to do the work that matters?”

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I had been experiencing a quarter-life crisis. I felt busy but completely empty. Recently, I listened to an in-depth discussion on the book “Ikigai” from  Dialogue: Podcast discussions on Books. Hearing the key insights in relation to everyday life helped me find a sense of clarity and freedom I hadn’t felt before. 

Here is what I learned about "finding your thing":

- Flow state is where life really happens. When you're fully engaged in something you love, time flies by. I began to notice when I naturally enter this flow state and realized that's when I feel most alive.

- The universe is not in any urgency; we are. Everything in nature grows slowly, like trees, relationships, and wisdom. I was trying to force big life changes overnight and burning myself out. I needed to learn to go with natural rhythms instead of pushing against them.

- Boredom is your brain's way of processing life. I used to panic when I felt unstimulated and would reach for my phone immediately. Now, I sit with boredom and let my mind wander. That's when the best ideas arise when you're not trying too hard.

- Your "Ikigai" isn’t always your job. I spent years thinking I had to make money from everything I was interested in. Sometimes, your purpose can be being a good friend, making art that no one sees, or just bringing calm energy to chaotic situations. It's really about learning to live in the present moment.

- The idea of impermanence shouldn’t induce anxiety. Everything changes your problems, your successes, and your current situation. This used to frighten me, but now it’s oddly comforting. Bad phases pass, but so do good ones, so you end up appreciating both more.