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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Eric Barker
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June 24 - July 7, 2021
self-esteem is always either delusional or contingent, neither of which lead to good things. To always feel like you’re awesome you need to either divorce yourself from reality or be on a treadmill of constantly proving your value. At some point you won’t measure up, which then craters your self-esteem. Not to mention relentlessly proving yourself is exhausting and unsettling. Self-compassion lets you see the facts and accept that you’re not perfect.
Being self-compassionate lets you see issues and do something about them. Research suggests that having this forgiving approach allows you to take more responsibility for problems while being less saddened by them. Studies show that because people with self-compassion don’t beat themselves up, they have less fear of failure, which translates into less procrastination as well as more grit.
BELIEVING IN YOURSELF IS NICE. FORGIVING YOURSELF IS BETTER.
We don’t need to see ourselves as larger than life and it’s often better if we don’t. You don’t want to fall into denial or be a jerk. You want to keep learning but not feel bad about yourself. You need to avoid self-worth that is contingent on fantasy-based illusions or constantly proving yourself. So be self-compassionate. It’s got all the upsides of confidence without the downsides.
ADJUST FOR YOUR NATURAL LEVEL OF SELF-ESTEEM Are you normally pretty confident? Then enjoy the benefits but keep an eye out for delusion and stay empathetic. Seek situations that challenge you to keep yourself humble. Strive to keep an open mind instead of assuming you already know the answer. Be nice.
Do you lack confidence? No problem. You’ll naturally learn faster than those know-it-alls and you’ll make more friends. Focus your efforts in quantifiable areas where competence can be accurately measured so you don’t have to sweat issues of perception.
Confidence is a result of success, not a cause.
if you still want to focus on confidence, the surest path is to become really good at what you do.
DON’T BE A FAKER Faking it is too hard and the price of failure is too high. The short-term benefits of impressing others aren’t worth being labeled untrustworthy
Instead of pretending to be what you’re not, the best answer is to focus on presenting the best version of yourself.
Think about the wisest people you’ve known. Were they full of bluster and hubris? Or utterly without confidence? They were probably calm and understanding, forgiving and less judgmental.
“The only place where success comes before work is a dictionary.” Yes, to be the very best you must be a little nuts in the effort department.
In all professional jobs you see a similar effect: “The top 10 percent of workers produce 80 percent more than the average, and 700 percent more than the bottom 10 percent.” And that requires hours.
Can you be productive at something without spending a ton of time at it? To a degree, of course, but assuming equal talent and efficiency, the person who spends more time wins. And the issue of hours seems to be the real distinguishing factor between the pretty good and the truly great.
When you look at eminent people, the majority are smarter than average. Without an IQ of 120, very few people end up producing anything that will be groundbreaking and remembered in the history books. But the twist is that as long as you’re past the 120 mark, many studies show more IQ points have little effect.
Hours alone also aren’t enough. Those hours need to be hard. You need to be pushing yourself to be better,
Trying to improve isn’t something we are doing in the vast majority of activities we engage in every day—including work.
doctors and nurses don’t get much better at their jobs over time. Without a “rage to master,” like you behind the wheel, they just do their thing, hour after hour, rather than push to become experts.
one of the critical elements of a great mentor wasn’t just secret knowledge and emotional support; it was pushing you harder. A great mentor’s “expectations and demands were constantly raised until they were at a point where the student was expected to do virtually all that was humanly possible.”
you’re wondering if success means a misery-inducing schedule along with a massive coronary by age fifty, I’ve got a surprise for you: it can mean the exact opposite.
In general, overwork is bad for you. It’s correlated with reduced exercise, fewer visits to the doctor, and more smoking.
success benefits often are outweighed by the negatives in terms of happiness and stress. To put a cherry on top, one of the top five regrets of people on their deathbed is “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”
one of the top five regrets of people on their deathbed is “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”
“Those who stayed very involved in meaningful careers and worked the hardest, lived the longest.” Meaningful work means doing something that’s (a) important to you and (b) something you’re good at.
if you do those things you’re uniquely good at (psychologists call them “signature strengths”), they’re some of the biggest happiness-boosting activities of all.
Retiring is associated with cognitive decline, heart disease, and cancer. Those effects weren’t due to aging but because people stop being active and engaged.
having a job you dislike can be even worse than unemployment.
Challenging, meaningful work makes us happy and fulfilled. But then again, when it’s meaningful, it’s not really work, is it?
Hard work creates talent. And talent plus time creates success
“The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.”
“One of the reasons for anxiety and depression in the high attainers is that they’re not having good relationships. They’re busy making money and attending to themselves and that means there’s less room in their lives for love and attention and caring and empathy and the things that truly count.”
Creative workers not only spend less time with their spouses but a study from the Academy of Management Journal found that the time they do spend is of lower quality. When they get home their brains are pooped. There’s no gas left in the tank to be an attentive partner.
“The people who survive stress the best are the ones who actually increase their social investments in the middle of stress, which is the opposite of what most of us do. Turns out that social connection is the greatest predictor of happiness we have when I run them in my studies.” What was number four in that list of biggest regrets of the dying? “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
Every hour at work is an hour you’re not with friends and family. Is this really necessary to be successful at a global scale? Sadly, it may be.
The number of people dying from karōshi in Japan is comparable to the number of traffic fatalities.
burnout isn’t just an acute overdose of stress; it’s pretty much plain ol’ clinical depression.
true burnout occurs when we’re not right for the job we’re in. That’s also why passionate people may destroy their relationships or physically pass out from exhaustion but not burn out the frazzled way the average worker might.
burnout is the flip side of grit.
resilience often comes from optimism. Burnout is the result of a pessimistic attitude toward your job.
This isn’t getting me anywhere. I can’t handle this. It’s never goi...
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success does not lead to happiness as often as happiness leads to success.
pay doesn’t increase job satisfaction. More money doesn’t make a job a better fit; therefore, it’s unlikely to reduce burnout. If you’re overworked in a job that isn’t right for you, it may be time to make a change.
You need time for relationships.
how they avoided burnout, one of the key things mentioned was “sharing issues with family and friends.”
while obsessive work may be necessary for the heights of success, it doesn’t lead to a fulfilling, balanced life.
If we do want to achieve success and don’t want to be cut off from friends and family or suffer the depression of burnout, can less really be more? Can we have fun and be successful or is that just a pipe dream?
Sometimes more is not the answer. Sometimes more isn’t even possible. Sometimes we need to relax and have fun—and maybe act a little bit crazy—to be at our best.
found a significant relationship between humor and trust. We’re more likely to have faith in the people we joke around with.
“workplace fun was a stronger predictor of applicant attraction than compensation and opportunities for advancement.”
there’s clearly a limit for the average employee. When quantity of work gets too high, quality suffers. And quality of life suffers for workers.
