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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ali Abdaal
Started reading
July 22, 2025
‘If the treatment isn’t working, question the diagnosis.’
Put simply: success doesn’t lead to feeling good. Feeling good leads to success.
No failure is ever just a failure. It’s an invitation to try something new.
Don’t Be Serious. Be Sincere
Alan Watts
G. K. Chesterton: ‘In frivolity there is a lightness which can rise. But in seriousness is a gravity that falls, like a stone.’
most fun people to play games with are people who play sincerely. They take the game seriously enough to be fully engaged in the experience, but not so seriously that they become fixated on winning or losing. They’re able to laugh and joke around, to make light of their mistakes, and to enjoy the company of their friends without becoming overly attached to winning (or the rules).
Feeling confident about our ability to complete a task makes us feel good when we’re doing it, and helps us do it better.
Believing you can is the first step to making sure you actually can.
enactive mastery experience refers to the process of learning through doing. Learning through doing is one of the most powerful forces in human psychology.
Japanese word shoshin, which roughly translates as ‘beginner’s mind’. Shoshin refers to a state of mind in which we approach every task and situation with the curiosity, openness and humility of a beginner.
In identical circumstances, with identical material, the people who had to teach others about a subject would learn the material better themselves. The researchers named this phenomenon the ‘protégé effect’.
Older siblings take on the role of teacher or mentor to their siblings: older siblings (like me) often help their younger siblings (like my brother) with homework, answer their questions about the world, and share their own experiences and insights, however dubious.
Seneca said, Qui docet discit – ‘He who teaches learns’.
people we learn from best are often the ones who are just a step ahead of us in the journey.
The material reward seemed to make people less engaged with a task, not more. This led Deci to conclude that the offer of a material reward can, peculiarly, decrease motivation.
Simply switching their mindset from ‘have to’ to ‘choose to’ they boosted their sense of control, power and, in turn, what they were capable of.
Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War Two, put it beautifully: ‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’
relational energy has become one of the buzziest concepts in organisational science. Defined as ‘the positive feeling and sense of increased resourcefulness experienced as a direct result of an interaction with someone else’,
people can enhance our mood and make us more productive. But this isn’t a given. It requires deep thought about how we connect with each other.
teamwork: less as something to do, and more as a way of thinking.
teamwork is as much a psychological state as a way of dividing up tasks.
Competitor mindset Comrade mindset ‘You win, I lose’ ‘You win, I win’ ‘My success’ ‘Our success’ ‘I rise by outdoing others’ ‘We rise by lifting others’
‘Simply feeling as if you’re part of a team of people working on a task makes people more motivated as they take on challenges.’ When the going gets tough, it’s better to have friends to lean on than enemies to lord it over.
research showed that when we help others, our brains release a flood of chemicals that create a natural high. Feel-good hormones like oxytocin surge through our bodies, creating a wave of positive energy that can last for hours – even days – after the helping has ended.
‘Benjamin Franklin effect’. It suggests that when we ask someone for help, it’s likely to make them think better of us.
‘I saw your work on X, Y, Z and it really had an impact on me. I would love to hear how you did A, B, C.’ By emphasising the positive aspects of the person you admire, they’ll think you genuinely value their opinion – and be more likely to help you.
harness the power of the Benjamin Franklin effect, you should do everything you can to ask without any sense of a quid pro quo.
A Swedish proverb says: ‘A shared joy is a double joy; a shared sorrow is a half sorrow.’
Cheerleader Charlie: An active-constructive response would be something like ‘Wow, that’s great! You’ve been working so hard for this. I knew you’d get it!’
Easy-going Emma: A passive-constructive response would be some kind of understated response, like giving them a gentle nod and smiling, then saying, ‘That’s good news.’
Self-centred Sam: A passive-destructive response would basically ignore your flatmate’s good news: ‘Well, you won’t believe what happened to me today.’
being able to celebrate people’s wins matters. And the best way to do so is to adopt an active-constructive approach to all good news.
According to a 2002 study conducted by University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman, 60 per cent of people lie at least once in an average ten-minute conversation.
In her book Radical Candor, Scott writes that being radically candid is about caring personally (that is, genuinely caring about the person you’re speaking to) while also directly challenging the issue at hand.
Choosing the word ‘candid’ over ‘honest’ has some benefits. Being honest implies that you know the truth. It often has a moral connotation to it that can put people off
The spirit of being candid is more like: ‘Here’s what I think. Can you hear me out or help me out? We can do it together.’
Life is more fun with friends around. That’s why our third energiser is people. There are some people who naturally uplift our energy – the trick is finding them.
Try treating the people you’re working with as comrades rather than competitors.
the three energisers – play, power and people
Motivation and discipline are useful strategies, but they’re band-aids covering up deeper wounds.
Regarding procrastination
The unblock method encourages us to understand why we’re feeling bad about work in the first place.
Often, the reason we don’t make a start is because we don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing in the first place – a mystifying fog has set in around us. I call it the fog of uncertainty.
Humans have an innate aversion to what we don’t know. We naturally prefer predictability and stability, which is what allows us to be decisive and effective.
‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy,’ as Field Marshal Moltke the Elder put it.
German officers embraced the concept of Auftragstaktik – mission-type tactics – a philosophy that prioritised a clear sense of why over an excessively detailed sense of how.
The purpose behind the operation The end state that the commander was aiming for The key tasks that the commander felt should be taken to accomplish the objective
Three points regarding Commanders Intent - as described in US military's field manual (published 1982)
The ‘why’ was clear, and that made it possible to work out an alternative ‘how’.
Normandy landings going awry
‘What is the purpose behind this?’ And I build my to-do list from there.
Above all, Toyoda is famous for his obsessive focus on eliminating errors in his factories, by ensuring everyone is focused on the things that matter.
