When you can’t focus, feed the system
- Dad wisdom: Focus or feed the system
- How to be smarter
- Book recommendations
- Quote: the genius of slime mold
- Dad Joke
30 seconds of dad wisdom: if you can’t focus, feed the system
The question isn’t whether strong emotions throw you off your game, That happens to all of, from time to time. The question is how long it takes you to get back to baseline—and what you do to speed up that process. How do you get back on track?
In our most recent call, dads shared some frameworks that they use. Wise dads clarify priorities. They avoid doing the things that don’t help (simple but not easy). They break inertia with action—any kind of action. A deep breath. A cold plunge. A walk. A workout. They feed the system through anything that builds their health.
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How to be smarter
Here’s a longer-form piece that I shared on our last call:
Author and investor, Adam Robinson has a lot to say about intelligent thinking but we arrive there via learning not to be stupid [editor’s note: my son would prefer that I use the term silly]. Same goal; different path. Most experts, after all, can be identified by the long stretches of output unimpeded by obvious mistakes. From chess to jiu-jitsu, performing at a world-class level is less frequently about genius and far more commonly about not getting fooled by others—or yourself (the easiest person to fool).
Robinson’s research on stupidity unveiled seven critical factors… Read the whole article here
Book recommendation
An unexpected treasure when it comes to understanding how systems work—based on systems that actually work
Quote (from Entangled Life)
“A slime-mold enthusiast told me about a test he had performed. He frequently got lost in IKEA stores and would spend many minutes trying to find the exit. He decided to challenge his slime molds with the same problem and built a maze based on the floor plan of his local IKEA. Sure enough, without any signs or staff to direct them, the slime molds soon found the shortest path to the exit. “You see,” he said with a laugh, “they’re cleverer than me.”
Dad joke
How can you tell when a pepper is mad at you? It gets jalapeño face.
