steven kotler

Novelties

Energy, Flow, Focus, Happiness, Human Brain, travel

I love wide open spaces, I  love man-made unique architectures and I  love to watch scenic places with wild life.

So going to Interlaken in Switzerland and watching the snow clad mountains or going to the Niagara falls and watch the water fall while drinking hot coffee from Tim Hortons or taking a cruise on the Seine River or watching the  aeroplanes land and take off from Delhi Airport, are things which fascinate me and make me feel happy and enlightened. After a visit to these kind of places I feel rejuvenated and more in flow with life and better focused.

Some of these kind of sights I have not had an opportunity to go and see for myself , especially since the last 18 months. So I watch videos on YouTube. I still get a similar pleasure.

So why should you bother about it.

I used to think that the pleasure of seeing these kind of sights is my personal taste.

However it seems the brain has a special network which is tuned to pick up novelty and unpredictable situations. Its called the salience network. While the definition of novelty could vary between person to person, the fact that this network exists -as per Steven Kotler- and is the cause of the rush of dopamine, is good news. If you read his book The Art of Impossible, you will realize dopamine is one of the most potent neuro chemicals.

It means that when you are feeling low or the whole world seems to be sitting on your shoulders, you can change your mood by looking for things which are novel to you.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Getting better in increments- Part 2

Affirmative action, compounding, Human Brain, Uncategorized

When you read self help books, the ask you to think of all the dreams you have and to write them down , then set goals etc. Etc.

I have read so many of those books, each time thinking that by following the advice in the book I would be able to achieve all my dreams sooner rather than later.

Each time I used to write the massive goals and then have a look at them everyday, after a few weeks I would kind of get disillusioned or distracted and give up because somewhere I think my brain used to keep working on the fact that this was not a feasible thing and it would not believe it.

However when I kept Small short term targets, I generally used to end up meeting them. In these situations I generally believed that it was possible and I could achieve it. This is why one of most recommended books on this blog has been Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg.

This fact that the brain believes in small incremental targets makes a lot of sense if any eventually large target can be broken down into smaller incremental opportunities to achieve and then let the law of compounding play its role.

In my last post I had mentioned how Tony Hsieh in his book Delivering Happiness talks about a 1% improvement everyday can make you 365% better at the end of the year. Even if this seems an undoable thing , if we were to improve even 10% every quarter in whatever field we want, by the end of the year you would be more than 46% better than the previous year.

While reading Steven Kotler’s book The Art of Impossible, he’s actually got this incremental number to 4%. He says that if the challenge or target is 4% more than your current ability, then there’s enough anxiousness to perform but the brain doesn’t feel that it’s an impossible task and therefore there’s a large chance of success .

If you are like me who get overwhelmed with very high value targets or goals, then try doing this 4% method every month or 10% every quarter or anything which you think your brain will believe. As I have stated many times earlier, its our brain which plays games on us, so we have to find ways to trick the brain and use the law of compounding to our benefit.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Happiness

Energy, Gratitude, Happiness, Human Brain, Yoga

Happiness is such a fundamental thing, as far as I am concerned, that I tell all my team members that there’s no point in doing a job if it doesn’t get you to be happy.

I have written a lot about gratitude and how it helps you feel more happy, safe etc. This is one practice that I follow a lot.

In addition I do a little bit of Yoga / Pranayam (different kinds of breathing exercises) everyday in the morning because it gets me tuned a little better to start my day. Just the fact that I take time out in the morning without looking at my phone ensures that I don’t get any SMS or WhatsApp which can cause me to become anxious.

I don’t get a newspaper at home, I don’t watch newspaper on TV and I don’t have any apps on my mobile or tablet that can give me news because all these channels only vend negativity in some form or another, which gets my brain anxious

So while I wrote about activities which stop me from getting anxious (consciously or subconsciously) as per Steven Kotler there are actually methods by which you can ensure happiness.

In his book The Art of Impossible, he also talks about Gratitude as one activity to increase happiness. Then he talks about mindfulness – while I use Yoga. Then he says even exercise makes you feel happy because it helps you reduce cortisol levels, thereby reducing stress, while increasing feel good neuro chemicals.

Finally the most surprising thing that I read was a good night’s sleep. I have known that a good night’s sleep is critical for being alert and active. But this alertness and activeness is because of the higher energy levels that you have after a good night’s sleep. As per Steven, because of the higher energy levels, your brain feels more capable of solving the challenges ahead and therefore you feel more secure, which in turn leads to feeling more happy.

But when you are under pressure, these are the exact things you stop doing, which causes a negative spiral to take place. So how do you ensure that you do these four things even when you are stressed…. I don’t know…but would definitely like to know if any of you has been able to crack this code.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Teach something…learn it forever

Human Brain, learning

Today, 5th September is celebrated as Teachers day in India. It is in memory of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, who was the president of India, a scholar and above all a very respected teacher. So today I was thinking about the teachers who left a deep impression on me and made learning enjoyable.

Some of my own colleagues also sent me thank you notes today for having helped them learn. I used to hear Joe Polish, multiple times, on his podcasts of ilovemarketing.com, talking about the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone.

I used to relate to it because I personally like to get down to the basics of the technology, then conceptually figure out an analogy from a different walk fo life and teach. If my understanding is clear then I will be able to put it into different scenarios successfully. If the analogy is from an area which is dear to the person who is hearing it from you then, they will will immediately absorb the concept.

So for my colleagues who prefer to look trendy, I speak in terms of fashion brands to explain concepts. For people who are more commercial, I have to speak in terms of business. A lot of people have told me that I could become a good teacher because I teach very complex technologies, very simply.

Till now I had not realised why I am able to do it. I generally used to think that I have a unique ability to understand from first principles both – marketing and technology together, which for some reason, others are not.

When I was reading the Steven Kotler book – The Art of Impossible – I have written about this book earlier also – what struck me was the way our brain is wired to learn something. Dopamine is a key hormone which helps in learning. So when we understand something dopamine is released. When we are able to build a story or narrative around it, further dopamine is released making the memory pathways even more permanent.

I think this could be one of the reasons why all the old religious texts had stories built around them, since there were no concepts of writing more than 10000 years back in India. Students were made to recite things. The recitation would involve multiple sensory organs and hence get the brain more active and the stories would keep the narrative constant.

The more you realise the way our brain works, te more you marvel at what a machine we humans are. With more and more scientific discoveries around the operation of the brain, I am in even more awe about what is the limit to our thinking.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!