TWH#S14: What I Read This Week

The Sunday Edition #14

Welcome to another TWH Sunday Edition. 👋

These are the 5 best reads that crossed my radar this past week. I hope you enjoy them and, if you do, please consider hitting the ❤️ button and sharing this issue. Much appreciated. 🙂

(Total reading time: 47 min)

✍️ Managers, Put Your Coach's Hat On

(Scott Asai • 4 min read)

I’m a big believer that management in complex scenarios must be largely performed through a coaching approach. The reason is simple: in a complex system the faster and better you learn, the better outcomes you drive. And coaching is no more, no less than a learning accelerant.

“We all want to be a part of something bigger.

But that only happens when we know where we fit and how to contribute to the larger picture.

Fit is a result of knowing your role and being rewarded/guided along the way.”

✍️ Vicious Traps

(Morgan Housel • 4 min read)

Almost every time I read a new (or old, for that matter) Morgan Housel piece, my mouth is agape with astonishment at how good both his content and his writing are. This one is no exception—a non-obvious insight that is only obvious once you see it.

“Take patience and confidence. They both sound great. But mixed together they often form stubbornness, which is a disaster. Confidence that you’re right gives you permission to ignore signs that you’re wrong, and patience gives you permission to extend that denial indefinitely.”

✍️ Creativity faucet: Increase your creativity

(Julian Shapiro • 4 min read)

Speaking of great writing, Julian Shapiro is another giant of that game. I recently went back to his mental model of the “creativity faucet” and loved both his concise explanation, and the examples he provides. There’s more to creativity than meets the eye, and that’s a good thing for us mere mortals who strive to create something good.

“It's easier to look at something bad then intuit how to make it better than to make something good out of thin air. The human brain isn't wired for spontaneous ingenuity, but it is wired for detecting what's wrong with the world. Is the song too high-pitched? Lower the pitch. Does the story have too many characters? Remove some.”

✍️ Buddha and the Bulls

(Hugh Delehant • 10 min read)

The other day, I decided to write a short LinkedIn post inspired by Phil Jackson and came across this 1994 interview in my research. It always fascinates me how so many of the most successful people in history tend to think completely different from the masses. Jackson won 11 NBA championships as a coach, while getting people like Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen to… meditate.

“I use the term ‘Zen Christian’ to describe my personal beliefs, because I still like to think of the Christian precepts I learned as a child as the basis of how I live. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—what I call the dispensation of grace, the idea that love is an all conquering force. The Zen part is living in the moment—that brings the now into Christianity, which most of the time is focused on heaven and hell. A combination of the two makes sense to me, because I think practice is what Christ was doing when he stepped away from his disciples and became one with the Father.”

✍️ The Notecard System: Capture, Organize, and Use Everything You Read, Watch, and Listen To

(Billy Oppenheimer • 27 min read)

As someone who writes online, I’m well aware that the quality of what you consume is essential to the quality of what you produce. But the quantity can pose a problem, too. For years, I’ve been honing my own system of collecting knowledge and then having it somehow surface in my writing. This long read by Billy Oppenheimer, one of Ryan Holiday’s research assistants, is a beautiful voyage through how he manages his consumption/production, complete with many illustrated examples from other creators.

“The famous line from Emerson is, “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

And same—I cannot remember the notecards I’ve made, but I like knowing they are both somewhere in my consciousness and somewhere in my box.”

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That’s it for this week’s Sunday Edition. Thanks for reading! Until the next edition, I wish you a great week ahead. 🙌