Jeff Haden

Haden's premise for this entire book boils down to this: "Work harder, you lazy ass. How do you expect success if you don't work your ass off?" THE MOTIVATION MYTH plays right into the myth of hustle culture. "It's not about talent; it's about hard work." The more effort you put in, the closer you'll get to the top, where success is guaranteed. The problem is that this "hustle harder" theory has been disproven time and time again. Yet, Haden repeats it as though we would all be wildly successful if we weren't so damned lazy, without considering physical, mental and social impediments that also play a factor.

The writing style is cringe-worthy, and Haden's frequent parenthetical asides to his name-dropped friends (aw, shucks, Tim Ferriss) are beyond annoying. Nevertheless, I'm giving this two stars because the first couple of chapters are somewhat intriguing before the book degenerates into terrible advice and a summary of ideas from other texts. Maybe I just need to admit that I'm not going to find what I'm looking for in these rehashed, generic self-help tomes and stop reading them.… (mehr)

Jeff Haden’s Motivation Myth reveals the secret of true motivation, the uncomfortable truth that we have to go through the pain of getting started WITHOUT motivation. We have to force ourselves to perform, to do the thing we’ve “always wanted to do.” Only after that, after some small wins, after a measure of accomplishment, then those accomplishments create motivation for us to do more. Discipline first, then motivation discipline to keep going, to build on achievement to achieve more , which generates progressively more motivation. The motivation “virtuous cycle” upwards begins with nothing but unmotivated force of will. So yes, motivation is good, and helps to keep us going, but we have to earn it first.

Jeff Haden aptly describes it, “We all have a little voice inside that says, ‘I’ve done enough’ or ‘I’m exhausted. I just can’t do more.’ But that little voice lies. We can always do more. Stopping is a choice.”

He bluntly draws the line: “If I haven’t convinced you that being a serial achiever is the best way to live a full, satisfying, and successful professional life and personal life … well, there’s no hope for you.”

Haden reminds us of the worst type of pain, the pain of regret, “Sure, the work is hard. Sure, the work is painful—but it’s significantly less painful than thinking back on what will never be.”… (mehr)

A friend of mine a few years ago bought a leaf blower. I kept objecting: 'but, but, the wind will blow them all back again.' He was determined, used it once, have never seen it used again. I could understand a leaf sucker but a blower. Therein lies the road to madness. So true! Gone are the days of quiet contemplation leaning on a lawn rake. There is something about a rake, garden broom, shovel, you spend more time leaning on it looking skywards. The leaf blower: a tool to make it look like you've tidied up but all you've done is spread the mess around over a larger area. Leaves though - why bother? Seems to be like the cutting edge of a complete faff, and I know what I'm talking about. We have several huge deciduous trees in front of our house which when they drop their leaves make excellent mulch - just a case of raking them off the lawn and on to the borders. Of course, the problem is the pool. I've to keep on cleaning it (when the missus insists I take a deep breath...then, then aggh!). If I say I'll fix something I'll fix it - there's no need to keep reminding me every six months (that's why my wife did all the wallpapering herself...).

Boredom is supposed to unlock creativity, but I believe this to be a popular myth. All of my experience with boredom - such as sitting for long periods of time on an airplane - suggests that it is intensely draining, tiring, and causes me to experience an energy hangover sometimes for a whole day afterwards. The dopamine reward hypothesis seems to say that the pleasure you feel from undertaking a particular form of activity comes from a release of dopamine, either in anticipation, during or immediately after the activity. That is, it’s the release of dopamine that gives us the pleasure, rather than the activity itself. But how does the mechanism which releases the dopamine know which of the myriad of activities we participate in deserves the pleasure hit? Is doing projects the answer to it? What if we don’t like the project itself?

Why don’t we all try to learn Greek, or even Ancient Greek? You will get to the core immediately and attain new abilities to use creativity and plasticity in your vocabulary and way you think. I am not sure if proved already, but I am confident that learning ancient Greek even in a fundamental level, will make you smarter and think in a unique way. As a western language native speaker, it will help you tremendously. You could construct new words for ideas that maybe there are no words in other languages or no words at all. Difficult language, but miraculous…who’s with me on this for 2020…??

Can we simplify the Feynman technique using the Feynman technique using the Feynman technique in an infinite loop? That's just simplifying: a simplification of a simplification ad infinitum. Because of the existence of a base state, I’m actually using recursion, not looping.

Much more useful than the Feynman Technique is an abstraction of it, that I’VE just coined “The Feynman-Technique-using-derivatives”:

Teaching' = Explaining

Explaining' = Talking

Talking' = Doing

Doing' = Thinking

Thinking' = Being

Being' = Not Being

There are no "hacks" and shortcuts that magically unleash creative potential. I've been it doing for ages. I was quite surprised by a book using something I’ve used since forever. There's no real mystery to it. I just “get up” and do it, unless it’s wallpapering...2020 was the year I took up Urban Sketching lessons…… (mehr)