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A batch of the best highlights from what roger's read, .
WHAT I KNOW There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
There’s one thing we haven’t talked about. It’s the giant elephant in the room—the crippling weakness all ambitious performers suffer from and no one willingly admits. It’s the other reason we turn to our friends and family for feedback, loathe performance reviews, and, at times, invest weeks (if not years) “perfecting” projects in isolation before reluctantly seeking outside input. We’re petrified of negative feedback. It’s not an unreasonable impulse. Hearing that our best efforts are falling short is a painful, unsettling experience. In part, it’s because of the way the human brain experiences failure. Encountering criticism triggers the release of cortisol, a stress hormone that elevates our anxiety, disrupts our focus, and prevents us from listening attentively. Feeling threatened, we assume a defensive posture, characterized by fight (respond defensively) or flight (end the conversation), neither of which comes remotely close to sparking self-reflection or stimulating growth. Often, the emotional fallout is made worse by the stories we tell ourselves about our setbacks. Negative feedback is never simply about a lackluster performance on a task. It’s about what that failing represents—what it reveals about our talent, ability, and potential.
Decoding Greatness
Ron Friedman
Discipline #1: Focus on the Wildly Important As the authors of The 4 Disciplines of Execution explain, “The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish.” They elaborate that execution should be aimed at a small number of “wildly important goals.” This simplicity will help focus an organization’s energy to a sufficient intensity to ignite real results.
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