How To Let Go And Stop Worrying - Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic

Distinguish Between What You Control and What You Don't:

• The vast majority of what happens in the world is outside of our control, and the world is largely indifferent to our wants and needs.
• Stoicism teaches that while we don't control what happens to us, we control how we respond to what happens to us. This understanding doesn't eliminate worry, but it provides a framework for managing it.
• Action Point: Focus your energy and intention on where you can make a difference and where you do have control, letting go of things over which you have zero control or influence.

It's Your Opinion, Not the Event, That Upset You:

• Epictetus's core teaching: "It's not things that upset us, it's our opinion about things". We make ourselves anxious; things don't make us anxious.
• The world is objective; our interpretation creates "good" or "bad": As Shakespeare is quoted, "neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so." Events are objective, and we tell ourselves what they mean, making up a story about them.
• Action Point: Recognise that you have control over your opinions and judgments, which means you can solve for anxiety. When faced with external events, question the story you're telling yourself about them and how that story affects your ability to act.

Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals - Dr Andrew Huberman

The Unified Neural Circuit for Goal Pursuit:

• Regardless of the goal (from planning a craft day to building a billion-dollar company), the brain uses one common neural circuit for all goal setting, pursuit, and assessment.
• This circuit involves four key brain areas:
  • The amygdala, associated with fear and anxiety, which motivates us to avoid punishments or failures.
  • The basal ganglia (specifically the ventral striatum), which includes "go" circuits for initiating action and "no-go" circuits for preventing action.
  • The lateral prefrontal cortex, responsible for executive functions like planning and thinking across different timescales (immediate vs. long-term goals).
  • The orbitofrontal cortex, which meshes emotionality with current progress and compares it to future emotional states when a goal is reached.

50 Short Rules For Life From The Stoics - Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic

Focus on What You Control (Dichotomy of Control)

• Prioritise Your Efforts: Dedicate 100% of your energy to what is within your control, and 0% to what isn't. Worrying about things outside your control is pointless as it doesn't affect the outcome.
• Control Your Response: While you cannot control events, you can control how you respond to them. This is how you move forward; great leaders and individuals focus on their response.
• Don't Make Problems Worse: Avoid bemoaning or complaining about problems, as this makes them worse. Focus on what you can control and the good in the situation.

How To Get Through Life's Most Difficult Situations - Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic

Understand and Embrace Amor Fati (Love of Fate)

• Core Concept: Amor Fati means not just accepting, but loving and embracing everything that happens to you, including adversity. It's about taking the things that happen, whatever they may be, and using them to your advantage.
• Beyond Resignation: Acceptance, in the Stoic sense, is not defeatist or resigned. Instead, it's the first crucial step in being able to respond to challenges and turn them into something great.
• Analogy: Marcus Aurelius's idea that "what you throw in front of a fire is fuel for the fire" illustrates this concept – both good and bad events can fuel your growth.
• Life as it Is: Amor Fati involves accepting life as it is, with its inherent pain, adversity, failure, and the certainty of death and loss. To resist or be angry about these realities means to not love life itself.
• Action Point: Consciously decide to welcome things the way they happen, rather than wishing they would turn out a certain way. Whether you're born short or tall, if it's raining or sunny, be happy with it and make the most of it.

5 Ways to Improve Your Breathing for Better Health - Mel Robbins with Patrick McKeown

and 5 Ways To Improve Your Breathing with James Nestor

Prioritise Nose Breathing

• The Foundation of Healthy Breathing: Both experts stress that breathing in and out through the nose is the natural and correct way to breathe, for humans and most mammals. Mel Robbins herself noted she was a "mouth breather" and discovered she shouldn't be.
• Numerous Benefits of Nasal Breathing:
  • Filtration and Conditioning: The nose acts as the body's first line of defence, filtering, heating, pressurising, and moistening air before it reaches the lungs. This purifies the air and makes it more suitable for the body.
  • Increased Oxygen Uptake: Breathing through the nose allows the body to extract about 20% more oxygen than equivalent breaths through the mouth. It also increases oxygen delivery to working muscles, tissues, and organs, including the brain.
  • Nitric Oxide Production: Nasal breathing produces nitric oxide, a gas that is antiviral, antibacterial, helps open up airways, and redistributes blood throughout the lungs. This is particularly beneficial for respiratory complaints like bronchitis and for fighting viruses.

3 Steps to Stop Negative Thinking - Mark Manson

Mark Manson's video, "3 Steps to Stop Negative Thinking," provides actionable advice on managing negative thoughts, emphasising a shift in perspective rather than outright elimination of these thoughts.

Step 1: Accept that failure is a natural part of life.

• Recognise Self-Invented Failure: Understand that your definition of failure is almost always self-invented. Goals for money, profession (e.g., the corner office), or social life (e.g., number of friends, dating attractive people) are arbitrary benchmarks you set for yourself.
• Adjust Mental Standards: Nothing in the real world is ever as good as it is in your head. Holding yourself to a mental standard or fantasy created in your own mind will lead to misery and can make even "super successful people" hate their lives. Hold these mental images loosely, as reality will have problems and shortcomings.
• Avoid Spirals of Your Own Making: When you define success in a rigid way and don't meet it, it can lead to feeling like a loser and getting caught in negative spirals.
• Exaggeration Tendency: Your mind tends to exaggerate and amplify feelings or expectations, both good and bad. Remember that "nothing is ever really as bad as we think it is either".

Morgan Housel on Money and Life

Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, delves into various aspects of money management, with a particular focus on the behavioural and psychological elements of spending and broader life philosophies in his podcasts:

Learning Points from "The Art of Spending Money" (Episode 1)

1. Understand the Dual Nature of Spending: Recognise that spending money has both a scientific side (e.g., finding bargains, creating budgets) and an unquantifiable "art" that is deeply personal and varies from person to person.
2. Spending as a Reflection of Self: Be aware that how you choose to spend your money can reveal fundamental aspects of your character, values, and even an "existential struggle" about what you find valuable in life, who you spend time with, and how you wish to be remembered.
3. Acknowledge the Influence of Background: Your family background and past experiences heavily influence your spending preferences. Early experiences, particularly growing up poor or being "snubbed," can lead to "revenge spending" as a way to heal social wounds or signal success. Introspection into these past pains can help explain current spending patterns.
4. Avoid Being Entrapped by Expenses: Guard against building your life around money rather than using money to build your life. A "devotion to expense regardless of pleasure" can lead to becoming a "prisoner" to your finances, causing financial trouble and a lack of joy, as seen with George Vanderbilt and the Biltmore estate.
5. Recognise Frugality Inertia: Be mindful that a lifetime of good savings habits can become so ingrained in your identity that it's difficult to transition into a spending phase, even in retirement, potentially preventing you from enjoying the fruits of your labour.

Improving Sexual & Urological Health in Males and Females - Dr Andrew Huberman with Dr Rena Malik

1. Pelvic Floor Health: Strengthening vs. Relaxing

• What it is: The pelvic floor is a bowl of muscles connected to bones that hold up organs, crucial for urination, defecation, sexual function, and posture.
• Key Distinction: Many people focus on strengthening their pelvic floor (e.g., Kegels), but often, people need to learn to relax their pelvic floor for proper urologic and sexual function.
• Signs of an Unhealthy Pelvic Floor:
  • Too Tight/Contracted: Can result from stress, anxiety, overuse, or poor posture. Symptoms include urgency, frequency, leakage, difficulty urinating (or incomplete emptying), pain with sex/erections/ejaculation, various pain syndromes, constipation, and back pain.
  • Too Weak: Often seen after childbirth, in individuals with neurological disorders, or connective tissue disorders. Symptoms commonly include urinary incontinence or leakage.

Good Michael Lewis books for students to read on contemporary financial history

The 2007 credit crunch: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

The government debt crises that followed after the credit crunch: Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour

The high frequency trading companies exploiting trading on exchanges and other electronic venues: Flash Boys

The Real Danger of Dating Apps - The Diary of a CEO with Scott Galloway

Dating Problems:

• Winner-Take-Most Market: Technology, including dating apps, consolidates sectors, creating a "winner-take-most" dynamic. This means a small percentage of individuals receive the vast majority of attention.
• Mating Inequality: Dating apps have created "mating inequality" comparable to income inequality in Venezuela. Women, who have a much "finer filter for mating" due to the greater downside of sex (e.g., pregnancy), tend to express interest in a significantly smaller group of men.
• Difficulty Signaling Key Qualities Online: While women are interested in men based on their ability to signal resources, intelligence, and kindness, dating apps primarily allow for the signaling of resources. Intelligence and kindness are much harder to convey digitally.
• Marginalisation of the "Bottom Half" of Men: The "top 10 percent in terms of attractiveness online" receive 90% of the interest, a phenomenon termed "Porsche polygamy". Conversely, the bottom half of men, based on online attractiveness (often crudely measured by wealth indicators), are "totally shut out of the market".

Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building - Claire Hughes Johnson

A very good guide to to being a good people manager in the workplace. I think this is also useful for students about to start in the workplace, it gives them an idea of what organisations and managers in those organisations are optimising for.

1. The Importance of Self-Awareness in Leadership

A core principle of the book is that effective leadership starts with self-awareness. Johnson emphasizes that understanding your own values, work style, and communication preferences is crucial for building trust and leading teams effectively.

• Action Point: Take the time to understand your own leadership style. Johnson suggests using frameworks like Myers-Briggs, DiSC, or simply reflecting on your preferences to identify whether you are more introverted or extroverted, task-oriented or people-oriented. This self-awareness allows you to adapt your approach to better suit your team and the situation.

TED Talks: The official TED guide to public speaking: Tips and tricks for giving unforgettable speeches and presentations - Chris Anderson

One of the best guides to teach you how to develop and deliver the best presentations and talks:

1. Find Your "Throughline" 🗣️

The most important part of a great talk is having a clear, concise "throughline," or a central idea that connects every part of your presentation. This should be a single, memorable sentence that captures the essence of your message.

2. Tell a Story 📖

Humans are wired for stories. Weaving a personal anecdote or a compelling narrative into your talk can make your ideas more relatable, memorable, and emotionally resonant.

Life Lessons For Students About To Head To University - Ali Abdaal

Productivity Tips - Ali Abdaal

Hip, knee, ankle, and foot: common injuries, prevention, and treatment options - Dr Peter Attia with Adam Cohen

For those who are interested in learning more about hip and knee issues:

Knee Anatomy and Function

• Knee vs. Hip Joint: The knee joint is inherently more unstable than the hip joint, which is a true ball-and-socket joint.
• Key Structures:
  • Patella (Kneecap): The rounded bone at the front of the knee. The quadricep tendon attaches to its top, and the patellar tendon continues from it to attach to the tibia.
  • Cartilage: Covers the ends of all bones in the joint, allowing smooth gliding. Maintaining cartilage is crucial because its disappearance leads to problems. Chondrocytes (cartilage cells) respond to pressure by making more matrix and proteins, meaning a pressured chondrocyte is "happy," while an unpressured one will break down.
  • Ligaments: Provide stability to the joint.
    • Cruciate Ligaments: The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) cross within the knee. The ACL is a commonly torn ligament.
    • Collateral Ligaments: Medial collateral ligament (MCL) and lateral collateral ligament (LCL) are on the sides of the knee.
  • Menisci: Two semicircular structures (medial and lateral menisci) that are imperative for distributing force across the knee and preventing cartilage wear. They distribute about 30% of the load through the knee joint. Without them, there's "point loading" or "edge loading," which rapidly degenerates cartilage.
  • Bones: Femur (thigh bone), Tibia (shin bone, the platform on which the knee sits), and Fibula (smaller bone on the outside, attaching to the tibia and LCL).

3 Rules That Will Immediately Change Your Life - Mark Manson

Rule #1: You are Responsible for Everything in Your Own Experience (Even if it's Not Your Fault) - Radical Responsibility

• Core Concept: This rule, rooted in existentialism, particularly from Jean-Paul Sartre, asserts that in every conscious moment, we are making choices. These choices include not only what we do but also how we perceive things.
• The Burden of Choice: Sartre highlighted that this constant necessity for choosing—of perception and action—is a significant mental and emotional load, leading humans to shirk responsibility.
• Avoiding Responsibility: People often blame others ("he made me do it," "my boss fucked up") or adopt others' values and belief systems ("my dad was a doctor, so I have to be one," "everyone else is doing it") to avoid this responsibility. Sartre called this "living in bad faith"—living for other people rather than for oneself.
• Living in Authenticity: Conversely, making conscious choices based on one's own principles and values, and being aware of these choices, is "living in authenticity". This is akin to "being yourself," understanding your values, and standing for them, even if it means social punishment.
• Foundation for Improvement: Manson states that personal responsibility is "step one of any sort of self-improvement". Without believing you are responsible and capable of choosing differently, there is no path to improvement.
• Responsibility/Fault Fallacy: A common hang-up is confusing responsibility with fault. Manson clarifies that being responsible for something does not mean it's your fault. For example, getting hit by a bus might not be your fault, but recovering from it is your responsibility. Similarly, if a baby is left on your doorstep, it's not your fault, but it's your responsibility to care for it.
• Broader Impact: Accepting radical responsibility is fundamental not only for self-improvement but also for mental and emotional health, being ethical, and having good relationships.

How to Read Faster - Mark Manson

There are a lot of misconceptions about how to read well,  so in this video we’ll cover some of the most common issues people seem to have. I can tell you now that the problem most of us have is that we learn to read books for school. And school conditions us to assume that we should be able to actively recall most things we read. We shouldn’t. Human memory doesn’t work that way. We just did that to make decent grades on the tests we took. And suck up to our teachers or whatever.

I’m here to tell you to scrap everything you know. Well, not everything, but a lot of it. Reading doesn’t have to be a slow and laborious chore. I urge you to gather around. Pull up a seat. Today we’re learning better reading habits and skills. The video includes tips on reading faster, remembering what you’ve read, how to read more, and some hacks on using what you’ve learned, or not.