📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SiQdNaYrOQ0

Dima and Slava welcome as a guest Viacheslav Rudenko and talk about resilience, what it means to them, and how they are trying to build it as a muscle.

"Oceanman is like triathlon but without cycling and running"

* Frequency illusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion) (also known as Baader–Meinhof phenomenon)

* Resilience – pillar for hard times

"The worst things thought could happen are not as bad as things actually happening now."

* Happiness challenge

* The Wheel of Life (https://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/wheel-of-life-complete-guide-everything-you-need-to-know/)

* Peer pressure and peer support

* Support and trust are two-way street

"Sometimes you do not want reflection. Sometimes you want a kind person by your side."

* When comes to support community can be both a hero and a vilan

* Smalltalk, oversharing, and manipulation

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9gIPCgcykEs

Dima and Slava talk about effective communication in teams, how bad jargon really is, and what to do with acronyms. PSA: this episode contains a lot of TLAs.

* What do we mean by "effective communication"? Precise and uses least possible time to reach mutual understanding

"Communicating requires some practice, but just communicating is not a practice"

* Communication in and out of the team

* 6 examples of corporate jargon you should stop using now (https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/6-examples-of-business-jargon-you-should-stop-using-now)

* Every water park is "best" according to some metric

* Source of truth and indicator for turning a pump on and off

* PSA: you are entering the TLA land

* What's the difference between acronyms and abbreviations?

* Style guide from UK Government Digital Service (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style)

* Slava tries to humiliate Dima checking how good he is with technology abbreviations

In the next episode: discussion of "Culture Code" (https://danielcoyle.com/the-culture-code/) by Daniel Coyle.

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zIGMc1NLHSg

Dima and Slava discuss corporate culture, debate if it can be built, and, if so what are the challenges and the tools can help.

* Stanley Tucci "Taste: My Life Through Food" (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Taste-Sunday-Bestseller-Stanley-Tucci/dp/0241501008)

* What it is "corporate culture"?

* The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture (https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-leaders-guide-to-corporate-culture) from HBR

* How come "Results" and "Caring" are the dominant culture styles in the study by HBR?

* Tools for shaping corporate culture

* Mission statements: meaningful instrument or culture charade

* Feedback loops are very important for driving the culture

* Beware of pitfalls of employee surveys

* Recognition is not the same as rewarding and arguably recognition is more important than rewards

* How to practice recognition regularly?

* Soft Skills Engineering podcast (https://softskills.audio/)

* Navier-Stokes equations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations)

* Double edged sword of driving change with performance or just metrics

* Challenges can be reframed as opportunities

* Social events for building corporate cultures

"Informal meeting at 5pm. Agenda is in the attached document."

* Social events, though, can be a useful indicator to understand the culture

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube (https://youtu.be/iXqDNZWJD2c)

Dima and Slava talk to Vasyl, once CEO of ProZorro, about automation of the government and government services, dynamics of state-owned enterprises and getting back to "regular" business.

* ProZorro (https://prozorro.gov.ua/en) – public procurement service used by Ukrainian government

* State in a smartphone

* Starting from zero allow for leaps in adoption of new technology

* Does "technology" equal "no corruption"?

* If underlying process is bad, automation will just amplify it, not fix

* 10 Functions of the State (https://effectivestates.org/ten-functions-of-the-state/)

* Government is obliged to serve all citizens and cannot choose to have smaller marketshare

* Social Credit System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System) in China

* Arrow's impossibility theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem)

* Techno-optimists, techno-pessimists, and techno-realists

"What is the problem we are trying to solve?"

* "Nobody Gets Fired For Buying IBM" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/duenablomstrom1/2018/11/30/nobody-gets-fired-for-buying-ibm-but-they-should/)

* Risk acceptance and dependence on public opinion

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qWJRbR68vkU

Dima and Slava read the "Hyperfocus" by Chris Bailey and discuss the ideas and lessons they drew from the book.

* "Hyperfocus" (https://chrisbailey.com/hyperfocus/) by Chris Bailey

* Slava has really put ideas from the book to work for him

* Is the book over-indexing on email?

* How is this book different from "Deep Work" (https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/) by Cal Newport?

* Focusing on external and internal in managing one's productivity

* Dima's most important takeaway: managing attention space

* What is a good way to refer to scientific research and findings

* Thinking about the most productive day

* Making intentions very specific vs. intentionally board themes

* Problems with the motivation to not break streaks

* Cone of Uncertainty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Uncertainty)

* The "fog of the future" from the video about lockdowns (https://youtu.be/SVmEXdGqO-s)

* Slava's super productive day was a scatterfocus day

* What is scatterfocus and how to enter it?

* "How To Calm Your Mind" (https://chrisbailey.com/how-to-calm-your-mind/) – next book by Chris Bailey

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bExjWqJ4XWQ

Dima brings up the challenges of tactical planning, Slava introduces the concept of "digital travel time" and both of them try to apply the GTD 2-minute rule to examples from an article.

* Funny coincidences and the frequency illusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion) (also known as Baader–Meinhof phenomenon)

* Tactical planning: where plans and ideas collide with the realities of life

* Focused #166: The Social Dilemma (https://www.relay.fm/focused/166)

* Time blocking as a planning method

* Dima uses Apple Watch to remind himself of daily goals

* Having tasks not done at the end of the day is... frustrating

* Challenges of winding down for the day

* Pro tip: to avoid overworking just let people know that you are late with something

* Slava does day blocking instead of time blocking

* Scheduling end-to-end vs having buffers and "digital travel time"

* Use the Two-Minute Rule To Stop Procrastinating (https://blog.doist.com/two-minute-rule/)

* Many to-do apps have quick tasks filing functionality

Next episode: book club discussion of Chris Bailey's "Hyperfocus" (https://chrisbailey.com/hyperfocus/)

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube(https://youtu.be/eZEtdefAPA0)

Slava came across a peculiar workplace learning trends report and together with Dima they dissect the elusive trends highlighted there and discuss possible motivations and challenges of producing reports on industry landscape.

* "Ideal outcome" is the definition of done for a theme

* Definitions: report, research, and survey

* 2023 Workplace Learning Trends Report (https://business.udemy.com/2023-workplace-learning-trends-report/) from Udemy

* Simpson's paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)

* What is really trending and how come it is different from what is popular

* Why ~people~ companies create trend reports?

* Ideas for making reports less dry and faceless

* Udemy's market capitalization (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UDMY/key-statistics?p=UDMY)

* Company valuation methods (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/business-valuation.asp)

* Why startups burn through investment and it is ok

* Is technology important for valuation?

* Points (https://points.work/) series of events

* Challenges of running a research on the landscape of corporate learning in Ukraine

* Deep Space Industries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Industries)

Next topic: tactical planning. That is planning on the scale of days and weeks

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube (https://youtu.be/L-P71qki3U8)

Dima and Slava discuss their yearly themes for 2023 and how they plan to go about working on them.

* Cortex (https://www.relay.fm/cortex) podcast

* The Theme System (https://www.themesystem.com/)

* Can one fail their theme?

* Lighthouse Planning (https://www.lifejunctions.com/lighthouse/)

* Quinquennial (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quinquennial)

* Slava's theme hierarchy

* Dima's new theme

* MinimaList (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minimalist-to-do-list-widget/id993066159)

* LogSeq (https://logseq.com/)

* Rocketbook (https://getrocketbook.co.uk/)

* Bullet Journal (https://bulletjournal.com/)

* Multi-tasking is the enemy of focus

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube (https://youtu.be/6YlLkmYB2ik)

Slava and Dima welcome Yulia Kudina and together they try to figure out what learning is, how they do that, and unexpected things they learned recently.

* Yulia Kudina (https://www.instagram.com/yk.career/)

* Подкаст Льоші і Юлі (https://podcasts.apple.com/cy/podcast/%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82-%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BE%D1%88%D1%96-%D1%96-%D1%8E%D0%BB%D1%96/id1644674115)

* Chapter numbers Audible (https://www.reddit.com/r/audible/comments/7unce0/comment/dtmned8/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

* Video about knife sharpening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY8jvFqpZ_o)

* Past episode (https://sonar.one/biweekly/203) about how we learn

* What is "learning"?

* Is intentionality important for learning? Social learning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_learning_theory)

* Deliberate practice (https://bit.ly/3vjR9hK)

* Social learning and corporate culture

* Mentoring someone to exercise critical thinking. Yes, letting people fail is also a method

* How to learn when there is no accepted solution

"Starting with why is always a good thing"

* ...unless it is a book. Listen to an older episode (https://sonar.one/biweekly/39) to figure out why

* MasterClass Online Courses (https://www.masterclass.com/)

* What is the course or a training program that inspire us

* Learning 0%->20% vs. 70%->90%

* Study groups for deeper understanding (and learning)

* Learning from ideas one disagrees with

* Unexpected things we've learned recently

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube (https://youtu.be/k1xrwaKxV-A)

Dima and Slava talk about book "Tell to Win" by Peter Guber and tell their own stories about the role storytelling plays in their lives.

* "Tell to Win" (https://www.peterguber.com/leadership/telltowin/) by Peter Guber

* Structured decision making for choosing a school

* Chapters in the audiobook do not line up (https://www.reddit.com/r/audible/comments/7unce0/comment/dtmned8/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) with chapters in the paper book

* What is a story? Is everything a story?

* Key parts of the story: challenge, struggle, resolution

* Hero's journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey)

* Stories and storytelling, the process

* Case studies are usually dry. That is because they miss the "struggle" part of the story

* A-ha moment from the book: "Demonstrate vulnerability; it isn’t a liability, it’s an asset."

* Stories need heroes, but Slava disagrees that a location can be hero

* Dima likes the idea of stories taking a life of its their own

* "Board of directors" story (https://www.peterguber.com/steven-spielberg/)

* Both Slava and Dima like telling stories and think they are very valuable for communication

* Can one learn to be a great story teller?

* Pyramid of proficiency

In the next episode we will discuss learning with a mysterious guest.