Half A Thought

What do the Karate Kid, Roger Federer, and a Buddhist monk have in common? They’ve practiced their same craft over and over again. But at some point, it just clicks. We’ve previously described how creativity can be found in randomness, today we search for creativity in repetition, in mundanity. With a combination of focus without an objective in mind and ‘getting the right feel’ there’s a point when creativity finds us when we least expect it.

Quantity over quality. The more content you create, the more likely you will strike gold. This episode, however, introduces the necessity to keep room for randomness, those carefree thoughts we have that are not at all logical. Each new idea we have will be based on what we know, but different permutations those ideas. Drawing on Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 thinking, creating excess content, and doing what’s not expected of us, let’s try to introduce some randomness in our lives, creating serendipitous opportunities for creativity.

In this monologue, Abhi brainstorms and thinks about some of the "top-of-mind" lessons he has picked up after reading Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life. From talking about the yin and yang, the dominance hierarchy, why being precise in your speech is important, why listening is a key skill, and how to deal with adversity, Abhi explores some key concepts and themes of the book. 

Abhi and Ali begin the next chapter by talking about creativity. They talk about how creativity comes from different spaces, how "Creativity" is a sum of "creativities," why creativity requires actionability, and how Abhi's standardized system of note-taking helps him build an idea maze, not an idea box.

Reference 1: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199203/the-art-creativity
Reference 2: https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/

He is the 'the D2C guy'. Featured as a Forbes 30 under 30 working with companies like Hint Water and people like Ptibull and Priyanka Chopra, Nik Sharma has made his position clear in the brand building world. Here, Ali picks Nik's brain on things like how he sees creativity in his area to what it's like to find your passion early on. It's a 'sharming' episode!

In the longest episode so far, Abhinav speaks with his friend Jacob and asks him about his first-hand racial experiences of growing black in America. They then talk about why being an "expert" in race is not necessary to begin talking about racism, why tone policing is not justified, and what "virtue-signaling" is (and isn't.) From Kendrick Lamar's music to Obama's "respectability politics," this conversation was enlightening and inspiring.

Links mentioned:

Facing You, Facing Me: http://www.stileshall.org/facing-you/

Jacob's Newsletter: https://respectexistence.substack.com/

MLK's Birmingham Letter: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/552461/

The Innocence Project: https://www.innocenceproject.org/

People's Breakfast Oakland: https://twitter.com/PeoplesBreakOak?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

Abhi catches up with his friend Aurum and they talk about rejection, goal-setting, relationships, "changing the world" vs changing your world, the paradox of friendship, conversations, helping others, and what it means to live a good, happy life. 

In this concluding episode of our chapter on Expression, Ali talks about the real way to understand other people’s emotions and what actually makes us happy. 

In this episode, Abhinav chats with Salman Ansari. Salman is the founder of two startups, has previously worked at Facebook, has been CTO, a web developer, an iOS developer, an engineering manager, a learner, and a writer. He calls himself a polymath and there was a lot to learn from him about skillsets, success, founding companies, meditation, journaling, discovering life's purpose, passion, the paradox of success, and above all, productizing yourself. 

This episode is the first of our many interviews of people who inspire us and understand the themes of Chapter 1. Senator Scott Wiener is a State Senator for the 11th District of California. We discuss his view on expression and how his lessons help us navigate the terrain of expression and understand the quantity and quality of expression.