on 01-Sep-2022 (Thu)

Kicking it old school in 1930’s, I think the title is really unfortunate because it makes it sound like it’s a slimy book about how to trick people into liking you. But actually, I think it should be called How to Be Considerate because I think it’s the most amazing book about looking at everything from the other person’s point of view.

(re. How to Win Friends and Influence People)

And the punchline of the book is that the way to win friends and influence people is to be sincerely interested in others and always connect with them around their own interests, not yours.

(re. How to Win Friends and Influence People)

I do often find that when I get a little paralyzed over wondering what to do next, if I just ask myself this question, “Well, what’s most useful to other people?” or “How can I be of the most value to others?” that usually answers it.

For me, the one I got when I was a teenager- I don’t know if I heard it from someone or if I just came up with it myself- but it was whatever scares you, go do it.

I think Abraham Maslow, psychologist, said something about every day, we’re presented 100 times a day with a choice between safety and risk. And he said, “Make the growth choice 100 times a day” something like that.

So I think it’s been in some movies and some other people have quoted it in their books, but it goes like this. It’s that a man and his son have a horse, and they only have one horse. And one day, their only horse runs away. And all of their neighbors come by and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. You must be so upset.” And the man just shrugged and said, “Well, we’ll see.” And about a week later, that only horse came back and it had 20 other horses in tow. And the man and his son gathered all of these horses into the corral and suddenly they had like 21 horses, and they were like the richest people in their village. And all the neighbors came by and said, “Oh my gosh. You must be so happy. What wonderful news! You must be ecstatic.” And the man just shrugged and said, “Well, we’ll see.” And then because of these 21 wild horses, one day one of the wild horses kicked his son in the legs breaking both of his legs and suddenly, the old man’s only son was laid up in bed. The old man had to do everything himself. And the neighbors came by and said, “Oh, you must be so upset. I’m so sorry.” The man just said, “We’ll see.” And then shortly after, the country went to war and every able-bodied young man was sent off to war, and they were all killed in a horrible battle. But the man’s son was spared because his legs were broken. And the neighbors came by and said, “Oh, you must be so thankful.” The man just said, “We’ll see.” That’s it. I love that story.

Like even when I was- I don’t know- like 17 years old, some of my friends were starting to get tattoos like, “Man, you got to get a tattoo.” And I said, “You know, I think when I’m 90, I won’t want that tattoo.” And they just looked at me weird like, “When you’re 90? [bleep] dude, who cares about when you’re 90 man? I want this tattoo now. I think it’s cool. Yin Yang man.” And I’m like, “No, I think when I’m old, it’s not going to look good.” So for some reason, I’ve just- I’ve always been in service of my future self.

So I think that if you looked back at whatever you were worried about five years ago, like if you were to go read your old diaries from five years ago talking about everything that was upsetting you then, I bet you’d find out that those problems have probably just sorted themselves out by now and everything is fine. Right? So things smooth themselves out with time. So I feel like, why get so upset about these short-term things?

(Eli advice?)

If you go to sive.rs/srs, you’ll see my story about how to use spaced repetition to learn a programming language. And it’s how I kind of crash-coursed myself in JavaScript really fast

For now, here’s a handy acronym to help you remember the main types you can make: KAVE COGS.

• Kinesthetic
• Auditory
• Visual
• Emotional
• Conceptual
• Olfactory
• Gustatory
• Spatial

For example, if you have to memorize a last name like “Hamilton,” it’s okay to imagine ham. But you’re much more likely to remember it if you think about how a big slab of ham feels in your hands (and make it weigh a ton).

Then, go further. Imagine how it tastes and smells. Think about how big it is. Imagine having an emotional reaction about it, such as feeling sad that you’ve dropped it on the ground. Hear the sound of it falling.

it can be any of these imaginative processes:

• Kinesthetic: imagine the feel and weight of binoculars and how they feel when you put them to your eyes.
• Auditory: hear the sound of an electronic microscope zooming in on a subject.
• Visual: specifically imagine the color of a camera’s metal and plastic parts, or how the light bounces off its surfaces.
• Emotional: imagine how it feels to see a loved one again after a long time apart.
• Conceptual: think about the concept of something being visual, perhaps by imagining the word itself appearing on a screen.

[ed. from a Youtube comment he adds cryptically "But a tip would be to perhaps think in terms of genre as a replacement."]

[ed. 2: Ah he means replace "conceptual" with genre]

• Olfactory: imagine the smell of rain after you’ve heard distant thunder and seen a lightning clap.
• Gustatory: imagine the taste of that same rain.
• Spatial: think about the size of your vision in terms of how far you can see or how big objects are relative to one another.

To remember all of these options, think of the words “KAVE COGS.” Then, whenever you read, move through each step strategically in order to make sure you’re using multisensory visualization.

If you use the mind map as a clock, you can create 12 Magnetic Stations.

In the center, place an image that represents the theme of the Mind Map. For example, this fish represents to me the theme of cooking:

A Mind Map Example for Language Learning

At the end of each of branch, you can place a keyword from the language you’re learning. Then, using the Major Method and a PAO (or something like the Dominic System) that allows you to have an image for every position.

It’s like turning your Mind Map into a clock.

Interleaving is a fancy word for “switching things up.” Except instead of randomly closing one book and picking up another, you do it strategically.

There’s scientific proof that interleaving works , and I practice it within tightly defined study clusters.

For example, at the moment I’m studying Qigong, a special topic in music, the history of detective fiction and logic. I read for relatively brief blasts of time in one book before switching to the other.

The breaks in between promote diffuse thinking and give the brain time to percolate the ideas and make connections between topics on its own.

Elaborative encoding is a mnemonic that relates to-be-remembered information to previously existing memories and knowledge.