Introduction: Redefining Excellence—and Why We Need It More Than Ever

📌 imprinting ⏱ 2026-05-05 00:06:57

📌 dispensed ⏱ 2026-05-05 00:09:01

📌 Alienation ⏱ 2026-05-05 00:10:41

📌 ineffable ⏱ 2026-05-05 00:15:12

📌 elicits ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:35:03

📌 cascade ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:35:11

📌 poignant ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:37:08

📌 exudes ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:37:50

📌 imbues ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:41:27

📌 vigor. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:41:33

📌 It emerges from involved engagement in something worthwhile that supports your values and goals. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:41:47

📌 Excellence combines mastery and mattering. It is not something that is out of reach but rather it is your birthright, a core part of your nature. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:42:08

📌 force their way into it ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:43:47

📌 ephemeral ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:44:12

📌 resonance ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:44:23

📌 impostors ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:45:52

📌 Excellence is not obsession. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:47:40

📌 Obsession results in burning bright, then burning out. Excellence is about consistency over time to create extraordinary work, and an extraordinary life. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:48:47

📌 resides ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:50:49

📌 Excellence is not happiness. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:51:27

📌 Excellence is not flow. ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:53:02

📌 values laden ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:55:27

📌 elongated ⏱ 2026-05-05 16:55:32

📌 languishing ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:01:53

📌 diminishment ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:01:47

📌 siloed ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:05:49

📌 underlie ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:09:29

📌 cultivation ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:10:04

📌 gumption ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:11:39

Chapter 1: The Biology of Excellence

📌 barbell ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:14:38

📌 limbs ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:19:32

📌 intact. ⏱ 2026-05-05 17:19:18

📌 attunement ⏱ 2026-05-06 15:35:24

📌 prose ⏱ 2026-05-06 15:38:08

📌 suffice. ⏱ 2026-05-06 15:45:26

📌 Around five hundred million years ago, species developed a connection between the brain and body that gave rise to subjective experience. Nowadays we call this a nervous system. ⏱ 2026-05-06 15:54:12

📌 When an organism is moving toward increasing levels of homeostatic upregulation, it is, by definition, demonstrating involved engagement in something worthwhile that supports its values and goals. ⏱ 2026-05-06 15:56:14

📌 For millions of years, the path to excellence was entirely pre-intellectual. It’s the hardwiring all of us have inherited, and it remains core to who we are today. ⏱ 2026-05-06 15:58:09

📌 We get out of our head and into our being. Our small, separate, and protective ego that is normally worried about failure takes a backseat. We feel at one with whatever it is we are doing because, in many ways, we are. ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:05:42

📌 pinnacle ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:10:11

📌 Put differently, skill isn’t just something you acquire; rather, it’s the ability to sense and respond, to feel your way through a complex environment. ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:22:23

📌 Research shows that the best way to learn something is to feel what it’s like to do it incorrectly and correctly. You feel the perfect golf swing, swim stroke, running stride, or tennis serve. ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:27:37

📌 ascent ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:40:46

📌 Thinking may be a significant part of what they do, but when they are at their best, it is their feelings that take center stage. ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:42:22

📌 deteriorates. ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:45:03

📌 antidote ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:46:22

📌 To explain this, Damasio and his colleagues put forth the “somatic marker” theory:12 without emotional assignments of value, we become incapable of making real-world decisions. ⏱ 2026-05-06 16:49:04

📌 ecstatic: ⏱ 2026-05-07 14:21:31

📌 Of all the experiences that occur during the creative process, touching the ecstatic and allowing it13 to guide our hand is the most profound and precious. ⏱ 2026-05-07 14:23:22

Chapter 2: The Psychology of Excellence

📌 The more complex and accurate a species’ ability to form conceptual ideas about the world, the better their chances of survival. This is a leading theory as to how thinking evolved. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:09:09

📌 Thinking allows us to simulate how an experience might feel. In doing so, we can appreciate its potential benefits and harms without putting ourselves at risk ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:10:20

📌 predisposes ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:13:04

📌 conspiracy ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:15:30

📌 decency ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:17:16

📌 A 2024 meta-analysis in the journal Nature Communications found the factor showing the strongest association with conspiracy beliefs to be “social alienation.” Additional research shows that boredom is also a driving force. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:18:48

📌 We crowd out any stillness and space for our minds. We do anything to fill the void, even if the result is a groggy, worn-out feeling. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:20:25

📌 If you can think ahead, which in turn enables you to feel ahead, you give yourself a better chance of making the right decision in the moment. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:33:32

📌 The key is to think beyond your immediate feelings and check them against your desires for the future. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:37:55

📌 Psychologists use the term episodic future thinking, or EFT, to describe the ability to imagine different futures and what they’ll feel like. If we can connect these imagined futures to our values and goals, we give ourselves the best chance to stay on the path. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:39:39

📌 Decades of research on human motivation, satisfaction, and fulfillment demonstrate that we thrive over the long haul when three core needs are met: (1) autonomy, or the ability to have some control over how we spend our time and energy; (2) competence, or a path toward concrete improvement in our chosen pursuits; and (3) belonging, or a sense of connection to something beyond ourselves—be it another person, community, lineage, or tradition. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:42:08

📌 Excellence also asks that we spend our time and energy in alignment with our values. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:47:00

📌 Our values represent our guiding principles, the attributes and qualities that matter to us most. A few examples include truth, presence, health, community, spirituality, relationships, intellect, creativity, quality, craft, authenticity, and wisdom. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:47:15

📌 Remember: Excellence is not a destination; it is a process of becoming ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:53:26

📌 saddle ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:54:09

📌 shitty flow to describe the experience of being in flow but in ways that do not encourage or, even worse, work against your values and goals. ⏱ 2026-05-08 19:59:16

📌 She found the stickiness of gambling addiction is less about the potential for winning money and more about the trancelike state gamblers achieve while using the machines. She coined the term machine zone to describe the experience of daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness slipping away. ⏱ 2026-05-08 20:01:39

📌 eudaimonic ⏱ 2026-05-12 15:50:22

📌 hedonic ⏱ 2026-05-12 15:50:12

📌 Life is hard. It’s not supposed to be perfect. Long-term satisfaction always includes short-term challenges. Almost everything worthwhile requires effort. ⏱ 2026-05-12 15:53:08

📌 A better alternative to obsessing over happiness is focusing on developing skills in worthwhile pursuits while opening your emotional aperture to a range of feelings along the way. ⏱ 2026-05-12 15:56:24

📌 engrossed ⏱ 2026-05-12 15:57:01

📌 marshals ⏱ 2026-05-12 15:59:43

📌 adrenal ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:02:07

📌 my prior work, I boiled down Selye’s model to a simple equation: Stress plus rest equals growth. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:03:38

📌 complacency ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:04:00

📌 stagnation. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:04:06

📌 He recognized that our response to stress is contingent not just on the dose but also on what, if any, purpose the stress serves. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:05:48

📌 contingent ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:09:49

📌 secrete ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:11:52

📌 when we apply effort on challenging tasks, it boosts activity in regions of the brain that respond to rewards. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:16:03

📌 The neural activity associated with reward,18 along with the accompanying real-life feelings of accomplishment, was significantly greater in participants who viewed their effort as worthwhile. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:15:18

📌 contemplate ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:20:20

📌 equanimity ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:19:58

📌 sublime ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:19:49

📌 It’s time for a new concept: zombie burnout.是时候提出一个新概念了：僵尸式倦怠。It represents the half-dead, half-alive shuffling through your day that leaves you both restless and exhausted at the same time. Yes, you can burn out from doing too much. But you can also burn out from not doing enough of what lights you up. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:21:39

📌 But imitation without meaning breeds fatigue. Zombie burnout doesn’t crash your system, it dulls it. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:23:37

📌 featured ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:24:47

📌 reap ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:25:51

📌 at the expense of ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:29:59

📌 cerebral ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:31:48

📌 explicit ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:31:53

📌 prey upon ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:32:50

📌 half-life ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:34:25

📌 incongruency ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:35:31

📌 obscure ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:37:59

📌 wilderness ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:36:53

📌 intricate ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:38:51

📌 It suggests that the objects that surround us are not static; rather, they invite specific thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:39:12

📌 Experiments show that the mere sight of an object elicits brain activity associated with particular actions. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:40:24

📌 We should do what we can to surround ourselves with objects that invite our desired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and eliminate those that do not. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:42:18

📌 Give a Damn. ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:44:15

📌 scattered ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:47:53

📌 mandate ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:53:00

📌 conducive ⏱ 2026-05-14 16:09:48

📌 imperative ⏱ 2026-05-14 16:12:04

📌 detrimental ⏱ 2026-05-14 16:12:16

📌 cutting-edge ⏱ 2026-05-14 16:14:55

Chapter 3: The Philosophy of Excellence

📌 treatise. ⏱ 2026-05-14 16:21:19

📌 Quality captures the innate rightness we sense when we are absorbed in something we care about. ⏱ 2026-05-14 16:23:54

📌 primordial ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:36:53

📌 contemporaries ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:38:25

📌 rigorous ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:38:20

📌 In Greek philosophy, arete emerges when someone develops their innate faculties and skills and fully deploys them to pursue their values. ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:41:52

📌 wu-wei occurs when “a person is optimally active and effective . . . [in] a state of harmony that is both complex and holistic, involving as it does the integration of body, the emotions, and the mind.” A person in wu-wei is also said to have de, which is translated as “virtue. ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:46:19

📌 Like Quality, you cannot easily define the experience of wu-wei or de, but you know it when you see it. ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:46:02

📌 Goodness is really the fundamental metaphysical perception which forms the essence of our consciousness: a perception not defined by reason. ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:54:33

📌 tumultuous ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:55:45

📌 emblematic ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:56:15

📌 monetization ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:56:45

📌 hitting stride ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:58:00

📌 ubiquitous ⏱ 2026-05-14 22:58:54

📌 void ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:00:55

📌 pseudo ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:01:25

📌 balms ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:01:46

📌 superfluous ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:05:16

📌 trivial ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:05:13

📌 gem ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:05:59

📌 crap ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:07:37

📌 nadir ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:07:55

📌 intimate ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:08:26

📌 hypervigilant ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:10:28

📌 neat ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:11:34

📌 poignant ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:11:47

📌 Put differently, excellence requires intimacy. ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:12:29

📌 you can also develop intimacy with an activity or craft. It is a sense of familiarity, respect, and attention that helps you feel connected to what you are doing and to yourself. It requires minimizing distractions and getting as close as possible to your pursuit. ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:13:30

📌 antidote ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:14:43

📌 solace ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:16:35

📌 The only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:17:57

📌 wilts ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:20:32

📌 raucous ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:20:34

📌 narcissism ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:20:30

📌 Striving for excellence of this sort—doing real things, in the real world, with real results—keeps you grounded, both literally and figuratively. ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:22:42

📌 vindicate ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:25:33

📌 Psychologists call this an autotelic experience. It represents the fulfillment and satisfaction that arise from doing a job well for its own sake—something that is only possible when there is a clear standard for what doing a job well means. ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:26:58

📌 imbues ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:33:02

📌 Perhaps excellence, Quality, and love are all one and the same ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:33:28

📌 Either way, when we pursue excellence, we transcend our small selves—the parts of us that worry, doubt, and fear—and enter into something larger, a dance with the universe. We experience the opposite of existential loneliness: We feel whole and settled, at home in ourselves and at home in the world.

• 💭 越来越能感受到excellence作为人的天性，作为人的存在，超越语言表达的本质存在。 - ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:35:44

📌 When we aspire toward intimacy with what matters to us, we overcome alienation and disconnection and feel more at home in the world. ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:39:01

📌 Working on concrete tasks with objective and measurable results is a source of deep satisfaction and helps to keep us humble and grounded ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:39:11

Chapter 4: Care

📌 You can possess all the knowledge and talent in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t care. Caring drives everything, regardless of what it is you do. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:24:32

📌 reverence ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:26:19

📌 nonchalance ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:31:10

📌 stumble ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:39:05

📌 surefire ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:38:58

📌 Passion emerges over years, not seconds. It’s rarely like lightning striking. More often it’s like laying bricks for a house. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:39:59

📌 pique ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:40:58

📌 But a far more common story is: “I explored all sorts of activities and found my way to basketball or art or design or woodworking or whatever it may be. I kept at it because I enjoyed it and was pretty good, and ten years later, here I am.” ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:42:05

📌 Never give up and Don’t quit are two of the most popular aphorisms in motivational speaking. Sometimes it’s great advice, but other times it’s harmful and gets in the way. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:42:26

📌 tedious ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:47:09

📌 There have been numerous opportunities for me to quit. But I can’t imagine my life without writing or strength training. I enjoy them, I remain curious, and I still see potential for growth. As a result, I’ve come to care about them. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:50:49

📌 Researchers found that hot streaks, “bursts of high-impact work clustered together in close succession,” followed a predictable pattern. First, there is a period of exploration during which someone tries many different styles and methods. Then there is a period of exploitation, when a person settles in on a single approach and takes it all the way. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:52:43

📌 The route to deepening care (and to your best performances) often necessitates sampling widely and exploring until you find what is working—and then, once you’ve found that thing, narrowing in, cultivating it, and exploiting it. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:54:17

📌 inclined ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:54:36

📌 The age-old debate between nature and nurture would be better framed as nurture your nature ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:55:12

📌 Try a range of pursuits. Give it some time, but don’t be scared to quit until you discover something where there is fit—an alignment with your values and natural abilities, a curiosity and potential for growth. Once you’ve determined fit, then the focus shifts to grit. ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:56:11

📌 Remember that passion and staying power are not automatic; you develop them by persevering through ups and downs ⏱ 2026-05-16 17:56:17

📌 You feel a pull to keep showing up. You may not get better every day, but there is a general sense of growth and progress. You may not love every moment, but there is an emerging satisfaction. Like a seed ready to sprout, you accumulate energy asking to be channeled. These are all signals to keep going. These are all signs of caring. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:01:08

📌 The biggest barrier to caring is fear. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:01:25

📌 Fear of failure. Fear of heartbreak. Fear of loss. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:01:31

📌 Heartbreak is unpreventable,” explains the poet David Whyte, “the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control. . . . Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity: in a love relationship, in a life’s work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in an attempt to shape a better and more generous self ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:05:01

📌 bruises ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:05:26

📌 worn in ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:05:35

📌 The hurt isn’t as bad this way, but neither are the joys. You end up missing out on the fullness of life. You sacrifice the pursuit of excellence—and the deep satisfaction it brings—for short-term safety and comfort instead ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:07:40

📌 If you want to have a rich and meaningful life then you have to expose yourself. You have to make yourself vulnerable. You have to care. There is no way around it.

• 💭 这说出了我的一个坏习惯，我老是潜移默化的害怕失败，变得“脆弱”，“丢人”，“出糗”。 - ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:06:21

📌 You are not going to be the best anything with an attitude of nonchalance—including the best version of yourself. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:08:13

📌 You set boundaries. You maintain a sense of humor. You surround yourself with good art, good books, and most of all, good people. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:09:47

📌 You hold your care, ambition, and drive in a container of self-kindness, because if you cannot be kind to yourself when you suffer inevitable heartbreaks and failures, then you would never come back and risk putting it on the line again. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:10:00

📌 You learn to tell yourself, Caring deeply is hard, but we can do hard things. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:10:05

📌 , lay it on the line ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:13:08

📌 You come to appreciate that the things you care about are the things that break your heart are the things that give rise to excellence and fill your life with meaning and joy ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:13:46

📌 Caring deeply about something means beginning to identify with it. You start saying, I am an artist or I am a chef or I am an athlete or I am a musician or I am a doctor or I am a parent. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:16:21

📌 I’ve come to think about identity like a house: If you live in a house that only has one room, and it floods, then you have to move out of the house. It is a disorienting experience. But if you live in a house with multiple rooms, and one room floods, you can seek refuge in the other rooms while you repair the damage. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:19:54

📌 The scientific term for this is self-complexity. It refers to diversifying the sources of meaning and identity in our lives. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:19:25

📌 Studies show that when we increase self-complexity, we gain overall stability and are better able to weather challenges ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:19:42

📌 If you want to be really good at something, you have to be willing to fail. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:22:38

📌 Being willing to fail is easier when you have a strong sense of self. Having a strong sense of self requires not fusing completely with a single activity or dimension. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:22:22

📌 renovate ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:23:34

📌 setting aside ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:23:38

📌 Knowing this will happen—and deciding to go forth anyway—is what having the courage to care is all about. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:27:05

📌 It’s easy to sit on the sidelines. To think about the thing. Research the thing. Talk about the thing. Perhaps even dream about the thing. But these are all just ways of protecting yourself from actually doing the thing ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:27:34

📌 Another trap is doing the thing but not really doing the thing. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:28:01

📌 It’s the person who has the website and clothes and haircut and notebook and pen and typewriter and all the other accessories they think a writer ought to have, but what they don’t have is the guts to put themselves out there and write. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:28:05

📌 feign ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:29:10

📌 resides ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:29:15

📌 Courage doesn’t entail the absence of fear or doubt. It entails taking fear and doubt along for the ride and doing what we are meant to do no less. ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:32:42

Chapter 5: Goals

📌 Yet nearly all of our growth, development, and meaning occur not at the point of accomplishing a goal but during its pursuit. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:16:59

📌 There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life. What will change your life is how you are transformed in the process of going for it. When you select what goals to pursue, you are selecting what kind of person you want to become. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:18:58

📌 Whenever we are contemplating a goal, the first thing we ought to consider is how it might impact our values. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:23:33

📌 hinder ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:23:36

📌 There are always trade-offs. The key is to be aware of them so you can evaluate and adjust as needed. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:24:56

📌 taking an inventory of ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:25:40

📌 When you work on a big goal that aligns with your values, you are working on not only the goal but also yourself. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:26:22

📌 The best goals push us ever so slightly outside of our comfort zones. Too much of a challenge, and the result is anxiety. Too little of a challenge, and the result is boredom. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:27:13

📌 From there, a popular framework for setting goals is SMART. That is, goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:29:42

📌 Cheap thrills come from talking and thinking about a goal. Lasting satisfaction comes from working toward it. Be careful not to confuse the two. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:32:00

📌 The second trap is that you become so fixated on achieving your goal that you rush the process, making poor decisions along the way. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:32:42

📌 alpinists ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:32:50

📌 Instead of focusing on the goal itself, it’s wise to break it down into smaller parts, making adjustments as we go. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:35:34

📌 The bigger the goal, the smaller the steps ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:36:39

📌 All we can control is our process. ⏱ 2026-05-20 14:40:12

📌 minuscule ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:31:01

📌 audacious ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:31:20

📌 accolade ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:33:13

📌 evaded ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:33:10

📌 exalted ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:34:27

📌 What I realized was that you are the same person you were before, and that if you are not content with who you are, a championship, or any accomplishment, isn’t going to change that.” ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:34:21

📌 Fulfillment, happiness, and satisfaction are not attributes you gain from achieving a goal; they are states that arise in the process of going for one. ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:35:14

📌 The human brain did not evolve to be satisfied. It evolved to strive. ⏱ 2026-05-20 15:36:02

📌 fluff ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:27:37

📌 reminiscing ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:28:36

📌 The ultimate way to embrace a process-over-outcomes mindset is to stop worrying about being the best and instead focus on being the best at getting better. ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:29:34

📌 comprise ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:31:09

📌 So yes, set meaningful goals and pursue them with everything you have. Doing so is core to excellence. But keep in mind that the real reward isn’t just what happens when you reach the top of the mountain. It’s who you become on the sides. ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:34:15

📌 There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life. What will change your life is who you become in the process of going for it. ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:37:16

Chapter 6: Consistency

📌 vomit ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:39:04

📌 feats ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:42:29

📌 rarity ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:43:15

📌 toll ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:43:06

📌 We’ll have good days and bad days, exciting days and boring days, and everything-in-between days. Every one of these days counts. What matters is continuing to make the deposits. ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:54:00

📌 validation ⏱ 2026-05-22 18:55:41

📌 defy ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:37:53

📌 Become known for your consistency. ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:38:28

📌 blunders ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:40:14

📌 Nothing brings down an average like a zero—it’s basic math. ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:42:39

📌 account for ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:46:39

📌 give in the moment ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:46:23

📌 But the same research shows that if we can view missteps or bad days as minor speed bumps and see them as challenges to overcome, then our bodies release the hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), which has been linked to a reduced risk of chronic inflammation, decreased anxiety, and improved future performance. ⏱ 2026-05-26 15:50:14

📌 playoff ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:07:18

📌 step off ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:08:24

📌 adversities ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:08:51

📌 We forget about what happened on a great shot or day and get back to work. We forget about what happened on a bad shot or day and get back to work. ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:12:51

📌 impeccable ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:14:25

📌 In other words, progress is nonlinear. ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:45:18

📌 separates the wheat from the chaff ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:47:43

📌 Focus less on any single result and more on the trend line. ⏱ 2026-05-27 14:50:22

📌 mantra ⏱ 2026-05-27 19:58:25

Chapter 7: Trade-Offs

📌 staple ⏱ 2026-05-27 20:07:37

📌 For most people, it is better to do a few things well, with full attention and care, than it is to spread yourself thin and do a bunch of things with average attention, energy, and results. ⏱ 2026-05-27 21:09:21

📌 Being a mature adult means acknowledging that trade-offs exist and being willing to make them ⏱ 2026-05-27 21:12:07

📌 Two concepts can help. The first is establishing a minimum effective dose: the amount of time necessary to stay connected to each of the central rooms in your identity house. It’s okay to spend a disproportionate amount of time in one room, so long as you don’t let others get moldy. It’s also okay to let go of certain activities, so long as they aren’t integral to who you are or wish to become. ⏱ 2026-05-28 16:51:32

📌 neglect ⏱ 2026-05-28 16:50:57

📌 The second concept essential to prioritization is what psychologists call internal self-awareness, or the ability to see ourselves clearly by assessing, monitoring, and proactively managing our values, emotions, and behaviors. ⏱ 2026-05-28 16:54:56

📌 interwoven ⏱ 2026-05-28 16:56:46

📌 Psychologists call this self-distancing. Pretend a friend came to you for advice. They are struggling with wanting to go all in on an activity but concerned about leaving other things behind. What would you tell them? ⏱ 2026-05-28 16:58:52

📌 Or imagine an older and wiser version of yourself looking back on your current self. What might they think about your priorities and how you are spending your time ⏱ 2026-05-28 16:59:44

📌 Excellence is not about trying to achieve some sort of illusory balance. Instead, it’s about pursuing our interests wholeheartedly while maintaining the ability to see ourselves clearly and make adjustments if necessary. ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:01:27

📌 maniacally ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:01:59

📌 to the exclusion of all else ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:03:02

📌 nuanced ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:06:18

📌 Keep the Main Things the Main Things ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:08:15

📌 Complexity gives you excuses, ways out, and endless options for switching things up all the time. It gives you plenty to think and talk about, but also too much to do, at least with any real consistency. The result is that you all too easily bounce from fad to fad. ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:15:07

📌 minutiae ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:20:48

📌 Regardless of your activity, it is crucial to define the fundamentals—the main things. Also define the temptations, the bright and shiny objects, the trends and fads. ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:22:45

Chapter 8: Focus

📌 Another noteworthy term is attention economy. It describes the monetization of distractions that capture our attention. If someone can capture our attention, even if only for a few seconds, they can earn a profit from advertisers who want to sell a product or service. ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:27:46

📌 astounding ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:27:54

📌 cloaked ⏱ 2026-05-28 17:57:39

📌 But our brains are not computers. Effective multitasking is really nothing more than effective delusional thinking. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:01:42

📌 allotting ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:02:40

📌 According to countless studies, the consequence of multitasking is that the quality and, ironically, even the quantity of our work suffers. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:02:30

📌 gaze ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:03:41

📌 cannibalize ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:04:33

📌 cannabis ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:05:54

📌 on par with ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:05:39

📌 The more diffuse our attention, the more likely we are to feel angst, restlessness, and discontentment. “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” conclude the researchers. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:06:44

📌 Unfortunately, for many people, fragmented attention has become the default way of existing. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:08:36

📌 the ability to sustain focus is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage in today’s world. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:10:27

📌 myriad ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:10:35

📌 swipe down ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:14:19

📌 And yet this isn’t far off from what we do to ourselves every time we attempt to focus in the presence of digital devices. Even if we don’t constantly check them, the amount of cognitive and emotional energy required for restraint is draining. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:16:37

📌 signify ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:17:48

📌 Distractions are an inevitable part of our lives, so while it is unrealistic to eliminate them altogether, we can identify specific key activities, set aside time and space for them, recognize sources of distraction, and physically remove them. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:19:59

📌 It’s important not to judge yourself or panic when you experience internal interruptions. Decades of psychological research show that the more you resist thoughts, feelings, or urges, the more persistent they become. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:27:09

📌 wane ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:27:25

📌 One of the most effective breaks is a short walk. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:29:22

📌 The goal of these breaks is to switch from whatever it is you were doing to something that gives your deliberate thinking and attentional capacities a chance to rest. ⏱ 2026-05-28 18:31:03

Chapter 9: Discipline

📌 disconnecting how you feel from what you need to do. There are times when you are going to feel very motivated, and that’s great. But discipline is: You are going to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel about them ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:10:04

📌 A common misconception is that the best performers are always motivated and inspired. That couldn’t be further from the truth. ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:13:56

📌 What we can control, however, is our behavior—that is, our actions. And if we take action, we can change our mood and mind. Action can create motivation. ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:21:18

📌 along for the ride ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:34:23

📌 oomph ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:36:01

📌 Discipline bridges the gap between motivation and action, making the former less necessary for the latter. When you have discipline, you don’t need to feel a certain way to show up and get started. You just do. ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:37:27

📌 rigidity ⏱ 2026-05-29 10:42:19

📌 Another type of discipline that is crucial to excellence is the discipline not to prejudge performance. ⏱ 2026-05-30 10:16:12

📌 ascent ⏱ 2026-05-30 10:17:51

📌 Zach knew that how you feel before a hard effort does not necessarily correlate with how you feel during a hard effort. ⏱ 2026-05-30 10:18:37

📌 Fierce Self-Discipline Requires Fierce Self-Kindness ⏱ 2026-05-30 10:20:45

Chapter 10: Renewal

📌 As we previously discussed, activities such as walking, swimming, yoga, easy running, and hiking require just enough coordination to occupy the parts of our brain responsible for effortful thinking, allowing us to more easily zone out and mind-wander, both of which are associated with creativity and insight. Research shows as little as six minutes can produce benefits. ⏱ 2026-05-30 10:46:33

📌 rejuvenate ⏱ 2026-05-30 13:26:21

📌 First and foremost: No form of rest is as powerful as sleep. ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:28:46

📌 Fortunately you can, in fact, go for extended periods with poor sleep and still be okay in the long term. ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:30:06

📌 Do everything you can to prioritize sleeping seven to nine hours. ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:32:06

📌 Do not freak out if for some reason you can’t sleep seven to nine hours. ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:32:06

📌 Do not let rule 2 become an ongoing excuse for rule 1. ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:32:06

📌 Extended breaks also allow us to reconnect with ourselves and those who are important to us. ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:42:22

Chapter 11: Confidence

📌 stagnates ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:50:30

📌 The blank page is still harrowing for me, the feeling of uncertainty still uncomfortable. But facing it is not as hard as it used to be. I’ve learned that being unsure of where I am going is not something to stress over. It is merely a predictable part of the creative process, a necessary challenge of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:56:32

📌 The more reps we put in, the more faith we gain in our respective endeavors, and in ourselves ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:58:54

📌 Confidence Requires Evidence ⏱ 2026-05-31 16:59:07

📌 There is only one way to gain genuine confidence: by doing the work to earn it. ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:02:10

📌 The ability to remain calm amid challenges is a core element of what psychologists call self-efficacy: an evidence-based belief that you are capable of showing up, working through challenges, and excelling in uncertain or highly charged circumstances ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:04:57

📌 The best way to gain self-efficacy, the research shows, is through experience. ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:07:15

📌 traits ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:11:32

📌 revisions ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:14:17

📌 imposter ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:14:38

📌 A good editor, coach, manager, mentor, or leader won’t call you up to bat until you are ready. It does not mean the at-bat will be comfortable, nor does it guarantee success ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:21:46

📌 taking your doubts along for the ride, and relying on evidence to remind yourself you belong. ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:21:54

📌 Nowadays I frequently ask myself, Do you have what you need to own your seat? If so, own it. If not, what evidence do you need before you can? ⏱ 2026-05-31 17:21:39

读书笔记

Chapter 2: The Psychology of Excellence

划线评论

📌 coining the term internet brain, in which I wrote, “Internet brain results from spending too much time online. It manifests as an inability to focus for long periods of time; a strong desire to ‘check’ something—be it social media, email, trending topics, or your favorite newspaper’s landing page—even when you don’t actually want to - 💭 身边的事物可以起到联想作用，所以我不后悔买电子墨水阅读器，让我在读书的时候少受打扰 - ⏱ 2026-05-12 16:51:43

Chapter 3: The Philosophy of Excellence

划线评论

📌 Either way, when we pursue excellence, we transcend our small selves—the parts of us that worry, doubt, and fear—and enter into something larger, a dance with the universe. We experience the opposite of existential loneliness: We feel whole and settled, at home in ourselves and at home in the world. - 💭 越来越能感受到excellence作为人的天性，作为人的存在，超越语言表达的本质存在。 - ⏱ 2026-05-14 23:37:20

Chapter 4: Care

划线评论

📌 If you want to have a rich and meaningful life then you have to expose yourself. You have to make yourself vulnerable. You have to care. There is no way around it. - 💭 这说出了我的一个坏习惯，我老是潜移默化的害怕失败，变得“脆弱”，“丢人”，“出糗”。 - ⏱ 2026-05-16 18:07:28

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