- Making Connections
- Posts
- š± How to pay attention (hard vs easy mode)
š± How to pay attention (hard vs easy mode)
Professional observer. Independent thinking. Self-reinforcing life.
Hereās your 3 insights (in 2 minutes, 53 seconds).
š Professional Observer
"A writer is someone who pays attention to the world ā a writer is a professional observer."
Great observations can save poor writing.
But great writing canāt fix poor observations.
So how might you improve your ability to observeā¦?
š¤ Independent Thinking
The essay Solitude and Leadership beautifully illustrates how leadership requires the ability to think independently, which can only be developed through solitude.
The entire essay is worth reading, but hereās my favorite part:
Hereās how I think of introspection:
Follow your intuition to learn interesting things and do interesting stuff
Evaluate how you feel
Get feedback from people you trust
Then repeat step one and the cycle continues.
š Self-Reinforcing Life
Love this idea of building a āself-reinforcing life.ā

Christine offers a great heuristic for things you love vs. things you do for money.

Hereās how I think of this:
Hard mode:
Everything you do is separate, doesnāt compound, feels heavy and uninteresting
Easy mode:
Everything is you is connected, compounds, and feels light and interesting
Check out her post here.
Salud,
Mitchell
Ps. My āWoo Scoreā was 21. What are you?
(scorecard here h/t @christineist)