Action Figure Daniel

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  • “Salt: A World History” by Mark Kurlansky

    • Chinese were the first to mine salt
    • Gunpowder is made from salt
    • Egyptian tombs have two parts, the below ground burial and an above ground offering
    • Proteins unravel in the presence of heat, salt
    • Salt mines shift under their weight and close their own cracks as brine fills and dries
    • The Celtic economy was based on salt
    • “Common salts” is a Roman idiom
    • Curing fish enabled mass distribution of fish and people who could eat fish rations
    • Milk curdles under contact with animal skin, especially the stomach
    • Fat resists salt which is why oily fish need to be salted more and pressed

  • “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss

    • Ask open-ended questions to retain control and divert attention
      • “How can I do that?”
    • Fast, emotional thinking informs and guides our slower, rational response
    • Assumptions blind, hypothesis guide
    • Make yourself unimportant to the negotiations
    • Cognitive bias is focused on making a coherent story, not gathering information
    • Focus on listening to their wants, needs, and aspirations
    • Slow the conversation down
    • Generally you want the playful voice but sometimes late-night-dj
    • Repeat the last three words they said
    • To calm aggression
      • Use the late night DJ voice
      • Start with “sorry”
      • Mirror
      • Silence, at least 4 seconds
    • Negotiating should be a discovery not a contest
    • Label feelings with, “It seems like…”
    • Clear the road before advertising the destination
    • Getting a “no” helps you clarify things
    • People have a need to say “No” to feel in control so get them to say it early
      • “Is now a bad time?” is good to ask
      • “Have you given up on this project?” is like walking away from the stubborn child who refuses to leave the park
    • The goal is to help them feel safe, secure, and in control
    • “Yes” is often an escape route
    • “That’s right” is gold, “You’re right” is death
    • Be careful of compromise, it often leaves both side unhappy and turns out a worse outcome
    • No deal is better than a bad deal
    • When assessing a threat, look for answers to who, what, when, where
    • “What does it take to be successful here?”
    • “How am I supposed to do that?” asks the other party to help and while helping them feel in control
    • The other side always has a team… Make sure you are engaging everyone on that team
    • “Yes” is nothing without “how”
      • “How will we accomplish our contract?”
      • “How do we know we are on-track?”
      • “How will we know when we are off-track?”
    • People who can break the deal are often more critical than the deal maker
    • There are assertive, accommodating, and analytical people
      • Analysts
        • Want time to think before responding; they value precision in their responses so try to can consider all the angles
        • Do not care for human interactions
        • Expect equity in anything given
      • Accommodators
        • Love social interaction and seek engagement
        • Do not necessarily need reciprocity
        • Takes silence to mean anger
      • Assertives
        • Need to feel heard before they can listen
        • Value victories
        • Takes silence as an invitation to keep talking
        • Give them an inch and they will go a mile
    • The golden rule is wrong here (and most places): Treat other how they want to be treated
    • Focus on the issues not the person
    • It is good to hit the pause button when things are not going well
    • Decreasing concessions ending are ideal:
      • Set an extreme anchor
      • Close the gap between the anchor are your real number by half
      • If needed, close by a quarter
      • End on an exact, non-round number to make it feel like you are at your end
    • Look for the “black swans” (the hidden motivations behind the negotiator’s behavior)
    • Leverage is having something the only side wants
    • Look for their “religion”: the beliefs that drive them to action
    • “They’re crazy” is our way for saying, “They do not make sense”
      • One side has information the other does not
      • They have a constraint they do not want to share

  • “How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen” by Joanna Faber and Julie King

    • We cannot act right when we do not feel right
    • Put their feeling into a word then use that word in a sentence
    • Good feelings cannot come in until the bad feelings are acknowledge and let out
    • Often, trying to “fix things” is about protecting ourselves from the feelings of others
    • Just accept the darn emotion!
    •  “‘But’ takes away the gift you have just given”; use something like “The problem is…” or “Even though you know…” instead
    • Acknowledge their desires in writing or drawings
    • Match your tone with emotion
    • Help them fantasize what they want but should not have (“If you could have cake for dinner, what kind would you have?”)
    • Try leading with a statement instead of a question
    • “Please” should be reserved for actual requests
    • Offer choices
    • Think about how to put the children in charge… With restraints.
    • Use a gesture or word (noun) to remind instead of bossing around
    • Appreciate the progress you see before pointing out the deficiencies
    • Act without insult
    • Actions are for protection, not for punishment
    • Try to make amends, not apologies, instead of punishments (“Your sister was hurt when you pushed her. What can we do to help her feel better?”)
    • Problem solving
      • Acknowledge their feelings first
      • Briefly describe your feelings
      • Ask for, and write down all ideas
      • Decide the ideas that you both agree on
      • Try out the solutions, double check the plan with your child
    • Rewards are offered with an implied threat
    • We are driven by a sense of autonomy, competency or mastery, and purpose
    • Praise that evaluates sounds dismissive or dubious
    • It is not always appropriate to praise, consider asking questions or starting a conversation instead
    • Describe what you see regarding effort and progress instead of evaluating
    • Instead of praising behavior, describe the affect the behavior has on others
    • Try to avoid being proud (because it implies you did the work, not them) and comparisons to others
    • When they are discouraged, acknowledge their feelings and offer a new picture of themselves they can work towards
    • Quietly move to their level
    • Do not expect consistency in usage of new skills
    • (So much of raising kids well seems to be focused on helping them make sense of the patterns of the world)
    • Tell them what they can do instead of what they cannot, they may understand the words but not the context
    • Everyone wants to feel understood, act autonomously, be competent
    • Acknowledge the facts instead of asking obvious questions
    • Lying is a natural stage of development, guide them to being truth telling
    • All feeling are acceptable; some actions must be limited
    • We will not be calm and in control all the time, neither will they
    • Try telling the story of what happened

  • “When” by Daniel H Pink

    • Positive affect (attitude) tends to rise in the morning, drop in the afternoon, then return in the evening
    • We are more rational in the morning
    • Timing can have a notable affect on math, analytics, and rational work
    • Insight thinking is best during suboptimal times
    • Larks, owls, third birds
      • Fall/Winter births tend to be larks
    • Synchrony effect seeks to align type, task, and time
    • Determine your chronotype
    • Determine the activity type
    • Determine when you should do the work
    • “Vigilance Breaks” are short breaks taken before high-stake activities to make sure every one and every thing is primed and ready
    • Take a 20-30 minute “Restorative Break” every few hours
    • Frequent short breaks can recharge us
    • Lunch with autonomy and detachment is important
    • Napping boosts mental capacity, more boost the older you get
    • Best naps are 10-20 minutes
    • Learn to pause like a pro
    • Start right, start again, start together
    • Slow moving “When” problems can be just as bad as fast moving “What” problems
    • When a competition starts, judges have a baseline assumption; as the competition progresses, they adjust their expectations
    • Midpoints can put us into a slump or spark us
    • Midlife has less of a crisis and more of a slump from mid-thirties to mid-fifties
    • Virtue signaling is most important at the beginning and end
    • “Punctuated equilibrium” is the natural, human inclination to start slow, transition to heads down suddenly (always halfway between the start and deadline)
    • Thinking we are trailing by a little tends to motivate us better than almost anything
    • Interim goals help overcome slumps
    • Stopping work in the middle, when there is a clear starting point, helps prevent stagnation
    • We start editing towards the end of our setting
    • Give bad news first
    • Poignancy mixes a little sad with happy which is more enjoyable overall
    • Codes, garb, and touch
    • Synchronicity binds us to each other

  • “12 Rules For Life” by Jordan B Peterson

    1. Stand up straight, with your shoulders back
      • We battle for dominance with each other but not too hard lest we exhaust ourselves too much in the fight
      • Resting places are important
      • Lobsters have chemical jets under their eyes that they can squirt at other lobsters to exchange information about size, sex, and health
      • Physical dominance only lasts for so long
      • Building relationships with others in the troop is important to continued dominance
      • Fear of death and social embarrassment are the worst
      • Tyranny tends to grow when there is no push-back
    2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
      • Oddly, people are better at filling and administrating prescriptions to the pets than they are to themselves
      • Pain matters more than matter matters
      • We see the world as animated with purpose and intent
        • Perception of things as tools happens as quickly as we perceive them as things
        • We see what things mean just as fast, or faster, than we see things as they are
        • We see the “personality” of things (or actions) of others before we see the action themselves
      • Meaning is found when we are balanced in order and chaos, this is when time flies and we feel fulfilled
        • “The Way” is fixed in a place of order, surrounded by chaos
        • We need both the order to be secure and chaos to grow
      • We can either make children safe or strong, not both
      • We coevolved with snakes
      • Be ready to give up something lower for something better
      • Once you know you are vulnerable, you realize how to torment yourself and others… This is the knowledge of Good and Evil
      • Evil often comes as a result of continued rejected sacrifices
      • PTSD usually happens from something done not something seen
      • Problems tend to be forgotten after they are solved
    3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
      • New places allow us to reset ourselves and circumstances
      • Make sure you want the best for your friends
      • Things fall apart on their own… But we often help things along
    4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone is today
      • If the cards are always stacked against you, even by yourself, perhaps the game
      • Talking yourself into irrelevance is not good
      • Anything worth doing can be done better or worse
      • Resentment either means immaturity or tyranny
        • Ask your resentment what it needs
      • To see, we must aim
      • What you aim at determines what you see; what you see determines where you go
      • Our wants often conflict with each other, so we have to rank them
      • Obedience is a good starting point, but not an end
    5. Do not let your children do anything that will make you not like them
      • Too much chaos breeds too much order
      • Habitual occurrences may feel trivial but really make up our lives
      • Children need interaction with adults to grow-up
      • Proper discipline is a combination of mercy and long-term strategy
      • People often ask the wrong, opposite psych question: “Why do people do drugs?” Drugs are the default; Violence is the default, peace is the mystery
      • We push supposed limits until we find the real boundary
      • “Old age and treachery can always overcome youth and skill.”
      • Angry cries are different from hurt cries
      • Discipline is different from punishment
      • Children need to be socialized to fit into society
      • Limit the rules to the minimum needed; Excess and seemingly arbitrary rules lowers respect for all the other rules
      • Aim for the minimum needed force
      • “No” really means, “Stop or I will make your life unpleasant because I have the power to do so”, this either needs to be physically or mentally as required by the child
    6. Set your house in perfect order before criticize the world
      • Hurricanes are acts of god… Failure to prepare when we have been warned is our fault
      • Just because you do not know why you know something does not mean it is wrong
    7. Pursue what is meaningful not what is expedient
      • Sacrifice is delaying now for future reward
    8. Tell the truth or, at least, don’t lie
      • This includes lying to yourself
      • Lies warp our perceptions to fit an ideal, this tends to eliminate our drive
      • Vitality requires original contribution
      • We need to experience new things in order to be fully activated
      • By playing the game, you admit the game is important
      • Any weakness can be magnified into crisis with enough deceit
      • Reason, rationality, is best seen as a personality as it has its own motives and ego
      • Totalitarianism is when Reason has all powers
      • If you have no aim, anything can be everything, this is anxiety inducing
      • A man’s worth can be determined by the truth he can tolerate
      • The Big Lie is what corrupts, wrapping all other lies in it
      • Most lies are acted out, not told
    9. Assume the person you are listening to might know something you do not
      • Genuine conversation is sharing, listening, and strategizing
      • Each of us is a walking cacophony of integrated experiences
      • A sufficiently happy ending can make all the bad stuff that came before make sense
      • Memory is a tool to guide the future
      • Super saturated liquid
      • Try to not steal problems from others
      • We simulate our world with little avatars of ourselves
      • We find ourselves compelled to evaluate because listening alone is too dangerous
      • Try restating before continuing
      • Give the devils their due so you can hone your own position
    10. Be precise in your speech
      • Communications requires admission
      • There is little in a marriage that is so little it is not worth fighting about
      • Are we so afraid of failure that we refuse to define success so we never know when we fail
      • Precision is very important
    11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
      • Kids need playground that are dangerous enough to engage them
      • We need a degree of danger to live well so we can feel invigorated
      • It is often not that we love the poor but that we hate the rich that we seek to socialize
      • Without some dangerous experience, it is easier to reject humanity entirely
      • Women tend to want to marry equal or better, men do not care
      • Competence, not power, tend to be the primary indicator of dominance
      • Group identity can fractionated down to the individual level
      • Healthy women want men, not boys
      • “If you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak ones can do”
    12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
      • People tend to favor those in their group, even when groups are arbitrarily chosen
      • We love people, in part, because of their limitations
      • Set aside time to talk or think about the worry, daily, so it will not consume you
      • Your brain is more interested in the fact there is a plan, not the details of the plan