Category: Notes

• “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter. So, I wrote you a long one.” Mark Twain
• Short, not shallow
• Core Four
  • Muscular tease (6 or fewer words)
  • One strong sentence or lead (tell me something I don’t know or want to know)
  • Context (explain why this matters)
  • Choice to learn more (on their time)
• Listen to the readers and the data
• “All you can do is the next right thing.”
• What we want to say vs what they need to hear
• Write to someone in particular
• Say what you want to get across. Then stop.
• Guide
  • 6 words tops for the subject line
  • 10 words or less for the reason you are writing
  • Active verbs always
  • Trumpet one big thing
• Answer the question: What is this? Is it worth my time?
• Tips
  • “Why it matters?”
  • “It’s hot, I’m going inside”
  • “Who doing what”

• Boundaries are for managing our responses
• “This is the limit of behavior that is acceptable to me.”
• Boundary setting is not mean
• In order to set the boundary, you need to spell them out
• “Clear is kind”
• Make an “incoming boundary” sound to signal a change in the conversation to add some distance between the offense and setting the boundary
  • “Uh”, “huh”, “opps”
• Do not be afraid to ask to circle back to correct inappropriate behavior
• Healthy boundaries come from the self; they do not seek to control others
• “Unearned guilt” is feeling guilty for not behaving like someone else wants
• Avoid oversharing or excusing why you are creating the boundary
  • (It is also easier to negotiate the conditions or satisfy them, which is often not what you want.)
• Avoid setting consequences when you first set the boundaries
• Be okay to adjust boundaries over time as things change
• Periodically ask yourself if a boundary is still needed
• Be sociable on your time to be proactive
• Communicate your feeling clearly and accurately, expect your partner to do the same
• Boundaries are not replacements for communication
• Try having tasks being owned end-to-end (recognition, conception, and execution) so no one has to nag and to avoid splitting the cognitive load
• Put chores on a schedule
• Consent must be respected without excuses
• Outline and emulate boundaries that of the behavior you want to see
• People can feel bad about what they are doing
• “I don’t talk about food over food.”
• “I’m not drinking right now.”
• “The Ring Theory”
  • Grief flows out
  • Comfort flows in
  • People at the center of an event have no obligation to comfort those outside their ring
• Give people space to save face
• Be graceful when people come back
• Provide face time to talk
• Accept the boundary and follow up later
• Provide face time to talk further

• We pack so much on the “magic” of love
• Couples need to have a shared future facing vision
• “We expect love to hurt”
• True love can overcome everything
• Coupledom is fairly universal
• Courtly love (“love” for peace) became romantic love
• Increasingly, we want to marry for love and love alone
• Happy couples are all the same, miserable couples are all miserable for different reasons
• “Love” works better when thought as a range of actions than a feeling
• Quirks are an advantage to us but others might not appreciate them
• Thinking
  • Abstract thinking, big picture, connecting dots
  • Information processing
  • Organizing things
  • Facilitation happens through doing something Sikhs
• Attachment
  • Anxious
  • Avoidant
  • Secure
• America is a low context society, where detail needs to be communicated frequently
• Attracting can be built over time
• We reference “people like us” to predict future behavior earlier
• More of a “Puzzle of Attraction” than a law
• It is important to understand why someone is attractive to you so you can track those needs as they change over time
• Losing attraction can happen because we no longer need the things they offer or they no longer offer the things we need
• (We see this often as couples “grow apart”, literally picking up new things that are not aligned with their partners)
• “I respect others because I am a respective person”
• Trust is earned
• Physical associations can be important
• Dropping the ball us more damaging than asking for help
• Work together to manage your ‘couple brand’
• Avoid self-identifying with other people’s pain
• Compassion is about feeling in their behalf
• “What you cannot tolerate in yourself,  you won’t be able to tolerate in others.”
• Avoiding conflict is not ideal
• Ask your partner to talk about the thing, include why it matters to you
• “Authenticity” is often an excuse to be rude or mean
• The opposite of pleasure is comfort

• There is really no substitute for preparation
• WHO should have people embedded in government agencies to closely coordinate efforts
• Being able to survey local health is critical to detecting hotspots
• “If it looks like you are overreacting, you are probably doing it right”
• Context matters, so adapt as needed
• Contact tracing has been around for a while
• Vaccines are a lot harder to prove quality than a drug
  • Generally, a vaccine requires biological processing to prove it works; regular medication can use a simple chemical reaction
• We should plan to flood the market with a given vaccine so we do not have to worry about who is getting it
• Not having wide spread diagnostics impairs the ability to get good data
• Laying the ground work is very important before things happen

• Human (frontal), chimp (limbic or emotional), and computer
• The chimp is not good or bad, it just is
• “You are not responsible for the chimp but you are responsible for managing it.”
• The chimp puts together ideas through emotions
• The chimp often does the thinking first
• “Fight, flight, or flock” needs an action or decision
• There are always leopards about in the trees

Note: I did not complete this book.