How To Be Someone People Love To Talk To
Professor Stephen Ceci taught his class the way he had for the past 20 years, replicating nearly everything imaginable — except he started speaking with more enthusiasm. What happened?
His student ratings went up — in every single category. He was seen as more knowledgeable, more tolerant, more accessible, more organized. Students said they learned more. They felt the grading was fairer. They even said the textbook was better.
If you read the literature on what makes for a meaningful college experience, almost all of the literature stresses the way the student interacts with their institution: when I show up on campus on day one, how do I behave? Do I seek out the most interesting professors and take their classes? Do I willingly throw myself into the experience or do I smoke dope in my room? The variable is you, not the institution.
Hard choices: put choices on the list, try to find which one is the best. If you figure out that you can not then it is a hard problem. In that case, pick and commit to your choice. There are hard and small and hard and big problems.
If you have the time to learn only one technique, this is the one to try. In coherent breathing, the goal is to breathe at a rate of five breaths per minute, which generally translates into inhaling and exhaling to the count of six. If you have never practiced breathing exercises before, you may have to work up to this practice slowly, starting with inhaling and exhaling to the count of three and working your way up to six.
The best advice I ever got was Jim Watson, who co-discovered DNA. Jim is brilliant, and as many brilliant people are a little bit crazy, and Jim has this admonishment which is double meaning, three words: ‘Avoid boring people.’ I love it, because what he’s saying is, ‘Stay away from people who are not interesting,’ avoid boring people, and, ‘Avoid boring people. Don’t be boring to people. Be interesting.’”
Easy choices hard life
Hard choices easy life
I've even heard of people screen-recording them programming, and then watching later, to have an external view of how they spend their time, because in the moment you can't evaluate very well. Yet people don't regularly do this. There is no market where I can easily pay people to watch me talk, program, choose clothes, etc, and give me feedback.
If you can't decide, the answer is No.
Look around your environment.
Rather than seeing items as objects, see them as magnets for your attention. Each object gently pulls a certain amount of your attention toward it.
Whenever you discard something, the tug of that object is released. You get some attention back.