Book: 20190909 to 20191024，"Barking Up the Wrong Tree" by Eric Barker

20190909， chapter 0. "Introduction - What Really Produces Success?"

A big promise in this chapter.

I know most of the questions are wrong. The critical points are normally not been noticed.

The book promise to tell us where the critical points are.

I am curious to know how many things I can learn from this book.

Can't wait.

20190927， chapter 1. "Should We Play It Safe and Do What We’re Told If We Want to Succeed?"

There are two types of child: orchid and dandelion.

What should an good child do? What should an excellent child do?

Good child adapts to the current rules very well, but excellent one doesn't.

"In the right environment, bad can be good and odd can be beautiful."

In the end, what make a person success?

How much water a bucket can hold, depends on the shortest plank of the bucket.
How success a person can be, depends on the longest "plank".

Schools can only help students hold as much water as possible, but they don't know how to improve a student's strongest point, or how to help them to find their hidden strong points.

The important thing is to turn "bad qualities" into "superpower".

"Dandelion" type of students can hold more water, and "orchid" type of students has long plank.

For "dandelion", they need to find the best suitable envioment/teams to shine; but for "orchid", that's a different story.

20191002， chapter 2. "Do Nice Guys Finish Last?"

"Feeling powerless actually makes you dumber."

Trustworthiness is the foundation of "cooperation". No matter it's a crime gang or a family. Why CEO and senior managers come to office early and leave late? They want other people to trust them, they want to show faireness of their higher pay.

Why gang boss pay a lot to the family members of a sacrificed member? Or else, other team members will not trust him.

This rule also explains the harm of the trade war between US and China: there is no trust now, so everything slows down.

At the beginning, criminal gangs all have good intention, normally just want to protect themselves from evil (similar to the rise of CCP).

Matchers and Takers are in the middle, Givers are in both the bottom and the top layer.

For long term, everyone is Takers' enemy. Matchers and Givers only need to be careful of Takers. Matchers stand out agains Takers/protecting Givers. So for Givers, just don't be too generous. 100 hours per year volunteer work is fine.

This reminds me of <The Subtile Art of Not giving a F*ck>. Boundary is important. We need to know when to say yes and when to say no, even if we decide to help other people.

For Prisioner's Dilemma, being kind (don't confess) means choosing to be "Giver", being evil (confess) means choosing to be "Taker". "Tit for tat" wins the game for long term. Be kind, but take retaliation if the other side is mean. With or without slightly more forgiveness(to prevent death spirals), TFT beats all other strategies.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-prisoners-dilemma-definition-1147466

Rule 1: Pick the right pond.

This is why class A people want to join Tesla and SpaceX.

Rule 2: Cooperate first.

Rule 3: Being selfless isn't saintly, it's silly.

Rule 4: Work hard --- but make sure it gets noticed.

Rule 5: This long term and make others think long term

This one is interesting. Personal credit is extremely important here. In big city, if people are surrounded by strangers, and they are not likely to interact with the same stranger ever again, then people intents to act like "Taker". But, if what they do is recorded, then, people are more likely to act as "Matcher" or "Giver".

Then, how about privacy? How about "rights to be forgot"? Interaction with other people doesn't fall into privacy scope, and we don't need to "forget", instead, we "forgive".

Most of the criminals should be forgiven after they are set free from jail.

Rule 6: Forgive

We are not saint. We all make mistakes from time to time, for all kinds of reasons. So, forgiveness is critical.

20191010， chapter 3. "Do Quitters Never Win and Winners Never Quit?"

"Psychologist Shelley Taylor says that 'a healthy mind tells itself flattering lies.' The pessimists were more accurate and realistic, and they ended up depressed. The truth can hurt."

"Instead of behavior following our beliefs, often our beliefs come from our behaviors." Our mind always try to justify our actions.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." So, "If you want to be a knight, act like a knight."

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Immanuel Kant lived "boring" life for 50 years. How could he do that? "Everything we do in life is a trade-off." What do we want, and what are we willing to sacrifice to get what?

Why some kids like study, but some hate it? Because some kids can turn study into games.

Game has 4 critical factors: Winnable, Novel  Challenges, Goals and Feedback. (Whiny neutered goats fly)

Can I turn meditation into games? Can I turn language study into games? Can I get into "flow" to do anything I want?

"Research shows we often don’t do what makes us happiest; we do what’s easy."

"Making work a game is quite simple; you don’t have to change what you’re doing all that much, you just have to change your perspective."

"Once you’ve found something you’re passionate about, quitting secondary things can be an advantage."

"By not quitting unproductive things ASAP we are missing the opportunity to do more of what matters or try more things that might."  ----- Quitting is not just quitting. It's choosing not to do something so we can do something else, it's about priority.

"Fail fast and fail cheap." ---- The best way to learn/try new stuff, the best way to touch the real world, the best way to find out our own strength/talent.

"WOOP—wish, outcome, obstacle, plan"---- I prefer to use word "target or goal" to replace "outcome". The outcome/target/goal is the thing we really want.

When should I quit? That's a wrong question. The correct one is, what should I quit? And it's about risk/cost and reward.

"Seligman’s three Ps; don’t see bad things as permanent, pervasive, or personal."

20191016， chapter 4. "It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know (Unless It Really Is What You Know)"

I believe asking open questions is a good approach to turn strangers into friends. Don't let them reply with "yes or no".

To make friends needs dedicated time and budget. don't get sucked up by screens.

"Party" can help to establish network, but is not necessary.

"What makes close friendships endure is simply staying in touch every two weeks."

"The workers least likely to develop workplace friendships were also the least likely to get promoted."

Resource is everywhere. How much resource you have, depends on how advance your belief is! When you open mind, every person in the world may help you, and they are all resourceful! So, don't isolate yourself from the society/organisation/etc.

"Why are mentors so important? You don’t have time to make all the mistakes yourself, and of course making those mistakes can mean failure." ----- This also means excellent non-fiction books is similar to mentors. It's hard and needs a lot of luck to get a mentor, but it's very easy to get 100 best books.

Micro is much more important than Macro.

"When people are riled up about something and you show them evidence that conflicts with what they believe, what does an MRI scan show? The areas of their brain associated with logic literally shut down."

Bargaining is better than fighting, and empathy is more important for communication.

Three mistakes: "they made everything black and white, they wanted to solve things immediately, and they didn’t focus on emotions." We should replace them with"Acceptance(empathy), caring, and patience."

"the most important part of a salary negotiation: they have to like you."

Four steps for negotiation:

1. KEEP CALM AND SLOW IT DOWN
2. USE ACTIVE LISTENING
3. LABEL EMOTIONS
4. MAKE THEM THINK 

How to keep people stay friends with you? "gratitude"

"Writing down good things that happened to you before going to bed"

Visit your friends, have meal with them, make sure let them know how grateful you are to their help.

20191018， chapter 5. "Believe in Yourself . . . Sometimes"

This chapter is very interesting, if we compare the content with Elon Musk. How does he avoid the "delusion and hubris"?

What we see are all our delusion. How to make this delusion closer to the real word?

"Confidence can also be extremely dangerous. It can lead to delusion and hubris."

Overconfidence caused much more damage than incompetence.

Objective thinking doesn't use the word "I" frequently.

"Watching someone hold a particular yoga pose is quite easy; doing it yourself often proves far more difficult." --- EV new starters are trying to copy Tesla, but they underestimated the challenges.

"Confidence makes it very hard for us to learn and improve."

"There are two benefits to humility: it’s a reality check and it keeps us from being arrogant."  --- Elon Musk doesn't do that. So, how does he do the reality check? I think he is humble to the rules of this world.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." --- This leads to the genius of Issac Newton, Albert Einstein and Elon Musk. They can see the goal that other people cannot see.

"Negativity and pessimism help us see problems so we can make them better."

Self-compassion is the word for Elon Musk, and other great people.

I don't think we need to "forgive" ourselves if something went wrong. We are not pefect, and error is inevitable. We need to be brave and cautious, be greedy and try our best. If things go wrong, then let's fail shortly at low cost, and then try again (or try something else).

Don't cheat. We can choose what to say or what to show other people, but don't cheat. Especially don't fool ourselves.

20191023， chapter 6. "Work, Work, Work . . . or Work-Life Balance?"

Quality is much more important than quantity.

Distance = Speed * Time

But "speed" is important. even 50% (more likely to be 500+%) improvement brings in huge difference.

So,

Don't study but study hard;
Don't work but work hard;
Don't do physical exercise, but do it hard;
Don't live, but live a wonderful life!

It's a wrong question to ask whether "work-life balance" is necessary. The right question is: what kind of life and what kind of work you have.

Like <4-Hour body> says, we can improve the effency of workout, if we understand it more. It's same for work and life.

Choose based on what you need, not based on what you want. This means, choose based on your long term goal. This also means, ignore the one (99.9% of all options) that you don't need.

In most of the situations, we only need "good enough" option, not the "best" option. Simplify our life, make quick choices, don't waste time/money/space to make things complicated.

Barry Schwartz: "Good enough is almost always good enough."

In book <Just Enough>, Four measurements about life "quality". We need them to be good enough.

1. HAPPINESS = ENJOYING

Web Surfing. Watching Movies and YouTube. Read fiction books. Trips. Parties. Beach. Spend time with kids.

2. ACHIEVEMENT = WINNING

Work and Income. Read non-fiction books. Physical Exercise. Meditation.

3. SIGNIFICANCE = COUNTING (TO OTHERS)

Blog posts. Cooking. Farming. New Skills.

4. LEGACY = EXTENDING

Help family members to get bright future.

"TO-DO LISTS ARE EVIL. SCHEDULE EVERYTHING." --- need more details about the plan, including priority, when, where, and the trigger point. So we can avoid the trap of doing easy one first.

"Set up an email filter so you only get notifications from the head honcho or whoever else really matters. The rest can wait."

Minimize temptation is very important. It can minimize distraction.

"Doing creative work entails constant setbacks and failure, and people want to succeed when the boss is watching—which means doing proven, less creative things that are sure to work."

20191024， chapter 7. "Conclusion • What Makes a Successful Life?"

"It’s by dreaming and then doing something about those dreams that we can achieve success. In fact, it’s the only way we can."

In the end, this book provides an ultimate solution: alignment.

Aligning the true self with the environment. "It can form an upward spiral that leads to not only career success but also happiness and fulfillment."

Is that it?

I think, the alignment itself needs "push". We need to push ourselves to get alignment with our "environment".

The most important one: we need to get used to push ourselves, in all four direction: HAPPINESS, ACHIEVEMENT, SIGNIFICANCE and LEGACY.

How to push? Make it a game. WOOP—wish, outcome, obstacle, plan.