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What I'm writing

• ​Mirrored reciprocation — Mirrored reciprocation is an idea that states, “what you put out into the world tends to come back.”

What I'm learning

Like being wealthy, being spoiled is meaningless without a point of comparison. For the most part, every generation works to create a more prosperous world for its heirs. You might say the objective is to work so hard that our kids and grandkids get to live a life that appears spoiled by the standards of previous generations. However, when one generation’s life becomes less hard than the generation before, their life does not become easy; they just move on to worrying about higher-order problems. We move up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Our worries change, but we don’t stop worrying. Morgan Housel hopes his kids and grandkids won’t have to worry about cancer, energy, and work the way we do. Is that spoiled, or is a better word “lucky” or “fortunate”? We are all beneficiaries of the accumulated hard work of those who came before us. Source: Morgan Housel​

Improvement is becoming a better version of yourself. Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Source: James Clear​

Aspire to be unoffendable. Build an emotional firewall that allows you to hear difficult things without becoming agitated, so you can remain curious about people even when you disagree with them. Guard against the tendency to view criticism or complaints as personal attacks. You can consider them without taking personal offense. Assume positive intent. Fight suspicion and defensiveness. Don’t look to get mad. Listen before reacting. Approach disagreement as a chance to learn. Seek empathy or understanding of what someone actually thinks, even if it’s hard to hear. You arrive at unoffendable when you’re willing to hear criticism of who you are or what you care about. This doesn’t mean you agree, just that you’re listening without armor. Source: Robert Glazer​

One hack for dealing with very big or very small numbers is to scale them up or down as a ratio of something I can comprehend. With this approach, you translate a large or small number into a per-unit measurement (e.g., per person, per household, per house, etc.). These are numbers you can hold in your head. Source: Bassam Salem​

What I’m working on

• In a recent Startup to Last episode, we talked about how one of the new business challenges is figuring out which skills are uniquely human and leaning into them as your differentiator.

What I'm thinking about

Where might incentives be damaging the desired behaviors or results, both at home and work?

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-Rick Lindquist

P.S. One of the best parts of this newsletter is discussing ideas with readers. Let me know what you think. I read every reply. Click here for the web version.