Why Dreaming About The Future Makes You Less Likely To Achieve Your Goals

BOOK REVIEW

Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation, Author: Gabriele Oettingen.

By Lindsay LaVine – “Dreaming is important.”

“Dreaming is a way we can mentally explore future possibilities. For that, dreaming is very good.” Where we run into trouble, Oettingen says, is when we forget about the obstacles and temptations that arise along the way.

The process can be broken down into four steps, known as “WOOP” (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle and Plan). more> http://tinyurl.com/o6dfesm

The Rise And Fall And Rise And Fall Of King Dollar, Part 2

BOOK REVIEW

Wealth of Nations, Author: Adam Smith.

Money, Gold, and History, Author: Lewis E. Lehrman.

The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Author: John Maynard Keynes.

By Ralph Benko – The mechanics of the reserve currency system preempt these funds’ ready availability for “the maintenance of industry.”

The mechanics of the dollar as a reserve asset, therefore, finance bigger government while insidiously preempting productivity, jobs, and equitable prosperity.

As Steve Forbes pithily puts it, “You’ve got to get the money right.” 

Time to lift the reserve currency curse. Time to fix the dollar. more> http://tinyurl.com/men5vk7

Related>

• The Rise And Fall And Rise And Fall Of King Dollar
• The Demonization Of American Capitalism, Jonathan Adelman, Forbes

Crucial Difference Between Truth and Meaning

BOOK REVIEW

The Life of the Mind, Author: Hannah Arendt.

By Maria Popova – While our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of its world.

The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this particular world. more> http://tinyurl.com/pcg6m9w

Atheism has finally found its spiritual leader

BOOK REVIEW

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, Author: Sam Harris.

The Quantum Prophets: Richard Dawkins, Deepak Chopra and the Spooky Truth about their Battle over God, Author: Tom Roston.

Living with a Wild God, Author: Barbara Ehrenreich.

By Tom Roston – The Godless have had a real PR problem for centuries.

According to materialists, our consciousness may actually be an emergent byproduct of the complex firings of a hundred billion neural networks.

Thoughts are like weather patterns or salt; combine sodium and chloride and, bingo, you’ve got something salty.

In a similar way, new thoughts arise. Still, how our consciousness actually arises remains hazy to science and materialists. It is therefore known as the “hard problem.” more> http://tinyurl.com/nmcrecc

How To Trick Your Brain To Hold On To Positive Habit Changes

BOOK REVIEW

Making Habits, Breaking Habits, Author: Jeremy Dean.

By Jane Porter – The notion that a habit takes 21 days to form if you stick to it every day is a myth.

On average, a habit takes more like 66 days to form, with more intensive habits like doing 50 sit-ups every morning taking around 84 days to form. But these figures will often vary greatly from person to person.

Forming habits that stick isn’t about finding a magic number. It’s about being aware of your behaviors and environment and their effects on your brain. more> http://tinyurl.com/orahkqu

How We Think

BOOK REVIEW

How We Think, Author: John Dewey.

By Maria Popova – What separates thinking, a basic human faculty we take for granted, from thinking well?

What it takes to train ourselves into mastering the art of thinking, and how we can channel our natural curiosity in a productive way when confronted with an overflow of information.

A subject urgently relevant today, in our age of snap judgments and instant opinions. more> http://tinyurl.com/knfc3fz

The Rise (and Likely Fall) of the Talent Economy

BOOK REVIEW

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, Author: Roger L. Martin.

By Roger L. Martin – Another, less well-known mechanism that has boosted income for the possessors of talent is the notorious “2&20 formula.”

Its roots lie in a 2,000-year-old practice whereby Phoenician ship captains would take 20% of the value of a cargo successfully delivered.

In 1949, when a fee of 1% to 2% of assets under management was typical in the investment management field, Alfred Winslow Jones, the first acknowledged hedge fund manager, adopted the Phoenician formula. He set himself up as the general partner of what would come to be referred to as a private equity firm and charged the limited partners who invested in his fund a 20% cut of the profits that he generated (“carried interest,” in industry parlance) on top of a 2% asset management fee. more> http://tinyurl.com/o2fndol