Ben Marcovitz

The part about scheduling your highest priorities first resonates. We can be busy without being intentional, and intentional without being busy. self.com/story/free-tim…

I wonder: Do "animals have amazingly rich psychologies" articles cause people to reduce meat consumption? Also, how long until the first Freudian pet psychologist opens shop in Brooklyn to help cats parse their dreams? nationalgeographic.com/animals/articl…

The future of global pandemic mitigation probably includes all buildings w/ virus-zapping lights and airplane-like air recirculation/filtration. But in the meantime, I guess we still need to disinfect those tray tables. 😬 cntraveler.com/story/how-clea…

Want to get people pumped about returning to the office? slate.com/human-interest… Probably need fewer break room donuts & more focus on collective effervescence. nytimes.com/2021/07/10/opi… In other words, focus on what ppl *actually* can only get in-person.

@angeladuckw I've seen the same person flounder in 1 org but shine in another. To my thinking, the most potent way to get people to do amazing, difficult things: surround them w/ others who constantly do the right thing, think it's cool to do the right thing, & celebrate each others' efforts.

Question: Do you have suggestions for how to make doing what's best for you EASIER and what's bad for you HARDER? After 20 years of studying self-control, I'm convinced the secret to achieving your goals is not willpower... PS - I promise to read every comment in this thread!

Work friends both provide meaningful personal relationships *and* drive performance, reinforce culture. Important to think hard about what gets lost when moving remote, including all of the water cooler moments, and finding systems to recreate them. hbr.org/2022/10/the-po…

Implication: Leaders should spend their time meeting the needs of teammates, enabling them to reach their goals.

My take: The fastest way to reach absolute goals is to recognize incremental growth. Effective praise increases the rate of improvement.

Just had a powerful coaching moment w/a CEO about this. Employee had grown tremendously over the past quarter but came up just shy of a clear goal. CEO worried that praising the growth would let the employee "off the hook" for not hitting the goal.

YET: 1. Seems like other threats are more likely (e.g., bioengineered virus --> pandemic), 2. Seems impossible that we could do anything to divert the course of a 10+km-wide asteroid that would actually pose existential threat.

ALSO: This probably is a compelling first big idea for a lot of people to consider in taking seriously the idea of existential risk & longtermism. theatlantic.com/health/archive…

Is @NASA the US gov't agency most focused on making sure we don't go completely extinct before humanity gets our $#!% together? theatlantic.com/science/archiv… We need way more long-termist thinking. Kudos to NASA for an easy-to-imagine solution for an easy-to-imagine threat.

Novels help you get inside someone else's experience. Powerful, encouraging to see another empathy-builder in comic form: washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022… Thanks, @_anghost

Why was Adnan Syed freed? Sarah Koenig. nytimes.com/2022/09/20/pod…

One upside: Everyone left on your team *chose* to be there. And that's a powerful feeling to build a culture around. vox.com/the-goods/2334… @EmilyStewartM @voxdotcom

Why don't we have "Poorly Aged Things" accountability for the forecasts of TV pundits? Maybe the closest thing was early '00s @TheDailyShow?

Really cool new econ paper. Of note, to reach the NHL these players had singularly devoted their whole lives to this game. Pure passion. Then the sudden salience of the extrinsic incentive (always bkrnd) shifts their game, changing motivations. Whoa. Important for any org leader.

Welp, that didn't take long: washingtonpost.com/technology/202… See also: givingwhatwecan.org/cause-areas/lo…