Philip Gerrans & Chris Letheby: Psychedelics work by violating our models of self and the world. Just what do these (psychoactive) drugs do? Psychedelics reliably induce an altered state of consciousness known as ‘ego dissolution’. The term was invented, well before the tools of contemporary neuroscience became available, to describe sensations of self-transcendence: a feeling in which the mind is put in touch more directly and intensely with the world, producing a profound sense of connection and boundlessness. (more)

An altered state of consciousness (ASC),[1] also called altered state of mind or mind alteration, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking state. By 1892, the expression was in use in relation to hypnosis[2] although an ongoing debate about hypnosis as an ASC based on modern definition exists. The next retrievable instance, by Dr Max Mailhouse from his 1904 presentation to conference,[3] however, is unequivocally identified as such, as it was in relation to epilepsy, and is still used today. In academia, the expression was used as early as 1966 by Arnold M. Ludwig[4] and brought into common usage from 1969 by Charles Tart.[5][6] It describes induced changes in one's mental state, almost always temporary. A synonymous phrase is "altered state of awareness". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_state_of_consciousness

Chris Sparks releases Experiment Without Limits: Inside the Creative Process — The Forcing Function. After three years of coaching, I had no idea why they hired me. (more)

Self Tracking for Self Improvement? (more)

communication skill - cf Debate, Toastmasters

Rusty Guinn: A Modern Vocational Curriculum. When I wrote Starry Eyes and Starry Skies a few weeks back (2019-04-29-GuinnStarryEyesAndStarrySkies), I made the argument that adequate vocational (votech) training for just about every financial services job I could think of would take several months (at most). A few readers asked me why I didn’t think that a longer, more in-depth liberal arts education had value. They clearly didn’t read the piece. Still, it’s worthy of an answer: I do think it has value. But its value is caught up in the conflicted mess of the three products being sold by American universities: mind-expanding liberal education, vocational training and credibility signaling. (more)

A Read-it-later app. https://getpocket.com/ (more)

John Cutler: The North Star Playbook. Tia was feeling burned out. Her company seemed caught in a perpetual cycle of shiny objects, success theater, false starts, and vague pivots-by-PowerPoint. Just when they hit their stride, something would change. It felt like they were always talking past each other... A team using the North Star Framework identifies a single, meaningful metric and a handful of contributing inputs...

Jason Fried: Announcing “Shape Up”, a deep dive into how we (BaseCamp) work. (more)

John Cutler: Three Options. Say a team brainstorms potential solutions and has fifty options. That might suggest that the playing field is too broad. Suggest the team narrows it a bit. If you find the right opportunity resolution you'll have fewer compelling options. (more)

Venkatesh Rao: The Playflow Challenge. In the concluding essay of Breaking Smart Season 1, I quoted Seb Paquet's snowclone of Arthur C. Clarke's line about advanced technology being like magic: any sufficiently advanced kind of work is indistinguishable from play. (more)

Y.K. Goon proposes a GTD Playflow. Here we use GTD to guide us on how to play, to pursue life outside of work, life inside your work, inject vitality and maybe even surprises (more)

Jared Pereira: High and low. A silly editor: I’ve been hacking away at Fancinote an ill-advised text-editor/notetaking app. (more)

author, Third Wave, Future Shock, etc. (more)

Republican member of House Of Representatives (more)

A suburb of Greenwich Village in NYC. (more)

David Perell: How to Maximize Serendipity. Serendipity is a skill, which means it can be learned. (more)

Mike Fishbein: Decision Making Under Uncertainty: 16 Lessons I Learned From Annie Duke. Annie first mastered decision making in the field of poker. (more)

founder of Startup College (more)

Derek Sivers: Thinking in Bets - by Annie Duke. A bet is a decision about an uncertain future. (more)