With all the noise overwhelming our lives and our social streams it’s easy to miss the good stuff. Content like tweets, in particular, are especially perishable. That’s why I’ve always been a fan of highlighting some of my favorite posts at the end of each month.

This is my effort to provide a little signal by curating some of the best/most interesting posts (of the 100’s I read) during the month of June 2014. Please use the comments section to recommend and share other posts you found useful and/or your best post from June.

The commentary below the link is typically the author’s own words that I’ve extracted as a key takeaway; however, sometimes I add my own commentary and make connections as well.

[Blog Posts/News Articles]:

Like Shane Parrish, of Farnam Street fame, Eric Barker’s ‘Barking up the Wrong Tree‘  is a blog I read religiously (hat tip to Chris Yeh for the recommendations). If you want to be happier, more productive, and more successful, I highly recommend subscribing to Eric’s work.

The 8 Things the Happiest People Do Every Day – Eric Barker

1. They devote a great amount of time to their family and friends, nurturing and enjoying those relationships.
2. They are comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have.
3. They are often the first to offer helping hands to coworkers and passersby.
4. They practice optimism when imagining their futures.
5. They savor life’s pleasures and try to live in the present moment.
6. They make physical exercise a weekly and even daily habit.
7. They are deeply committed to lifelong goals and ambitions (e.g., fighting fraud, building cabinets, or teaching their children their deeply held values).
8. Last but not least, the happiest people do have their share of stresses, crises, and even tragedies. They may become just as distressed and emotional in such circumstances as you or I, but their secret weapon is the poise and strength they show in coping in the face of challenge.

6 Things the Most Productive People Do Every Day – Eric Barker

1. Manage Your Mood
2. Don’t Check Email in The Morning
3. Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All
4. Focus Is Nothing More Than Eliminating Distractions
5. Have A Personal System
6. Define Your Goals The Night Before

Here’s the Schedule Very Successful People Follow Every Day – Eric Barker

1. Have a Morning Ritual
2. Important Work First Thing — With No Distractions
3. Regroup When You Slow Down
4. Meetings, Calls And Little Things In The Afternoon
5. A Relaxing Evening

Why You Hate Work – Tony Schwartz & Christine Porath

The way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep.

The solution? Employees are vastly more satisfied and productive, it turns out, when four of their core needs are met: physical, through opportunities to regularly renew and recharge at work; emotional, by feeling valued and appreciated for their contributions; mental, when they have the opportunity to focus in an absorbed way on their most important tasks and define when and where they get their work done; and spiritual, by doing more of what they do best and enjoy most, and by feeling connected to a higher purpose at work.

How Was Your Bike Ride? – Seth Godin

More information doesn’t always make us happier. At some point, improvement turns into a game, something to be won or lost, completely losing the point of the project we set out to do. “How big was your bonus,” is not the same question as, “how happy are you?” or even, “do you feel good about making a difference…”

A Winner Does… – Ryan Holiday

Ryan is a sharp, successful guy who’s accomplished a lot in a very short amount of time; therefore, when he outlines things a winner does, I pay attention. These were 3 of my favorites:

• A winner values time over money.
• A winner doesn’t get flustered, they remain calm in the face of adversity and stress. They are the calm.
• A winner doesn’t stop—neither at success or after failure.

Why We Have Regret – Leo Babauta

It’s fun (and easy) to say “I have no regrets,” and maybe in the scheme of things that’s true looking back at the big things, but the truth is we encounter little regrets almost every single day.

We have regrets because we keep comparing the unchangeable choice we actually made, to an ideal or a fantasy in our heads. We think about our choices and have regrets because they challenge our idea of who we are and conflicts with our self identity (i.e. “I am someone who stands up for myself” or “I am someone who sticks it out no matter what.”)

Regrets are a part of life, whether we want them or not, whether we’re aware we’re having them or not. But by looking into the cause of regrets, and embracing the wide range of reality, we can learn to be satisfied with our choices, happier with the past and happier in the present moment.

Real Talk for Dartmouth Grads: Dreams Are for Losers – Shonda Rhimes

I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing. Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral. Pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.

And also this, which I’m all too familiar with: Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means that I am failing in another area of my life.

Networked Literacy in the Networked Age – Ben Casnocha

Spend five minutes watching your LinkedIn feed or Twitter timeline, and it’s clear that information proliferates even faster in the Networked Age than it did in the Information Age. Consequently, the ability to extract the right information at the right time is more crucial than ever. 

People who exhibit the highest levels of network literacy know that the more relevant, high-quality information you share with others, the more such information you’re likely to receive. To be truly network literate is to always be thinking of how you can add value to the networks you’re a part of, and to make it a priority to turn connections into relationships, and relationships into alliances.

Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than 2 Years Get Paid 50% Less – Cameron Keng

It amazes me how poorly companies incentivize their top performers to stay put — especially considering the astronomical costs of turnover.  In 2014, the average employee is going to earn less than a 1% raise and there is very little that we can do to change management’s decision. But, we can decide whether we want to stay at a company that is going to give us a raise for less than 1%. The average raise an employee receives for leaving is between a 10% to 20% increase in salary.

How the Internet, Dopamine and your Brain are Working Together to Screw Your Potential – Anthony Richardson

So how do we get out of these bad cognitive habits (i.e. chasing our body’s dopamine reward by just replicating the work of others)? The simple answer is be creative more often and research less. If you’re capable of using your brain to arrive to a creative thought, do it and show it to everyone else. A life of learning is great but practicing to the point of mastery is better. Approach life with research like a mental set of training wheels. Learn from

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[Interesting]:

21 Charts That Explain How the US in Changing – Danielle Kurtzleben 

The US is a big, complicated place that has undergone some big changes over its 238 years, and even in the last few decades. Here are 21 charts that explain what life is like today in the US — who we are, where we live, how we work, how we have fun, and how we relate to each other.

How the Recession Reshaped the Economy in 255 Charts –  Jeremy Ashkenas and Alicia Parlapiano 

Five years since the end of the Great Recession, the economy has finally regained the nine million jobs it lost. But not all industries recovered equally. Each line (in the post) shows how the number of jobs has changed for a particular industry over the past 10 years.

No Time: How Did We Get So Busy? – Elizabeth Kolbert

As the income gap in the U.S. has widened, it’s actually lower-wage workers who have ended up with the most leisure. And it’s high earners who report feeling the most time pressure.

What Parents Need to Understand About Being Young Today, in 8 Charts – Chris Walker

Young adults face an economic trifecta of low incomes, high living costs and high debt. The next time someone tries to slap a demeaning label like “boomerang kid”  on young adults living at home, show them these eight charts.

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[Cool/Funny]:

Amazing and hilarious Game of Thrones rant. (Please note: SPOILERS contained.)

25 Things Hiding in Sports Logos

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[Videos]:

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Dan Gilbert shares recent research on a phenomenon he calls the “end of history illusion,” where we somehow imagine that the person we are right now is the person we’ll be for the rest of time.

[Thoughts I’m Chewing On]:

• Valuing time over money
• Wiping the plate clean to re-build it.

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[Quotes]:

“The last thing we need in our lives is a time thief.” – Derek Halpern

““Money you lose you can always make back. But even five minutes of time lost is gone forever.” – James Altucher

“Schedule life & defend it as you would an important business meeting. Never tell yourself ‘I’ll just get it done this weekend.’ – Tim Ferriss

“You can recognize genuinely smart people by their ability to say things like ‘I don’t know’ ‘Maybe you’re right’ and ‘I don’t understand'” – Paul Graham

“So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality.” – Jim Carrey

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If you made it this far and found this post valuable in any way, please let me know in the comments which of these reads caught your attention. Better yet, why don’t you share something you’ve read recently that you think I’d find interesting.

If you like this post, you might also like this year’s previous installments:

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May

With all the noise overwhelming our lives and our social streams it’s easy to miss the good stuff. Content like tweets, in particular, are especially perishable. That’s why I’ve always been a fan of highlighting some of my favorite posts at the end of each month.

This is my effort to provide a little signal by curating some of the best/most interesting posts (of the 100’s I read) during the month of May 2014. Please use the comments section to recommend and share other posts you found useful and/or your best post from May.

The commentary below link is mostly the author’s own words that I’ve extracted as a key takeaway; however, sometimes I add my own commentary and make connections as well.

[Blog Posts/News Articles]:

The Science of Improving Your Performance at Almost Anything – Shane Parrish

“Improving our performance is something we all seek to do. Given that we spend a lot of time doing things that we never get better at, I thought I’d share my ‘developing world class performance’ file with you.”

Shane’s Farnum Street is a must read and probably my favorite blog to check out these days. Here are some other fantastic posts he’s written and shared this month:

• Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance
• 10 Life Lessons From a Navy SEAL
• Advice from Einstein and Hunter S. Thompson
• Tips for remembering what you read and the importance of working in pulses.

But seriously, go subscribe to Farnum Street and you’ll go to bed each night smarter than when you woke up.

Rate-of-Learning: The Most Valuable Startup Compensation – Kyle Tibbitts

“Your rate-of-learning is a better proxy for how successful you will be than your current salary or stock compensation because it’s a leading rather than lagging indicator. Abandoning the cubicle at your normal job to throw yourself head-first into a startup is a fiery accelerant for growth, changing your career trajectory by orders of magnitude through a substantially increased rate-of-learning.”

Kyle’s article perfectly illustrates why I left the first job I ever loved to take a leap at a startup.

Also, Kyle wrote this article in April, but I didn’t stumble across it until this month so apologies to my anal retentive readers.

Live Like a Hydra: Thoughts on Getting Stronger When Things are Chaotic – Buster Benson

Antifragility + the Chaos Monkey + Switching between the seven heads of the hydra = Maximizing the life you have. (Just read it!)
“How?

1. Think on the scale of months and years and decades (not hours, days, weeks).
2. Think in terms of quality time with the people you love, passionate projects that you can pour your soul into, and your core beliefs (not day-to-day grievances, individual tasks, or short-lived challenges).”

7 Things You Need to Stop Doing to be More Productive, Backed by Science – CamMi Pham

“Sometimes, working less can actually produce better results. Time is a limited commodity. There’s a notable distinction between being busy and being productive. Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being productive. Being productive is less about time management and more on managing your energy. It is the business of life. We need to learn how to spend the least amount of energy to get the most benefits.”

Speaking of: The “average American” is actually working ‘one month’ more a a year than they were in 1976.

The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine – James Altucher

“Every day I come up with ideas. I haven’t had a business since 2009. And it failed, as mentioned above. Since then I’ve made more money than I know what to do with because I  come up with ideas for people, for companies, for me, for people who  have no idea who I am, for random anonymous things.

I then get  invited to share my ideas. Sometimes I get paid for them. Sometimes I  give them for free. Sometimes I get more introductions to people and  sometimes I get a chance to advise companies that do well and make me  money. And sometimes I write books.”

It Pays to Be Overconfident, Even When You Have No Idea What You’re Doing – Matthew Hutson

“Even when we’re unmasked as less skilled than our self-assured manner would suggest, there are ancillary social benefits to overconfidence. Overconfidence increases one’s status. It turns out, we tend to (over)use confidence as a useful proxy for competence — if you speak firmly, it sounds like you know what you’re talking about.

People who showed more confidence, regardless of their actual ability, were judged to be more capable and accorded more regard by their peers. (See: pundits & politicians). It’s easy to deride overconfidence as a big societal problem (which it is), but we shouldn’t overlook the reason it’s so prevalent: It yields real benefits for the people who exhibit it.”

Speaking of confidence… the New Yorker’s James Surowiecki says that confidence, and not risk-taking is the fundamental characteristic that defines entrepreneurs.

A Guide for Young People: What to do with Your Life – Leo Babauta

“The idea behind all of this is that you can’t know what you’re going to do with your life right now, because you don’t know who you’re going to be, what you’ll be able to do, what you’ll be passionate about, who you’ll meet, what opportunities will come up, or what the world will be like. But you do know this: if you are prepared, you can do anything you want.

Prepare yourself by learning about your mind, becoming trustworthy, building things, overcoming procrastination, getting good at discomfort and uncertainty.”

Ford’s Social Media Star, Scott Monty, Talks About Leaving—and Not Looking Back – Christopher Heine 

“It saddens me how social has been co-opted by marketing to become just another mass advertising/marketing channel. I think the promise of social is about relationship development, and I have always said that. While advertising can get you the attention by interrupting people, it’s more important to build relationships with customers and other people you want to reach. And I think communications and marketing and customer service have to band together around social.”

When Scott Monty first brought Social to Ford 6 years ago he changed the game. I still remember how excited I got with Scott first commented on this blog 5 years ago.Thank you, Scott! For all you’ve done to advance our field and always remembering that social is about the relationships we build.

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[Long Reads]:

The Rise of Sadvertising: Why Brands are Determined to Make You Cry – Rae Ann Fera 

Have you been brought to tears by an ad, or five, over the last while? It’s not hormones/your meds/the lunar cycle/the polar vortex. In the above article, Fast Company looks at the most weepy ads of the last few years and talk to ad players about why brands have gotten so damn emotional.

Things You Cannot Unsee and What that Says About Your Brain – Alexis Madrigal

The line between perception and cognition is fuzzy. It is not that the real world doesn’t exist, but more that we experience it as a hybrid reality: our top-down categories and imagination of the world and our bottom-up sensory experience of the world blend seamlessly into the experience of walking outside into the sunshine or seeing a bird on a wire or eating an oyster or seeing Jesus in a tortilla.

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[Interesting]:

The 21 Greatest Graduation Speeches of the Last 50 Years – German Lopez

Graduation speeches are the last opportunity for a high school or college to educate its students. It’s unsurprising, then, that these institutions often pull in some of the world’s most powerful people to leave an equally powerful impression on their students. Here are the best of those speeches and some of the sections that resonate the most.

I haven’t watched all of these, but Steve Jobs’ and Neil Gaiman’s speeches are two of my favorites.

Is it Better to Rent or Buy? (Calculator) – Mike Bostock, Shan Carter and Archie Tse 

[AMAZING RESOURCE]: The choice between buying a home and renting one is among the biggest financial decisions that many adults make. But the costs of buying are more varied and complicated than for renting, making it hard to tell which is a better deal. To help you answer this question, our calculator takes the most important costs associated with buying a house and computes the equivalent monthly rent.

And here’s an interesting read on why a mortgage is (typically) a terrible investment.

Two of the smartest people I know, Ramit Sethi and James Altucher, echo these sentiments:

• You’re not throwing away money renting and you’re underestimating phantom costs when you buy.
• You know what’s nice? Liquidity and the freedom to move around if and when you need to.

I’m not saying don’t ever buy a home. (I’m probably will in the next calendar year). I’m just encouraging you to know what you’re getting into rather than trying to live the American dream by buying more house than you need without understanding the implications. Also, when you share it on Facebook… You’re a mortgage owner. You don’t own your home yet. The bank does. Probably for 30 years or so.

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[Videos]:

Since it’s that time of year and I’ve already shared Naval Admiral William H. McRaven and Vox’s list, I also really enjoyed Charlie Day’s (television producer and screenwriter best known for playing Charlie Kelly on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) commencement speech at Merrimack College.

[Thoughts I’m Chewing On]:

• Consuming *much* less to open up more time for production, connection and reflection
• The importance of getting enough (more) sleep

Getting enough sleep is key to living a happy, healthy life. Yet it’s the first thing we sacrifice to get our jobs done. (via @amencel)

In fact, NASA found pilots who take a 25 min nap are 35% more alert & 2x as focused. And Oxford University Professor and sleep expert says this about the cult of sleep deprivation: “We are the supremely arrogant species; we feel we can abandon four billion years of evolution and ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle.”

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[Quotes]:

“True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility; the other kind of will is weakness disguised by bluster and ambition.” – @RyanHoliday

“People respect perfection, but they fall in love with imperfection.” – @dshan

“Most people who have privilege let it go to waste, and there’s nothing honorable or compassionate about that.” – @DavidDCain

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If you made it this far and found this post valuable in any way, please let me know in the comments which of these reads caught your attention. Better yet, why don’t you share something you’ve read recently that you think I’d find interesting.

If you like this post, you might also like previous installments:

• January
• February
• March
• April

If you enjoyed this post please consider subscribing to receive future updates or connecting with me via Twitter or LinkedIn.

With all the noise overwhelming our lives and our social streams it’s easy to miss the good stuff. Content like tweets, in particular, are especially perishable. That’s why I’ve always been a fan of highlighting some of my favorite posts at the end of each month.

This is  my effort to provide a little signal by curating some of the best/most interesting posts I read during the month of April 2014. Please use the comments section to recommend and share other posts you found useful and/or your best post from April.

[Blog Posts/News Articles]:

The Crossroads of Should and Must – Elle Luna

This is a story about two roads — Should and Must. It’s a pep talk for anyone who’s chosen Should for far too long — months, years, maybe a lifetime — and feels like it’s about time they gave Must a shot. It’s also the best post I read during the month of April. 

How to Use Heroin Legally – James Altucher

The basic gist of this post is that heroin makes you feel better, but with nasty side effects. Instead, try stimulating the release of endorphins to open the floodgates of dopamine, the neurochemical that makes you happy. How? Laugh, play, socialize, have sex, eat spicy foods, less grains, and exercise every day.

Too Busy? 7 Ways to Increase Leisure Time According to Science  – Eric Barker

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and constantly running from thing to thing but never getting it all done, this post is for you. The truth is we probably have more leisure time than ever, but it doesn’t feel like it because our time is so fragmented and we’re so bad at multi-tasking. Read this post to check out the 7 things experts recommend.

The Overthinker’s Guide to Launching Your Next Project Without Wanting to Kill Yourself – Ryan Holiday

It’s impossible to tell whether a launch will be a success or not. And even if everything goes exactly as you hope—the results could still be disappointing. So no wonder it can feel like you’re going to crack up, fall apart and die. Staying sane is hard, but not impossible. This post provides a great list of things to keep in mind as you approach a launch.

[Note: Ryan has a new book out The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. It’s designed to show you how to turn obstacles into opportunities, adversity into advantages.  I already purchased it and can’t wait to read it.]  

The Holy Grail of Building Communities – Richard Millington

I consider Rich to be the foremost expert at building successful online communities. In this post, he outlines why the sense of community is the missing piece of the community puzzle, the power of a strong sense of community, and how we can use social science to guide us.

Be Agile & Anti-Fragile: How to Find Strength from Chaos – Jenny Blake

The skill you need for the 21st century is NOT to learn how to set bigger or better goals.It is to dive head-first into uncertainty, risk, and insecurity and understand that it is from these experiences that you become Antifragile. It is from these experiences—the ones that rip you apart so that you can rebuild even stronger—that you collect a bank of insights to share with the world.

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In addition to the posts above, there are three other people I want to call out specifically for the great content they’ve been putting out recently.

Leo Babauta is on fire right now (at least for me). I loved the four things that he’s been learning that help him through tough times, his habit action list, and finally his take on the miracle of the self compassion habit. Which, coincidentally is one of the 10 guideposts to living a wholehearted life.

If you’re trying to build or grow a blog right now, you need to be reading the guest posts on Noah Kagan’s OkDork blog.

Here are 3 recent ones I’ve found particularly useful:

• How You Can Create Content That Generates 40,000 Targeted Visitors – Brian Dean
• How to Get Your First 100 E-mail Subscribers – Bryan Harris
• How We Grew OkDork 200% With These Exact SEO Tips – David Zheng

And finally, the content Brian Clark and his team are putting out for their New Rainmaker project is fantastic. I have *pages* of notes from the 10 podcast episodes they’ve done over the last 4 months to introduce their new platform. If you’re a content provider, a small business looking to build leads, or just someone who wants to understand the future of media and marketing, I highly recommend checking it out. Remember: the one who makes it rain makes the rules.

[Long Reads]:

The Confidence Gap – Katty Kay & Claire Shipman

Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. This post also explains that infuriating feeling you get when you realize the person at the top is completely incompetent, but got there due to their overconfidence, which someone came across to colleagues as self assurance vs. narcissism.

The Culture of Shut Up –  Jon Lovett

Too many debates about important issues degenerate into manufactured and misplaced outrage—and it’s chilling free speech. 

The right to free speech may begin and end with the First Amendment, but there is a vast middle where our freedom of speech is protected by us—by our capacity to listen and accept that people disagree, often strongly, that there are fools, some of them columnists and elected officials and, yes, even reality-show patriarchs, that there are people who believe stupid, irrational, hateful things about other people and it’s okay to let those words in our ears sometimes without rolling out the guillotines

[Interesting]:

[Visualization]: How Americans Die – Matthew C. Klein

Mortality rate is down 17%, mostly attributed to improved survival prospects for men. Suicide has recently become the number one cause of violent death. People are living a lot longer, but the downside is that it dramatically increases the odds of getting dementia or Alzheimer’s — accounting for about a 40% increase in Medicare spending since 2011. Pretty fascinating data and an excellent format for capturing it.

Americans Think Owning a Home is Better for them than it is – Catherine Rampell

People forget that housing deteriorates over time. It goes out of style. There are new innovations that people want, different layouts of rooms,” he told me. “And technological progress keeps bringing the cost of construction down.” Meaning your worn, old-fashioned home is competing with new, relatively inexpensive ones. Over the past century, housing prices have grown at a compound annual rate of just 0.3 percent once one adjusts for inflation. Yet Americans still think it’s financially savvy to dump all their savings into a single, large, highly illiquid asset.

[Thoughts I’m Chewing On]:

• How do hungry, Type A people practice having more self compassion?
• How can we embrace chaos and become more anti-fragile?

[SlideDecks]:

[Quotes]:

“We all only have 1440 minutes a day. Accept you can’t do it all, focus on what’s important and do that well.” – @bakadesuyo

“You will not always be working on something that makes you proud, but you will always learn something out of it.” – @KounterB

“Ideas are cheap. I have more ideas now than I could ever write up. To my mind, it’s the execution that is all-important.” –  @GeorgeRRMartin_

———-

If you made it this far and found this post valuable in any way, please let me know in the comments which of these reads caught your attention. Better yet, why don’t you share something you’ve read recently that you think I’d find interesting.

If you like this post, you might also like previous installments:

• January
• February
• March

If you enjoyed this post please consider subscribing to receive future updates or connecting with me via Twitter or LinkedIn.