Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

Pursue what you love.

Do the hardest work first.

Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses.

Take regular renewal breaks. (..) It’s during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

Ritualize practice.

{ Harvard Business Review | Continue reading }

{ Mozart’s 140 causes of death and 27 mental disorders }

By most all accounts a brilliant mind, Fischer was perhaps the most visionary chess player since José Raul Capablanca, a Cuban who held the world title for six years in the 1920s. Fischer’s innovative, daring play — at age 13, he defeated senior master (and former U.S. Open champion) Donald Byrne in what is sometimes called “The Game of the Century” — made him a hero figure to millions in the United States and throughout the world. In 1957, Fischer became the youngest winner of the U.S. chess championship — he was just 14 — before going on to beat Spassky for the world title in 1972.

But Fischer forfeited that title just three years later, refusing to defend his crown under rules proposed by the World Chess Federation, and he played virtually no competitive chess in ensuing decades, retreating, instead, into isolation and seeming paranoia. Because of a series of rankly anti-Semitic public utterances and his praise, on radio, for the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, at his death, Fischer was seen by much of the world as spoiled, arrogant and mean-spirited.

In recent years, however, researchers have come to understand that Bobby Fischer was psychologically troubled from early childhood. Careful examination of his life and family shows that he likely suffered with mental illness that may never have been properly diagnosed or treated.

{ Miller-McCune | Continue reading | Donald Byrne vs Robert James Fischer, “The Game of the Century,” 1956 | select Java Viewer and press set }

{ When you think of the words “prudent” and “marriage,” the last person you should think of is Elizabeth Taylor, who was married eight times, and shocked and astounded each and every time it didn’t work out. The most bizarre choice of husband was probably Larry Fortensky, a construction worker she met in rehab. | Craked | Continue reading }

One of the most surprising findings is that people have a natural aversion to inequality. We tend to prefer a world in which wealth is more evenly distributed, even if it means we have to get by with less.

Consider this recent experiment by a team of scientists at Caltech, published earlier this year in the journal Nature. The study began with 40 subjects blindly picking ping-pong balls from a hat. Half of the balls were labeled “rich,” while the other half were labeled “poor.” The rich subjects were immediately given $50, while the poor got nothing. Such is life: It’s rarely fair.

The subjects were then put in a brain scanner and given various monetary rewards, from $5 to $20. They were also told about a series of rewards given to a stranger. The first thing the scientists discovered is that the response of the subjects depended entirely on their starting financial position. For instance, people in the “poor” group showed much more activity in the reward areas of the brain (such as the ventral striatum) when given $20 in cash than people who started out with $50. This makes sense: If we have nothing, then every little something becomes valuable.

But then the scientists found something strange. When people in the “rich” group were told that a poor stranger was given $20, their brains showed more reward activity than when they themselves were given an equivalent amount. In other words, they got extra pleasure from the gains of someone with less.

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

photos { David Stewart | Valerie Chiang }

{ Brandon Pavan }

It is not surprising that theologians and artists clashed over the Last Supper. Common meals were the center of social life in Renaissance Europe, everywhere from ascetic, remote monasteries to bankers’ and cardinals’ lush gardens in the middle of Trastevere. And they were always a battleground of opposing ideals of austerity and consumption. (…)

But what should a Last Supper look like? What did Christ and the Apostles eat? And how much? When Jesus distributed pieces of bread, was it leavened or unleavened? What other foodstuffs had been on the table? Did the followers of Jesus eat lamb, as Jews normally did at Passover? Over the centuries—as an article in the International Journal of Obesity recently showed—artists made many different choices. Sometimes they put lamb on the table. But they also served fish, beef, and even pork in portions that grew over the centuries.

{ Cabinet | Continue reading }

painting { Dirck van Baburen, Roman Charity, Cimon and Peres, ca. 1623 }

Repetition is used everywhere—advertising, politics and the media—but does it really persuade us?

It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again). Repetition is one of the easiest and most widespread methods of persuasion. In fact it’s so obvious that we sometimes forget how powerful it is.

People rate statements that have been repeated just once as more valid or true than things they’ve heard for the first time. (…)

Easy to understand = true

This is what psychologists call the illusion of truth effect and it arises at least partly because familiarity breeds liking. As we are exposed to a message again and again, it becomes more familiar. Because of the way our minds work, what is familiar is also true. Familiar things require less effort to process and that feeling of ease unconsciously signals truth (this is called cognitive fluency). (…)

Repetition is effective almost across the board when people are paying little attention, but when they are concentrating and the argument is weak, the effect disappears (Moons et al., 2008). In other words, it’s no good repeating a weak argument to people who are listening carefully.

{ PsyBlog | Continue reading }

{ Pete Johnson | Continue reading | more }

Many procrastinators do not realize that they are perfectionists, for the simple reason that they have never done anything perfectly, or even nearly so. They have never been told that something they did was perfect. (…)

Perfectionism is a matter of fantasy, not reality. Here’s how it works in my case.  I am assigned some task, say, refereeing a manuscript for a publisher. I accept the task. (…) Immediately my fantasy life kicks in. I imagine myself writing the most wonderful referees report. (…)

This is perfectionism in the relevant sense. It’s not a matter of really ever doing anything that is perfect or even comes close. It is a matter of using tasks you accept to feed your fantasy of doing things perfectly, or at any rate extremely well. (…)

Well, seven or eight hours later I am done setting up the proxy server. (…)

Then what happens? I go on to other things. Most likely, the manuscript slowly disappears under subsequent memos, mail, half-eaten sandwiches, piles of files, and other things. (See the essay on “Horizontal Organization”.)  I put it on my to do list, but I never look at my to do list. Then, in about six weeks, I get an email from the publisher, asking when she can expect the referee  report. Maybe, if she has dealt with me before, this email arrives a bit before I promised the report. Maybe if she hasn’t, it arrives a few days after the deadline.

At this point, finally, I snap into action. My fantasy structure changes. I no longer fantasize writing the world’s best referee job ever. (…) At this point, I dig through the files, sandwiches, unopened correspondence, and, after a bit of panic (…) I find it. I take a couple of hours, read it, write a perfectly adequate report, and send it off.

{ John Perry | Continue reading }

{ Brett Fryzuk }

The brain may manage anger differently depending on whether we’re lying down or sitting up, according to a study published in Psychological Science. (…)

A field of study called ‘embodied cognition‘ has found lots of curious interactions between how the mind and brain manage our responses depending on the possibilities for action.

For example, we perceive distances as shorter when we have a tool in our hand and intend to use it, and wearing a heavy backpack causes hills to appear steeper.

Anger is a prime example where we feel motivated to ‘do something’. In the sitting position we’re much more ready to approach whatever’s annoying us than when we’re flat on our backs, and the researchers wondered whether these body positions were interacting with our motivations to change the brain’s response.

{ MindHacks | Continue reading }

photo { Tierney Gearon }

{ Will initials carved on the side of a tree always remain at the same height? Yup. | The Straight Dope | Continue reading }

The effects of red hair in surgical practice

Traditionally, surgeons and anaesthetists regard red haired patients with some trepidation because of their reputation for excessive bleeding, a reduced pain threshold, and an, albeit anecdotal, increased tendency to develop hernias.

{ BMJ | Continue reading }

{ DigiBarn | more }

The Fundamental Rights Agency said the Czech Republic was the only EU country still using a “sexual arousal” test.

Gay asylum seekers are hooked up to a machine that monitors blood-flow to the penis and are then shown straight porn.

Those applicants who become aroused are denied asylum.

{ BBC | Continue reading }

photo { Markel Redond }

Turbulence, a film by Prof. Nitzan Ben Shaul of Tel Aviv University, uses complicated video coding procedures that allow the viewer to change the course of a movie in mid-plot. In theory, that means each new theater audience can see its very own version of a film. Turbulence recently won a prize at the Berkeley Video and Film Festival for its technological innovation.

{ AFTAU | Continue reading }

{ Scientific American | full story }

related { Astronomers Find First Evidence Of Other Universes }

{ Joseph O. Holmes, West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress) }