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To Dare and To Conquer Summary
Special Operation and the destiny of nations – by Derek Leebaert Special operations have repeatedly bent the arc of history. At decisive moments, small groups of “picked men” seized impossibly high-leverage opportunities, transforming desperate struggle into breakthrough, and breakthrough into conquest. Although not explicitly outlined in the book, I noticed a familiar pattern: Struggle >…
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Teams and metaphors
The Good ship in slack waters. The metaphor brings the team meaning. As you start to build up your team, you’ll notice certain images, narratives, and symbols filter through in the language that people use. But it’s not something that can be contrived. Often it’s compelled by the situation, by the dynamics of the team in…
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Pre-rubicon Reading Material
The rubicon represents the moment of commitment to a course of actions. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE, he broke Roman law and sealed the fate of the Republic. The Rubicon was a small river marking the northern boundary of Italy, and generals were forbidden to lead their armies across it under…
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Shouting gratitude
He was a busker, I guess, and I used to see him down by the point. Walking under the coconut palms around the boardwalk with his flat-tuned guitar which he’d seldomly strum for a few seconds before getting distracted by something. I could hear him shouting from afar, his mad belly laughs and then outbursts…
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Team identities ⚓︎ Ship o’ Theseus ⚓︎ Siddhartha
If every member of a team was replaced, one by one, is it still the same team? The Ship of Theseus is a classic thought experiment which asks if you changed every piece of the ship, plank by plank, and if every part is replaced. Is it the same ship? Does this apply to teams? …
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Retreats
Where I am, there are countless retreats and an almost limitless demand for it. It puzzles me. It seems that people are retreating from the world. I wonder what the opposite might be. To stay calm and determined in the face of adversity, or to aim to do something about it; to change the small…
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Entropy, Kintsugi and Antifragility
“The laws of thermodynamics were developed by nineteenth-century scientists to describe relationships between heat and mechanical energy. The second law of thermodynamics is based on the observation that many physical processes appear irreversible: Although these processes may theoretically be able to proceed forward or backward, when we observe them, they only go one way. Once a…
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FinOps Notes (so far!)
I’ve been reading through a book about FinOps. It appears to be a topic which is getting increasing attention. I expect that most of it can be boiled down to some key principles. Principles: Next steps: Key metric: unit economic metrics to enable data driven decision making by engineering teams Definition Cloud: Problem: A FinOps…
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The Creative Mind: Notes & Summary
The Creative Mind by Margaret Boden was a revelatory book which has certainly helped to understand what creativity is as well as its origin
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Spellbound: Notes
Spellbound by Daniel Liberman Tapping into the unconscious, understanding it – understanding why it can lead us astray from ourselves destructively but also understanding how we can tap into the unconscious and being to harness the power. To understand the unconscious we cannot use ‘language’ or rational thinking. We need something else. The key to…
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The felt presence of immediate experience
“When our own goals and beliefs and perceptions and behaviors are functionally integrated such that there is little conflict or contradiction between them that is when we experience this this sense of meaning in life” We have developed behaviours that help us pursue goals (biological, pre-programmed goals: finding a mate, keeping a mate, parenting etc,…
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Notes on appreciation
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Free Energy Principle, Predictive Processing and Meaning notes
This is the synthesis and synergising of various talks about free energy principle, predictive processing and its connection with meaning. By understanding predictive processing and free-energy (as a lens) you can understand other aspects such as addiction or meaning-making (meaning in life). Psychedelics and the Free Energy Principle: From REBUS to Indra’s Net https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/building-a-science-of-consciousness/id1654416860?i=1000586050485 Perception…
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Has inspiring replaced charity
I was watching a show called the world’s greatest challenge where teams have to trek across Fiji in a gruelling 11-day race. I was struck that almost everyone who was interviewed said that they were doing this to inspire others. It struck me as completely bizarre and completely in line with this trend of ‘I…
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The Heroine’s Journey
If it’s true what the cognitive neuroscientists say that story and myths inform you about what to do when you don’t know what to do, then stories are fundamental to decision-making under uncertainty, and that the brain relies on micro-narratives to deal with combinatorially explosive complexity of everyday life, let alone chaos. And so, as they…
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