For most of us, 2020 was a complete shit-show. Plans were cancelled. We weren’t allowed to participate in our favourite activities. And we couldn’t meet and hug our best friends and family.
The situation was made worse by taking us by surprise. At the start of 2020, very few had prepared for a pandemic, even though there had been warnings. We had no plan, and rather than adapting to the new situation, we struggled to find meaningful things to fill our lives with.
It is a common approach to just let life happen. When things are going well, we feel…
Last week we (NASA) landed a rover on Mars. In the next two years, it will explore the planet, drill the surface and look for signs of previous life.
This is the first of several missions heading to Mars. The most ambitious plan is led by SpaceX, which aims to send a group of people in 2026.
This opens up new possibilities, the chance to become the first humans to step onto a new planet. It means we need to ask ourselves questions like: Do I want to go to Mars? Do I have what it takes to live on…
Let’s say you’re in London and need to get from The Tower of London to Notting Hill. You jump into an iconic black taxi to get there.
Chances are that your driver will not even turn the GPS on. Not only that, they will know every single turn to take on the trip before starting the engine. In fact, they will know the route so well that they can have an intelligent conversation with the passenger without focusing on where they’re heading.
All London black cab drivers must master the 25 000 streets and more than 100 000 points of…
Tim Ferriss is known as the king of optimisation and is continuously volunteering himself as a human guinea-pig to test the limits of what’s possible. He devotes himself to the principle that if you approach the world as a student, there are very few limits to what you can achieve.
He has a self-proclaimed goal of mastering the ability to learn new skills quickly. To achieve fast learning of new skills, he developed a method he calls DiSSS(Deconstruction, Selection, Sequencing and Stakes).
Mastering a skill usually requires years of practice. But developing solid fundamentals goes a lot quicker. By practicing…
With so many of us working from home, now is the optimal time to learn to make a delicious cup of coffee. The process only takes about 5–10 minutes and allows you to produce world-class coffee from your own kitchen. This article will show you the process and secrets to make a perfect cup of filter coffee.
Ingredients and equipment needed: quality coffee, clean water, a coffee grinder, a boiling/pouring device, a thin paper filter, a cone (e.g. v60) and a cup or retainer.
A cup of coffee only consists of two things; coffee beans and water. …
At an astonishing age of 43, Tom Brady led the Buccaneers to win the NFL trophy last weekend. He has won more titles (seven) than any single team in NFL history (Patriots and Steelers have six each). It was his third Super Bowl since he turned 40 and he’s now widely considered the greatest quarterback of all-time. Brady is now inspiring athletes worldwide to believe that it’s possible to stay at the top of their game well into their forties.
But Brady wasn’t always destined for greatness, illustrated by him only being the 199th pick in the draft. …
We all get inspired when we see our idols perform a skill at a world-class level. We dream of doing the same. It looks fantastic when they perform their craft effortlessly and even manage to do it with a smile on their face. You think you have found the one thing you want to do in life.
But wait a moment. What you have seen is the end product of thousands of hours of practice. For the last ten years, they may have practiced for hours every day. They have had to postpone studies, say no to doing fun things…
We would all love to learn and master lots of skills. To speak five languages fluently, play an instrument, cook like a chef, excel at various sports and paint like Picasso.
But we know it will take a lot of time and effort and often we have doubts if we can learn and improve at all. If doubt sneaks into your mind, even subconsciously, it becomes difficult to take action and start learning. Myths and misconceptions can hurt our progress and prevent us from taking action in the first place.
If you believe you’re too old to learn a new…
Becoming a master is something we all dream of. But we don’t always realise what it takes to get there. When our idols perform a skill, it seems almost magical and impossible to achieve something similar.
Behind every outstanding performance lies thousands of hours of hard work. Whether it’s singing like Rihanna, throwing a football like Tom Brady or swinging a racket like Rafael Nadal.
Every master at their craft has gone through the same process of acquiring a high level of skill performance. What allowed them to get there were some common mindsets. …
Dolphin’s are amazing swimmers.
Monkeys are excellent at climbing trees.
Cheetahs can sprint at speeds of up to 130 kilometres per hour.
Many animals have developed one or a few skills to an extremely high level. You could almost call it a superpower. But what about us humans? We often seem mediocre in comparison with these extreme performers.
But we also have a superpower that we sometimes forget about. We can master almost any skill through practice. We can learn not only to swim, climb and run fast. We can also master Italian cooking, play the violin and take breathtaking…