Topics/Pillar XII

Self-knowledge

Observe yourself before directing yourself.

Every plan for self-improvement rests on a model of the person being improved, and most people's model of themselves is a flattering fiction assembled after the fact. Accuracy comes first. These lectures are about seeing the patterns you actually run before deciding which ones to change.

5 lectures on self-knowledge

The White Room Is a Choice

You are largely the output of inputs you never selected, and the first act of becoming anyone deliberate is to take ownership of what is allowed to shape you.

18 min

The Space Between Stimulus and Response

The single most valuable skill a person can develop is the deliberate widening of the gap between what happens to them and what they do about it, observation held long enough to make the response a choice rather than a reflex.

17 min

The Quiet Discipline of Reading

Deep, sustained reading is the cheapest and most powerful way to rebuild the machinery of your own mind, and the modern decline of it is not a moral failing but an environmental one that can be reversed deliberately.

21 min

Lust Is a Leash

Sexual desire is the single most exploited vulnerability in the human mind, and a person who has not examined how thoroughly it directs his attention, energy, and decisions is being steered by it far more than he knows.

17 min

The Long Game

Almost everything that matters is won by people willing to play long games, to compound small advantages patiently, choose leverage over force, and pursue results without needing recognition, in a world that has been engineered to make everyone play short.

17 min

In the workshop

Related subjects

Clear thinking Emotional regulation Self-discipline Strategy and leverage Influence and social skill Strength