#this is my first one of these :) the alain de botton quote gave me the idea

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Alain de Botton, Essays in Love | Madonna - Like A Prayer | Like A Prayer official music video (1989, dir. Mary Lambert) | The Obsessives - You’re My God | John Keats, letter to Fanny Brown (Oct 13, 1819) | Depeche Mode - Martyr | The Nun and the Devil (1973, dir. Domenico Paolella) | Zolita - Holy | Nicole Dollanganger - 700 Club | Lana Del Rey - Religion

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05/28/2020

Dear Elliott

i am going to start this off by saying i find these " book reports " quite therapeutic and i feel like a giant book nerd, my grade 12 English teacher would be proud of me.

Alain De Bottons book " Essays in love" was a big surprise honestly . this man gave me a very in depth and intimate look into a mind set of love i knew very little about . my polar opposite in many ways , you could say . his ability to put some of our most tender thoughts and feelings into words is an impressive and touching skill , and reading this novel was quite the emotional roller coaster ride.

the first quote that struck me was this: 

"lovers cannot remain philosophers for long, they should give way to the religious impulse, which is to believe and have faith as apposed to the philosophic impulse , which is to doubt and enquirer . they should prefer the risk of being wrong and in love to being in doubt and without love”

this quote stood out because its telling me my philosophical quest should be replaced with belief , the word faith seems to pop up a lot in regards to love. its one of the first op-positional views iv read to my crusade and its intended purpose.

while the author and i took different approaches and views to love in most areas of this story , there was one major section of this novel i resonated with very deeply:

" Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone there who can understand what we are, in essence , we are not wholly alive until we are loved" 

he expands on this thought by saying : 

"  without love , we lose the ability to possess a proper identity, within love , there is a constant confirmation of our selves, to be seen is to be assured that we exist. the person who loves us for more or less the things we deem ourselves to be lovable for , who understands us for more or less the things we need to be understood”

when i read this i suddenly understood an important part of my connection to you . THIS was the gift you gave me all those years ago , and the gift you continue to give me when we speak. you were the first person to see me , truly , and validate everything i was . you understood me , and then loved me for all the things you found . you made it okay for me, to be me , simply by being yourself. 

Not only did you do these things by accepting me , we also shared many similarities that helped me feel like i belonged somewhere , like i wasn't the last of my kind . we were different people , but in many ways the same. 

the quote from wedding crashers comes to mind: "  true love is your souls recognition of its counterpoint in another " and you were my counterpoint.

(p.s. i love the definition of the word "Counterpoint " : is the relationship between voices which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and contour".. so damn romantic..god im gross).

while i have enjoyed reading many different versions of love and ways of interpreting such things, i cant help but feel slightly defeated . so far i seem to have only high lighted and validated reason for loving you ,which was not exactly my goal ..

[webart-studio]

Vegan Celeb Chef Chloe Coscarelli Says Entrepreneurs Ought to Push for Change Even When No One Believes in Them

The plant-based restaurateur behind By Chloe has been taking the well being meals world by storm for a decade and opened up a brand new pop-up with movie star chef Tom Colicchio this week. Inside days, she’d entered into a brand new lawsuit towards the proprietor of By Chloe.

February 28, 2019 11 min learn

On this sequence, Instagram Icon, Entrepreneur speaks with the people behind well-liked Instagram accounts to seek out out the secrets and techniques of their success.

One Thanksgiving within the early aughts, fledgling vegan Chloe Coscarelli set to work in a California kitchen creating plant-based vacation dishes for the primary time. She and her mom cooked up a lentil-nut roast with vegan gravy, an assortment of sides and even a candy potato casserole, then positioned their concoctions amongst the extra conventional choices on the desk as relations started to scoop helpings onto their plates. Inside minutes — earlier than Coscarelli may even serve herself — she remembers all the vegan plates being emptied.

“We thought I used to be the one one consuming vegan as a result of I used to be the one vegan, and I bear in mind simply being so unhappy and so completely happy on the similar time,” Coscarelli stated. “I used to be unhappy as a result of I mainly bought nothing to eat, however I used to be completely happy as a result of I [realized] if this meals is completed properly, individuals get actually excited over it. And who desires to eat the identical Thanksgiving yearly? Once we put these completely different, extra distinctive, creative vegan dishes on the desk, individuals simply wolfed it up. It type of gave me the inspiration — that there’s one thing right here.”

Since that day about 15 years in the past, Coscarelli has change into a veritable establishment within the plant-based meals world. She’s launched 4 cookbooks, appeared on tv packages together with NBC’s TODAY and opened eating places, comparable to Chef Chloe and the Vegan Cafe in Miami. Coscarelli recurrently shares recipes and updates on her Instagram account, @ChefChloe, and has amassed greater than 162,00zero followers on the platform so far.

In July 2015, Coscarelli partnered with ESquared Hospitality to launch By Chloe, a vegan chain restaurant that presently has 15 places within the U.S. and London. She parted methods with the enterprise in 2017, and ever since, Coscarelli has been embroiled in lawsuit after lawsuit with By Chloe’s dad or mum firm. Coscarelli declined to touch upon the authorized proceedings. “Since she is actively in litigation, we aren’t ready to handle the previous partnership,” a consultant informed Entrepreneur. “That is one thing Chloe does hope to talk to as soon as the litigation is over.”

For Coscarelli’s most up-to-date undertaking, she with movie star chef Tom Colicchio on March 12 to open an all-vegan pop-up store, Supernatural, at Colicchio’s Craft NY house that needs to be open till the tip of the month. Inside sooner or later of opening, BC Hospitality Group LLC, which owns By Chloe and is managed by ESquared Hospitality, served a menace letter to Coscarelli and Colicchio accusing them each of federal trademark infringement. On March 14, Coscarelli and Colicchio filed a lawsuit towards BC Hospitality Group. The doc, which was reviewed by Entrepreneur, reads, “BCHG alleged that Chloe’s function as a vegan chef violated an previous contract that had been in place when she was concerned with ‘By Chloe.’ In keeping with BCHG, solely BCHG is allowed to run a vegan restaurant that entails Chloe’s title, face, or likeness. Put one other manner, BCHG has threatened that Chloe — herself — is just not allowed to be related to a vegan restaurant anymore.”

In gentle of her crew’s assertion that she will’t but talk about energetic litigation, Coscarelli spoke with Entrepreneur about motivation, work-life stability and the quantifiable results of pairing enterprise with social good. 

This interview has been edited for size and readability.

If you began out, veganism wasn’t but a part of the favored meals panorama, and there have been most likely numerous naysayers. What’s your high tip for motivation?

As an entrepreneur, you can begin with a mission you’re feeling enthusiastic about, however you’ll be able to actually get slowed down by all of the obstacles thrown at you. It’s straightforward to really feel disconnected out of your preliminary motivation whenever you’re simply attempting to place out fires daily. For me, reminding myself why I began or simply taking a minute to recollect my mission — to indicate individuals we don’t want to harm or exploit animals in any option to have scrumptious, satisfying, enjoyable, filling meals — was actually useful for me. I additionally remind myself that my mission is a lot better than simply me, so even once I really feel like numerous obstacles and challenges are coming my manner, I inform myself that that’s probably not why I started on this journey. That retains me excited.

What’s your tackle work-life stability? Do you imagine it exists?

I really feel like the fitting reply is that you just’re purported to have work-life stability. I bear in mind I as soon as spoke on a wellness panel and we have been speaking about sleep, and I used to be actually trustworthy and mainly stated I barely sleep. I bought so many seems to be from the opposite panelists and folks within the viewers that appeared to imply, “That’s not what you’re purported to say.” I positively have some house to develop on work-life stability. However considered one of my favourite quotes about work-life stability (attributed to writer Alain de Botton) sums up my emotions on it: “There isn’t a such factor as work-life stability. All the pieces value preventing for unbalances your life.”

I‘m at all times so pushed by my mission that I may work all by means of the evening. Generally I’ve to actively attempt to put my thoughts to relaxation and never take into consideration work for a sure period of time throughout the day. A number of my shut family and friends inform me I want a trip, however I really feel like that’s not what I want — I want a bit extra time within the day to do what I really feel excited and enthusiastic about. I additionally really feel like when you’ve gotten momentum and you’ve got a time interval to be engaged on a objective of yours, typically you don’t need to look again and assume you solely gave it 97 %. Proper now, I’ve allotted this time in my life to focus totally on work, and sooner or later, perhaps I can relaxation, chill out and be taught a bit about sleep.

You’ve stated earlier than that your profession is pushed by a better objective: advancing veganism. In your expertise, how can a dedication to social good result in superior success — and are these advantages quantifiable?

There’s a lot info proper now in regards to the affect of our decisions as shoppers, and yearly, these youthful than us are increasingly serious about and enthusiastic about making aware decisions that make them really feel good. That’s been unbelievable for enterprise as a result of firms are lastly taking discover that it’s not nearly promoting as a lot of a product as potential for as low cost as potential. That’s not what’s going to make their firms well-liked anymore. Taking a stance is one thing that’s essential to shoppers, and it does have enterprise advantages.

Additionally, we’re in a local weather the place authenticity is king — or queen, I ought to say. Shoppers are sharp, and typically they’ll inform when a giant firm doesn’t have a observe file for caring an excessive amount of a few aware alternative however tries to make use of advertising and marketing language to make it look like they do. Individuals can inform when there’s really a mission behind a product or enterprise, which is nice. Shoppers are retaining companies and entrepreneurs on our toes and pushing us to do higher, which is a extremely wholesome relationship between enterprise and shopper.

Your use of social media, particularly Instagram, has performed an element in your success. What’s your high tip for a budding firm or particular person entrepreneur seeking to capitalize on their on-line presence?

So far as my private perspective, I maintain it pure — I run it myself, I write issues in my very own voice and I don’t have many objectives with it. It’s simply my manner of speaking with my neighborhood, and I attempt to maintain it as actual, trustworthy and open as potential. Generally it’s laborious as a result of you concentrate on individuals you recognize studying it, however for instance, I shared with my neighborhood on Valentine’s Day that I used to be single and hanging out with my cat, and I hope different women doing the identical factor noticed it.

One other tip comes from my brother: Generally you’re going to get detrimental feedback or naysayers, and also you don’t must troll round and discuss again to individuals or delete feedback. I don’t censor my neighborhood. If there’s one thing on there you don’t like, let it’s an open discussion board and let your neighborhood defend you. I really feel like that’s served me properly as a result of individuals don’t really feel like they’re in a managed surroundings. It’s an open dialogue, and whether or not individuals love or hate what you’re placing out, everybody can communicate their thoughts.

What’s your finest recommendation for first-time entrepreneurs seeking to break right into a scorching market?

If you happen to imagine in it, go for it. On the finish of the day, you’ll be able to by no means search for validation from the surface world on something that you just’re doing. I’ve tried to hunt validation from individuals on what I used to be embarking on, like vegan meals earlier than it was well-liked or accepted, and folks provide you with every kind of recommendation that’s solely based mostly on issues they’ve seen earlier than. So should you’re somebody who’s attempting to do one thing that’s by no means been executed earlier than, you must put your blinders on in a manner and shut out individuals’s recommendation. Generally, whenever you search recommendation on one thing that’s by no means been executed earlier than, persons are actually scared for you — then you definitely do it, and folks say, “Oh yeah, that was a no brainer.” However no, everybody doubted me. When you’ve seen one thing executed, it’s simpler to get behind it.

Lots of people stated to me, “Your timing was good with the traits,” however I wasn’t planning on timing. I’ve been vegan for about 15 years now, and once I went vegan, kale or quinoa wasn’t one thing you would simply purchase on the grocery store. I’ve been laboring on this mission for over a decade, so should you’re a younger entrepreneur and also you’re beginning one thing that you just don’t see but or that hasn’t been executed, don’t get discouraged. It might take a extremely very long time earlier than you’ll be able to actually push by means of to your objective, and that’s OK — that’s much more unbelievable.

See under for 5 of Coscarelli’s favourite posts.

“This was a enjoyable photoshoot I did with a NYC animal shelter to advertise animal adoption and get these canine adopted!”

Supply hyperlink

source https://webart-studio.com/vegan-celeb-chef-chloe-coscarelli-says-entrepreneurs-ought-to-push-for-change-even-when-no-one-believes-in-them/

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Mental Models: How to Train Your Brain to Think in New Ways

You can train your brain to think better. One of the best ways to do this is to expand the set of mental models you use to think. Let me explain what I mean by sharing a story about a world-class thinker. I first discovered what a mental model was and how useful the right one could be while I was reading a story about Richard Feynman, the famous physicist. Feynman received his undergraduate degree from MIT and his Ph.D. from Princeton. During that time, he developed a reputation for waltzing into the math department and solving problems that the brilliant Ph.D. students couldn’t solve. When people asked how he did it, Feynman claimed that his secret weapon was not his intelligence, but rather a strategy he learned in high school. According to Feynman, his high school physics teacher asked him to stay after class one day and gave him a challenge. “Feynman,” the teacher said, “you talk too much and you make too much noise. I know why. You’re bored. So I’m going to give you a book. You go up there in the back, in the corner, and study this book, and when you know everything that’s in this book, you can talk again.” 1 So each day, Feynman would hide in the back of the classroom and study the book—Advanced Calculus by Woods—while the rest of the class continued with their regular lessons. And it was while studying this old calculus textbook that Feynman began to develop his own set of mental models. “That book showed how to differentiate parameters under the integral sign,” Feynman wrote. “It turns out that’s not taught very much in the universities; they don’t emphasize it. But I caught on how to use that method, and I used that one damn tool again and again. So because I was self-taught using that book, I had peculiar methods of doing integrals.” “The result was, when the guys at MIT or Princeton had trouble doing a certain integral, it was because they couldn’t do it with the standard methods they had learned in school. If it was a contour integration, they would have found it; if it was a simple series expansion, they would have found it. Then I come along and try differentiating under the integral sign, and often it worked. So I got a great reputation for doing integrals, only because my box of tools was different from everybody else’s, and they had tried all their tools on it before giving the problem to me.” 2 Every Ph.D. student at Princeton and MIT is brilliant. What separated Feynman from his peers wasn't necessarily raw intelligence. It was the way he saw the problem. He had a broader set of mental models. Richard Feynman teaching some of his mental models to physics students.

What is a Mental Model?

A mental model is an explanation of how something works. It is a concept, framework, or worldview that you carry around in your mind to help you interpret the world and understand the relationship between things. Mental models are deeply held beliefs about how the world works. For example, supply and demand is a mental model that helps you understand how the economy works. Game theory is a mental model that helps you understand how relationships and trust work. Entropy is a mental model that helps you understand how disorder and decay work. Mental models guide your perception and behavior. They are the thinking tools that you use to understand life, make decisions, and solve problems. Learning a new mental model gives you a new way to see the world—like Richard Feynman learning a new math technique. Mental models are imperfect, but useful. There is no single mental model from physics or engineering, for example, that provides a flawless explanation of the entire universe, but the best mental models from those disciplines have allowed us to build bridges and roads, develop new technologies, and even travel to outer space. As historian Yuval Noah Harari puts it, “Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility.” The best mental models are the ideas with the most utility. They are broadly useful in daily life. Understanding these concepts will help you make wiser choices and take better actions. This is why developing a broad base of mental models is critical for anyone interested in thinking clearly, rationally, and effectively.

The Secret to Great Thinking

Expanding your set of mental models is something experts need to work on just as much as novices. We all have our favorite mental models, the ones we naturally default to as an explanation for how or why something happened. As you grow older and develop expertise in a certain area, you tend to favor the mental models that are most familiar to you. Here's the problem: when a certain worldview dominates your thinking, you’ll try to explain every problem you face through that worldview. This pitfall is particularly easy to slip into when you're smart or talented in a given area. The more you master a single mental model, the more likely it becomes that this mental model will be your downfall because you’ll start applying it indiscriminately to every problem. What looks like expertise is often a limitation. As the common proverb says, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” 3

When a certain worldview dominates your thinking, you’ll try to explain every problem you face through that worldview.

Consider this example from biologist Robert Sapolsky. He asks, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Then, he provides answers from different experts.

If you ask an evolutionary biologist, they might say, “The chicken crossed the road because they saw a potential mate on the other side.”

If you ask a kinesiologist, they might say, “The chicken crossed the road because the muscles in the leg contracted and pulled the leg bone forward during each step.”

If you ask a neuroscientist, they might say, “The chicken crossed the road because the neurons in the chicken’s brain fired and triggered the movement.”

Technically speaking, none of these experts are wrong. But nobody is seeing the entire picture either. Each individual mental model is just one view of reality. The challenges and situations we face in life cannot be entirely explained by one field or industry. All perspectives hold some truth. None of them contain the complete truth. Relying on a narrow set of thinking tools is like wearing a mental straight jacket. Your cognitive range of motion is limited. When your set of mental models is limited, so is your potential for finding a solution. In order to unleash your full potential, you have to collect a range of mental models. You have to build out your toolbox. Thus, the secret to great thinking is to learn and employ a variety of mental models.

Expanding Your Set of Mental Models

The process of accumulating mental models is somewhat like improving your vision. Each eye can see something on its own. But if you cover one of them, you lose part of the scene. It’s impossible to see the full picture when you’re only looking through one eye. Similarly, mental models provide an internal picture of how the world works. We should continuously upgrade and improve the quality of this picture. This means reading widely from good books, studying the fundamentals of seemingly unrelated fields, and learning from people with wildly different life experiences. 4 The mind's eye needs a variety of mental models to piece together a complete picture of how the world works. The more sources you have to draw upon, the clearer your thinking becomes. As the philosopher Alain de Botton notes, “The chief enemy of good decisions is a lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem.”

The Pursuit of Liquid Knowledge

In school, we tend to separate knowledge into different silos—biology, economics, history, physics, philosophy. In the real world, information is rarely divided into neatly defined categories. In the words of Charlie Munger, “All the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department.” 5 World-class thinkers are often silo-free thinkers. They avoid looking at life through the lens of one subject. Instead, they develop “liquid knowledge” that flows easily from one topic to the next. This is why it is important to not only learn new mental models, but to consider how they connect with one another. Creativity and innovation often arise at the intersection of ideas. By spotting the links between various mental models, you can identify solutions that most people overlook.

Tools for Thinking Better

Here's the good news: You don't need to master every detail of every subject to become a world-class thinker. Of all the mental models humankind has generated throughout history, there are just a few dozen that you need to learn to have a firm grasp of how the world works. Many of the most important mental models are the big ideas from disciplines like biology, chemistry, physics, economics, mathematics, psychology, philosophy. Each field has a few mental models that form the backbone of the topic. For example, some of the pillar mental models from economics include ideas like Incentives, Scarcity, and Economies of Scale. If you can master the fundamentals of each discipline, then you can develop a remarkably accurate and useful picture of life. To quote Charlie Munger again, “80 or 90 important models will carry about 90 percent of the freight in making you a worldly-wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight.” 6 I've made it a personal mission to uncover the big models that carry the heavy freight in life. After researching more than 1,000 different mental models, I gradually narrowed it down to a few dozen that matter most. I've written about some of them previously, like entropy and inversion, and I'll be covering more of them in the future. If you're interested, you can browse my slowly expanding list of mental models. My hope is to create a list of the most important mental models from a wide range of disciplines and explain them in a way that is not only easy to understand, but also meaningful and practical to the daily life of the average person. With any luck, we can all learn how to think just a little bit better.

This article was written by James Clear and appeared on his blog

Footnotes

Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman. Pages 86-87.

Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman. Pages 86-87.

This idea is sometimes called The Law of the Instrument or Man With a Hammer Syndrome. The original phrase comes from Abraham Kaplan's book, The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science. On page 28 he writes, “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”

With regards to the importance of reading widely, a quote from the wonderful writer Haruki Murakami comes to mind, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

“A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business” by Charles Munger. Speech at USC Business School. 1994.

“A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business” by Charles Munger. Speech at USC Business School. 1994.

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