WSJ: “Staying active and involved isn’t only the best way to enjoy life but also to prolong it. This goes beyond the well-known effects of exercise on physical and mental health. Being involved in purposeful activities that require mental engagement, such as hobbies, social interactions and volunteering, has been shown to improve resilience and reduce dementia. Brain research confirms that cognitive involvement in process-based activities increases brain plasticity, enriches connections between neurons and lowers neurodegeneration. This helps explain why retirees who stop working but don’t fill their days with other demanding activities experience an especially steep cognitive decline.”
Shane Parrish: “Feedback loops are the engines of growth and change. They’re the mechanisms by which the output of a system influences its input. Complex systems often have many feedback loops, and it can be hard to appreciate how adjusting to feedback in one part of the system will affect the rest. Using feedback loops as a mental model begins with noticing the feedback you give and respond to daily. The model also provides insight into the value of iterations in adjusting based on the feedback you receive. With this lens, you gain insight into where to direct system changes based on feedback and the pace you need to go to monitor the impacts. Feedback loops are what make systems dynamic. Without feedback, a system does the same thing over and over. Understand them, respect them, and use them wisely.”
Contrary Research: “What’s old is becoming new. Increasingly, computing is returning to the original vision of its founding days — autonomous reasoning machines that can perform tasks independent of direct human manipulation. McKinsey estimates $4.4 trillion of annual economic value creation globally due to AI, largely driven by AI agents. Andrew Ng has described agentic AI as “the most important trend to pay attention to” in November 2024. The introduction of agents in almost every use case is expected to be the primary driver of value as AI is increasingly deployed, and it is expected to increase in volume by 45% over the next five years. More agents, everywhere. 2025 is expected to be the year of the AI agent. The number of enterprise applications with agentic AI is projected to increase to 33% by 2028, up from 1% today.”
WSJ: “The dot.com boom and bust showed that big bets on ambitious technologies can pay off in the long run. The five most valuable listed companies globally—and six of the top seven—are tech companies from that era or ones that grew from seeds planted then. In other words, the dot-com bubble had elements of what some investors call “good bubbles” that fuel rapid adoption of revolutionary technology. That is opposed to “bad bubbles” in which people speculate on assets that don’t make the economy more productive—things like tulip bulbs, Beanie Babies or houses in the Arizona desert.”
HBR on staying focused: “Cultivate meta-awareness by pausing to question your impulses, and redirecting your attention to transform unconscious habits into deliberate choices. Track your daily energy levels to identify your chronotype and schedule demanding tasks during your peak hours, and less-complex work for when your focus dips. Set emotional goals by visualizing how you want to feel at the end of your day — calm, proud, or energized — and let those desired emotions guide your behavior and your focus.”
