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The Observe and Rapport Newsletter
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A weekly guide of my favorite books, articles, products, and lifestyle habits.
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December 30th, 2022 | by Kyle Brennan
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I know I normally send these newsletters out on Friday, but I'm off all week and I couldn't wait to share what I worked on this week. Hope you enjoy!
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6 Things I Learned This Week
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The human mind is antifragile, meaning that it actually gets better with adversity. Your brain is designed to resist what you really want. Humans are not wired to be happy, we are wired to be comfortable. Anything outside our realm of comfort feels threatening until we are familiar with it.
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Trees live off each other. When a single Douglas fir tree is struck by lightning, as many as 50 trees in the surrounding area will also die as a result of the nutrients lost from the one tree they rely on.
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Things that didn't exist on Christmas 20 years ago - iPhone, Facebook YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Android, Bitcoin, Tesla, iPad, Gmail, Netflix streaming, Amazon Prime, Slack, Reddit, Etsy, WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Maps, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Chrome, Zoom, Skype, Spotify, Airbnb, Uber
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Things are getting more convenient but less satisfying. Modern civilization is making a lot of things "frictionless". Less friction is definitely more convenient but it makes us forget that a lot of "real-life" frictions (difficulties, uncomfortable conversations, etc.) are what make us grow.
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Addiction is where you go from something taking you from normal to good to it taking you from bad to normal. Taking or doing something to "feel normal" is a slippery slope. If you're not able to go without it for 30 days, you likely have a reliance on it.
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X-Rays, Microwaves, Wi-Fi, and purple are all just wavelengths of light, meaning that just like certain animals don't have the visible spectrum to see the color green, we humans don't have the visible spectrum to see the "color" of Wifi or microwave. It's invisible to us, but it exists.
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What I'm Reading
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It's ok to give up on a book.
Your time is your most valuable resource; don't waste it reading books you don't enjoy. There's no sense of pride in finishing a 400-page book that you never enjoyed, or better yet, didn't even understand. Just because the book you're reading is considered a "classic" or a "must-read" or it was recommended to you by a close friend, it doesn't mean you have to finish it, or like it for that matter.
If you don't like it you don't have to read it.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a messy, self-serious heap of obscure references and ungracious philosophy wrapped in a mountain of bad allegory. And yet, there are moments of brilliance hidden in the midden pile of Nietzsche's impenetrable poetry and prose that almost make it worth the effort. It's filled with existential thought, a stinging critique of the very nature of values and beliefs. The events in the book are more like Biblical parables than a plot unfolding, except that the lesson is not, "Thou Shalt" but "Why should I?"
I gave up on this book. There were some great lines in the book and I understand why it's considered an important work from its time. But for me, it just wasn't enjoyable enough to continue. After 100 or so pages, I decided it wasn't worth the effort to keep plodding through a difficult text.
Rating: 2.1 / 5 ⭐️⭐️
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I may have to add this as a late contender to my top books of the year. It's a bit of a combination of insights from two of my favorites from this year - The Power of Now and The Untethered Soul
The unique part of this book is that it talks primarily about the paradox of Self-Sabotage.
Brianna Wiest explains that there is nothing holding you back in life more than yourself and that self-sabotage is not a way we hurt ourselves; it's actually a way we try to protect ourselves.
We are not wired to be happy; we are wired to be comfortable. Your brain is designed to resist what you really want. We often resist most deeply the things we want most. But your head wants to constantly seek out situations and experiences that will affirm itself.
The Mountain is You provides instruction that will allow each of us to get past that temporary discomfort in order to get to the bottom of our subconscious desires and make them familiar
Rating: 4.8 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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What I'm Listening To
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I'm incredibly jealous of the host of Founders, David Senra, because he has essentially created the exact job that I want - reading books and then talking about them on a podcast. Except, what's unique to David is that he only speaks about biographies. In his ~1-hour episodes, he curates the best highlights, insights, and lessons from the person's life - their approach to business, their shortcomings, and their secrets to success.
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Here are a couple of good ones to get started
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My Top 10 Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2022
I also compiled a list of my favorite podcast episode from this year. Check out the link on Twitter.
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@observe_rapport: 10 things I learned from the books I read this year. What lessons did you learn from the books you read?
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Follow My Writing on Medium!
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Medium is a an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic. While I will continue to post my articles on observeandrapport.com, my posts will unquestionably get more exposure on a social site like Medium.
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So stop what you're doing right now and please follow my new page on Medium. I can start monetizing once I hit 100 followers - I currently have 6...
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Today's Medium Post
Lastest Podcast Episode
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Keith and Kyle sit down to discuss Christmas in the '90s, the complexity of Nietzsche, the adventures of Teddy Roosevelt, and a year-end review.
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Books discussed in this episode:
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Quote of the Week
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You change your life when you start doing the truly scary thing - showing up exactly as you are.
-Brianna Wiest, The Mountain is You
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Reminder to share this newsletter with friends and family! Subscribe link here
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What's on My Reading List?
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Kyle's Published Work
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33 Life Lessons on My 33rd Birthday
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Thirty-three was a big one. Mostly because I became a dad. Our daughter was born on New Year’s Eve — a fitting arrival for a kid destined to reset everything. It’s been a beautiful, if slightly sleep-deprived blur ever since. I’ve only been “Dad” for less than ten months, but if I’m being honest, I’ve been preparing for the role for over …
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Depth Over Downloads: Why Spending Time with Books Still Matters
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Everyone wants faster information. But no one asks if faster information leads to better understanding — or a better life. In the age of AI and tweet-sized wisdom, we’ve confused information with transformation. But there’s a massive difference between knowing what a book says and being changed by it. The Delusion of Instant Learning In a recent interview, political journalist Ezra Klein admitted he once believed …
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The Jack Reacher Approach to Never Being Caught Off Guard
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There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.’ Either way, nothing happens.” —Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia I don’t read much fiction, but I’ve always been hooked on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. He’s not your typical …
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