Eric Barker Quotes

Traits like verbal fluency, adaptability, impulsivity, and humility are stable from childhood through adulthood.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Fundamentally, your brain doesn’t like or want to believe in randomness. It always believes you have some control, even when you don’t.

It may be delusional but we’re happier deluded. And delusion ironically makes us perform better on average.

We spend too much time trying to be “good” when good is often merely average. To be great we must be different

Sonja Lyubomirsky published in the Journal of Career Assessment, success does not lead to happiness as often as happiness leads to success

So what is meaning? Meaning, for the human mind, comes in the form of the stories we tell ourselves about the world. This is why so many people believe in fate or say things were “meant to be.” Having a story about the meaning of life helps us to cope with hard times. Not only do we naturally see the world this way, but frankly we can’t not tell stories.

You were successful because you happened to be in an environment where your biases and predispositions and talents and abilities all happened to align neatly with those things that would produce success in that environment.

So keep trying new things. It makes you luckier. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. When there’s no clear path to success, no relevant model for what you’re trying to achieve, trying crazy things may be the only way to solve the issue.

Why do jerks succeed? Sure, some of it’s duplicity and evil, but there’s something we can learn from them in good conscience: they’re assertive about what they want, and they’re not afraid to let others know about what they’ve achieved.

Ironically, even the most noted researcher in the field of grit, Angela Duckworth, agrees with this. In her paper “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” she says, “A strong desire for novelty and a low threshold for frustration may be adaptive earlier in life: Moving on from dead-end pursuits is essential to the discovery of more promising paths.

We spend too much time trying to be “good” when good is often merely average. To be great we must be different. And that doesn’t come from trying to follow society’s vision of what is best, because society doesn’t always know what it needs. More often being the best means just being the best version of you.

What’s shocking is that when asked to make predictions, depressed people are more accurate than optimists. It’s called “depressive realism.” The world can be a harsh place. Optimists lie to themselves. But if we all stop believing anything can change, nothing ever will. We need a bit of fantasy to keep us going.

Here’s the problem: We love having choices. We hate making choices. Having choices means having possibilities. Making choices means losing possibilities. And having so many choices increases the chance of regret.

Frankl said, “What is to give light must endure burning.

Why might this be the case? The answer is a bit frightening, actually. Research shows that you don’t actually need to know more to be seen as a leader. Merely by speaking first and speaking often — very extroverted behavior — people come to be seen as El Jefe. Meanwhile, other studies show that those who initially act shy in groups are perceived as less intelligent.