Building A Second Brain helps us remember connections, ideas, inspirations, and insights. Using contemporary technologies and networks increases our intelligence.

This approach makes and preserves concepts. It's a straightforward, practical way to construct a second brain—a remote, centralized digital store for your knowledge and its sources.

How to build ‘The Second Brain’

Have you forgotten any brilliant ideas? What insights have you ignored?

We're pressured to read, listen, and watch informative content. Where did the data go? What happened?

Our brains can store few thoughts at once. Our brains aren't idea banks.

Building a Second Brain helps us remember thoughts, connections, and insights. Using digital technologies and networks expands our minds.

Ten Rules for Creating a Second Brain

1. Creative Stealing

Instead of starting from scratch, integrate other people's ideas with your own.

This way, you won't waste hours starting from scratch and can focus on achieving your goals.

Users of Notion can utilize and customize each other's templates.

2. The Habit of Capture

We must record every idea, concept, or piece of information that catches our attention since our minds are fragile.

When reading a book, listening to a podcast, or engaging in any other topic-related activity, save and use anything that resonates with you.

3. Recycle Your Ideas

Reusing our own ideas across projects might be advantageous since it helps us tie new information to what we already know and avoids us from starting a project with no ideas.

4. Projects Outside of Category

Instead of saving an idea in a folder, group it with documents for a project or activity.

If you want to be more productive, gather suggestions.

5. Burns Slowly

Even if you could finish a job, work, or activity if you focused on it, you shouldn't.

You'll get tired and can't advance many projects. It's easier to divide your routine into daily tasks.

Few hours of daily study is more productive and healthier than entire nights.

6. Begin with a surplus

Instead of starting with a blank sheet when tackling a new subject, utilise previous articles and research.

You may have read or saved related material.

7. Intermediate Packets

A bunch of essay facts.

You can utilize it as a document's section or paragraph for different tasks.

Memorize useful information so you can use it later.

8. You only know what you make

We can see, hear, and read about anything.

What matters is what we do with the information, whether that's summarizing it or writing about it.

9. Make it simpler for yourself in the future.

Create documents or files that your future self can easily understand. Use your own words, mind maps, or explanations.

10. Keep your thoughts flowing.

If you don't employ the knowledge in your second brain, it's useless.

Few people exercise despite knowing its benefits.

Conclusion:

• You may continually move your activities and goals closer to completion by organizing and applying your information in a way that is results-focused.

• Profit from the information economy's explosive growth by turning your specialized knowledge into cash.

• Make up original patterns and linkages between topics.

• You may reduce stress and information overload by appropriately curating and managing your personal information stream.

• Learn how to apply your significant experience and specific knowledge to a new job, business, or profession.

• Without having to adhere to tight, time-consuming constraints, accumulate a body of relevant knowledge and concepts over time.

• Take advantage of all the learning materials that are at your disposal, including podcasts, online courses, webinars, books, and articles.

How to reframe irritation and go forward

“… before you can figure out where you are going, you need to know where you are, and once you know and accept where you are, you can design your way to where you want to be.” — Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

“You’ve been here before. But there are some new ingredients this time. What can tell yourself that will make you understand that now isn’t just like last year? That there’s something new in this August.”

My coach paused. I sighed, inhaled deeply, and considered her question.

What could I say? I simply needed a plan from her so everything would fall into place and I could be the happy, successful person I want to be.

Time passed. My mind was exhausted from running all morning, all summer, or the last five years, searching for what to do next and how to get there.

Calmer, I remembered that my coach's inquiry had benefited me throughout the summer. The month before our call, I read Designing Your Work Life — How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work from Standford University’s Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

A passage in their book felt like a lifeline: “We have something important to say to you: Wherever you are in your work life, whatever job you are doing, it’s good enough. For now. Not forever. For now.”

As I remembered this book on the coaching call, I wondered if I could embrace where I am in August and say my job life is good enough for now. Only temporarily.

I've done that since. I'm getting unstuck.

Here's how you can take the first step in any area where you feel stuck.

How to acquire the perspective of "Good enough for now" for yourself

We’ve all heard the advice to just make the best of a bad situation. That´s not bad advice, but if you only make the best of a bad situation, you are still in a bad situation. It doesn’t get to the root of the problem or offer an opportunity to change the situation. You’re more cheerfully navigating lousiness, which is an improvement, but not much of one and rather hard to sustain over time.” — Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

Reframing Burnett at Evans says good enough for now is the key to being happier at work. Because, as they write, a designer always has options.

Choosing to believe things are good enough for now is liberating. It helps us feel less victimized and less judged. Accepting our situation helps us become unstuck.

Let's break down the process, which designers call constructing your way ahead, into steps you can take today.

Writing helps get started. First, write down your challenge and why it's essential to you. If pen and paper help, try this strategy:

• Make the decision to accept the circumstance as it is. Designers always begin by acknowledging the truth of the situation. You now refrain from passing judgment. Instead, you simply describe the situation as accurately as you can. This frees us from negative thought patterns that prevent us from seeing the big picture and instead keep us in a tunnel of negativity.

• Look for a reframing right now. Begin with good enough for the moment. Take note of how your body feels as a result. Tell yourself repeatedly that whatever is occurring is sufficient for the time being. Not always, but just now. If you want to, you can even put it in writing and repeatedly breathe it in, almost like a mantra.

• You can select a reframe that is more relevant to your situation once you've decided that you're good enough for now and have allowed yourself to believe it. Try to find another perspective that is possible, for instance, if you feel unappreciated at work and your perspective of I need to use and be recognized for all my new skills in my job is making you sad and making you want to resign. For instance, I can learn from others at work and occasionally put my new abilities to use.

• After that, leave your mind and act in accordance with your new perspective. Utilize the designer's bias for action to test something out and create a prototype that you can learn from. Your beginning point for creating experiences that will support the new viewpoint derived from the aforementioned point is the new perspective itself. By doing this, you recognize a circumstance at work where you can provide value to yourself or your workplace and then take appropriate action. Send two or three coworkers from whom you wish to learn anything an email, for instance, asking them to get together for coffee or a talk.

Choose tiny, doable actions. You prioritize them at work.

Let's assume you're feeling disconnected at work, so you make a list of folks you may visit each morning or invite to lunch. If you're feeling unmotivated and tired, take a daily walk and treat yourself to a decent coffee.

This may be plenty for now. If you want to take this procedure further, use Burnett and Evans' internet tools and frameworks.

Developing the daily practice of reframing

“We’re not discontented kids in the backseat of the family minivan, but how many of us live our lives, especially our work lives, as if we are?” — Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

I choose the good enough for me perspective every day, often. No quick fix. Am a failing? Maybe a little bit, but I like to think of it more as building muscle.

This way, every time I tell myself it's ok, I hear you. For now, that muscle gets stronger.

Hopefully, reframing will become so natural for us that it will become a habit, and not a technique anymore.

If you feel like you’re stuck in your career or at work, the reframe of Good enough, for now, might be valuable, so just go ahead and try it out right now.

And while you’re playing with this, why not think of other areas of your life too, like your relationships, where you live — even your writing, and see if you can feel a shift?

An email capturing Steve Jobs's philosophy.

Steve Jobs may have been the most inspired and driven entrepreneur.

He worked on projects because he wanted to leave a legacy.

Steve Jobs' final email to himself encapsulated his philosophy.

After his death from pancreatic cancer in October 2011, Laurene Powell Jobs released the email. He was 56.

Read: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (#BestSeller)

The Email:

September 2010 Steve Jobs email:

“I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow, I do not breed or perfect the seeds.” “I do not make my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine,” he continued. “I did not discover the mathematics I use… I am moved by music I did not create myself.”

Jobs ended his email by reflecting on how others created everything he uses.

He wrote:

“When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.”

The Apple co-founder concluded by praising humanity.

“I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object-oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well-being,” he concluded.

The email was made public as a part of the Steve Jobs Archive, a website that was launched in tribute to his legacy.

Steve Jobs' widow founded the internet archive. Apple CEO Tim Cook and former design leader Jony Ive were prominent guests.

Steve Jobs has always inspired because he shows how even the best can be improved.

High expectations were always there, and they were consistently met.

We miss him because he was one of the few with lifelong enthusiasm and persona.

“I think if I had time to do something else, I would be so excited to go after this company right now.”

Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, recently discussed AI's present and future.

Open AI is important. They're creating the cyberpunk and sci-fi worlds.

They use the most advanced algorithms and data sets.

GPT-3...sound familiar? Open AI built most copyrighting software. Peppertype, Jasper AI, Rytr. If you've used any, you'll be shocked by the quality.

Open AI isn't only GPT-3. They created DallE-2 and Whisper (a speech recognition software released last week).

What will they do next? What's the next great chance?

Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, recently gave a lecture about the next trillion-dollar AI opportunity.

Who is the organization behind Open AI?

Open AI first. If you know, skip it.

Open AI is one of the earliest private AI startups. Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and Rebekah Mercer established OpenAI in December 2015.

OpenAI has helped its citizens and AI since its birth.

They have scary-good algorithms.

Their GPT-3 natural language processing program is excellent.

The algorithm's exponential growth is astounding. GPT-2 came out in November 2019. May 2020 brought GPT-3.

Massive computation and datasets improved the technique in just a year. New York Times said GPT-3 could write like a human.

Same for Dall-E. Dall-E 2 was announced in April 2022. Dall-E 2 won a Colorado art contest.

Open AI's algorithms challenge jobs we thought required human innovation.

So what does Sam Altman think?

The Present Situation and AI's Limitations

During the interview, Sam states that we are still at the tip of the iceberg.

So I think so far, we’ve been in the realm where you can do an incredible copywriting business or you can do an education service or whatever. But I don’t think we’ve yet seen the people go after the trillion dollar take on Google.

He's right that AI can't generate net new human knowledge. It can train and synthesize vast amounts of knowledge, but it simply reproduces human work.

“It’s not going to cure cancer. It’s not going to add to the sum total of human scientific knowledge.”

But the key word is yet.

And that is what I think will turn out to be wrong that most surprises the current experts in the field.

Reinforcing his point that massive innovations are yet to come.

But where?

The Next $1 Trillion AI Company

Sam predicts a bio or genomic breakthrough.

There’s been some promising work in genomics, but stuff on a bench top hasn’t really impacted it. I think that’s going to change. And I think this is one of these areas where there will be these new $100 billion to $1 trillion companies started, and those areas are rare.

Avoid human trials since they take time. Bio-materials or simulators are suitable beginning points.

AI may have a breakthrough. DeepMind, an OpenAI competitor, has developed AlphaFold to predict protein 3D structures.

It could change how we see proteins and their function. AlphaFold could provide fresh understanding into how proteins work and diseases originate by revealing their structure. This could lead to Alzheimer's and cancer treatments. AlphaFold could speed up medication development by revealing how proteins interact with medicines.

Deep Mind offered 200 million protein structures for scientists to download (including sustainability, food insecurity, and neglected diseases).

Being in AI for 4+ years, I'm amazed at the progress. We're past the hype cycle, as evidenced by the collapse of AI startups like C3 AI, and have entered a productive phase.

We'll see innovative enterprises that could replace Google and other trillion-dollar companies.

What happens after AI adoption is scary and unpredictable. How will AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) affect us? Highly autonomous systems that exceed humans at valuable work (Open AI)

My guess is that the things that we’ll have to figure out are how we think about fairly distributing wealth, access to AGI systems, which will be the commodity of the realm, and governance, how we collectively decide what they can do, what they don’t do, things like that. And I think figuring out the answer to those questions is going to just be huge. — Sam Altman CEO

Peter Thiel studied philosophy as an undergraduate.

Peter Thiel has $7.36 billion.

Peter is a world-ranked chess player, has a legal degree, and has written profitable novels.

In 1999, he co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin, which merged with X.com.

Peter Thiel made $55 million after selling the company to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

You may be wondering…

How did Peter turn $55 million into his now multi-billion dollar net worth?

One amazing investment?

Facebook.

Thiel was Facebook's first external investor. He bought 10% of the company for $500,000 in 2004.

This investment returned 159% annually, 200x in 8 years.

By 2012, Thiel sold almost all his Facebook shares, becoming a billionaire.

What was the investment thesis of Peter?

This investment appeared ridiculous. Facebook was an innovative startup.

Thiel's $500,000 contribution transformed Facebook.

Harvard students have access to Facebook's 8 features and 1 photo per profile.

How did Peter determine that this would be a wise investment, then?

Facebook is a mimetic desire machine.

Social media's popularity is odd. Why peek at strangers' images on a computer?

Peter Thiel studied under French thinker Rene Girard at Stanford.

Mimetic Desire explains social media's success.

Mimetic Desire is the idea that humans desire things simply because other people do.

If nobody wanted it, would you?

Would you desire a family, a luxury car, or expensive clothes if no one else did? Girard says no.

People we admire affect our aspirations because we're social animals. Every person has a role model.

Our nonreligious culture implies role models are increasingly other humans, not God.

The idea explains why social media influencers are so powerful.

Why would Andrew Tate or Kim Kardashian matter if people weren't mimetic?

Humanity is fundamentally motivated by social comparison.

Facebook takes advantage of this need for social comparison, and puts it on a global scale.

It aggregates photographs and updates from millions of individuals.

Facebook mobile allows 24/7 social comparison.

Thiel studied mimetic desire with Girard and realized Facebook exploits the urge for social comparison to gain money.

Social media is more significant and influential than ever, despite Facebook's decline.

Thiel and Girard show that applied philosophy (particularly in business) can be immensely profitable.

Will Tesla be able to maintain its lead in the EV market for very long?

This is one of the most pressing issues in the American auto sector today. One positive aspect of Tesla is the company's devoted customer base and recognizable name recognition (similar to Apple). It also invests more in research and development per vehicle than its rivals and has a head start in EV production.

Conversely, established automakers like Volkswagen are actively plotting their strategy to surpass Tesla. As the current market leaders, they have decades of experience in the auto industry and are spending billions to catch up.

We've visualized data from the EPA's 2022 Automotive Trends Report to bring you up to speed on this developing story.

Info for the Model Year of 2021

The full production data used in this infographic is for the 2021 model year, but it comes from a report for 2022.

Combined EV and PHEV output is shown in the table below (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle).

It is important to note that Toyota and Stellantis, the two largest legacy automakers in this dataset, only produced PHEVs. Toyota's first electric vehicle, the bZ4X, won't hit the market until 2023.

Stellantis seems to be falling even further behind, despite having enormous unrealized potential in its Jeep and Ram brands. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in a recent interview that the firm has budgeted $36 billion for electrification and software.

Legacy Brands with the Most Momentum

In the race to develop electric vehicles, some long-standing manufacturers have gotten the jump on their rivals.

Volkswagen, one of these storied manufacturers, has made a significant investment in electric vehicles (EVs) in the wake of the Dieselgate scandal. The company plans to roll out multiple EV models, including the ID.3 hatchback, ID.4 SUV, and ID. Buzz, with the goal of producing 22 million EVs by 2028. (an electric revival of the classic Microbus).

Even Ford is keeping up, having just announced an EV investment of $22 billion between 2021 and 2025. In November of 2022, the company manufactured their 150,000th Mustang Mach-E, and by the end of 2023, they hoped to have 270,000 of them in circulation.

Additionally, over 200,000 F-150 Lightnings have been reserved since Ford announced the truck. The Lightning is scheduled to have a production run of 15,000 in 2022, 55,000 in 2023, and 80,000 in 2024. Ford's main competitor in the electric pickup truck segment, Rivian, is on track to sell 25,000 vehicles by 2022.