Tools for Change – March 2023

Give People a Reason to Find You Interesting…

Welcome to the latest edition the monthly newsletter, Tools for Change – A Convenient Digest and Curated Collection of Information, Tools and Resources to Help You in Your Life and Work

New This Month on The Living a Life in Full Podcast

March’s guest on my podcast is Robin Landa on Strategic Creativity, Effective Ideation, and The New Art of Ideas

A great idea presents as a well-formulated thought or plan of action that spurs growth, change, advancement, adaptation, or new insight. Worthwhile ideas move the needle; they can change the playing field altogether. 

One of the most innovative thinkers in this area is Professor Robin Landa. Named “one of the great teachers of our time” by the Carnegie Foundation, she has taught university students as well as industry professionals how to generate worthwhile ideas. It’s no surprise people consider Robin a creativity authority, but she’s more than that, as she uses her creative powers for good, not evil.

In this episode we do a deep dive into her latest book, The New Art of Ideas. We chat about how she started her career as a writer and academic—and the routines she has created that are "non-negotiable" in order to maintain her output.

Robin is a rare combination of creative, academic, author, humanitarian, and firebrand, that does much for the good of the world and helps so many others to live their lives in full. Listen in to learn what Robin has to say about living a strategically creative life. You won’t be disappointed.

Be sure to tune in on your favorite platform, or if you’re not into podcasts, read all about it on my LinkedIn Top Voice post.

Well Said

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” - Stephen Hawking

“I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent. I want to really test it out and say, ‘Okay, you're not that good. You just reached the level here.’ I don't ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate.” - Quentin Tarantino

“One sign that determination matters more than talent: there are lots of talented people who never achieve anything, but not that many determined people who don't.” - Paul Graham

Tools for Productivity

How a nonlinear workday might help you get more done - It’s about working according to your natural energy levels, and not forcing yourself to be productive.

The best 8 apps to help you focus and block distractions. Need some extra help staying on task these days? Thankfully, we can actually use the biggest culprit — technology — to our advantage. Check out this post to discover eight unique apps for better focus and productivity.

Habit Stacking: How to keep up with everything. If you feel like you just don't have time to do it all, habit stacking is one technique you might want to start applying to your life to get more done with the time you do have. Read more to discover how to use the method and hack your to-do list.

Tools for Living Your Life in Full

Why Monday is the Best Day for Setting New Goals - One surprising way to more reliably achieve your goals is to start pursuing them on strategically chosen days. A new study finds that you are more likely to achieve goals set on days that feel like a "fresh start." 

Why Success Doesn’t Lead to Satisfaction - Many of us assume that success and happiness are intertwined. We convince ourselves that we’ll be happy once we achieve a certain position, salary or award. But research tells us this approach is a recipe for misery. The relentless pursuit of success can never truly make you happy because there is always more success to be had. So what’s the solution? It begins with asking yourself how much achievement/status/income is enough.

6 strategies that will make you a better reader -- and person - Simple advice to help you get more out of the books you read, from Ryan Holiday.

What’s Important to You? 10 Ways to Figure It Out - Consider these tips to discover significant areas in your life.

Risk and Regret - David Cassidy’s last words were, “So much wasted time.” What a terrible thing to realize when it’s too late. And I wonder if it’ll become more common as many of us spend our days aimlessly scrolling our phones.

Tools for Fitness and Performance

Here's a mobility routine you can do on your active rest days (or post-workout) to stay mobile and flexible from pal Krista Striker (and past guest on my show). This is the routine she typically does to stay flexible and injury-free.

Tools for Your Career

5 things you can do when someone talks over you - If you’re in a situation where you’re being interrupted, here’s how to respond professionally.

Have you been ‘quietly promoted’? Here’s what to look out for - Have you ever been asked to take on significantly more work without a change in title or a raise?

5 science-backed tactics to help you work with difficult people - The world is filled with “difficult” people. So you must master the art of transforming difficult situations with difficult people into productive ones.

How to respond when a coworker says something offensive - In their new book, ‘Say the Right Thing,’ two NYU law professors share ways to tactfully respond to the folks who still simply don’t get it.

Bored at work? This is probably why

3 Ways to fold humor and humanity into your work emails.

Change The Way You Work Aaron Dignan discusses what might be stopping us from doing our best work, and what separates a permission-based culture from a constraints-based one. Pair with: Dustin Moskovitz on eliminating work about work.

“I’ve interviewed thousands of job candidates.” Here’s how to stand out. Demonstrating self-awareness is critical to nailing your next job interview.

My Most Valuable Season - The youngest part of the U.S. workforce hasn’t experienced large scale layoffs, seen what effective leadership amidst a pronounced economic downturn looks like, witnessed strong mentorship during these moments, watched teams rally together, and ultimately seen the impact these experiences can have on their careers. 

Tools for Investing

FOMO: The Worst Financial Trait - A funny thing about money is that it’s a negative art. You often have a better chance of accumulating more of it by getting rid of bad traits vs. acquiring good ones. Most ambitious people’s intuition is to ask, “How can I get smarter? More informed? Find new skills?” In many fields those are the right questions. Money is a rare exception where asking questions like, “How can I be less dumb, less greedy, less impatient?” can be more effective.

How the world worked from 1945 until now—and what it means for the future - by Ray Dalio

Lessons from Charlie Munger at the 2023 DJCO Meeting

Berkshire Hathaway as an Income Stock?

Tools Just for Fun

101 Very Simple Habits That Will Improve Your Life Today.

3 Science-based strategies to increase your creativity

20 Inventions That Changed the World - From the humble wheel to X-rays, some inventions leave a monumental impression on the world. Explore the 20 most impactful inventions in history and how they changed the world as we know it. 

That’s interesting: A burlesque troupe is fundraising for a documentary. The weird part? The troupe is dedicated to the music of parody artist “Weird Al” Yankovic.

How to win at Monopoly and lose all your friends in the process.

Tools for Leadership

5 things I learned in my first year as an executive leader - and what I wish I knew before I took the job.

Hold your team accountable with compassion, not fear. Managers have the challenging job of holding their team responsible while also acknowledging the real need for compassion in the workplace. In this article, discover some techniques you might not have thought of to help instill a sense of accountability in your team while making room for kindness and effective feedback.

Tools for Founders

LSI Emerging Medtech Summit 2023 - The LSI Emerging Medtech Summit uniquely combines all of the key stakeholders and facilitates substantive interactions - whether formally in talks, panels and fireside chats or spontaneously in the hallways. This is the must-attend event for investors and innovators. Could this be the new JPM? I hope to see you there!

Why to Not Not Start A Startup - Paul Graham’s famous essay covering the most common reasons people choose to avoid creating a startup, and the best advice for remaining undeterred and starting one anyway.

Tools for Relationships

What Makes People Happy? Harvard Study Says Money Isn’t the Most Important Factor - The single most reliable way to invest in your future happiness is to strengthen your social life, research has found. According to a longitudinal study that has been tracking the happiness of its participants since the 1930s, people who are happy (and healthy) in their 80s are the ones who had the strongest social ties in their 50s.

Tools for AI

10 Productivity Hacks in ChatGPT

A Primer on ChatGPT

The truth is out there, and AI is looking for it. An international group of scientists has begun to use AI to hunt for aliens—and not by asking ChatGPT “Tell me where aliens are located in the style of Pulp Fiction.” Instead, they’re using machine-learning algorithms to sift through huge quantities of data to detect alien transmitters on distant planets. So far, the tech has helped researchers home in on eight signals with possible extraterrestrial origins (though they disappeared when scientists tried to find them again—those little green creatures are wily).

3 Free ChatGPT Chrome extensions to make you more productive - Better writing, better searches, better engagement—all for free with ChatGPT.

From Bing to Sydney - Ben Thompson spends hours talking to Bing Chat and…it’s wild. “I feel like I have crossed the Rubicon. My interaction today with Sydney was completely unlike any other interaction I have had with a computer.”

Tools for Web3

Web3 Breakdowns - Mike Dudas – founder and general partner at 6th Man Ventures. Learn about Mike’s background at Google and Venmo, what propelled him to start The Block and grow it into one of the leading crypto news outlets, and how he’s approaching his new role as a venture investor.

Operation Choke Point 2.0 is Underway, and Crypto is in its Crosshairs - The Biden Administration is quietly trying to ban crypto, unplugging crypto firms from the banking sector. Web3 host, Eric Golden, says this is the most important thing to read and debate on the space right now.

Tools to Be Aware of What’s Impacting Health & Medicine 

5 Ways ChatGPT Will Change Healthcare Forever, For Better

When M.D. is a Machine Doctor 

What is GenerativeAI? Visually explained here by Generative AI. 

Performance of ChatGPT on USMLE: Potential for AI-assisted medical education using large language models 

The Many Ways VR is Getting Real - er

‘My Watch Thinks I’m Dead’ 

Remote prescribing in limbo as federal Covid emergency ends 

Percentage of Persons Who Used Telemedicine During the Past 12 Months, by Age Group 

Researchers have developed ECG-based machine learning models to predict risk of mortality among patients presenting to an emergency department or hospital for any reason. 

There are now more than 520 marker-cleared AI medical algorithms available in the United States, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as of January 2023. See the complete list of FDA-cleared algorithms.

Tools for Health and Wellness

A Happy Memory Can Help You Fall Asleep, if You Know How to Use It - Want to fall asleep faster? Try replaying a happy memory or imagining a day at the beach. Savoring positive experience helps people overcome worry and drift off to sleep faster, without the monotony of counting sheep.

3 Steps to Age Exuberantly - Are most of your friends around your age? You might want to find a few who are younger. Research suggests that as people age, spending time with sharp, younger people can stimulate and support their own mental functioning.

Enjoying Nature May Lessen the Need for Some Medications - It’s well-known that spending time in nature can support our health, but a new study has found the benefits are more significant than we previously understood. Research suggests the outdoors can reduce the need for medication for treating depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, asthma, and insomnia.

5 habits to build mental strength in 2023 - Embrace your full potential in your personal life and at work.

“How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair?” by David Brooks for The New York Times. For related philosophies and tools that have literally saved my life, please start here: “Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide” and projects supported by the Saisei Foundation. If you are unable to read the NYT article at the first link, try this one.

How to optimize your anxiety, rather than let it hold you back- These tips can work no matter your organization.

Tools for Public Health

An Even Deadlier Pandemic Could Soon Be Here 

The next generation of coronavirus vaccines: a graphical guide 

Paxlovid remains highly effective on Omicron variants

The Public Health National Center for Innovations

Program for Appropriate Technology in Health

Public Health Foundation

The Global Health Benefits of Going Net Zero - Climate change mitigation plans would also reduce air pollution. That could save hundreds of thousands of lives in the coming decades.

Tools for Global Work and Policy

Center for Strategic and International Studies

APA’s Global Insights Newsletter

Tools for Finding Conferences

Conal Conference Alerts

Neurology and Psychiatry

Tools for Healthcare Career Insights

Curated from Medpage Today

Tools for a New Gig

Here’s Behavioral Health Tech’s jobs board to see all of the current opportunities from the leading companies in behavioral health. If you are looking for a new job and want BHT’s community of hiring companies to seek you out, then join their talent collective as a candidate for free here.

Or, if you want access to the central place for job candidates of all levels and roles focused on mental health and substance use tech, then enroll as a hiring company here.

See who’s hiring in health and fitness here.

From 80,000 Hours - There are a variety of ways to contribute to global priorities research, including academic research, working as a grantmaker, and doing charity evaluation.

To browse or search hundreds of recent job postings, visit the job board in PND, it includes foundation, public charity, education, and nonprofit jobs. 

Positions from BioSpace

• Academic 
• Biotechnology 
• Diagnostics 
• Government
• Healthcare 
• Medical Device 
• Non-Profit 
• Pharmaceutical 
• Research Institute 

DiversityMD is a Career Job Board and Information Resource for Physicians regardless of age, race, gender, religion, education, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or physical characteristics. They are a “niche” website for Physicians of all levels of practice from Medical Students, Residents, Fellows on up to Medical Directors and CMO’s.

Tools to Travel the World

How Do You Fight Jet Lag? Formula 1 Teams Have Their Ways

Grosvenor Teacher Fellowships From National Geographic

National Geographic professional development grants 

Earth Expedition 

Ford Foundation Global Travel & Learning Fund 

Institute of International Education 

Google conference and study scholarship 

Omprakash Ethical global engagement grants 

Tata Trust Travel grants

A Gym Membership for Your Brain

If you enjoy this newsletter, I suspect you’d enjoy our monthly podcast. Listen on your favorite platform https://www.alifeinfull.org/podcast.html and for a free subscription: https://tinyurl.com/ALifeInFullSubscription

Likewise, if you are not already following my LinkedIn Influencer/Top Voices posts in a group with almost a half-million followers, you may enjoy reading the posts there as well.  

Tools for Humanitarian Intervention

Please visit our website: https://www.centerforglobalinitiatives.org/. We’re proud to be a top ranked Great Nonprofit (since 2013!) and to have achieved Platinum Level from GuideStar.

Tools for Connecting

If you would like to see more frequent updates and engage with others, please join the open Facebook groups at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ALifeInFull and https://www.facebook.com/groups/CenterForGlobalInitiatives

Tools for Better Understanding Science

As I have opined in past articles like How to Protect Yourself from Fad Science and my three part series, The Reproducibility Problem—Can Science be Trusted? , —Shame on us?, and —What’s a Scientist to do? This is a near-and-dear topic and concern of mine.

And my four-parter: Strong Opinions Loosely Held: Science, Psychology, Misinformation, Vaccines, and Prosocial Ways to Respond.

In Closing

And even though I know our readers are very smart, I nevertheless have to say that this newsletter does not provide medical, psychological, legal, financial, healthcare, or any other form of advice. As I have said elsewhere, don’t be a knucklehead.

Big thank you to meta-sourcing sites and folks: BioSpace, Ron Friedman, PhD, Inc., Farnum Street’s Brain Food, McKinsey & Co., Medpage, MedScape, Joe Koster from Value Investing World, FirstRound, Get Rich Slowly, Ramit Sethi, Forbes InnovationRx, The Knowledge Project - organized by theme, 80,000 Hours, The Collaborative Fund, Colossus, Sonny Patel, Unmistakable Media, Top Tier, NeuroFlow, Five-Bullet Friday, O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, Health Data Management Group, Fitt, PodcastNotes, SparkType, Budgets Are Sexy, Behavioral Health Tech, Next Big Idea Club – Heleo, Section 4, Future of Health & Medicine Newsletter, Wired, Fast Co., AI and Health, The Hustle, Tim Ferriss, Sparktype, TED, and Morning Brew - be sure to check them out. And as always, I have no financial, marketing or affiliate relationship with any of the sources noted herein.

To subscribe to “Tools for Change” and get notifications of editions, click the blue button at the top right corner of this page. Please don’t be shy about sharing, leaving comments or dropping me a private note with your own reactions and requests for other tools.

Cheers, and keep in touch,

Chris

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