#021 – The Boiling Frog Metaphor & Modern Masculinity

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Bringing 5 interesting ideas to your inbox every Thursday morning to ignite your curiosity and drive your growth.

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#021 at a Glance:

• Quote that will get you thinking: When something is accepted by the majority.

• Podcast you should listen to: Mike Thurston x Chris Williamson.

• Mental Model: The Boiling Frog Metaphor.

• Hack you should try: 20 Minutes of Duolingo a Day.

• Tweet I liked: Craving the result and not the process.

Quote that will get you thinking:

Podcast you should listen to:

First Things THRST E014 – Chris Williamson

Chris Williamson and Mike Thurston are two men in their 30s who I highly look up to, so for me, listening to this podcast was an absolute blast.

They dove into every topic under the sun ranging from entrepreneurship, building a life that you want to wake up to every single day, taking risks, biohacking, and self-control.

Over and above all of that, it was one of the more engaging and on-point discussions surrounding modern masculinity that I’ve heard in quite a while.

Great listen.

Listen on Spotify here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here. Watch on YouTube here.

Mental Model:

The Boiling Frog Metaphor

This metaphor is actually extremely similar to the Region-Beta Paradox which I wrote about a few months ago, but I feel like it illustrates a super important message that someone reading this needs to hear:

The boiling frog metaphor suggests that if a frog is placed in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately sense the danger and jump out to save itself.

However, if the frog is placed in a pot of cool water and the temperature is slowly increased, the frog will not perceive the gradual change and will remain in the water until it eventually boils to death.

I think that the metaphor serves as a stark reminder for each and every one of us to avoid complacency and a lack of perceptual awareness of gradual changes or threats in our external environment.

We must consciously force ourselves to remain attentive, proactive, and responsive to evolving circumstances.

Something for us all to think about…

Hack you should try:

20 Minutes of Duolingo a Day

Some of you may know that I studied French during high school and the thing that I Ioved about learning a foreign language (apart from the fact that the class was hilariously funny with some of my closest mates), was that it served as a sort of mental escapism from the stress and repetitiveness of studying other subjects like science, maths, etc.

And what I realised only recently was how much I missed that once I finished school and ultimately stopped putting myself through that learning process.

So, a few weeks ago, I started doing 20 minutes of Duolingo a day either while I’m on the train in the morning or simply during my morning routine.

Apart from the obvious benefit of learning an entirely different form of dialect, the actual process of acquiring that knowledge uses an entirely different part of your brain and has this ability to free your thinking in such a unique way.

There’s something about it which can essentially be described as intellectually refreshing.

I think that most people who have studied more than one language would agree.

Give it a go and let me know how it goes.

Tweet I liked:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, & stay curious. ⚡

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