Be Exceptional

• Insight: Those lacking in self-mastery (awareness and capacity) can be poor decision makers, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it.
• Insight: Poor logic and critical thinking is a result of not assessing our blind spots, considering what others have to say, or being too ignorant to know what is best.
• Insight: We should base decisions on reality based assessments of ourselves.
• Insight: Knowing and acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses is key to self-mastery.

Insight: Through thousands of hours of observation, Jane Good was able to transform the way that we view nature, and ourselves.

Insight:Curiosity is the gateway to heightened awareness.

Insight:When Jane Goodall was five years old she wanted to understand how big eggs came out of a chicken, so spent hours in a chicken coop to wait to see it happen.

Insight:When Jane Goodall was hired by Louis Leakey she did not have a college degree, she was hired for her curiosity and observational skills.

Insight:Curiosity led Jane Goodall to discover that chimpanzees make tools, have emotions, and can be vicious as well as caring - she altered our understanding of primates, and changed the way research is done.

Insight:The way that we view the world matters - we can do it with kindness, or with coldness.

Insight:No scientist had observed primates through the lens of kindness, appreciation, curiosity until Jane Goodall - this enabled her to get closer than ever before to them and have a unique window into their world.

"Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help."

- Jane Goodall

Insight: If we want to be exceptional we must first cultivate the skill of observation.

• Definition: The strengthening or fortifying of connections between brain cells (neurons) and the communication spaces between them (synapses).
• Example: "It is like riding a bike".
• Insight: The nerve fibres of the brain are basically electrical circuits where impulses flow. When they are strengthened these can turn into physiological activities such as deeper breathing or behaviours that reflect our mood.
• Insight: The more we practice something, the more myelination occurs, the more robust those natural impulses become, and less less likely they are to corode.
• Insight: Myelination is the reason why practice builds habits, and habits make actions automatic.
• Insight: Myelination explains the benefit of practice and repetition: we reinforce the brain's capacity to remember something and perform, almost without thinking.
• Insight: Experts and top performers use the benefits of myelination to build artistry or unique flare atop complex processes that have become automatic because of strong neural pathways.
• Insight: Myelination is what differentiates the exceptional, and why proper learning and execution are important from an early age.
• Insight: Myelination only works when we break down processes into manageable chunks and we can repeat and work to perfect.
• Insight: Bad habits are also the work of myelination.
• Insight: Our brains are sufficiently 'plastic' that we can change our skills and behaviours at any age.
• Principle: Break down habits (good or bad) into small segments that can be practiced or changed.

"The more opportunities I seize, the more opportunities multiply before me."

- Sun Tzu

Insight: The more personal improvement projects you invest in, even if they don't go completely right, more opportunities will come your way.