Knowledge & Growth

My learning, education and mental development. My personal capabilities and external inspiration in the intellectual, interpersonal, and intra-personal realms. Processes for reflection and review.

Status

I think my main focus in the past year has been exploring known unknowns, especially in relation to work and impact, and being very deliberate about thinking through the process. This has mainly manifested in a general pattern of reflection and reviews throughout the year, as well as trying to develop frameworks that allow me to do structured analysis and more effective comparisons between my self at different times or stages.

In terms of learning, I have continued and expanded on my habit of podcasting, but I am quite keen to break into other forms of media in 2019!

The Good Stuff

• Set up review protocols: a framework for annual reviews and a daily reflection grid
• A whole new world of intellectual stimulus from the EA community
• Reaching out to people with similar intellectual interests, and successfully connected with a fellow investigator of life systems (also described as life operations or design)
• Participating in 2-3 facilitated, retreat-style events, where I had the space to think deeply through, and sometimes challenge or augment, the material.
• Diversified my podcast genres, especially targeting topics where I had particular interest or knowledge gaps

Analysis

Mistakes & Plan Changes

• Slightly overloaded myself in podcast app and e-reader —probably better to focus on fewer topics (and hence podcasts / books) at a time
• I had often lamented the fact that the people who I had the most engaging conversations with were not part of my (physical) community. This year I made an active effort to connect (and reconnect) with people with shared intellectual interests, but in in different continents — and I found them! I guess it was just a matter of redefining my boundaries!

Insights & Hypotheses

• I seem predisposed to diagnosing personal / interpersonal problems, both with friends and in professional context, often asking the right questions to probe and spark effective introspection — I think this ability could be augmented with a more diverse repertoire of frameworks that, when applied in the proper contexts, could accelerate and enhance the process
• I’m drawn to personal stories — and I think this may be a good way for me to learn about history (e.g. biographies)
• In the last few years, I’ve mostly worked on a “micro”-level, mostly working within one organization that served consumers / specific people within companies. This year, I’ve had the opportunity to work with 1) batches of companies and 2) (startup) ecosystems, and I find myself intellectually drawn to understanding the dynamics of ecosystem coordination and facilitation.

Pains & gaps

• Need to catch up on understanding of different technological advances and their risks, and other high priority causes facing our planet
• Could do with a stronger foundation in moral philosophy, which I especially noticed while writing out the Compasses section of this review
• Knowledge of history is relatively weak
• I don’t have a systematic way of sourcing (or vetting) content related to the topics I want to learn. Usually it’s just an ad hoc search in my reading app or podcatcher.

What I’m excited about

1. Set up infrastructure for content curation

• Media: podcasts, ebooks, articles,
  Also try out online and offline courses and documentaries
• Topics: global priority causes, (moral) philosophy, history, ecosystem coordination (and possibly policy)

2. Be a better facilitator

• Expand repertoire of frameworks, both quantity and depth of understanding (the key is to know intuitively what is appropriate to apply)
• Look for opportunities to hone facilitation skills — are there any tools / processes I’ve developed / adopted that would be helpful for others?