Hey folks! I'd love to share a mental framework used by Richard Feynman to give life meaning and purpose. In his own words,

"You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state."

Every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while, there will be a hit, and people will say, "How did he do it? He must be a genius!"

In essence, your favorite problems are questions that help you get into an explorer mindset. When you read through other people’s ideas, you’ll unconsciously make connections to your favorite problems. Day by day, you’ll make progress on finding solutions.

I spent my weekend jotting down my favorite problems. You can find them here: https://swapnil.net/12fp

Once you know your favorite problems, you don’t need to work on them constantly. Your mind will look for answers while you’re focusing on something else.

What are your 12 favorite problems? Let me know in DMs. Feel feel to tag me if you end up posting it on social media. 🖖

I grew up with a zero-sum mindset. This is the saddest thing about our education system. It teaches that if someone wants to be successful, they need to make others unsuccessful. This always kept me on the lookout for others trying to bring me down.

Three years back, I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho which flipped my mindset. Its central theme is pronoia, the opposite of paranoia. Instead of feeling that everyone is out to get you, pronoia is a feeling that the Universe is conspiring to help you.

Link to the full article 👉️ https://swapnil.net/pronoia

I have pronoia. Do you? Let me know in DMs.

I always like to be someone who takes backups. As well as backups of backups. That’s how I keep my mind calm. You need to stock up for emergencies to avoid being wiped out completely.

The term “antifragile” was coined by Nassim Taleb, one of the leading philosophers of modern time. I've curated some of his core ideas here.

Link to the full article 👉️ https://swapnil.net/taleb 👈️

People set goals too high and then get disappointed. We should encourage setting small goals and keeping promises to ourselves. Setting the right goal is half the battle won. A minimum viable goal (MVG) is the smallest goal that you have yet to achieve.

To arrive at an MVG, I encourage you to use the slice-and-dice approach: https://swapnil.net/mvg

Launched a podcast with one of my friends where we talk about our journeys so far, why we chose this path, and that going slow is a luxury. https://www.goingslowpodcast.com/episodes/going-slow-is-a-luxury

If you liked it, let us know by tagging @goingslowpod on Twitter. If you didn't like it, feel free to DM us. We would love to know what you'd like to hear more of. Note that future episodes won't be announced here - if you'd like to get notified, there's a subscribe section in the above link. 🤠

Hosted a session around Working Remotely from the Himalayas with Kabir Nazir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xANA657_Ojg

Applications for Cohort 5 are open now: https://roc8.careers/apply

Announcing monthly reading challenges: https://twitter.com/ReademyCafe/status/1473640135191269378

Announcing the #2in7challenge: https://twitter.com/DX_club_/status/1473646622269587458

I’ve been struggling with sustaining a writing habit. Not that I haven’t written anything yet, but I’m finding it hard to do it consistently. https://swapnil.net/consistency

What are you most curious about? Let me know in DMs. https://swapnil.net/curiosity

How do you deal with loneliness? Let me know in DMs. https://swapnil.net/loneliness

What’s your favorite blooper? Let me know in DMs. https://swapnil.net/bloopers

If you're convinced you should read more AND need a push, I have a proposal for you. 🤠 https://swapnil.net/reademy

Hosted a session with Shreyas around getting started with generative art: https://youtu.be/PQXGC2hRapQ

Read30x30 C2 is here! https://twitter.com/SwapAgarwal/status/1579490801734025219

After running the first 2 cohorts from a Notion landing page, we have our official website now. See you on the inside. https://twitter.com/SwapAgarwal/status/1607789537539022849

Did a bunch of changes in the cohort structure. Would love to have all of you in the March reading accountability cohort (supposed to be our biggest cohort so far!) https://twitter.com/SwapAgarwal/status/1629071918480650240

We're gearing up for the April cohort. Looking forward to seeing you there. https://twitter.com/SwapAgarwal/status/1638564206885699587

hey folks, we've added a new challenge based on talking to a bunch of you that starts from april 8th

read daily for 7 days - the team is super excited to welcome all of you to participate - we'll pair you up in teams of 2 for extra accountability - sign up at https://swap.gumroad.com/l/read30x30apr23