Here’s another opinion on the “optimism vs. pessimism” debate raised in last Friday’s Question of the Day.
In a recent post on his Four Hour Work Week blog, lifestyle entrepreneur extraordinaire Tim Ferris wonders: “Could defining your fears be more important than defining your goals?”
A video of a five minute “Ignite” presentation he gave at the Google I/O Developer Conference at the end of May is pretty thought-provoking. As the slides auto-advance every 15 seconds as per the rules, Tim discusses his two favorite productivity techniques of late:
- Negative visualization (defining your fears instead of your goals)
- Rehearsing the worst case scenarios
Both techniques are borrowed from the philosophy of Stoicism, a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in the 3rd century B.C. Anyone who’s read Ferris’ blog in recent months knows he’s as passionate about Stoicism today as the ancient Greek and Roman elites were back then.
I’m sort of knocking myself now for choosing not to study all that back in high school. Who knew?
If you have five minutes, the video is definitely worth a watch.
