#118: Zen Meditation, Most Recommended Books, Competitiveness and Know Thyself with Richard Reis

Chiwi Journal

My guest today is Richard Reis. He is the co-founder of Most Recommended Books, a voracious reader and a blogger. Richard also enjoys finance and building stuff.

We discussed:

1. Richard recently has done a three-month Zen Meditation retreat and shared his experience.
2. What’s so unique about Zen Meditation compared with other meditation (e.g. mindfulness and TM)?
3. Why should we focus on cultivating our intuition?
4. What’s the motivation to build the Most Recommended Books?
5. What’re the most recommended books in common?
6. What’s Tim Ferriss’s effect?
7. How to deal with self-doubt when building something new or running a startup?
8. What traits of Larry Ellison worthy learning?
9. Where does people’s competitiveness come from?
10. What are the benefits of speaking multiple languages? Do people change personalities while speaking different languages?
11. How to deal with loneliness and lack of community support while moving around very often?
12. Is personality test the way to help Know Thyself?

Books and links mentioned in this episode:

• Mountain Cloud Zen Centre
• A conversation between Sam Harris and Henry Shukman
• The Mysterious/Unsolvable Zen Koans - Henry Shukman, Associate Master of Sanbo Zen
• Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy
• 10% Happier by Dan Harris
• Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
• Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science by Barbara Oakley
• Steve Jobs on Intuition
• Most Recommended Books
• The Tim Ferriss Show
• Derek Sivers
• The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick
• If it's not a hit, switch
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
• Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Larry Ellison and Matthew Symonds
• The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing’s Greatest Race, The America’s Cup by Julian Guthrie
• Founders Podcast (Highly recommend!)
• How to think like a programmer — lessons in problem solving

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