4 ms·

Like most Gladwell related information, there's an anecdotal relationship between a town that doesn't have much heart disease and a subjective observation about

Like most Gladwell related information, there's an anecdotal relationship between a town that doesn't have much heart disease and a subjective observation about its inhabitants' lifestyle. However, I would suspect that self promotion is correlated with heart disease in general because people who have to self promote are under stressful conditions. They're trying to change things which they really have little control over: other people's minds. I try to avoid that stress by looking for ways to succeed that don't require much self promotion. Part of that involves finding areas where you have enough edge that the benefit of other parties working with you is obvious. Admittedly not a very generalizable route, but I believe I'd be happy just trying as long as I don't have to bend to others' whims.

nate 17y ago
Very true about Gladwell. But I've picked up the original research too by Wolf and his book. It was Wolf's observation about what made Roseto like it is. Gladwell just restated it. http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships-Disease/dp/1560000430/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270750637&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships-Dis... And as for the heart disease premise, you are totally right about there being a correlation that way. Which makes me curious though what would happen if we all just all stopped self promoting like you are trying to do. Would we all be just so much happier. On the blog right now someone brought up the example of Warren Buffet and how he doesn't do much self promotion. His results speak for themselves. And his website remains very stark. I also thought of http://instapaper.com http://instapaper.com. A very popular and useful tool, and I can't find a review or testimonial on the entire stark, grey site. People just find out they need this tool and sign up. Even the itunes sales page - http://www.instapaper.com/iphone http://www.instapaper.com/iphone has nothing on it. No "Techcrunch calls it the best thing ever".
- discipline 17y ago
  I use http://toread.cc/ http://toread.cc/ for the same purpose, plus I can always search in Gmail for my articles.
  - nate 17y ago
    Funny. I went there and found this: "Sounds very handy - Lifehacker.com This is much quicker and cleaner - Hawk Wings I came across toread.cc and I immediately fell in love with it - Winston's Attic" Again, totally admitting we do this too. But this is so interesting to me that instapaper gets away without having to do this, and still commands quite an audience.

nate 17y ago

Very true about Gladwell. But I've picked up the original research too by Wolf and his book. It was Wolf's observation about what made Roseto like it is. Gladwell just restated it. http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships-Disease/dp/1560000430/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270750637&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships-Dis... And as for the heart disease premise, you are totally right about there being a correlation that way. Which makes me curious though what would happen if we all just all stopped self promoting like you are trying to do. Would we all be just so much happier. On the blog right now someone brought up the example of Warren Buffet and how he doesn't do much self promotion. His results speak for themselves. And his website remains very stark. I also thought of http://instapaper.com http://instapaper.com. A very popular and useful tool, and I can't find a review or testimonial on the entire stark, grey site. People just find out they need this tool and sign up. Even the itunes sales page - http://www.instapaper.com/iphone http://www.instapaper.com/iphone has nothing on it. No "Techcrunch calls it the best thing ever".

discipline 17y ago
I use http://toread.cc/ http://toread.cc/ for the same purpose, plus I can always search in Gmail for my articles.
- nate 17y ago
  Funny. I went there and found this: "Sounds very handy - Lifehacker.com This is much quicker and cleaner - Hawk Wings I came across toread.cc and I immediately fell in love with it - Winston's Attic" Again, totally admitting we do this too. But this is so interesting to me that instapaper gets away without having to do this, and still commands quite an audience.