Mindframe

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built around 2500 BC. Its individual stone blocks weigh up to 50 tons, and its base contains roughly 2,300,000 blocks, measuring 592,000 square feet. This combined with its height, 481 feet, would be enough to earn the pyramid a spot on the Seventh Wonders of the World, but it's even more impressive at second glance. The ancient Egyptians installed the pyramid's cornerstones in a special ball and socket configuration, allowing it to flex slightly in case of an earthquake. Indeed, the structure survived just such a quake in the 14th century, although the tremors loosened its smooth outer covering, which is mostly no longer with us. (Some believe the local population took advantage of the freed stones, carting them away for a variety of purposes. Who wouldn't want a pyramid souvenir?) When that limestone facade was intact and polished to a full shine, it would have been so bright that some have theorized it would be visible as a twinkly do...

When you think about Seinfeld, it's likely you think of his perpetually rerun TV show by the same name. His comedy was built on seemingly offhand observations, which came off as effortless but belied an incredible amount of hard work. Love it or hate it, Seinfeld's sitcom "about nothing" reportedly managed to earn him a cool 267 million dollars in 1998 alone, according to James Clear—and it turned him into an icon. Bee Movie aside, his name still carries a certain cachet. For instance, perhaps you've heard of the Seinfeld Productivity Program? James Clear quotes software developer and aspiring comedian Brad Isaac about a chance encounter in a comedy club, wherein Isaac had a chance to ask advice from the comedy legend and future animated bee himself: He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and han...

  Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, in examining the lives of Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Mohandas Gandhi, suggests that there is a certain Faustian bargain to genius level mastery that is often required, sacrificing other important things in your life in order to harness your full focus and attention towards your passion. “My study reveals that, in one way or another, each of the creators became embedded in some kind of a bargain, deal, or Faustian arrangement, executed as a means of ensuring the preservation of his or her unusual gifts. In general, the creators were so caught up in the pursuit of their work mission that they sacrificed all, especially the possibility of a rounded personal experience.” [1] That idea has been forever immortalized in the story of bluesman Robert Johnson. In 1935, Robert Johnson went to a lonely crossroads at midnight and sold his soul to the devil in order to become t...