Leisa Michelle

Nerdy Monologues of an Autodidact

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Life Lessons Learned from the 20th Century’s Greatest Physicist

June 26, 2018 by Leisa Michelle Leave a Comment

Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. He worked on the Manhattan Project during WWII, helped uncover the cause of NASA’s Challenger tragedy, and received the Nobel Prize for his work in quantum physics. A set of his lectures are available on Youtube – and they’re extremely approachable even for non-physicists.

I first heard about this dude while listening to the Great Courses’ Particle Physics for Non-Physicists. His name kept coming up, so naturally I had to Google him. I discovered that he had published an autobiography based on some conversations he had with a friend. The book is called Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and I ended up downloading it on Audible.

Keep reading…

Filed Under: Reading Reflections Tagged With: acceptance, failure, fear, learning, self development, self-awareness, trying something new

Don’t Strive to Be the Best – Strive to be Better

April 7, 2017 by Leisa Michelle 1 Comment

The power went out just now as I was publishing a new blog post. Perfect timing, right? I flopped down on the couch to decide what to do with my electricity-less, internet-less time. And I began thinking back to when I was in high school and my friend Angie and I plotted our ultimate learning project: our rise to Renaissance Man stardom. We wanted to be like Leonardo da Vinci and the other historical “masters of all trades”.

We loosely acted on our plans. We made a list of all things that a true Renaissance Man should know: classic music, biology, art history, world history, math, politics, among others. A true Renaissance Man should be one of the most capable people in the world in all these subjects, we agreed. He (or she) had to be the best. So naturally, we made being the best our goal.

We never became Renaissance Men. In fact, we failed quite miserably.

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Filed Under: Lessons From Failure Tagged With: education, failure, learning, mindfulness, self development, self-awareness

Eu Não Falo Português.

February 10, 2017 by Leisa Michelle Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Thinking Out Loud Tagged With: authenticity, expression, failure, fear, language, learning, project thinking out loud, self-awareness

20hrs to Competence – How I Learned to Do Vector Portraits

December 3, 2016 by Leisa Michelle Leave a Comment

I saw this TED Talk by Josh Kaufman a while back called The First 20 Hours – How to Learn Anything. The takeaway was basically that it only takes 20 hours to become reasonably good at something. Pick a specific skill you want to be good at. Put 20 hours into it. See what happens.

I did just that over the past week without realizing it. I spent between 20-25hrs on this portrait of Newt Scamander from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Take a look.

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Filed Under: Lessons From Failure Tagged With: art, failure, learning, self development, trying something new

I don’t believe in family loyalty

October 29, 2016 by Leisa Michelle 16 Comments

I don’t believe in family loyalty.

Read that one more time: I don’t believe in family loyalty.

The first time that thought entered my head, I was horrified. I actually felt ashamed. I promptly told myself, “What a terrible thing to think! How could you even let that thought run through your mind? Get rid of it. Never think that again.”

But a few days later, it came back to me. Hearing it the second time, I was still shocked, but this time I was able to take a look at why. And after a lot of thinking, I’ve really accepted it.

I don’t believe in family loyalty. And I don’t think you should either.

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Filed Under: Lessons From Failure Tagged With: authenticity, choice, failure, family, relationships

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