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  • In this video, we're going to dive into the note making app obsidian as if we are a complete

  • beginner. Hi, I'm Nick Milo, and welcome to linking your thinking, where we talk about

  • the how and why of making meaningful notes. Let's get started. Okay, let's start by downloading

  • Obsidian. Go to Safari, type in Obsidian.md and just download the latest version. Allow

  • that to download, close this. Once it's done, open it up and simply drag it into applications.

  • So I've already done that, and I've put it into my doc here. So let's open it up first

  • time, it should look like this for you. And it's saying open folder as vault, create a

  • new vault what's a vault vault is simply a folder that obsidian is looking at for its

  • files. So let's create a new vault and let's just call it folder and browsing location.

  • Let's put that folder on the desktop. And let's create it. Here it is. So what we see

  • is it just it's right here. That's all it is. Simple folder. Okay, so this is obsidian

  • we're in, this is what it looks like, a little intimidating. I want you just to focus on

  • this button, a new note. That's the most important note right now. So let's click on that. gonna

  • blow it up a little bit. Right away. It allows us to change the title up here. Let's call

  • this guy note star. Our very first note, I hit Tab puts my cursor here, and I'm just

  • going to say hi, I'm a new note. That's all No sir is just saying I'm a new note. So what

  • we want to see here is that if we go back to the desktop in this folder, this is note

  • star. That's it. the.md file. markdown, which is the same as a plain text file that you

  • can open up with TextEdit, which is on any Mac in the world. It's plain text is a type

  • of format that as long as there are computers, there will be computers that can read plain

  • text. And that's what we mean by different term future proofing that we'll get to later.

  • Now going back to obsidian, we've made a note but what happens when we want to make a second

  • note, remember this new note, new note, Okay, and let's call this one.

  • Never note.

  • No one likes me. Pay only like, this is the first magical moment in a software that can

  • make links. I'm gonna hit bracket bracket which pulls up a list of all my notes and

  • I'm going to select note star. They only Like note star. Now if I do a click on note star,

  • it takes me back to that original note.

  • That is a huge, huge game changer. I mean, I'm getting goosebumps here. Because once

  • we start linking our thinking, it opens up a whole new avenue of thinking, honestly,

  • it kind of reopens at the avenue of how our brains actually work. So we're kind of getting

  • closer to what feels natural. bliss. Let's use like a real situation on this. Imagine

  • you have a favorite movie, we all have our favorite movies. For me, one of my favorite

  • movies is the matrix. It comes up all the time in conversations. I'm thinking about

  • the red pill and the blue pill and choices. So why not kind of externalize that in this

  • piece of software. So let's go back to New No, MC and say the matrix and I have pre written

  • one sentence So, first off, what am I trying to do here? I'm not trying to make a critique

  • of the movie, I could, I absolutely could. But for my purposes, what I like are the ideas,

  • the concepts that I that I glean from different sources such as movies like The Matrix, and

  • Morpheus presents Neil with this choice, the infamous red pill, blue pill. And so what

  • I'm going to do is just highlight this, I'm actually just going to hit the bracket, and

  • then bracket button again. And so I've created a potential new note. Now once I click on

  • it, now it's a new note over here, here it is, right? That's pretty cool. That's really

  • powerful. That's awesome. So what's so cool about red pill blue pill? Well, it's really

  • about choices and the willingness to to have one's beliefs challenged. And you know, the

  • more I thought about this concept I threw in a second sentence, which is perhaps it's

  • so difficult to take the red pill Because we lose that sense of control, right? And

  • sense of control, it's definitely something that's integral to a lot of my thinking about

  • when I, you know, feel in charge of what I'm trying to accomplish. And other times when

  • I feel like chaos is taking over. So I know that's a note in the future that I want to

  • create. But here's the thing, right? Now, I can just add these brackets, and it won't

  • create the new note until I click on it. So it's just kind of a placeholder, it's a reminder

  • for myself. Here's the other thing though, this reminds me of something. So I might type

  • here. Related, and let's call this adversity paradox. Cool. Now let's click on it to create

  • the new note. adversity paradox. And so the adversity paradox is this crazy idea that

  • we're never really seeking out adversity in our lives. But when we find it, we tend to

  • grow from it. So it's the idea that we get Stronger from the stressors in our lives.

  • I mean, that's pretty fascinating to me. So I'm thinking about this idea. And it makes

  • me think immediately to a book that I had to read in high school and I fell in love

  • with actually is by Viktor Frankl and is Man's Search for Meaning. And he makes the argument,

  • he's a Holocaust survivor. He was, and he makes the argument that it's not sex that

  • brings us meaning, like Freud would say, it's not power that brings us meaning, like Adler

  • said, it's suffering that brings us meaning. Now, like, nowhere in the adversity paradox,

  • is the concept of Viktor Frankl. But because of how our brains work from our own personal

  • experiences, in this case, mine, I was able to make this connection. And to me, this is

  • really powerful. And this is the power of linking your thinking is because you can create

  • these thoughts over time and they start to grow and build which we'll get into more.

  • So I'm just going to make the victor from Note I'm not going to touch it right now.

  • And I'm going to go back to the adversity paradox.

  • What else? What else? What else?

  • Maybe

  • never note could learn a thing or two from this concept. Alright, so now we tied Evernote

  • back into this. And this takes us to the next really cool aspect of linking your thinking

  • which is backlinks also known as linked mentions. So right now check this out. We're in this

  • note called adversity paradox. And it has a link mentioned to red pill blue pill. Let's

  • click back to that. Now what does that mean? on red pill blue pill it links to the adversity

  • paradox. So going back to the adversity paradox, here's the link mentioned right Now that we're

  • at red pill blue pill, we have that the matrix links to it, right. And we can even read in

  • context that it says Morpheus presents Neo with the choice. So we can click on that.

  • And now we're back to the matrix now. So that's how these linked mentions work. And it's a

  • great way, as you look at OneNote, to see all of the different connections that you've

  • made, which takes us to the last point, the last part of this demo, which is the graph

  • view.

  • Now check this out. This is pretty cool.

  • This is what we made in the program today. We started with note star, basically never

  • note didn't like note star, and was jealous of note star. And so when we linked the two

  • we formed a new relationship. And now these two notes are linked. And we can we can build

  • context through that link. And then never note. Well, we didn't go in this order, but

  • now it's connected to the adversity paradox. Which is connected to Viktor Frankl. adversity

  • paradox is also connected to red pill blue pill, which is connected to the matrix. So

  • in this way we have created all sorts of contextual goodness. So let's take a step back in a short

  • amount of time. We've made all sorts of new connections. We've externalized them in a

  • program like obsidian, and we started to grow them and cultivate them. And the magic is,

  • let's go back in because let's say a year passes, and I get back to this red pill, blue

  • pill, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, this reminds me of something that just happened

  • yesterday to me and I and I write this in. This reminds me of something that just happened,

  • etc, etc. And so do we see what's happening here? This note doesn't lose its value over

  • time. Its value actually grows in time as I have more experiences and I externalized

  • experiences, the connections grow. Why is this important? First and foremost, when you

  • link your thinking, you improve your ability to recall those memories, those those thoughts,

  • those ideas. And that's the most important thing. We want to be able to have confidence

  • that we can find what we're looking for when we want to find it. That is first and foremost.

  • And when we link we have a better chance of remembering. Secondly, it allows us to build

  • things as we're seeing here. So we might not start with the perfect, Michelangelo sculpted

  • out of marble, but we can get there slowly over time, right? And that's just through

  • our own experiences that we're adding value to our existing collection of thoughts. But

  • practically, you might be thinking, why is this important? Well, it depends. I mean,

  • if you're somebody who is a creator, this is the perfect way to create a new article,

  • or make a new speech, because you've already done 80% of the work. Now is just crafting

  • it and honing it for whatever particular medium that you hope to deploy it in. But I find

  • that a lot of value just comes from having conversations with other people. And and having

  • this in the back of my mind, I'm making all sorts of leaps of insights across genres and

  • domains. And it just makes every conversation that you enter that much more interesting

  • and fun and engaging. Because now when you're listening, you're more actively engaged because

  • you're trying to, you know, understand, whatever that person is saying, in some other concepts

  • that you've taken some time to really flesh out. And this is where newness and novelty

  • comes from. And that's going to wrap up our first video on the basics of obsidian. We

  • didn't just cover the how but we really dove into the why. And I hope you can start to

  • see why this is so exciting. Hey, if you like this video, it's the first in a series of

  • videos on covering the note making up obsidian as if you are a complete beginner. If you

  • liked it, please subscribe below because there will be Many more. If you liked it also, hey,

  • give it a thumbs up, make a comment down below. I'll do my best to answer. I'm so thankful

  • that you watch and look forward to seeing you in the next video.

In this video, we're going to dive into the note making app obsidian as if we are a complete

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