This Week I Learned #91
“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up”
2020-02-24
Learnings from Melissa Chen's interview with Joe Rogan. Hard to say what Melissa’s job title is but I’d call her a spreader of ideas to lands of censorship. Having grown up in Singapore and then moving to Boston to attend university, she shares a lot of systematic differences between the two nations. A city-state nation of the first world and a third world nation mistakenly thinking it’s in the first world (my words of jest). She shares the pros/cons of both systems and its given me some food for thought on org. design. Some insights I felt/learned:
Singapore appears to be a capitalistic and free nation but has all kinds of rules that can make residents feel like they are in prison given how intolerant and restrictive the government is with their methods.
Restrictive speech… no freedom of speech. Though Canada doesn’t have true freedom of speech, I imagine Singapore’s is definitely strict.
Mix of socialism and capitalism. No/minimal taxes to bring in lot’s of foreign investments but 80% of society lives on government housing
No minimum wage there… hence no unemployment but creates a capitalist system… though people might be taken advantage of in some way… it let’s the market evolve… rather than high minimum wages killing people off of jobs entirely..
2020-02-25
Chase Jarvis' interview with Ryan Holiday, best-selling author/marketing expert.
Difference between confidence and ego is that ego needs validation where you want people to give you love and security but confidence is your ability to ignore those who don't get you and to stick to what you believe.
Insight into Churchill’s life where he napped a lot and had lots of rests while achieving so much. Being busy or fearing the down time will lead to short term failure. Churchill also had hobbies like laying bricks (building a bunch of cottages for himself) and painting (some 500 paintings.. with some results of him driving to see far off sunsets). A portrayal on how to succeed in your main craft (politics for Churchill) one cannot be one dimensional but need many areas to draw inspiration from even if it isn’t strategically clear how.
I really enjoyed Ego is the Enemy and Obstacle is the Way and after learning that his new book Stillness is the Key is part of a stoic trilogy… I will definitely be purchasing that book.
Overall a calming interview that helped me refocus on ignoring the ‘busyness’ culture that is rampant around my world.
2020-02-26
Josh Waitzkin's (chess prodigy/performance expert) interview with Tim Ferriss:
He talks about embracing tension... the idea of building out tension, reminds me of Taleb’s Anti-fragile. You want to practice feeling the tension and thriving under that tension where the tension makes you stronger and you crave it… that's how you can improve and become better at something. Common practice is to avoid tension… less common is to withstand it… but the few who can thrive from feeling tension… that’s the magic.
An activity worth exploring: Imagine sitting with myself of 20 years into the future to ask for advice and write down what that self says
Josh is a prime example of age being nothing more than an excuse to achieving excellence in a physical sport. Never use age as an excuse for the reverse side is that it brings upon a wealth of assets.
2020-02-27
Found Darya Rose’s story through dieting quite fascinating. I know of her as the smart neuroscientist wife of Kevin Rose (who I’m a big fan of).. but upon reading about her story and work briefly, a particular point that intrigues me is focusing on the quality of food over macronutrients. I’ve been thinking of a similar theory for a while as I’ve noticed how ignoring certain foods and accepting certain foods change how I look, feel and perform but it doesn’t necessarily result in higher protein, lower carbs etc… like what traditional media touts. Her approach is to focus on the quality of foods and she is able to achieve better performance and physique with a higher carb diet than before. I think there is some logic here for sure because there are lot’s of top-tier athletes who have various diets high in pasta, potatoes and rice. Her work may be worth further examination for me. https://summertomato.com/about/darya/
2020-02-28
Life of Toto Wolff. If the NFL has Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots, the NBA with Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, then Formula 1’s may be Mercedes’ Toto Wolff, the Principal and CEO of Mercedes F1 Team. He is also a 30% shareholder of the team that has won 6 straight championships. Having started out as a driver himself, he ended his career early as he was too tall for the cars in the 1990s (he is 6’2”) and attended university at 22 in Vienna but soon dropped out as he felt he would learn better from working than being in school. He got an internship in investment banking, then went to become a sales manager of a steel company, started his own steel middle-man agency, then took a sabbatical to San Francisco… learned of the tech boom… went back to Vienna to start one of the first VC funds in Europe and invested in many of the successful tech companies to come out of Europe then… he was 26 at this point… then he went on to buy out businesses that sold formula 3 engines, car components for racing cars, companies that ran racing competitions.. until he had a chance to run Williams, a legacy Formula 1 team, and he made it achieve relative success…. Then he joined Mercedes where he wanted to have skin in the game and align incentives by being a shareholder so he can be closer to his entrepreneurial roots… and since he joined in 2013… they’ve had 6 straight seasons as world champions. Oh, and he started a second VC fund after the world financial crisis to buy out a bunch of public tech companies on the cheap and profit again from those.