I am a man who anchors himself to the world through the use of frameworks, concepts, base cases, quotes, and lessons. I enjoy having a predictable throughline that takes the experiences of my life, associates them with specific beliefs, uses those beliefs to guide my actions, and make sure that my actions actually result in the future that I want to be a part of.1
Here are some of them…
General Life Lessons
Relativity Rules All: People define themselves relative to other people in the same environment as them, people of similar demographics in other environments, and how they’ve been trained to perceive success/failure.
Course Correction is Often Extreme: To deal with serious diseases, doctors have to take extreme action to save a patient: they induce a coma to administer harsh remedies, maintain life support, treat it, and then bring the patient back to consciousness. - Howard Marks
The Law of Inertia: “An object in motion tends to stay in motion” stands true for actions and motivation too. Motivation and additional actions come after the starting action. You have to do the thing to be motivated to keep doing the thing.
Disruption is Normal: Nearly half of Earth’s inhabitants (2021) still aren’t active participants in the modern economic system. They may be exploited which distorts the wealth of others. Also: We’re only just beginning, Long-termism.
Nearly 3 billion people of the world's population have never used the internet, according to the United Nations, despite even the Covid-19 pandemic which drove many millions of people online (Nov 30, 2021). - The Guardian
Economic Systems Die: We may be at an inflection point that’s causing America to enter the final stage of its current economic system (and lead us to the next system):
Previous Economic Systems in America Include:
Agricultural - Colonial Expansion (South & West)
Industrialization & Civil War
Inventions, Consolidations, & Tycoons
Nationalism (Government Expansion, establishment of the Fed, World Wars leading to the creation of America as a superpower)
Corporations, Globalization, Milton Friedman’s Logic
Democratization & Social Media via the Internet/Mobile
The Next One: Unlimited Productivity & Manufactured Scarcity
Unlimited Productivity - AI & ML, Robots, VR/AR, Scale via the Cloud
Manufactured Scarcity - Biotech, Crypto, Quantum Computing
History = His Story: history is full of inherent bias from the victors and survivors. Those who are left to document and discuss it (the event) will edit the story. The internet is possibly the first communication tool that allows for a shift in this. But we have a filtering problem. And we have an intelligence problem.
Economy, Environment, & Education (3Es): Society is ruled by these 3Es. Most social issues even find roots in these 3Es, but should by default be maximized for preserving freedoms without impacting our shared environment. Lack of social freedoms results in creating more haves & have-nots. It is unacceptable that social judgment really only matters to those that are already the least advantaged among us.
Be a Contradiction, NOT a Hypocrite: Learn from your mistakes and change your mind with evidence and research. Do NOT just cherry-pick what works for you at the moment and change with the winds…
The Behavior Equation: B = f(P*E); an individual's behavior (B) is a function (f) of the person (P), including their history, personality, and motivation, and their environment (E) which includes both their physical and social surroundings. - Kurt Lewin. A useful way to separate the person and their environment. I think this is especially useful in forgiving the disenfranchised survivors and judging the silver-spooned thrivers.
Consciousness: Taking things from sub-cognition and moving it into cognition is one of the most significant ways to develop awareness (and thus influence change). Many people make subconscious decisions, have subconscious biases, and rely on subconscious interpretations. Knowing this and pulling things out of sub-cognition can allow you to analyze yourself.
Our brain wants to “automate” these behaviors mostly because conscious thinking requires effort while subconscious thinking is just a repeated firing of the same neuron pathways. Thus requiring much less mental resources and focus.
Framing Matters: How is an idea being framed? Most of us focus on what’s being said and it doesn’t dawn on us to consider how the conversation is framed. Debators are taught to be aware of how something is being presented and to always consider the context. Scrutinizing how an idea is presented is just as important as scrutinizing the facts & opinions.
There is Power in Limits: You are defined by the ways you do the things you can't do. "If you start with nothing, the workaround can lead you to originality." - Steve Martin.
Subtraction Through Addition: Adding friction to the things that are bad for you makes it easier to do the things that are good for you. Do this gradually, so as to make it sustainable. Too much friction creates frustration and often derails the intended outcome.
Career Advice For My Younger Self
You Don’t Have to Love It: But you should find it interesting. Exciting is good too. So is fulfilling. Feeling as though you are naturally talented at it is also useful. Finding joy in it is critical. If you can get most of those feelings about your work, then you’re on the right path.
Respect is Complicated: There is respect for the role, respect for the employee as a person, respect for the responsibility of the role, and respect for the attitudes & efforts of the person. You will often feel like one of these is lacking. If you feel like more than one of these is lacking, then you should determine why (and address it or leave).
Eradicate Complexity & Uncertainty: Everyone dislikes these, so if you become known as the person who can break through complex problems and uncertain futures, you will be highly valued. Break problems into smaller pieces, and either conquer those pieces or know who/how to hand them off. Create a more predictable future by developing a process/plan. You especially want to know what will indicate that you need to pivot, if something is working or not, and what parts of the process are prone to breakdowns.
Fail Forward Faster: Since even perfect things are weathered with time, make more choices more often. Accept that failure is a given. Do your best to make sure the failures can be resolved in the future (and that they don’t bury you… You want to be able to come back from the fall).
Creation is Hard, Critiquing is Easy: It is hard to create from nothing. It is easy to rip apart something that's already been made. Embrace this. Have a draft ready.
Process over Outcomes: How you do the thing is more important than the thing you do. Develop a process that is clear (transparent), consistent (repeatable), and correctable (has a step for explicit feedback/review built-in). The value of the outcome is that it informs the process. Bad outcomes generate major process changes to create a new outcome (skin the cat in a totally different way, add quality assurance, etc.). Good outcomes generate minor process changes to improve efficiency (reduce cost, reduce time, increase quality, etc.).
Prioritization should NOT be Arbitrary (but often is): You will find yourself with more work to do than hours in the day. Being able to prioritize and filter your work is going to keep you sane and orient your effort on the right things. FIFO is a good default. Once you have a process for prioritization, communicate and document it. Allow for exceptions.
Overcommunicate: The human brain is a predicting machine. It generates assumptions automatically. Take control of this and don't let others assume things. Tell them. Clearly. Consistently.
Self-awareness is a Superpower: Knowing thyself will help you amplify your strengths AND will inform your team and manager how they can best absorb your weaknesses.
Mentorship Goes Both Ways: Mentors are critical to your success. It is also critical that you mentor others. Even as a new employee, you can take a role of mentorship. There is power in being the new person. You can ask the silly questions. You can challenge the traditions.
Last but not least, take all advice with a hefty scoop of salt and/or sugar (depending on our mutual predispositions).
One Final Thing
Yeah yeah. Better late than never.
I promise that I’ve been working on many pieces, many letters. I have 17 drafts in my Substack dashboard as I am writing this. 4 of them are mostly done (they just are out of order…). My “Guiding Principles” article is ~95% complete.
Most of my writing focus as of late has been on my most important work yet. I am very proud (but also very overwhelmed).
But enough talk about the labor. Soon enough, you will see the baby.
Results Pyramid
Excellent article...And some facts that I didn't even know (Billions never accessed the internet...Wow!)