Tag: personal bible

Your relationship with time (from Auren Hoffman)

Really thought provoking piece from Auren (his podcast is great too):

https://auren.substack.com/p/seconds-to-strategy-how-your-relationship

To quote:

There are five types of time:
1. Micro Time (sub-second)
2. Engagement Time (Seconds)
3. Business Time (Minutes to Hours)
4. Strategy Time (Days to Weeks)
5. Big-Thinking Time (Months to Years)

If forced to choose, I’m probably a 3. Leaning towards 4.

I also wonder how correlated this is with age and context. For example in university, I was definitely more 2, and during my Wall Street internship I was very 1 and 2.

And:

If you are one of those people that has a great “gut”, you likely should be in a career where quick-time decisions rule. The more you trust your gut, the more you should choose a profession where you are making decisions quickly.

And:

The longer the timescale you are optimizing for, the more you should spend reading (and gathering information). The shorter your timescale, the more you should spend doing (for muscle memory).

Definitely going in the bible.

Oldie and goodie: “there is real joy and meaning to be found outside the secular system of wealth, status and eternal youth”

An article I re-read time to time, Chris Michel’s The Puzzle (which I’m adding to my personal bible). Some excerpts below:

I’ve spent sweltering afternoons in monasteries, sheltered in the high Himalayas, zodiacked around Antarctic Icebergs, cruised at the edge of Space, wandered among remote South Pacific tribes, ridden through endless tea plantations, worked the fishing lines in Indonesia, and cried at more than one sunrise. I’ve seen and experienced more than I deserve, hoping that somewhere along the way, I’d find myself. What self-respecting explorer communes with Buddhist Monks at the foot of Everest and doesn’t have a spiritual awakening? In the movies: none.

I know that there is real joy and meaning to be found outside the secular system of wealth, status and eternal youth. It’s not our fault; it’s our programming. But the answers can’t be found in accumulating more. You knew that already.

Go read it!

Nat Friedman – Some things he believes: “Energy is a necessary input for progress”

Lovely list of perspectives and insights he’s gained over the years, at nat.org

A few of my favorites (copied verbatim):

—

The efficient market hypothesis is a lie
-In many cases it’s more accurate to model the world as 500 people than 8 billion

We are often not even asking the right questions

Where do you get your dopamine?
-The answer is predictive of your behavior

Going fast makes you focus on what’s important; there’s no time for bullshit

Enthusiasm matters!
-Energy is a necessary input for progress

—

Added to my personal bible

Latest version of Personal Bible + newly added content

I recently updated my personal bible and wanted to share the new content that was added.

Here’s the PDF download.

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The Tail End

It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.

In high school, I sat around playing hearts with the same four guys about five days a week. In four years, we probably racked up 700 group hangouts. Now, scattered around the country with totally different lives and schedules, the five of us are in the same room at the same time probably 10 days each decade. The group is in its final 7%.

Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.

Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

The Tail End

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The Paradoxes of Modern Life

The Paradox of Writing: Great writing looks effortless. But because the ideas are so clear, casual readers don’t appreciate how much time it took to refine them.

The Paradox of Originality: Many of history’s greatest artists have found their voice by copying others. We discover who we are by imitating others and watching our uniqueness emerge over time.

The Paradox of Specificity: In the age of the Internet, when everybody has Google search and social media, differentiation is free marketing. The more specific your goal, the more opportunities you’ll create for yourself.

The Paradox of Strategy: The same things that help you achieve outlier success also increase your chances of outlandish failure. For example, investing with leverage increases your chances of risk and reward.

The Paradoxes of Modern Life

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10 lessons from The Beatles

The first rule of improvisation (and brainstorming) is “yes… and”. When someone suggests an idea, plays a note, says a line, you accept it completely, then build on it. That’s how improvisational comedy or music flows. The moment someone says ‘no’, the flow is broken. As they slog through Don’t Let Me Down, George breaks the spell. Instead of building and accepting he leaps to judgement, saying “I think it’s awful.” Immediately, John and Paul lay down the rules: “Well, have you got anything?” “you’ve gotta come up with something better”.

But at other times, Paul, John and producer Glyn Johns keep at it: pouring out idea after idea. Some of them awful — see ‘Don’t be afraid’ below — but most are just technical ways to reframe the problem: play it faster, play it slower, change the order, change the instruments, add repetition, remove repetition.…They never seem to discuss or argue over these changes, they just play it to see if it works. They don’t judge the idea, they judge execution.

View at Medium.com