Curiosity Chronicle

Charlie Munger, an American investor most well-known as vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett's partner, passed away last week at 99, just one month shy of his 100th birthday.He was a treasure trove of wisdom—which he shared lavishly with the world over the course of his life, and which will create lasting ripples long after he is gone.10 of his insights that created a lasting impact on my life: (1) The most valuable riches take time, (2) Avoid the second arrow, (3) Develop real knowledge, (4) Success follows interest, (5) Invert, always invert, (6) Avoid the Ostrich Effect, (7) Never mimic the herd, (8) Create a "too hard" pile, (9) Live what you want to receive, and (10) Wisdom compounds.

Question: Where am I allowing the uncontrollable to impact my life?Framework: Energy Creators vs. Energy Absorbers.

In a famous story, Cicero wrote of Diagoras, an atheist who, when confronted with paintings of people who prayed and then were saved from a shipwreck, replied, "I see those who were saved, but where are those painted who prayed and drowned?"Survivorship Bias is the error resulting from systematically focusing on survivors (successes) and ignoring casualties (failures) that causes us to miss the true base rates of survival (the actual probability of success) and arrive at flawed conclusions.To avoid the trap, we must consider the unseen evidence just as much as the seen. To develop a better perspective on base rates of success, consult a Possibility Grid, which lays out completed and not completed actions of both winners and losers.

3 short passages from Teddy Roosevelt's 1899 Strenuous Life speech.

Question: What are the tiny things you are thankful for?Framework: Creative Cliff Illusion.

In preparation for my first marathon, I spoke to a legendary American marathoner, who offered one piece of advice: "Make sure you have three goals: An A Goal, a B Goal, and a C Goal." Soon after the race, I realized that the core principle behind the system applied well-beyond running.For any arena of life, you can create an A Goal, B Goal, and C Goal. On days when you feel great, you hit your A Goal. On days when you feel ok (most days!), you hit your B Goal. On days when you feel bad, you hit your C Goal.The ABC Goal System removes any intimidation or guilt: As long as you hit your C Goal, you're making forward progress.

I just co-hosted a three-day retreat with a group of multimillionaire entrepreneurs in Cabo.This podcast episode is a recording of my journal reflections from the event, which includes 10+ learnings (that everyone should hear)...

Question: How to flip the script on your fears.Framework: The 80% rule (kick the afternoon slump).

Every journey has two fundamental sides: (1) The Positive: Where we want to go; and (2) The Negative: Where we want to avoid along the way.The Anti-To-Do List is our tool for governing the negative, for avoiding the traps along the journey. Your Anti-To-Do List has the set of daily actions, behaviors, and habits to avoid; the things that will hold you back or lead you into trouble.The Anti-To-Do List is dynamic, comprised of the actions you are focused on avoiding in the present. My list changes periodically as I "graduate" (i.e. have 100% compliance for an extended period) from any one action and feel compelled to add a new one that I am struggling with.

Question: Are you fulfilled, or just less lonely?Framework: Grayscale Mode.

Researchers studying zebras in the wild placed a red dot on the target zebras to distinguish them, but they were quickly eaten by lions. The Zebra Effect says that blending into the crowd is a survival mechanism. Standing out is risky.In his final shareholder letter, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos called out the difficulty and importance of the fight against normalcy. Specifically, he said that your distinctiveness isn't free—it comes with a steep cost. But it is worth it.10 ways to stand out: (1) Take care of your house, (2) Learn to enjoy being wrong, (3) Let curiosity guide you, (4) Do the old fashioned things well, (5) Stop fearing boredom, (6) Avoid perspective blindness, (7) Find your tribe, (8) Avoid the comparison trap, (9) Stop taking everyone's advice, and (10) Avoid the need for external validation.

Question: What game are you playing?Framework: The Diderot Effect.

Mastering the art and science of conversation is essential to creating the deep human connection that provides rich texture to life.Four principles of connected conversation: (1) Create doorknobs, (2) Be a loud listener, (3) Repeat and follow, and (4) Make situational eye contact.Use my list of potential conversation starter or conversation developer doorknobs to thrive in your next social situation or professional gathering.

Question: How would you accomplish your 5-year goals in the next year?Framework: Inversion

Last weekend, I attended my 10-year Stanford University reunion. It was an opportunity to look back on those formative years, reconnect with old friends, and reflect on the lessons learned.10 lessons from 10-year college reunion: (1) The Medici Effect is real; (2) Your daily habits show up on your face after 10 years; (3) Insecurity tells, confidence shows; (4) Plans are great, but life will generally laugh at them; (5) Fighting the Zebra Effect is hard (but worth it); (6) Identity is the real thing we're searching for; (7) Freedom is rare, but incredibly apparent; (8) We get more embarrassing with age (or we're just mature enough to embrace it); (9) Shared struggle builds unbreakable bonds; (10) Life is much more fragile than you think.

Question: How is your definition of success harming your life?Framework: The 90% Rule.

I have spent time with a lot of very successful people. I have observed two common trends: (1) A struggle to appreciate the present and (2) A struggle to identify the key actions to create the desired future.The tool we can all use to fight back: Mental Time Travel. This involves the vivid imagination of both the past and the future. You use your mind to figuratively "travel" to the experienced past and the envisioned future.Professionally, Mental Time Travel allows us to consider both (1) the gap between where we are and where we want to be and (2) the gain between where we were and where we are. Personally, Mental Time Travel allows us to build a robust gratitude practice and appreciate the present state.

The first in a series of impromptu, off-the-cuff episodes based on my daily learnings and notes.This episode covers 10 key lessons learned from spending time with 50 multimillionaire entrepreneurs at a retreat in Texas.

Question: How would you want your loved ones to describe you?Framework: The Life Force Pyramid.

Pixar Animation Studios has a 30+ year history of creating award-winning animated films. One of their secrets for consistently excellent output: The Braintrust.The Braintrust is a group of individuals who meet regularly to pressure test in process films. It is a diverse group not directly involved in the film's production, but with a vested interest in its success via their roles at the company. We can apply a similar concept to striving for excellence in our own personal and professional lives. We all need a Personal Braintrust.To build your Braintrust, work to assemble a group of individuals who are unbiased, have different perspectives, and want to see you succeed. The group can be dynamic over time, and it doesn't have to be formal.As you encounter challenges, key decisions, or inflection points in your personal and professional life, you can reliably turn to the members of your Braintrust for grounded perspectives, candor, feedback, and advice.

Question: Who are your Winter Friends?Framework: The 3x5 Notecard Strategy.

The world lost a beautiful soul over the weekend. My grandmother, Vimala Reddy ("Avva" to me), passed away peacefully in the early morning hours on October 1. She was 94-years-old.Life is cyclical. When I was born, she was there to welcome me to this world. In the end, I had to bid her farewell from it.10 short lessons from her that changed my life (and may change yours): (1) Don’t fear sadness, as it tends to sit right next to love, (2) Life isn't about avoiding chaos, but making the chaos beautiful, (3) Never lose the mischievous 10-year-old you have inside you, (4) Your relationships keep you healthy, (5) Get your 10,000 brain steps in daily, (6) If you can keep your head, the world is yours, (7) Dynamism is the most important human trait, (8) Take pride in the details, (9) Create stories your grandchildren will love to hear someday, and (10) Your heart will rarely lead you astray.

Question: What am I certain of today that I'll laugh at in 10 years?Framework: The Bike Shed Effect.

I recently re-read an old Paul Graham essay that got me thinking about the composition of professional time—what "types" of time exist in our workdays and how we can find a more optimal balance across those types.I identified four types of professional time: Management, Creation, Consumption, and Ideation. Most of us have a lot of Management, a little bit of Creation, and almost no Consumption and Ideation.Use a color coding calendar exercise to deconstruct your current mix of time. Three tips to improve your balance: (1) Batch Management Time, (2) Increase Creation Time, and (3) Create space for Consumption and Ideation Time.

Question: What would you invest in today assuming you had to hold the investment forever?Framework: Survivorship Bias.

I just completed my first marathon in 2:57:31 just 6 months after I started running. By achieving the sub 3-hour marathon time, I had hit my Big Goal. It felt great, at first. But then came the rut, one which led to a fundamental change in how I'm going to think about goal setting and achievement in the future.Big Goals create a perfect storm for unhappiness. If we miss them, we feel like a failure. If we hit them, we feel a temporary satisfaction, followed by an odd darkness brought about by the Arrival Fallacy, purpose dissipation, and their extrinsic focus.Focus on Micro Goals is my new, favored approach. Micro Goals are intrinsic, avoid the Arrival Fallacy, and create daily purpose. I will continue to have Big Goals, but I will focus my daily energy around these Micro Goals to create a healthier balance.

Question: The 1-Second Decision.Framework: Maximizers vs. Satisficers.

Dr. Peter Attia uses a framework with his patients called the Centenarian Decathlon to organize physical aspirations for life’s later years. The idea is to choose 10 physical tasks the person wants to be able to do at 100 and then reverse engineer the necessary actions in the present to achieve that future.Using a similar exercise to look at the broader scope of your life can be very helpful. What does your ideal life look like at age 80? Who are you with? What are you doing? How do you feel? Where are you?To create that future, what are the necessary actions in the present? What actions, habits, and behaviors do you need to adopt today to create that end?

Question: What does your perfect workday look like?Framework: The 3-3-3 Method.

A Stanford business professor split her class into groups and gave each group $5 and 2 hours to generate as high of a return as possible. The losing groups bartered with the $5 or used the time to generate income. The winning group sold the ad space of the presentation time at the end of the challenge and generated a 12,000% return.When faced with a challenge with the potential for outsized rewards, we need to think differently. Three steps to think differently: (1) Avoid the distraction, (2) Ask foundational questions, and (3) Select the leveraged approach.Remember: Creative, non-linear, asymmetric thinking generates creative, non-linear, asymmetric outcomes.

Question: If everything stays the same, what is the one change that would have the greatest impact?Framework: The Locksmith Paradox.

Last week, I spent three days with a group of successful entrepreneurs on a retreat in Big Sky, Montana. I left the event with a new energy to grow and a lot of interesting, non-obvious learnings. This piece shares my 10 key learnings from the event.The learnings: (1) Freedom is the real goal, (2) Environment is everything, (3) Insecurity is natural, (4) Always know the game you're playing, (5) Create value with no expectation, (6) Owned distribution is a cheat code, (7) Success isn't always loud, (8) No one has it all figured out, (9) Entrepreneurial loneliness is a real problem, and (10) Solve the problem by seeing it differently.My Rule for Life: Find the room where it happens. Get in that room. Once you're in it, help others get there.

Question: What am I avoiding because it's too painful to address?Framework: Fundamental Attribution Error.

While we all want to live in a state of low stress, during certain moments, we need to learn to optimize our stress response—we need to learn to harness stress to our benefit rather than allowing it to derail us.The Yerkes-Dodson Law says that stress and performance are positively correlated, but only up to a certain point, after which more stress reduces performance.3 strategies for mastering stress: (1) Reframe threat into challenge; (2) Use science-backed breathing techniques to pull back from the edge; and (3) Place yourself in controlled stressful environments to train your stress response.

Question: If you woke up three years from now and were living your ideal life, what were the three things you did to get you there?Framework: The Pyrrhic Victory.

Theory: Our belief in our ability to create our own luck exposes us to more good fortune (or at least allows us to see the good fortune amidst a sea of bad).In an early 2000s study, Dr. Richard Wiseman found that lucky people came across "chance" opportunities, while the unlucky people seemed to miss them. Both groups had equal access to these opportunities, but the lucky group saw what the unlucky group tended to miss.Our daily thoughts, behaviors, and actions serve to expand or contract our luck surface area, which in turn determines our experience as a lucky or unlucky person.The Luck Razor: When choosing between two paths, always choose the path that has a larger luck surface area.

Question: Do I actually need more information, or do I simply need to act on the information I already have?Framework: The Identity-Action Grid

I recently got a message from a 22-year-old reader asking for career advice. Career advice is a topic area that I have always found interesting, probably because I feel it so often misses the mark. I take this as a challenge.I sat down and synthesized the advice I would have wanted to receive early in my career (or what I would tell my own son if he were just starting out).The 7 pieces of career advice everyone needs to hear: (1) Swallow the frog, (2) Do the old fashioned things well, (3) Work hard first and smart later, (4) Build storytelling skills, (5) Build a rep for figuring it out, (6) Show up early and stay late, and (7) Dive through cracked doors.

Question: Which thorns do you choose?Framework: The Question of Nine.

The Wall Street Journal recently released a visual breaking down how people spend their time in retirement. The visual shows that the majority of a retiree's time is spent on sleeping, relaxing and leisure, and watching television.Most of us create this beautiful image of what retirement will look like, but the reality is (likely) much different. Why? Well, the image we create is based on who we are today, while the reality will be based on who we are at retirement age.The traditional concept of retirement is grounded in a foundational assumption that there should be a "before and after" within your life. I would propose a reframe: The goal is to design a life that you don't need to retire from.

Question: What are the boat anchors in your life?Framework: Q1 relationships.

David Brooks first proposed a distinction between Résumé Virtues and Eulogy Virtues. Résumé Virtues are the things you put on your resume. Eulogy Virtues are the things people talk about at your funeral.What I've resolved: We can build both, but only by focusing on the correct directionality. A purposeful focus on Eulogy Virtues will build Résumé Virtues, but a focus on Résumé Virtues will not build Eulogy Virtues.If there's one thing I learned last week, it's that life is so very fragile. But no matter how fragile it is, each day, we have a choice of how to live it. Each day is a fresh start, a fresh choice to make. How will you choose to live?

Question: The way you treat yourself.Framework: The Shirky Principle.

The Parable of the Two Arrows: "In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional."Victor Frankl, the Austrian philosopher and Holocaust survivor renowned for his contributions to existential psychology, has a brilliant framing for this: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response."To create the space and move forward after a negative event: Pause, Reset, and Choose.

I was recently struck by a realization: The people I read books about are very rarely the people I would ever want to trade lives with. Why? The price of their success was not one I would be willing to pay.There is a price tag for anything you want to achieve in life. Every single thing you want is an output that requires certain inputs to buy or earn. There's a "list price" (actual, direct price to pay for the thing you want) and a "real price" (List Price, plus the hidden, indirect price in the form of the tradeoffs and opportunity cost of the pursuit).What I've learned: There are many things in life that look like a great deal based on the List Price, but a ripoff based on the Real Price.Questions to ask: What is the List Price of the thing you want? What is the Real Price of the thing you want? Are you willing to pay that Real Price?

Question: If I repeated this day for 100 days, would my life be better or worse?Framework: The 5 Second Rule.

Welcome to the second half of 2023. If you've kept up your New Year's resolutions and feel on track, great! If not, that's ok, because even if the best time to start was 6 months ago, the second best time is today.Today, I'd like to share a distillation of my 10 favorite ideas from the 52 newsletters I've written so far this year.The ideas covered: Spotlight Effect, 1-1-1 Method, Eisenhower Matrix, Surfer Mentality, Feynman Technique, 4 Types of Luck, Trap of the Extraordinary, Character Invention, Think Day, and Time Billionaire.

Question: What would this look like if it were easy?Framework: The wind and the sun.

A mental model is a way to think about the world. It is a tool—a lens through which you can simplify, evaluate, and make decisions in real time as you walk through life.When faced with any key decision, you effectively choose one of two potential characters: Investor or Borrower. The Investor is a long-term thinker who makes an investment to delay gratification, while the Borrower is a short-term thinker who takes out a loan to experience pleasure now.Investments compound positively and the future self cashes in on the rewards. Loans accrue interest negatively and the future self is stuck with the bill.

This is the first in a new series of shorts that will cover one question and one framework to get you thinking heading into the weekend.Question: What are the elements of your ideal life at 80-years-old?Framework: Self-Handicapping (and how to avoid it).