The average reader spends seconds on an article. Do we? "Think better" to think well.
Find a great mindset, learning and teaching, whatever appeals to you.
Tell great stories. Our humanity makes us narrators. Tell better stories well. Click through to get a summary of the Heath Brothers masterpiece on stories, Made to Stick.
Mike Lombardi reminds us about Curly in the Three Stooges boat. The quickest answer may be the worst. Charlie Munger warns us to avoid making dumb mistakes. "It is better to be approximately right than exactly wrong."
Focus on big ideas, mental models. Farnam Street shares over a hundred mental models including inversion, sample size, the Pareto Principle, Hanlon's Razor, Black Swans, Robustness, Margin of Safety and much more. "The rule of life is to repeat what works and has been rewarded." Restated, "do more of what works and less of what doesn't."
Rho covers how dense the teaching material is, 'A' the extent (we can vary the extent, think pick-and-roll coverage), and 'V' relates to speed of play. Ordinarily, playing fast (squaring the velocity) increases drag (decreases margin of safety).
Defensively, we want to INCREASE the opponent's drag. We can increase density (load to the ball, blitz), vary the area defended (alter the court), and speed them up (e.g. press).
Offensively, increase their defensive drag. Spacing decreases our density, ball reversal increases the defensive area to be covered, and our ball and player movement alters our velocity. Better movement increases defensive drag.
"Find stunning colleagues." Making great decisions consistently is hard...but making hard decisions well is great. Terrific coworkers make life better. Hire tough and work to keep valued colleagues on board.
Focus. Munger quote, “Our main business is not to see what lies at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.” Make THIS play.
Find great mentors. We are blessed to find one great teacher and more privileged to find a series.
Do the work. Lombardi shares, "Belichick goes to work every single day with the
same appetite and the same desire to improve and the same curiosity." We can always do "it" better. We choose how important "it" is and like-minded people.
Reflect. Michael Useem teaches in The Leadership Moment. What went well? What went poorly? What can we do differently? What is the enduring lesson? "Expecting high performance is prerequisite to its achievement among those who work with you. Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome, but their absence will assuredly create the opposite."
False duality means separation of the one way and the other way. The Celtics and the Rockets aren't playing in the NBA Finals partly because of the false duality between the old way and the new way of thinking about and playing basketball.
Consider the alternatives. "Invert, always invert." Another way may be better. Don't focus on my way, find a better way
"Share something great." If we go to our grave leaving great ideas on the table or hidden in some treasure map, we've cheated a lot of people.
Sweat the details. Our process demands both an overview (the bird's eye view) and attention to fine points. Legendary coach Pete Newell prioritized footwork, balance, and maneuvering speed. You play the whole game on your feet.
Opinions and truth aren't the same. "This is what I believe; I could be wrong."
Ask better questions. In Pebbles of Perception, Laurence Endersen asks, "what could we do (or not) that would guarantee failure?" That revisits mathematician Carl Jacobi's mandate, "invert, always invert."
Do a Premortem. The premortem study examines thorny issues that should keep us awake at night. Do we have the right people in the right seats doing the right tasks?
Invest in ourselves. Am I spending time or investing it? When we read are we reading effectively? Farnam Street teaches us how to read better. Matt Haig explains, "the plot of every book ever can be boiled down to ‘someone is looking for something'."
Lagniappe:
We had a good turnout for yesterday's first offseason session. It never goes exactly as planned but gets planned exactly. Teach kids how to play not just to run plays.
Reflect. Michael Useem teaches in The Leadership Moment. What went well? What went poorly? What can we do differently? What is the enduring lesson? "Expecting high performance is prerequisite to its achievement among those who work with you. Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome, but their absence will assuredly create the opposite."
False duality means separation of the one way and the other way. The Celtics and the Rockets aren't playing in the NBA Finals partly because of the false duality between the old way and the new way of thinking about and playing basketball.
Consider the alternatives. "Invert, always invert." Another way may be better. Don't focus on my way, find a better way
Understand the power of "marginal gains." Compound our knowledge and wisdom.
Sweat the details. Our process demands both an overview (the bird's eye view) and attention to fine points. Legendary coach Pete Newell prioritized footwork, balance, and maneuvering speed. You play the whole game on your feet.
Opinions and truth aren't the same. "This is what I believe; I could be wrong."
Ask better questions. In Pebbles of Perception, Laurence Endersen asks, "what could we do (or not) that would guarantee failure?" That revisits mathematician Carl Jacobi's mandate, "invert, always invert."
Do a Premortem. The premortem study examines thorny issues that should keep us awake at night. Do we have the right people in the right seats doing the right tasks?
Invest in ourselves. Am I spending time or investing it? When we read are we reading effectively? Farnam Street teaches us how to read better. Matt Haig explains, "the plot of every book ever can be boiled down to ‘someone is looking for something'."
Lagniappe:
We had a good turnout for yesterday's first offseason session. It never goes exactly as planned but gets planned exactly. Teach kids how to play not just to run plays.
