Strategy Boffins

Formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati

Idea Almanac

What amor fati (love of fate) means is the following: There is much in life we cannot control, with death as the ultimate example of this. We will experience illness and physical pain. We will go through separations with people. We will face failures from our own mistakes and the nasty malevolence of our fellow humans. And our task is to accept these moments, and even embrace them, not for the pain but for the opportunities to learn and strengthen ourselves. In doing so, we affirm life itself, accepting all of its possibilities. And at the core of this is our complete acceptance of death.”

Excerpt From: Robert Greene. “The Daily Laws.”

Story-study-story-study structure

Idea Almanac

What’s the secret to writing like Malcolm Gladwell?
It’s a puzzle that has consumed a generation of nonfiction writers. Ever since Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, debuted on the New York Times best-seller list in 2000, where it resided for a staggering four hundred weeks, countless writers across a range of disciplines have attempted to crack the code. Certain patterns are obvious. There is the story-study-story-study structure that is now a fixture of popular nonfiction, the novelistic flair used to bring central characters to life, and the sticky simplicity with which complex ideas are communicated, transformed from lifeless data into irresistible dinner party ammunition.

Excerpt From: Ron Friedman. “Decoding Greatness.”

Hofstadter’s law

Idea Almanac

“The cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter is famous, among other reasons, for coining ‘Hofstadter’s law’, which states that any task you’re planning to tackle will always take longer than you expect, ‘even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law’. In other words, even if you know that a given project is likely to overrun, and you adjust your schedule accordingly, it’ll just overrun your new estimated finishing time, too. It follows from this that the standard advice about planning – to give yourself twice as long as you think you’ll need – could actually make matters worse.”

Excerpt From: Oliver Burkeman. “Four Thousand Weeks.”

The Cost of Social Norms

Idea Almanac

“You are at your mother-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, and what a sumptuous spread she has put on the table for you! The turkey is roasted to a golden brown; the stuffing is homemade and exactly the way you like it … The festivities continue into the late afternoon. Gazing fondly across the table at your mother-in-law, you rise to your feet and pull out your wallet. “Mom, for all the love you’ve put into this, how much do I owe you?” you say sincerely. As silence descends on the gathering, you wave a handful of bills. “Do you think three hundred dollars will do it? No, wait, I should give you four hundred!”

Excerpt From: Dan Ariely. “Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition.”

Nonverifiable judgments

Idea Almanac

“Many professional judgments are nonverifiable. Barring egregious errors, underwriters will never know, for instance, whether a particular policy was overpriced or underpriced. Other forecasts may be nonverifiable because they are conditional. “If we go to war, we will be crushed” is an important prediction, but it is likely to remain untested (we hope). Or forecasts may be too long term for the professionals who make them to be brought to account—like, for instance, an estimate of mean temperatures by the end of the twenty-first century.”

Excerpt From: Daniel Kahneman. “Noise.”

Train yourself to look deep within them and see their character

Idea Almanac

“When choosing people to work and associate with, do not be mesmerized by their reputation or taken in by the surface image they try to project. Instead, train yourself to look deep within them and see their character. People’s character is formed in their earliest years and by their daily habits. It is what compels them to repeat certain actions in their lives and fall into negative patterns. Look closely at such patterns and remember that people never do something just once. They will inevitably repeat their behavior. Gauge the relative strength of their character by how well they handle adversity, their ability to adapt and work with other people, their patience and ability to learn. Always gravitate toward those who display signs of strength, and avoid the many toxic types out there. Know thoroughly your own character so you can break your compulsive patterns and take control of your destiny.”

Excerpt From: Robert Greene. “The Laws of Human Nature.”

Memory for information age

Idea Almanac

“Much as our taste for sugar and fat may have served us well in a world of scarce nutrition, but is now maladaptive in a world of ubiquitous fast food joints, our memories aren’t perfectly adapted for our contemporary information age. The tasks that we often rely on our memories for today simply weren’t relevant in the environment in which the human brain evolved. Our ancestors didn’t need to recall phone numbers, or word-for-word instructions from their bosses, or the Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum, or (because they lived in relatively small, stable groups) the names of dozens of strangers at a cocktail party.”

Excerpt From: Joshua Foer. “Moonwalking With Einstein.” – Amazon Link

I prioritized distractions over the most important people

Idea Almanac

I love sweets, I love social media, and I love television. However, as much as I love these things, they don’t love me back. Overeating a sugary indulgence after a meal, spending too much time scrolling a feed, or indulging in a Netflix binge until 2 am were all things I once did with little or no conscious thought—out of habit. Just as eating too much junk food leads to health problems, the overuse of devices can also have negative consequences. For me, it was the way I prioritized distractions over the most important people in my life. ”

Excerpt From: Nir Eyal;. “Indistractable.” – Amazon Link

Learning how to learn it

Idea Almanac

“The prefix meta comes from the Greek term μετά, meaning “beyond.” It typically signifies when something is “about” itself or deals with a higher layer of abstraction. The character 灶, for example which means “stove,” has a 火 on the left-hand side to indicate that it has some relationship to fire. Learning this property of Chinese characters is metalearning—not learning about the object of your inquiry itself, in this case words and phrases, but learning about how knowledge is structured and acquired within this subject; in other words, learning how to learn it.”

Excerpt From: Scott Young. “Ultralearning.”

10 percent more Great Work

Idea Almanac

“At Box of Crayons, we make the distinction between Good Work (the everyday, get-it-done, this-is-my-job-description type of work) and Great Work (the work with both more meaning and more impact), all with the goal of helping organizations and their people do less Good Work and more Great Work. You can probably imagine how things might shift if you and your team were all doing, say, 10 percent more Great Work. But quite frankly, who has the time?”

Excerpt From: Michael Bungay Stanier. “The Coaching Habit”

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