WEBVTT - Mastering Clear Thinking w/ Shane Parrish 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.239 If you get a really bad night sleep, you're out drinking, 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.880 you're with your buddies, you and then you come to 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:09.119 work and there's traffic on the way to work, and 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:11.480 all of a sudden, you're angry. You're angry at the world. 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.319 You don't even know. You're probably angry at yourself deep down, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.480 but you're not feeling that you're playing on hard mode. 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.880 It's a great pleasure to welcome clear thinker and author 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.760 Shane Parrish to the show. Shane first came on my 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.080 radar when I discovered his hugely popular blog Farnham Street. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.400 Farnham Street offers timeless lessons and insights to help you 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:39.080 think better, orn faster, and make smart decisions. Today's conversation 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.159 focuses on the topic of his new book, which is 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:46.240 called Clear Thinking, Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results. Throughout 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.199 this conversation, Shane convinced me more than ever of the 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.920 importance of clear thinking. He argues that in order to 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.600 be a clear thinker, we must first create the space 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.120 to reason in our thoughts, feelings and actions, and then 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.600 we must deliberately use that space to think clearly. He 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.760 makes the convincing case that if you can master that skill, 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:08.199 you will have an unstoppable advantage in life. I learned 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:11.720 a lot from Shane's book and this conversation. I particularly 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.319 love how clearly he explains the main enemies of queer thinking, 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.160 such as are out of control emotions and there you go, 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.080 and also love his practical tips for building strength and 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.959 resiliency and living a life full of things that matter. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.959 I think you'll really enjoy this episode as well. So, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:32.880 without further ado, I bring you, Shane Parish. Nice to 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:33.959 finally meet you, Shane. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.679 It's nice to meet you too. A big fan from faraway. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:42.200 Oh well, likewise, a longtime reader of Farnham Street and 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.919 just admirer of your well, shall I say, clear thinking, 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.440 you know, which is certainly the topic of our conversation today. 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.200 Really enjoyed reading your new book, gratulations on it. It's 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.560 a really big accomplishment. It's hard writing a book. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:03.520 Isn't it, Thank you you would know, Yeah. 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:03.920 Well, it's hard. It's hard writing a book, and it 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:11.040 takes a lot of fortitude and so overcoming self doubt. 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.359 And it's like running a marathon where like no one 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.680 cares about any progress you're making on the marathon unless 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:19.320 you actually cross that finish line. 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.200 You know. I've learned a couple things through the process. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.200 One I don't know if I would tell many people 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.800 I was writing another book, because everybody's like, how's it going, 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.840 like a week later, and it's like, it's not going anywhere. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.880 It's sort of like, you know, exactly your doctorate or something. 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.600 It's like this goal. I'm telling you I'm doing this thing, 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.600 but it's like years away from actually happening. And then 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:41.760 the other thing I was thinking about the other day was, 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.600 you know, it's kind of like getting naked on stage 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.880 in front of a thousand people and having them all 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.560 judge you. Like, reading the reviews and the comment it's 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.280 by real people. It's like, you know, there's a little 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.600 bit of excitement inside me, and then there's also like, 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:57.240 oh god, what are they going to say? What do 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.440 they think? How did this come across to people who 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:01.760 weren't me because they can only see the words on 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.040 the page and not all the things in my head. 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.360 And so it's been really interesting in that in that 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:12.160 respect too. I mean, everything has been almost overwhelmingly positive. Yeah, 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.760 I was just gonna share of that, but yeah, it's 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:16.639 a little nervous. I check every day. I'm like, oh, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:17.560 is there a new review? 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.760 Well, look even nasber than no review, Like my book 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:26.519 Transcend came out April twenty twenty and got wholly ignored 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.080 because of April twenty twenty. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.080 Yeah, that would be such a hard time to have 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:32.880 a book come out. 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.640 Yeah, it was a crazy time. I mean, and I 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.360 had so many emotions in so many different directions in 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:41.920 April twenty twenty. 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.240 Were you even focused on the book though, Like, you know, 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.920 it's sort of an afterthought as I'm thinking about it, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.720 It's sort of not really Actually, Yeah, I was so 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:50.920 vid at that point. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.320 Yeah, I was stranded wherever I was, and I was 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.960 more just focused on survival. Yeah. Yeah, But then you know, 0:03:58.120 --> 0:03:59.160 then they're like people are like. 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.720 Oh, if a book coming out, I'm like, oh, yeah, 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:06.240 it came out last week. But anyway, this is about 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:11.640 you and about your terrific new book, and how can 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.920 we create the best space for clear thinking today. That's 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.280 what I've been trying to think through because it's in 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.400 these kind of interviews it's so hard to to to 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.560 really narrow down the best questions. But I actually have 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:27.719 a way I want to start this can you tell 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.320 me a little bit about why Peter D. Kaufman by 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.080 the way, By the way, we love his last name. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.920 You know, why has he been such a strong and 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.760 why has he had such a strong influence on your 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:39.680 own thinking. 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:46.800 So I met Peter Gosh, I'm gonna say eight nine 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.480 years ago in Omaha at the Berkshire Out the Way 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.839 shareholders meeting. And I was there and I was sleeping 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.640 in my car, and I was in the lobby and 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.200 I was trying to get a room and they had 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.640 given it away. And he overheard this, and he came 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.000 and he gave me one of his room. And this 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.280 is how he met this incredible act of generosity and kindness. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.800 And for people who know Peter, one of his sayings 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.240 is go positive and go first, and this was like 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.760 an example of him living that. And then we struck 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.560 up a conversation. I being a Canadian, I'm like, I 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:22.760 can't even accept this, right, Like, I'll sleep in my car, 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.400 It's okay. And you know, he basically convinced me to 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.080 accept his generous gift and it was one of the 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.320 nicest things anybody's ever done for me, Just totally blund 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.400 and we struck up a conversation. He said, hey, fly 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.760 out to California, will grab dinner sometime. I got home 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.240 and took him up on his offer, and then we 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.480 sort of became friends. And through those conversations, it's interesting 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.120 to meet somebody who thinks in a very different way 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.240 than I had been accustomed to or exposed to. And 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.200 you know, he has these little pithy saying it's like 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.680 go positive and go first, and you know, when you 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.440 start talking about that with him, it you know, there's 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.560 a lot of information behind it. And we've had many 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.080 conversations over the years and he's been one of the 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:09.039 biggest influences on my life. And he's friends with another 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.400 one of the biggest influences on my life, which is 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.760 Charlie Munger, who recently passed away, and those two together 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.480 have just had a profound impact on my thinking and 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.080 living to the type of person I want to be. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.000 You know, they say, show me your heroes and I'll 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.320 show you where you're going to go. And I feel 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.600 like those two our giants in that field, and they 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.320 hold me forward in a lot of wods. 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:37.159 Yeah, they really are. How long have you been so 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:44.280 interested in the connection between mind thinking and way of living. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.479 I've been interested in it for a long time for 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.840 different angles though, Right, So, I've been interested in thinking 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.000 since probably two thousand and one, in two thousand and 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.440 two about how we can think better because I worked 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.640 for an intelligence agency, and you know, one of the 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.839 prime very things you have to do there is in 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.159 a way you're competing with other intelligence agencies and you 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.680 don't have the resources that other agencies have, and they 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.000 have people that are just as smart as you, and 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.760 they have better assets than you, and you can't opt out. 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.840 You still have to play. So that was always like 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.720 a really fun sort of thing to think about it. 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.360 And then when it came to living a brown two 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.840 thousand and eight, that's when I started thinking about, like, 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:28.760 what is it I really wanted up life because I 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.440 had worked about seven years straight, sixteen hours a day, 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.480 six days a week, because I started two weeks before 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:42.360 September eleventh. September eleventh happened, the world changes forever. I 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.120 have no idea what's going on, but like all of 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.920 a sudden, I'm working every day, and you know, I 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.640 developed a lot of close friendships, worked with some really 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.960 incredible people. But those six years really flew by, and 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.160 you didn't really have a choice. And then I remember 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.480 I went with my acts at the time and we 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.960 went to Italy for a vaca and it was three weeks, 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.440 and it was really the first vacation I had had 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.520 since I don't know, I didn't even know because I 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.120 started working when I was fourteen, so it'd be basically 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.080 the first adult vacation I ever really took. And she 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.200 was so annoyed with me because I slept sixteen hours 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.280 a day every day. She would like, go get gelato 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.520 and come back, and I'm like passed out on the 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:27.560 like on the water fountain and you know, anywhere I 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.480 could sleep. I was just sleeping, and I was like, oh, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.360 let me lie down for a nap and then you know, 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.640 we can go out later, and thinking it'd be like 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.920 forty five minutes, but it's like five hours later. I 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.440 wake up and She's like and my body was just 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.160 recovering from all of this stress, this work, this environment 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.600 that I was in. And then I started thinking about, Okay, 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.360 what is it. Like let's think a little bit backwards here, 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:50.920 Let's take Muger's approach and like invert this a little 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.240 and what if I want to avoid and I want 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.560 to avoid this for the next like fifty years. And 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.120 so it gave me pause and made me start thinking 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.120 a little bit about what do I want the end 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:02.720 of my life to look like? And am I doing 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.400 the things right now that I need to be doing 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:05.280 to make it look like that. 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.480 Yeah, that's a great approach. Most the opposite approach from 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:15.080 leaving in the moment and spontaneously or impulsively. You know, 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.480 you you worked in at an intelligence agency, like you 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:24.160 started a month before the attacks on September eleventh, Is 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:24.800 that correct? 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.720 It started two weeks before? Yeah, two weeks before. 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:35.240 Wow, So that really got you kicking up high gear 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.200 in terms of the need for queer thinking. 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.360 It really thrust a lot of people into roles and 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.559 responsibilities that they didn't get hired for and they probably 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.880 were ready for at the time. But again, you don't 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:49.439 have a choice. You just do the best you can 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:51.960 and a lot of people are counting on you. And 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.520 it's not just people in the organization and your team. 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:59.400 It's our country, our government, other countries, troops in theater 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:02.440 are counting on us. And that's why you couldn't really 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.840 opt out because there's so much sort of writing on 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:07.920 your shoulders, and you didn't want to opt out. You 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.200 wanted to be a part of part of this. I mean, 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.240 that's sort of why you signed up to work there, right. 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.600 You want to you want to help, and you want 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.760 to find solutions. The thing is, you know, I sort 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.480 of got thrust in these roles and responsibilities that I 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.679 really wasn't prepared for and I didn't really know what 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.360 to do. So I started going around the organization and like, 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.720 how do I learn how to make decisions? Like twenty three, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:34.200 twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, what nobody's ever taught 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.640 me how to make decisions? There was like no class 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.400 in university on decision making. And now all of a sudden, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.800 you're making a decision that affects your team, your organization, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.320 other countries, troops in theater, people's lives, and how does 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.520 that work? And how do you think through these problems 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:55.080 in a rapid environment of an operational pace? And that 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.800 was that was the impetus for sort of like learning 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.360 how do we do this? And can we learn right? 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.160 Or is it just sort of like you're born with it? 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.840 Or do you get lucky? How do you think about this? 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.960 And This led me to sort of like go around 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.240 the organization. I was that guy who showed up at 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.560 meetings and I'd just sit there in the back and 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.920 you know, be quiet. But I was never invited, and 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.320 sometimes I get kicked out and sometimes they let me stay. 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.680 And I was like, I want to learn how, you know, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.920 our senior people make decisions. And then I went back 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.760 to school and I wanted to do an MBA because 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.760 I thought that that would be the answer to learning 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.760 how to make decisions, and it wasn't. But the NBA 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.160 was sort of the connection to Monger, who you know, 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.360 I had come across before, maybe late in high school. 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.839 I read the Making of an American Capitalist by Roger 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.719 Lowenstein on Warren Buffett, and that was my first exposure 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:47.760 to them, and I hadn't really given it much thought. 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.240 But then it sort of dawned on me during my 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.120 MBA that I was like, here are these two guys 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.680 in the real world who seemed to consistently make better 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.520 decisions than everybody else. Have they learned something that I 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:04.080 can use and pull into the organization and apply to 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.880 make us better, to make me better, to give us 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.280 a better chance at success. And that was the start 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.160 of Farnham Street Blog, which is fs dop blog, but 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.800 it originally started as six ' eight one three one 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:22.520 dash fourteen forty dot blogger dot com, and it started 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.640 as that because it was my reflections on what I 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:26.640 was reading. I was reading all the Berkshire Hathaway letters, 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.360 I was reading all the Westcoat shareholder letters. I was 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.560 deep diving into these guys trying to figure out, like, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.000 how is it they've taken you know, Daniel Kahman's work 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.720 and Michael Porter's work and they put it into practice, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.920 and what is it that we can learn from that? 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.200 And it was a scratch pad for me. I don't 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.320 I don't quite still don't quite understand how other people 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.479 found it because I was allowed to have an online 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.800 persona like I wasn't allowed to be a person. It 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.760 was an anonymous website. It was a series of digits 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.920 because I thought nobody would want to type in all 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.720 those digits to get to the way website. And that's 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.480 no longer the website. The significance of those digits are 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.920 that was the zip code for Birksure Hathaway and the 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.559 unit number for Berkshire Hathaway. So it was an homage 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.680 to those two in terms of what I was learning 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.000 from them, And I think that that that was a 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.760 really good way for me to reflect. Right when we 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.280 think about learning so often, we just consume information and 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.040 we don't chew on it, we don't digest it, we 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:26.839 don't make it our own. But I was trying to 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.239 take these ideas from outside the organization and apply them inside. 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.200 So I'm taking them from one ecosystem effectively where they 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.559 exist and saying like, well does this work in our ecosystem? 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.520 And like where would it break and what would need 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.360 to change and how do I think about that? So 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.120 I was reflecting a lot on them, And this is 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.720 what I think people miss today with the information that 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.720 we consume. So if you think about learning as a loop, 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.360 as I think of it, and this isn't super scientific, 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.720 but it's sort of my practical real world experience, is 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.600 you have an experience, you reflect on that experience, you 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.600 create a compression based on that reflection. The compression is 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.360 like the distillation of that experience into something like go 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.000 positive and go first, and that becomes an action. So 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.679 you have this loop you go experience, reflection, compression, action, 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.280 and this is our continuous look, and when you cut 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.280 out reflection, you don't really learn. You go from experience 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.280 to abstraction. And if you think about it, most of 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.240 what we consume these days is other people's abstractions. We 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.240 consume the gist, we consume this SoundBite. We don't want 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.720 the details. Those details are irrelevant. And in a lot 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:34.880 of cases that makes sense, because you don't want to 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.360 be an expert in everything, and you can't we don't 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:39.440 have enough time. But in the areas where you do 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.880 want to be an expert, you actually need the details. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.040 You need the reflection you need because that's the process 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:47.320 by which you learn to understand where does this work, 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.480 where it doesn't it work, what are the edge cases? 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.440 Does this apply in a different ecosystem? Why is it 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.600 likely to fail? And anybody can sort of like, do 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.120 this experiment at home or in your mind. You pull 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.640 out a recipe and you make the rest be at home. 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.480 And if you make the recipe perfectly and everything goes 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.680 really well, it's going to taste the same as the 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.240 chef who created it. It's almost indiscernible. But if something 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.680 goes wrong, there's a huge difference between you who's taken 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.600 this compression and used it as knowledge in this case, 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.720 but unearned knowledge, because the chef will taste it and 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:21.680 be like, Oh, there's too much salt, the heat was 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.520 too high, the oven isn't calibrated. They instantly know what 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.440 went wrong, and they know what went wrong because they 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.600 did all the work of reflecting. And so I think 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:36.760 in very specific domains, we as people actually need to 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:43.480 consume large quantities of high quality, detailed information. And that 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:45.600 was what I was trying to do from the outside 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.720 and pull that in, and the blog was my process 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.040 of reflecting on that in a way that I mean. 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.680 I wasn't talking about intelligence agencies or anything. I was 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.840 just talking about these ideas and trying to compress them 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.800 in a way that made sense for me and synthesize 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.440 them and connect them to other ideas that I was learning. 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:04.920 Does that make sense? 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.000 Cool? Yeah, for the most part. For the most part, 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.560 I am interested in why you focus on ordinary moments 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.200 when you talk about a lot of this stuff. I 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.040 think that you you seem like a first principle's kind 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.600 of guide to me. I mean, I could be wrong, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.040 but do you tell me a little bit why you 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.600 think ordinary ordinary moments determine your position. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:39.440 I think, for the most part, the big choices in life, 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:44.640 we know we're making a decision. When you know you're 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.720 making a decision, you're more likely to be rational about 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.560 that decision that The problems are not that you don't 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.280 have the tools to be rational in most cases. The 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.840 problem is that you don't know you should be rational 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.360 in some cases. And so when you have this moment 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.320 about like what career to pick, or who to interview 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.920 on the podcast, or what you're you know, who to marry. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.400 These are decisions where you know you're making a decision, 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:19.080 and so generally speaking, you're able to pause and think 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.800 you might not know you might be you might get 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.440 an advantage to learning how to think better in those moments, 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:29.240 But generally speaking, we sort of get them directionally correct 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.680 because we know we're making a decision. The ordinary moments, 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.360 the moments when we don't know we're making a decision, 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.080 those are the moments that really can multiply all of 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.560 that by zero. So if you pick the right partner 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.800 but you don't invest in your relationship with them, what 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.320 happens to that relationship? It goes to zero. If you 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.440 pick the right partner, and you take them for granted. 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.920 What happens same thing you wake up to divorce papers. 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.640 And so these ordinary moments actually matter because those ordinary 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.520 moments make life easier, harder, and they can multiply all 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.600 of your progress by zero in these cases. And so 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:07.960 I think it's important to think about these ordinary moments, 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.879 and I think of them in the concept of positioning, 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.560 which is how do we use these ordinary moments to 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:16.800 put ourselves in a good position. So what I learned 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:21.040 from studying other people from decision making is that the 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.200 best in the world, the people that we would consider 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:28.600 above average at making decisions or getting really good results, 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.600 they're almost never, if you go back in history, forced 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.040 into making a decision they don't want to do. And 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.600 that's really interesting insight, and I think people really underappreciate 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.280 this type of insight. So if you took on too 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.520 much debt and you're being forced to sell your house, 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:47.640 you can't make a good decision in that moment. You're 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.800 being forced by circumstances into doing something you don't want 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.600 to do or doing something that's bad, and quickly things 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.040 go from bad to worse in those cases. And so 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.720 one of the things that I learned from studying Buffett, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.680 Hoffman and sort of Rockefeller and Carnegie is that they're 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.840 never in a position where they were forced to do 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.240 something that they didn't want to do. And how did 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.639 they do that. They set themselves up through positioning so 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.119 that they could always take advantage the environment's going to change. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:19.919 If you look at Berkshire Hathaway today, I think they 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.240 have one hundred and sixty billion dollars on their balance 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:26.200 sheet in treasure bills. And think about that for a second. 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.480 So if the stock market goes up, they win. If 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.560 the stock market stays the same, they win, And if 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.359 the economy goes through another financial crisis like it did 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.320 in two thousand and eight, they win. So they're passively stable. 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.360 There's nothing that's really going to They're not predicting the future, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.640 and I think that that's an important distinction. So prediction 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.399 you can prepare for something if you know what's coming. 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.879 Positioning is a broader subset of that idea, which is, 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.560 I don't know what's coming, how do I be prepared 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.719 for a wide range of scenarios that will come. And 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.560 we know there's going to financial curses. What we don't 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.440 know is when they're going to happen, but it's virtual 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:06.920 guarantee for you and I that there will be another 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.760 one in our lifetime. It could be tomorrow and it 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.919 could be in ten years. We don't know, but we 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.760 can almost guarantee that it's going to happen. So what 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.200 happens when that happens. Can we be in a position 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.280 where we can take advantage of that, or we're going 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.040 to be in a position where we're fighting for our 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.960 survival and we're just trying to stay afloid? Wow? 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:31.439 Wow, Yeah, But you believe that every moment you can 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:36.119 make your future easier or harder. That's a really fascinating concept. 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.479 And you think that the kind of the mediating variable 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.000 there is clear thinking. So what are some of the 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.760 enemies of core thinking? My classes keep fogging up, making 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.400 it harder for me to think clearly, But what are 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.080 some of the main enemies of core thinking as you 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:52.439 see it? 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.000 Well, so I wanted to come up with what are 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:59.280