In the wise words of Michael Scott, “I didn’t say it. I declared it.” I hope you all have a happy and safe 4th of July!
Happy 4th of July!
Happy Birthday, America!
David Goggins, a true American hero and former elite forces servicemember (various branches), wishes Joe Rogan a “Happy Birthday” in the most hardcore way possible. Case in point, note the moment Goggins states “taking the first breath makes you eligible to die!” How many of us operate as if our time is unlimited? Or that our feelings and comfort should dictate our activity? As we celebrate the 4th of July, it’s a great reminder to continue, “getting after it!” Happy Birthday, America!
Stay hard!
Two is One, One is None
In the Marine Corps, we often heard this maxim: “Two is one, one is none.” It’s basically stating that if you have 2 radios, one will break down (and at just the moment when you really need it). And now you have 1 left. And if you only brought one radio, that’s just the same as going out unprepared, with none.
Having a single point of failure, i.e. the one radio, makes you fragile. You are subject to the vicissitudes of life. But having redundancy makes you the opposite of fragile, or antifragile. Yet everywhere you go, you see companies actually forcing their inventories and operations to be fragile with so-called just-in-time or right-sizing concepts. It happens also with personnel; a CEO fails to train a successor then proceeds to have a heart attack. Now the company has no leadership. These organizations try to cut it close in order to maximize profit, hoping that everything will always happen according to plan–that supply chains will always remain intact, that Russia will never invade Ukraine, that relations between the U.S. and China will always be amicable, etc.
The human body knows better. We have 2 kidneys, 2 lungs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, etc.–multiple redundancies to overcome the potential failure of such vital organs. It doesn’t right-size or provide a new kidney “just-in-time” if your old one fails. It absorbs shocks through redundancy.
If you managed your affairs with redundancy in mind, you might equip your car with a spare tire. You might have 6 months of savings to avoid the disruption of a layoff in challenging economic times. You might have a backup generator during a winter storm. You might just save your life!
Are there areas in your life where you’ve been cutting it too close? Banking on the pipe dream that everything will always happen the way you expect? Remember the rule to transform emergencies into non-emergencies: “Two is one and one is none.”
When Life Knocks You Down
When life tries to knock you down, I always love referring to this story. You may or may not recall, Mike Tyson was supposed to win this fight! In fact, by the 8th round, it looked to everyone that he would. But Buster Douglas chose to have a say in the matter and a beautiful reason why to carry him through it.
When life tries to knock you down, insist upon having a say in the matter. It can feel as if you’re climbing a mountain. But remember your reason why it has to end up the way that you envisioned and carry on powerfully from that foothold.
5-Minute Obituary
Famed value investor, Mohnish Pabrai, recently conducted a wonderfully insightful and candid interview with The Investor’s Podcast guest interviewer, William Green. I encourage everyone to listen to it above. There are so many nuggets of wisdom as well as access behind the curtain to what Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett are really like.
One of my key takeaways from the interview was Pabrai’s mention of an exercise he did with his YPO group. YPO is a group of young chief executive officers committed to growth, learning, and making an impact in their communities. And the exercise Pabrai mentioned was the “5-minute obituary.”
The YPO members were each asked to write obituaries that were 5-minutes long. I started to think about what things I’d list in my own–lover of God, family, builder of elite teams. Got real joy out of building solid businesses, maybe something like that. And fun! The kicker came next though.
The instructor directed everyone’s thoughts with a question, “Take a look at what you wrote. And take note of what didn’t make it in. Why are you now spending your time on things that AREN’T mentioned in the obituary?” Said another way, are there things you’re wasting time on currently? Things that aren’t essential to your legacy. If so, stop! That was a revelation for me.
What’s your 5-minute obituary? What things might you be spending time on that don’t contribute to your ultimate legacy, to whatever it is you wrote in those few sentences?
Alexander the Great & The Opis Mutiny
I loved this bit from Epic History!
Thought to be one of the greatest speeches ever given, the actual words are not known but estimated based on accounts from the ancient historian, Arrian.
Regardless, this video depicts an awesome demonstration of a leader not holding himself separate from his army. He suffered whatever they suffered and when they won, he gave all the spoils of victory to his men. Thus, when they attempted to mutiny, Alexander had enough credibility to tell them how disgusting their actions were and they were convinced and later apologized.
Choose Your Meaning
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus Aurelius
If you haven’t taken a look at Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations,” it’s a quick read of wisdom put together by the last of the “5 Good Emperors” of the Pax Romana. Suppose we were to wipe the slate clean but for one tool we could keep to guide us through the rest of life, mine would be emotional mastery. It seems like that was important to the emperor as well.
In the above quote, Aurelius recognizes that there is a difference between “what happened” and “your estimate of what happened,” though we often conflate the two. Emotional mastery is the ability to separate the occurrence from the estimate and then to endow the occurrence with whatever meaning you choose or as he says, “revoke” a painful meaning.
For example, suppose you are an artist trying to sell your painting, but no one buys it. That is “what happened,” the distressing external event. Your estimate of that event maybe that you are a poor artist and you should listen to your parents and “give up.” If you believe in your art, you have the ability to revoke this meaning at any moment! You have the power to decide what meaning the event had so as not to cause you any undue pain. The meaning you choose could be as simple as “it’s raining outside and no one had the opportunity to even see your painting, much less purchase it.”
Therefore, recognize your power to choose whatever meaning that takes away pain and gives you pleasure.
Make Progress Towards Your Goals Addictive
I read a story once about Jerry Seinfeld’s process for improving his jokes early on in his career. He’d write one joke every day and every day he did, he’d draw a big red “X” on the calendar for it. Pretty soon, he’d have a whole string of red “X”s that he did not want to break by missing a day. I imagine the blank date on the calendar would “stare” at him until his joke was accomplished, then it would be like the rest of the days, whole and complete. In this way, Seinfeld “gamified” his practice of getting better at telling jokes. And we all know how addictive games are!
I like to treat my goals the same way. I have a Google Sheet that’s always open with a list of daily tasks I need to complete, things like breathing exercises, weight training, the sit-to-stand test (scientifically proven method of determining longevity), investing research, drinking 100 ounces of water, celebrating one thing about my husband, etc. If I don’t see a task that’s been highlighted in blue (complete), I take care of it so that all is congruent again in my world and my string of small successes remains unbroken.
BJ Fogg also talks a lot about why this works in his book, “Tiny Habits.” I have 20 daily tasks I need to complete. If I tried to remember them all, I’d forget to do half. My always-opened tab containing my spreadsheet is a visual cue that sparks my actions. And I can access it anywhere from the cloud. Sometimes the biggest obstacle we face is just remembering what we have to do to consistently work towards our goal. Now, my daily goals are equivalent to a game of “whack-a-mole.”
See the mole, whack it. See the undone task, crush it! It’s fun and positively addicting!
Make Out Like A Bandit!
On a day many years ago, as Marines, my squad was training on a run through the Quantico highlands yelling our chants about weapons, being warriors, and kicking butt. We were all in peak physical condition and I felt truly alive, like I was gliding through the air not by my own force. It was effortless. I vividly remember thinking, “How ridiculous I’m getting paid to do this!”
So it was truly a pleasure to be around my buddies all day, working out, and learning leadership at the highest level. I felt like I was getting away with something, making out like a bandit! There was a sense if people knew we were having this much fun AND getting paid to do it, it would all come crashing down.
And throughout my career as an investor, I’ve thankfully had this recurring feeling. While reading book after book on an interesting topic or traveling to see an industrial plant in action, the thought is always, “Man, I’m getting paid to do this!” It’s a deep sense of gratitude that you don’t have to fight against your day-to-day tasks. If you woke up without an agenda, it’s what you’d be doing anyways . . . but, the rub is you get a solid income for doing it! It almost feels illegal! Or at least a secret that must be closely guarded. It’s always a humbling feeling to be at a party in a group chatting about how miserable their jobs are AND you cannot align with even one of their grievances. Then you are truly lucky!
Choose the job or profession that gives you the sense you’re making out like a bandit!
Rehearse in Suboptimal Conditions
A corollary to “Choosing Difficult Ground” (published March 24, 2022) is something we learned in the Marine Corps, that is, rehearsing in suboptimal conditions. Say you’ve got the big basketball game coming up. Wouldn’t it be better to practice your free throws with hundreds of rivals booing and hissing at you, purposefully trying to distract you, rather than doing the work by yourself with your headphones on? Invite your friends to play the role of detractor and make it fun!
When you prepare for the worst possible scenario, any circumstance that is favorable instantly seems a lot more manageable, increasing your level of confidence and the probability of a successful outcome.
In training, we would often function with 45 minutes of sleep, weighed down by heavy gear, in the middle of nowhere, at zero dark thirty. With these conditions, we’d then recite a 5-paragraph order orchestrating the movements of an entire platoon or larger in order to acquire a target or accomplish a mission. It could be as big as that or as small as giving yourself half the time to take a practice quiz instead of a full 30 minutes. When the real quiz comes along, you’ll see it as a piece of cake!
Rehearse in suboptimal conditions to increase your chances of success.
One Ladder Project 