☕ saturday mornings - March 19, 2022
connecting dots, paradoxical reading & altering perception
Good morning all!
Happy Saturday. I hope you’re having an excellent start to your weekend.
Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of the coolest things I’ve been pondering and exploring this week.
I didn’t have time for illustrations this week but they will return!
Thanks for being here.
✍️ Quote I’m pondering:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something— your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
— Steve Jobs
This quote hit me like a ton of bricks. It addresses a lot of questions I’ve been grappling with around the uncertainty of the future.
Steve Jobs, as a young man, famously took a calligraphy class at Portland’s Reed College taught by a Trappist Monk named Robert Palladino.
He had no intention of learning calligraphy to create beautiful typography on computers or build a ~$2 Trillion business. He was simply following his interests. Without expecting a positive outcome or trying to follow a set plan, Steve Jobs trusted that his life experiences would eventually lead to a positive outcome. Without having to know how they would.
David Perell shares a similar idea of “read to collect the dots, write to connect them.” You collect ideas as you read and they eventually converge into a great piece of writing. But, you don’t know how the dots will converge while you’re reading. You’re just reading what interests you.
You’re collecting dots as you move through life. While you may not know what it will turn into, the different experiences you have will converge into something amazing.
You have to trust.
💡 Idea from me: Paradox of Reading
“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's books and write your own”
— Albert Einstein
Reading is one of the most beneficial habits to develop in your youth. However, there comes a point where the continual pursuit of more knowledge can harm your ability to implement the knowledge you’ve learned.
There are 5 reasons why you should roll up your sleeves instead of putting another book in your Amazon cart:
Less Impact. As you read more, each book has marginal returns (the 11th book you read is less helpful than the 1st book, and the 12th book will be even worse).
“Doing all the research first”. The urge to do all the research you need to do is a common self-sabotage tactic. Research is tantalizing. You’re working hard, making progress, acquiring knowledge — but also avoiding all risk, all challenges. You’re not exploring the edges of your comfort zone. You don’t want research to be the reason you postpone action.
Information overload. We live in a world of information abundance. You could spend your entire life reading about a certain topic and still know <1% of the information that’s available on it. Consuming more and more information is overwhelming and often harms your ability to apply it. Ideas are nothing without execution. You don’t want all the information, just a few critical ideas with a clear plan to apply them.
Distracts time, focus, and energy. If you’re in the early stages of a big project or in a demanding job, success often demands your full abilities. You can’t do everything. Reading more books takes away from your time, focus, and energy that could be used to drive progress and overcome obstacles. I learned this the hard way, trying to read frequently while working in investment banking.
Better ways to learn. Reading is one way to learn, but not the only way to learn. Unless you’re a brain surgeon, a lot of skills are best learned by doing. You want to use reading to acquire a critical mass of knowledge, and then get your hands dirty.
So ... Where do we go from here?
What we’re aiming for is a balance between knowledge acquisition and action.
If you’re starting a project, define what you need to know. I’ve found this helps to narrow my focus and saves me from going down rabbit holes. Setting a date to stop research also helps to consume only the most relevant information and ensures I don’t procrastinate.
Over time, as you start new projects or enter new roles, you can cycle between periods of learning and periods of execution.
As one $100M entrepreneur bluntly admitted, there came were periods in his life when he completely stopped reading books. He knew what he needed to do, and he had to go out and execute that. And, absorbing more information distracted his energy and focus from his business.
It’s also kinda fun to be in “research mode” versus “execution mode”.
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💡 Idea from me: Psychological vs logical solutions
“Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that’s the truth in people’s minds. — Steve Young
Most people naturally try and solve problems using logical solutions. But often all of the logical solutions have been tried (because they’re the most obvious).
A different approach to problem-solving is to search for psychological solutions.
Logical solutions entail solving the problem directly, whereas psychological solutions involve changing people’s perceptions of the problem. Perception is reality.
I realize I might be sounding like Dr. Strange here.
For a prime example of these different solutions, we can look to one of the most complex transportation systems in the world, the London subway system.
Riders were increasingly complaining about the length of wait times of the trains. The logical solution: make the trains faster. However, this would have cost billions of dollars and shut down the subway system for months.
Instead, they used a simple dotted map that showed passengers when the next train was coming and how long they had to wait. The dotted map, which cost a few million dollars, decreases the rider’s perception of waiting more than actually increasing the speed of trains.
While this idea is more applicable to business owners and entrepreneurs, there are a few personal applications as well.
Have a big presentation coming up? The logical solution would be to pour hours of time and research to impress others with brilliant ideas. Psychological solution? Design a really aesthetic slide deck. People will automatically assume your ideas are good (because of how good they look), will enjoy your presentation more and it takes 20% of the time. I’ve tried it and it works.
Want to appear smarter in front of others? Logically, you might spend years reading books, doing brain games, or learning languages. Psychologically, you could buy a pair of glasses, learn a few fancy words or quotes, and spend $50 at the thrift store on a tweed jacket.
There are a ton of applications, but the core idea is that perception is everything. And, it’s an interesting lens to look through to focus on changing people’s perceptions rather than directly changing the thing itself.
That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.
As always, if you have any feedback or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.
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Have a fantastic weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Tommy