Intelligent people simply aren’t willing to accept answers that they don’t understand — no matter how many other people try to convince them of it.
This week: strategy, optimism, perfection, love, and death.
This David Sacks tweet is the best definition of strategy I’ve found.
This week, I was introduced to the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.
1. Book Review of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
“Why I Love This Book
I love this book for two reasons. First, he skillfully eviscerates all of the garbage that far too often passes for strategy in corporate America. It’s borderline therapeutic to watch him tear down case after case of junk that is pitched by executives and consultants as strategy.”
Related: Abi Tyas Tunggal’s review of Hamilton Helmer’s 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
I first came across Dan Wang’s writing through his 2019 Letter which I shared in a previous edition of Branches.
2. Wang’s 2017 essay Definite Optimism as Human Capital is even better.
“I’ve come to the view that creativity and innovative capacity aren’t a fixed stock, coiled and waiting to be released by policy. Now, I know that a country will not do well if it has poor infrastructure, interest rate management, tax and regulation levels, and a whole host of other issues. But getting them right isn’t sufficient to promote innovation; past a certain margin, when they’re all at rational levels, we ought to focus on promoting creativity and drive as a means to propel growth.”
“If you want to spelunk in slippery cave systems of irrationality, YouTube will take you there. But If you want to feel how great it is to be alive at this feverish moment in history, if you want to know that you’re part of something huge and unstoppable and planetary and singular and unpredictable, something that can fill you with joy and make you want to toss pieces of paper in the air, YouTube will do that for you, too.”
This week, the YouTube algorithm pointed me to Boiling Point, a Gordon Ramsay documentary from 1999. It runs two hours, has nearly 2.6M views, and is such compelling viewing.
Ramsay’s abuse of his staff (who all seem to show him remarkable loyalty) is deeply uncomfortable to watch, but his singular pursuit of perfection as he attempts to become the youngest chef to earn three Michelin stars is as engrossing as Jiro Dreams of Sushi (just uglier, and English).
5. This tweetstorm about an amateur chef spending five years emulating his culinary hero, recipe by recipe was the best thing I found on Twitter this week (click the tweet to read in full).
6. Imagine each day is only 12 hours long. What would you cut out?
I loved this question posed in James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter this week. Clear’s goal with his newsletter is “to share the most wisdom per word of any newsletter on the web” and he definitely comes close.
“Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.”
― Meša Selimović
I love short newsletters like Clear’s.
7. The Gottman Institute’s Marriage Minute is another great short newsletter.
Marriage Minute gives a short prompt each week to help you understand and improve your most important relationship. I loved their explanation of repair attempts.
“All couples argue. It’s how you repair that makes all the difference.
A repair attempt is “any statement or action—silly or otherwise—that prevents negativity from escalating out of control.”The thing that set the “Masters” of relationships apart from the “Disasters” was how they employed repairs—early and often. There aren’t a lot of hard and fast rules as to what types of repairs work “best,” as that is usually specific to your partner and your relationship.
There isn’t even a textbook style order to things (Step 1: argue, Step 2: repair). The Masters would often make small repairs and adjustments within a conflict conversation, as they were having it. This makes even an argument a collaborative experience in service of the relationship.”
“The algorithm for inversion is very simple:
Define the problem - what is it that you're trying to achieve?
Invert it - what would guarantee the failure to achieve this outcome?
Finally, consider solutions to avoid this failure”
“Intelligent people simply aren’t willing to accept answers that they don’t understand — no matter how many other people try to convince them of it, or how many other people believe it, if they aren’t able to convince them selves of it, they won’t accept it.”
“Before I become your doctor, you have been intubated for weeks. I am a point in time, unattached to the greater narrative. I call your husband each afternoon, tell him you are stable. He asks about the medicine that props up your blood pressure. He calls it the levo, acquainted by now with the slang of intensive care. It’s true, we have pressors to assist your failing heart, a ventilator to breathe for you, venovenous hemofiltration to do the work of your kidneys. “Your wife is very sick,” I say, “but stably sick.” None of this is anything new.”
Real Quick:
- This week I published a post - I’d like to invest in your company - to open myself up to serendipity (and not just my current networks) for my next investment. 500+ people have started the application process so far, and I’ll personally blind-review every application using Applied (a Blackbird portfolio company).
- Finally, I love hearing from you. It’s been an unexpected thrill to have people respond directly to these newsletters, share stories, and point me to links I’ll love. Please keep it coming.
Such a great way to get deep with Nick Crocker's brain — socially distanced of course.