My Content List #14, Friday 1/10
Opening Rant: 2020 Resolutions
Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed the Holiday season. I vacationed to Maui and Kaua’i for the first time, and now I’m wondering why the hell I returned. Surfing, family, reading, relaxing, adventuring… it was heavenly. Sitting next to several loved ones, in between sets of waves, bobbing on our longboards is an moment of pure bliss that has been forever emblazoned into my memory.
I think I say this every January, but the prior year truly felt like the fastest yet. I’ve ranted before about perceptions of the passage of time; it’s a real (and scary) thing.
Resolution season is upon us: gyms are packed, some are skipping that after-work beer for ‘Dry January’, others are finally letting go of old grudges, trying to quit smoking, etc. I’ve heard several dozen resolutions in the past few weeks. Some that have been relayed are fortune-cookie simplistic, others are laundry-list detailed; some (unrealistically) aspirational, others far more pragmatic… no judgment, whatever floats your boat. Using the word “inspiring” feels automatically cliche, but it properly captures the impact hearing friends’/family’s resolutions has had on me.
I believe that the key with resolutions — or, really any sort of goal-directed behavior — is recognizing the power of marginal improvement and compounding (themes that have been ubiquitous throughout my Content Lists thus far, if you haven’t noticed.) Sweeping change doesn’t just happen overnight. Striving for 1% improvement every day and dynamically building on one’s base is a far more realistic (and less psychologically taxing) goal .
Anyway… Ignoring the research that suggests sharing one’s goals deceives people into thinking they’re closer to attaining them, I’m going to share my resolutions. I’ve bucketed them into 2 categories — MORE and LESS — because I think that underscores the marginal nature of the slow-grind of improvement. By sharing, my goal is not to “inspire”; rather, for my friends who read this post, I ask for your help in keeping me honest and focused on these. If you see me straying, I hereby grant you permission to give me a brutal death stare and/or admonishment of your choosing.
MORE:
- Reading & Journal-ing: “Start reading more five years ago” is the advice my favorite high school teacher gave me, and it’s been among my resolutions to read more ever since. In the past 2 years I’ve read more books than I did, I think, in the prior half-decade. Proud of myself for that, but always “miles to go before I sleep…” (Side note: That is around the same timeline that I stopped reading exclusively behavioral economics / investing books and picked fiction back up. Correlation or causation? YOU be the judge!) On journal-ing, I used to be a hell of a lot better at it — ritualistically typing a few pages each Sunday night commenting on the week that was, and that amounted to 600+ (!) single-spaced pages in Word from high school through the first few years of college. I’ve since tapered, sadly, but I want to get back to that. Saying “I don’t have time,” is essentially saying “that’s not a priority.” It’s so fun looking back on what filled my mind at different points in time. My goal is to write frequently enough that I don’t need to waste time relaying events but can instead focus on my thoughts. Easier said than done, but even a few notes every few days can serve as a memory trigger — a la the iceberg principle — for years to come.
- Picking Battles: Things feel intertwined, and at times that gets to me. Everything tends to feels like, well, everything — little tasks or conflicts or thoughts have their way of consuming too much valuable time/attention and distracting me from other priorities. I pride myself on being perspicacious and seeing the forest through the trees, but that ideal is never complete. I still feel like I have a long way a go in determining what really matters, in triage-ing all of the things that compete for my attention, in compartmentalizing different facets of my life (i.e. work and life) such that a bad day in one domain doesn’t cause a bad day in the other, etc.
- Decisiveness/Opinion Formation: This relates to Picking Battles but is a different concept. As I’ve entered my second quarter-century of life / a new decade, I can say I’ve observed a good amount, but there’s obviously still eons of wisdom to attain. In transitioning from the purely “learning/absorbing” phase to the “impact/action” phase — as Dalio would call it — I think there’s a point in which taking a hypothesis-driven approach can lead to an enriched perspective, fulfillment, and more robust impact. “Strong opinions, loosely held” is a mantra here. Taking stances and being decisive, even in situations with incomplete information, is a way “to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward” (as Bob Sutton, a notable Stanford professor, puts it). And what’s the worst that could happen? My opinion’s wrong →I make a mistake→I learn from it. A virtuous cycle is created whenever learning is a component, so this approach seems well worth it to me.
- Meditation: I’ve been doing mindfulness-based meditation both independently and through apps like Calm (whose unicorn status shows that I’m not the only one interested in this) and Headspace for last half-decade. It’s been awesomely helpful in grounding me — in turning my evaluative lenses inward, prompting introspection, striving for equanimity. That said, I’ve never done it consistently enough. I’m riding a streak right now and hope to continue that. Adhering to a meditation regimen will, I believe, help slow things down, facilitate processing, and be a mentality-strengthening panacea. (I should also add sleeping to this MORE category… oh well, maybe next year)
LESS:
- Complaining: It serves no purpose, diverts valuable time+energy, distracts others, is contagious, and creates an undesirable / palpably-negative aura. While occasional vent-sesh can be cathartic, frequent complaints are flat-out worthless.
- Negative Self-Talk: I’m by far my own harshest critic, which has generally served me well in life. But self-criticizing is one of the best non-economic examples of diminishing marginal returns: it’s helpful up until a certain point, then it becomes wildly detrimental — and it has a tendency to become habit and can snowball with unsettling speed. I’ve been trapped in those avalanches before, and it ain’t pretty. Even something as simple as regret can morph into incessant rumination. This could be its own Opening Rant topic (as could all of these resolutions), but I really have a lot to say on this one.
- Waste: This applies both to literal waste (food, single-use plastics, and others relevant to this crisis of sustainability we’re in) and proverbial waste (energy, attention, etc.). The power of marginal improvement rings true here as well: enough individuals being environmentally-conscious will have impact at the aggregate level. Proud to say I’ve got my re-usable water bottle that comes with me virtually everywhere, and I’ve mostly cut out red meat and dairy over the past year — but there’s much more I could be doing. On the proverbial waste front, this is almost a contra-account to my Picking Battles goal… inefficiently allocating time+attention irks me to my core, and I want to do a better job of directing my attention to what truly deserves it.
I’m also tempted to offer some predictions for the decade ahead, but I’m sharing several pieces on those topics in the Content List below and don’t want to bore you (though for the record, none of the prediction pieces below are boring… in fact, they’re deeply insightful and, I’d bet, accurate).
I’ll close — and reward those readers who have somehow made it this far — with a totally non-sequitur but funny memory that came up over Christmas. My 7th grade science teacher, who was reminiscent of Jack Black in School of Rock, once told me he had a band called “Free Beer & Wings.” I asked how they came up with that name. His (brilliant) response:
“Just think: venues would put that signs outside their doors, in flyers, and online, and crowds would come expecting Free Beer & Wings… [pause]… Why do you think the Barenaked Ladies came up with that name?!”
With that, hope you enjoy this week’s Content List.
Got something to contribute? Think my reasoning is flawed?
Drop me a note; I’d love to hear from you!
Follow me @James R. Shecter. Or don’t.
My Content List #14, Friday 1/10
Articles
‘Most of Us Are Too Busy to Be Better’: The Lazy Person’s Guide to Self-Improvement | The Guardian
The 14 charts that explain tech in 2019 | Vox
- “So far this year, 213 public companies have mentioned Amazon in the “risk factors” section of their annual 10K financial filings, where companies state the most significant risks to their business, according to data from financial data platform Sentieo. Five years ago, that number was just a quarter as high.” WHAAAT
Why Concert Tickets are So Expensive | WSJ
Reflections from Four Decades in Venture and What’s Next: How Will the 2020s Impact the Venture Capital Industry? | Barry Eggers
Trump The Intimidator Fails Again | Paul Krugman / NYTimes
The Decade Comic Book Nerds Became Our Cultural Overlords | Alex Pappademas
Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy | NYTimes
- The latest (and perhaps greatest) feature in the Times’ Privacy Project
The Neuroscience of Trust | HBR
The Incredibly Happy Life of Larry David, TV’s Favorite Grouch | GQ
Business Model Leverage | Brett Bivens
The Future of Work(ers) | Mercedes Bent
Worst Health Trends of 2019 | BestLife
Shooting, Sex Crime and Theft: Airbnb Takes Halting Steps to Protect Its Users | WSJ
America Loves Its Unregulated Wellness Chemicals | The Atlantic
Private Equity Deals Ran Amok in the 2010s | Bloomberg
Tech companies tried to help us spend less time on our phones. It didn’t work. | Recode
The Future of America’s Contest with China | The New Yorker
The Sports Moments that Defined the Decade | WSJ
25 Ideas That Will Shape the 2020s | Fortune
- This is perhaps my favorite prediction list… highly encourage you to give this a read.
Silicon Valley Is Listening to Your Most Intimate Moments | Bloomberg
- The real question (for Millenials/younger generations) is — do you care? If listening can deliver you ads that are more relevant (in the good case) or help stop a lunatic from shooting up a school (in the worst case), isn’t this a good thing? If there were some way for individuals to profit from selling their personal data, maybe that would alleviate the tension…
Pot Firms’ Grim Reality: Cash Crunch, No U.S. Bankruptcy Access | Bloomberg
The Gospel of Wealth, According to Mark Benioff | Wired
How Carlos Ghosn Became the World’s Most Famous Fugitive | Bloomberg
The not-so-secret but very remarkable life of Pearl Jam’s first song | Andrew Tavani
All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club | Bill Gurley
THE 84 BIGGEST FLOPS, FAILS, AND DEAD DREAMS OF THE DECADE IN TECH | The Verge
An investor’s guide to space, Wall Street’s next trillion-dollar industry | CNBC
- Also see: The Next Big Customer Experience From Jeff Bezos (The Atlantic)
Tech Giants Hunt for AI Startups — and the Brains Behind Them | WSJ
Investor Advocates See Risks in Silicon Valley’s Favorite IPO Alternative | WSJ
Prakash Amritraj shares how our micro-decisions set the tone for happiness and peace of mind | GQ India
- “I know work and life can get in the way sometimes. But nothing in life is perfect. Nonetheless, we always have the choice to own our decisions and how we choose to react to our circumstances. If we can set our tone for each day with the principles that comprise our code, it sets the tone for happiness, peace of mind, fulfillment and the life we truly want to live.”
- Prakash is a wise man (and comrade I’ve known for almost a decade) sharing his take on the value of the long grind. Love it man!
Who Is Jared Kushner? | The New Yorker
Stephen A. Smith Is Never Satisfied | GQ
Podcasts
Thinking Outside the Bud with Andrew Duffy
- Andrew (CEO/Founder of Best in Grow + one of my friends + frequent respond-er and contributor to the Content Lists) shares his perspective/wisdom on the cannabis industry… keep killin it, man!
Ben Horowitz Discusses Culture and Success | Bloomberg Masters in Business
Zipcode Destiny: The Persistent Power Of Place And Education | NPR’s Hidden Brain
Goldman Sachs and the 1MDB Scandal | WSJ’s The Journal
Did That Really Happen? How Our Memories Betray Us | NPR’s Hidden Brain
The Struggle between Chaos and Order | The Jordan B Peterson Podcast
The Necessity of Aim | The Jordan B Peterson Podcast
- I’m just scratching the surface of the content Jordan Peterson’s offering the world… 12 Rules of Life is on my reading list. The guy’s so articulate, and his perspectives (whether you agree with them are not) are worth hearing. If those podcasts are a bit too serious — they were, at first, for me — I’d recommend starting with his interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast
Creatures Of Habit: How Habits Shape Who We Are — And Who We Become | NPR’s Hidden Brain
On The Knife’s Edge: Using Therapy To Address Violence Among Teens | NPR’s Hidden Brain
Musique
I could easily double the length of these Content Lists with music selections. But for now, I’ll share my Top Songs of 2019 compiled by Spotify (I happen to love that feature, despite some internet opinions).
