A Good Life

Non-consensus and right

Warren Buffet, talking about investment decisions with big pay-offs, mentions that the decisions need to be ‘non-consensus and right’.

Peter Thiel, in his book Zero to One, phrases this slightly differently by asking “What is the thing that you believe is true…

Winners

Winners are rare.

Unicorn startups, top sports players, successful Youtube creators, Nobel laureates. They are all rare.

By looking only at winners in order to learn from them, we are succumbing to the survivorship bias. We don’t know of all the others that…

Controlling Inputs

Inputs are the things that we control — how we approach a situation, the due diligence that we do, the preparation and the effort we put in, the thoroughness we bring.

Outputs are a function of the inputs and some extrinsic variables that we do not control — luck…

Moonshots

One of the many quotes by Homer Simpson is, “We haven’t tried anything and we’re all out of ideas!”

We shoot down our ideas all the time. We do it even before we consider it as a possibility.

Environments

Streets in Indian cities appear chaotic when compared to streets in Europe. The traffic patterns seem impossible to navigate on Indian streets when seen through the eyes of a European.

However, there are millions of people who successfully navigate these very streets every day.

Don’t half-ass it

Yesterday, I was driving on the road and I noticed this at the backside of the bus that was in front of me:

“If you are on the bus priority lane and you are able to read this, then you are on the wrong lane.”

What you can do

John F. Kennedy’s historic words, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” challenged every American to contribute in some way to the public good.

His inaugural address inspired children and adults to see the importance of civic…

Growth

Growth is what we can measure and observe.

When we go from one level to the next, then we experience growth.

But, when that doesn’t happen, it is easier to focus on what the difference is and what we are missing about the next level that can help us get there.