1 Health, 2 Wealth, 3 Wise — “The Ladder of Life”
Lying, Starting a VC fund, CIA Sabotage Field Manual, Digital Dollar, Chamath Palihapitiya, Mohammad Ali and #BLM
A weekly newsletter bringing you the best of Health, Wealth and Wisdom to lead, better meaningful lives. Please help share this newsletter or give me feedback on how I can improve further.
1 — on Health 🏃🏻♀️🏃🏼♂️
- Last Week we covered Four Types of Happy Successful People and what are those four simple metrics that could lead to bliss. I wish to expand further on that today.
The more I thought more about four quotients, more I realised that they are a very small part of the larger equation, the Ladder of Life.
Everything starts with having a plan. We make several plans, but most of us never plan for life. We just “exist” without knowing where we are going, and seldom what we are doing in the flow. We never pause and ask what would that final destination look like? When do we know we have reached there?
Think of it, planning this Ladder of Life (LoL) is the most important plan you will ever make. One that everyone must make. This plan of life, however, needs careful thought, revision and execution to achieve an ultimate goal, a purpose, a mission & vision of your destiny. Not just your family, your startup, your job but rather a mega container with all those smallish’ containers. We shall cover each of these in much more detail in the coming weeks but here is a high level LADDER OF LIFE approach for starters.
Every thing begins with a PURPOSE that is best defined by the Japanese wisdom of Ikigai. Ikigai is a process. It is not a final destination. It is a process of living freely in constant happiness & bliss. Always being content & happy.
To define your purpose or you Ikigai, ask yourself two simple questions:
1. What are you most passionate about ? What makes you happy?
2. How do you want to be remembered by your closed ones when you die?
The answer to 1. is simple. I have a secret exercise - every time I smile, I pause and reflect, what is that act that brought me happiness? I note it down. Was it a joke? Was it the Kids? Wife? Work? Or could be the silliness of people, serenity of nature, what is it? Keep a record. After a few days you will see that there is one or two constant streams that always bring you smiles. It is as simple as that.
Bringing happiness to yourself is not enough. You are a social animal. Once you are gone, it is only the memories that are left behind. How do you want to b e remembered? That passion has to be for larger purpose and must reflect what your strengths are. We shall cover this in a new series that we intend to launch on Ladder of Life.
Once you have a purpose and passion in mind, you should PLAN AND PRIORITISE. Planning is the easier when purpose become passion. Hardest part is Focus, aka prioritising this noisy life.
As humanity is moving forward with all its intelligence and technological advances, man is become sadder and stressed. The noise is growing louder, and more “non-sensical”. No wonder we are all “losing it”. We need to focus & re-focus to make sure we are working towards a higher purpose, a larger purpose that we just defined earlier. If you feel lost, come back to it. Don’t try to achieve too many smaller desires. This won’t get you anywhere.
Next, we move on to EXECUTION. The key here is Discipline. Procrastination will not lead you anywhere. On the other hand, even slightest improvement daily, will yield excellence in compounding. The operative word here yet again is Discipline. DISCIPLINE leads to HABITS, that lead to making of an expert. Big habit changes come when there is strong desire and that desire is your passion. Passion becomes emirate to do things repeatedly when your purpose is properly defined.
The Common Denominator of Success by Albert E.N. Gray
“The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.”
Great execution and compounding habits make you an EXPERT. But sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances (or your own bad planning or laziness) that can also lead to FAILURE. Don’t get disheartened and never never never give up. ANALYSE, PAUSE & REFLECT. It is one of the most important tool that humans have vs. other animals. Our reflexes, our imagination. What went wrong? How can you improve your action plan? Did you fail in execution? Everything can be fixed for you to be a FREE AND SUCCESSFUL person.
Once you are free, you start delegating more and more. Freedom leads to HAPPINESS. And since you are in the habit of doing right, focussed, planned things daily, it leads to constant HAPPINESS. Repeating these passionate activities, that make you constantly happy, is BLISS. It’s not a goal that you want to achieve, but a constant state that you aim to be in.
Happiness is a default state that happens when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life - Naval
Here, I’ve given you a billion dollar process & purpose of life. It took me years to search, plan, review and react. But here we are. CONSTANT BLISS. How do we get there? It’s not difficult. In fact, once you understand the process, it’s very simple. As long as you are focussed and disciplined.
Ultimately, everything starts by finding your purpose and passion. And that is best answered by asking yourself - how do you want other people to remember you when you are gone? Who are those other people? And what memories you want to leave them?
Memento Mori - (Latin 'remember that you must die) is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death.
2 — on Wealth 🥂🍻 Coparts’ Lessons of Greatness
1- The next social era is here: Why now is the time for social products again. The pandemic is creating a new topology of psychological and emotional. needs. Covid-19 is exposing huge white spaces for new products. James Currier and Josh Elman break down why now is the best time to start a social/communication company.
2- Learning From Copart’s Willis Johnson — Willis Johnson’s incredible story is a rag-to-riches tale of a budding young American entrepreneur who scrapped and saved, kept trying new things and ultimately turned a small auto junkyard into a multi-billion dollar business. An investment in Willis’ Copart in 1994 has been a veritable 150-bagger. While not all great businesses share the same characteristics, they often have at least a handful that unify them. In the case of Copart, those common themes include
- being close to the customer
- win-win relationships
- scale advantages
- a large runway for growth
- constant innovation
- embracing technology
- valuing employees
- good culture
- first mover advantages
- sticking to the knitting
- and tone from the top
- And let’s not forget the creative fanatic driving the whole process
3 — on Wisdom 🧠🗣Lying, CIA Manual & 50 Ideas
- Lying by Sam Harris — “Lying” is a long-form essay book by American author and neuroscience expert Sam Harris. Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie. Here are some quotes I enjoyed if you don’t have time to read the entire book.
“By lying we deny our friends access to reality”.
“When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives.”
“To lie is to erect a boundary between the truth we’re living and the perception others have of us.”
“Lying is the royal road to chaos.”
“Each instance of deception casts us onto some of the steepest ethical terrain we ever cross.”
“Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity.”
2. CIA Sabotage Field Manual — This is a gem. read this and download this. You will thank me later. In 1944, the CIA wrote a guide to destroying organizations. At the same time, it would be so funny if it was not sad.
Here’s a list of tips from the field manual:
Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
Employees: Work slowly. Think of ways to increase the number of movements needed to do your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one; try to make a small wrench do instead of a big one.
Organizations and Conferences: When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible. Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
Transportation: Make train travel as inconvenient as possible for enemy personnel. Issue two tickets for the same seat on a train in order to set up an “interesting” argument.
Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
3. 50 Ideas that Changed my Life — Writing instructor David Perell this great concise piece. Here’s one:Circle of Competence: Define the limits of your knowledge. Hint: the limits are smaller than you think. That’s because being an expert in one area doesn’t make you an expert in anything else. Be clear about what you know and don’t know.
Tweet That Caught My Eye
This one is in relation to the stock market that counties to point towards one of the swiftest V shaped recovery while the Main street continues to be decimated
Top 5
We curate the best of the best every week, so that you don’t have to
- The Unusual Ambitions of Chamath Palihapitiya- Story of how this contrarian became the billionaire and still says the contrarian. One of the best stories I have read. Especially for a man, for whom I have immense respect. A Sri Lankan native whose family received refugee status in Canada when he was a child, started as an outsider in the tech world. At Mayfield Fund, where he landed his first job in the VC world some 15 years ago, “Chamath wore the same jacket every day — a light-tan velour jacket — and jeans,” one former colleague recalls. When the colleague asked Palihapitiya about his sartorial choices at the time, the young analyst talked about “low ROI,” meaning he didn’t want to spend his time and money worrying about clothes.
Peter Thiel wishes Chamath could be that contrarian. “Everyone wears tan pants and a blue jacket, but what I am saying is, what if I wore blue pants and a tan jacket?” It is hard to improve on that trivial signal of difference. He’s the opposite of everyone else, in the smallest and least important imaginable way.
2. The Digital Dollar Project is proposing a framework for the creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC). The group published its first white paper Friday, detailing the need for a tokenized version of the U.S. dollar and some potential avenues for building this system. A digital dollar could help the U.S. maintain the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency while serving a broader array of individuals and entities than the current financial system, the paper says.
3. The 2020 Stitcher podcasting report is out and has some good stats on who listens to what and when. Good to keep in mind when you think about how big the podcast market is. Here is what it covers if you are short for time
4. A great op-ed by none other than our own Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien Loong whosays:
The status quo in Asia must change. But will the new configuration enable further success or bring dangerous instability? That depends on the choices that the United States and China make, separately and together. The two powers must work out a modus vivendi that will be competitive in some areas without allowing rivalry to poison cooperation in others.
“The moment you are aware of confusion, of exactly what is, you try to escape from it. Those sects which offer you a system for the solution of suffering-economic, social, or religious-art the worst; because then the system becomes important not the man-whether it be religious systems, or a system of the left or of the right.”
-J. Krishnamurti
5. And finally, a few forwarded lines from “WhatsApp University” 😂
Never have I seen, such a mess in life. The air is pure but, wearing a mask is mandatory
Roads are empty, but it is impossible to go on long drive.
People have clean hands but there is a ban on shaking hands.
Friends have time to sit together but they cannot be together.
The cook inside you is crazy, but you cannot call anyone to dinner.
On every Monday..the heart longs for the office but the weekend does not seem to end.
Those who have money have no way to spend it.
Those who don’t have money have no way to earn it.
There is enough time on hand but you can’t fulfill your dreams.
The culprit is all around but cannot be seen.
A world full of irony!
Have a fabulous week ahead people and keep sharing this wisdom……
Disclaimer: None of the content in this newsletter is meant to be financial advice. Please do your own due diligence before taking any action related to content within this article. This post is for reference only. It will not help you to “lambo” or “moon” or any other euphemism for unhinged speculation. It should help you to supplement your own analysis of the markets. Enjoy.
