📚Money Words, India’s next 30 years, Asymmetric life, Thinking Differently

Ideas from Graham Weaver, Neelkanth Mishra, Robert Greene, Jessica Hagy, Dara Khosrowshahi and more

Sep 25, 2023

Hi and welcome to the post #125.

Lawrence Yeo made the following observation in a recent post.

One of the hardest questions to answer is “What do you do?” It’s one of those inquiries where a huge asymmetry exists between the simplicity of the question and the complexity of the answer.

I’ve been there and faced this. Another version of this question, in the context of this newsletter, is - “What is this newsletter about?”

Satyajit Rout

shared this with me a few days back: What will not change in the future is abundance of information. That leads to increasing demand for curation. As a curator, you cut through the noise to tell people what they should spend their time and money on.

I agree with Rout. This newsletter is the manifestation of that effort of finding the useful in the world of abundance. I do that and, in turn, you discover a new world of ideas with very little efforts.

Would you describe “Stay Curious” this way?

1. Power of Money Words

Joanna Wiebe defines the term “money words” in the following way:

The words we use — or don’t use — impact decisions and, in turn, money. Money words are the execution arm of persuasion.

She sets the stage for the post further:

If we can agree that the words we choose are persuasive levers — and our job is to pull those levers intentionally and strategically — then allow me to share with you two money words and one lose-money word. They are the low-hanging fruit that will help you sharpen your copy and speak better to prospects.

Here’s a few snapshots from the post explaining the two money words.

The lose-money word is a surprising one - “AND”. I’ve been guilty of overusing this. Time to declutter some flab in my introductions.

This post is filled with lots of good examples. Useful for anyone who is remotely involved in creating material for persuasive communication.

2. How to live an Asymmetric Life

This is from the Last Lecture by Graham Weaver at Stanford GSB 2023. A professional investor and lecturer Graham talks about how to live an asymmetric life. His formulae has four key ingredients:

Do hard things.
Do your thing.
Do it for decades.
Write your story.

Each one of them has the power to create a massive impact in your life. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with.

He also warns about how ‘Fear’ can hold you back and how these four principles can prepare you to overcome that.

One of the biggest things that will hold you back in life is fear. Fear is a master manipulator. It will disguise itself as helping you, as being practical, as keeping you safe. And ultimately, fear will disguise itself as “not me” and “not now.” It might already be creeping in as you read this.

Check the complete lecture here, or you can read a quick post that’s based on this lecture here.

James Clear had written about something very similar in “Lessons on Success and Deliberate Practice from Mozart, Picasso, and Kobe Bryant,” in case you are intrigued to explore more.

Finally, if you’ve not seen the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, please do that. This is one of those things you should revisit every once in a while to recharge your batteries.

3. India’s Next 30 Years

If you’re up to explore good ideas on India’s economic growth in the last 30 years, this conversation between Neelkanth Mishra & Mukesh Bansal is a fantastic listen (or watch, depending on your preferred mode). It goes beyond the surface and shares some fundamental inputs for understanding our progress.

They talk about India’s economic reforms that started even before 1991, progress in our transportation infra, industrial growth, impact of fertility rates on growth trajectories in future, how to look at economic activities in terms of surplus and much more.

These are topics that you don't usually read or think about. They have kept it simple and interesting. I’m intrigued and looking for more such conversations to explore these areas more. If you have any recommendations, do share.

4. Power of Thinking Differently

Another story from Stanford, courtesy Sahil Bloom. Here’s the brief of Prof Tina Seelig’s assignment:

Read the full post for what the brightest minds in one of the best business schools in the world did. I was able to think a little beyond the obvious ideas, but the approach taken by the winning group was just unbelievably smart.

If you’re up for the quick learning from the post, here’s the snapshot from the post.

5. Mundane Excellence, Comfortable Torture

It’s time for “do the hard thing, do your thing and do it for decades” in Billy Oppenheimer’s style.

His Six at 6 post on the same theme covers stories from U.S. Olympic Swimming Team, Jerry Seinfeld, Robert Greene, Charles Schulz (creator of Snoopy) and Paul Graham.

It’s a quick read & I won’t do justice if I try to get any stories here. So instead here’s a quick snippet from Robert Greene’s part…

Mastery, Robert said, requires boredom and tedium. It requires doing the same mundane things over and over and over. It requires sitting with the frustration of putting in work that doesn’t immediately pay off.

You should check Billy’s post for the rest, it’s worth it. In fact, his newsletter and X feed is worth subscribing to for such interesting stories. He is a master weaver of stories around a given idea.

6. Light reads & videos

Some interesting blogs & videos from not so usual topics of interest.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on Acquired Interviews. There is something special about hardcore operators talking about business transformation. There is so much detail. Loved these two parts.

10 World-saving things to do with child Hitler. A brilliant visual storytelling piece by
Jessica Hagy
. I had so many wow moments as she explained each behavioral trait and a potential way to address it. Brilliantly smart storytelling.

7. Everything else

Some random goodness from the internet:

Xavier Casalta (@casaltaxavier) is a French artist who uses millions of dots to create magical artworks. Hundreds of hours of focus & meticulous work creates absolutely stunning images with intricate details. (via DenseDiscovery)
1900+ posts, 760k followers - Jan Hakon Erichsen’s (@janerichsen) absurd feed shows that entertainment has an unimaginably wide canvas. He is a visual artist and balloon destroyer, as per his profile description. Goofy for sure!
Claus-Henning Schulke is an accomplished triathlete, having finished 6x Ironman events. But this one is a beautiful story about why he is also known as “Bottle Claus”.

Finally, leaving you with this idea from James Clear.

That's all for this week, folks!

I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.

Please leave a comment or send a message with your feedback. It’s highly helpful & encouraging. If that’s too much of an effort (or not required), at least hit the ❤️ at the start or end of the post to show your love.

Pritesh

Stay Curious