🔎 You can’t find secrets without looking for them

Stay Curious is here with your weekly dose of new ideas & inspirations

Hey, Pritesh here. 

A lot of new folks joined this journey in the last couple of weeks. That’s so awesome! Welcome all. We’re going to have a good time.

This is post #113. Today’s curation seems to have a strong theme; it is unintentional, I must inform. I am loving it to see this happen, though! 

Here’s a quick glance of what do we cover today:

🏔️ Perils of prudence

🧑‍🏫 Benefits of 1:1 tutoring 

🏔️ Group decision-making framework

🏔️ Hiker’s dilemma

🪩 Secrets

🙅 Why not?

And much more…

I love it when you write comments and share your feedback. If that’s too much of an effort, please hit the ❤️ at the start or end of the post to show your love. 

And with that, let’s dive in.

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1. Perils of Prudence

Abraham Thomas’s poses a profound question at the end of his essay “The Perils of Prudence”.

We all are cautious, more than what we should be. Thomas does a fairly good job explaining why that needs to change for those in the ‘startup’ mode. 

He gives a bunch of logical inputs: 1) speed gives you more shots at your goal and 2) speed hedges against burnout.

But what I love about this post, and want you to explore is the story he has used to make his point - the race to the South Pole in the early 1900’s. It’s a tale of two polar expedition parties, one focused on speed and the other on caution.

Even if you’re a worshiper & practitioner of the ‘speeds triumphs everything’, give this one a read. I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘race to the South Pole’ episode of how to learn from the past!

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2. Learning in 1:1 tutoring mode

Dan Shipper’s “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of 1-1 Learning” starts with the following proclamation:

Education is expensive because you’re paying for more than learning. You’re paying for the status of the degree, the ability to participate in the community, a planned course list and curriculum, the quality control that the university provides, and on and on. You’re paying for a turn-key, minimum effort experience.

He recommends that 1:1 tutoring can be a much more effective way to learn something. It may not be the first step you take, but could be a good ultimate step to mastery. It builds on top of the skill you’ve acquired, knowledge you’ve gathered and polishes all the rough edges. It may not be for everyone, as learning in this mode is not the same as taking a class.

1-1 tutoring is extremely valuable, but it’s totally different than taking a class. I had to bring a lot more to the table to get what I wanted out of the experience. When you’re doing tutoring with someone who doesn’t teach professionally they won’t have a course structure or plan. So I had to suggest a structure, bring work in that I wanted to review, identify skills I wanted to build, and follow through by making progress on my own between tutoring sessions.

The post further suggests some useful steps to explore this path. I’m in the process of exploring this path myself and looking forward to talking to someone who has had a coach or 1:1 tutor in their career. 

Write to me or connect, if you have any inputs.

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3. NOLS’s Group Decision-making Framework

NOLS uses wilderness expeditions as a way to teach leadership skills. Molly Graham was an instructor there and has shared her learning from that stint in her post titled “Decision-making”. 

This group decision-making framework helps leaders understand that there are different ways to make decisions and develops their ability to use different decision-making styles that involve their team more, or less, depending on the situation.  

Here’s a snapshot from the post summarising the framework:

While, the ‘group decide’ part seems easier to relate to and put in practice, the ‘leader decide’ part needs more nuanced thinking & practice. I specially liked the distinction among the three buckets therein.

Consultative I – get input then decide

Consultative II – almost decide, then get input

Directive – only the leader decides

The post further explores how to apply this to your work. Worth a read!

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4. Hiker’s Dilemma

Steven Witten starts his essay “The Hiker's Dilemma” with the following quote:

"If you're hiking and you stop to let other people catch up, don't start walking immediately when they arrive. Because that means you got a rest and they didn't. I think about this a lot."

Before you form any opinion, or share this wisdom any further, let me share the next para that sets the context of his essay:

I want to dissect this sentiment because I also think it says a whole lot, but probably not the way the poster meant it. It's a perfect example of something that seems to pass for empathetic wisdom, but actually holds very little true empathy: an understanding of people who actually think differently from each other.

What follows is a really interesting and fairly counterintuitive take on some common ideas. Fantastic read!

I love it when someone puts an argument like this; I may not be fully convinced either way but it opened my eyes to the two sides of the coin, for sure.

(via Curious Corner)

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5. Secrets

I must have read Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One” long back and I can confirm that I don’t recall anything from the book. 

This post surfaced the chapter 8 “Secret” and I can see why I don’t recall anything. This book, no matter how much we make it to be a course book for startup enthusiasts, is a discourse of ideas much more profound & deeper than any ‘thou shalt not…” startup advice.

If you’re up to revise this chapter, you can visit the post. The annotation can provide further food for thoughts on those ideas, but can get philosophical soon. Here’re some ideas that I highlighted for some further exploration:

A conventional truth can be important — it’s essential to learn elementary mathematics, for example — but it won’t give you an edge. It’s not a secret.

The best place to look for secrets is where no one else is looking. Most people think only in terms of what they’ve been taught; schooling itself aims to impart conventional wisdom.

Unless you have perfectly conventional beliefs, it’s rarely a good idea to tell everybody everything that you know.

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6. Light reads & watch

Some interesting posts & essays that are well worth reading.

1. Why not? - by Jessica Hagy. Because we prefer not to for a variety of reasons: all good

2. Jen-Hsun Huang’s talk at Stanford.

Innovation requires a little bit of experimentation. Experimentation requires exploration. Exploration will result in failure. Unless you have a tolerance for failure, you would never experiment, and if you don't ever experiment, you would never innovate. If you don't innovate, you don't succeed - you'll just be a dweeb.

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7. Everything else

Some random goodness from the internet:

1. Experience 151 optical illusions. Our eyes trick us so much! (via Dense Discovery)

2. Design notes on the alphabet - Only XKCD can make this stuff up!

3. A comprehensive list of items you DON'T NEED. I have a lot of these, especially the electronic items (old phones, laptops etc) but have no clue how to discard them safely & correctly. Any leads are welcome. (via 10+1 Things)

4. Get a peek inside one of America’s last pencil factories through this photo collection by Christopher Payne. NYT Magazine did a photo essay on this, if you want some additional commentary. (via 10+1 Things)

5. You may already know this famous story behind the Michelin Guide. How the hell did those guys think so far out? Or is it just our imagination & creative shitposting for content marketing case studies, twitter threads & Linkedin posts? (via Storythings)

The title of today’s post is from Peter Thiel’s post.

Before we sign off, a small update on the new referral program. Now, you can share “Stay Curious” with your friends & can get some exciting goodies if they join our gang. Click on the “Share” button to know more and get started.

That's all for this week, folks!  

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

- Pritesh