Errors of Omission: What are you not doing that you should be Doing?

Warren Buffett often says that he is less scared by the errors he has made than by the sheer enormity of all the opportunities that he never even saw as they passed him by.

Your progress in life is far less linked to whether you execute perfectly on the things you actually act on, and far more linked to whether you are able to see great opportunities as they pass you by.

In psychology we define 2 types of error:

  • Type 1 – poor execution and
  • Type 2 – never even seeing the opportunity to act

Our psychological makeup has us much more worried about the type 1 errors – because we are fully aware of them. We should be much more worried about the type 2 errors, because they are the ones that make the biggest impact on our trajectory through life.

Choose your Hard (…because in Life… it is all hard)

I heard a recent Jordan Peterson video where he expounded on the concept “Choose your Hard”. This video has some of my reflections on the choice. Choosing hard today makes a difference. Not choosing hard is a choice… and it has consequences.

I love Pep Mari’s wisdom around true commitment. I shared his 4 levels of commitment in a previous video here: Pep Mari’s 4 levels of committment.

…and here is the comment on Linkedin that triggered my second part of the video: 17 habits is too hard for most people.

Uncommon sense

Charlie Munger on uncommon sense…

Competence – you can only be trusted as competent if you clearly understand the limits of your competence. The great danger of experts is they forget the limits of their expertise – “it is better to trust a man of 130 IQ who thinks he is 125 IQ, than to trust a man of 180 IQ who thinks he is 200 IQ” Warren Buffett

Inverting – if you want to make life better, think of what you would do to make life worse. Charlie was an aviation meteorologist during WWII. His task was to give weather briefings to pilots. His role was unclear until he thought of the inverted perspective “if I wanted to kill pilots as a meteorologist, what could I do? Flying with iced wings, flying in conditions they will be unable to land.” This really clarified for him the important aspects of his role in keeping pilots alive. In our own lives, asking “how would I really make my life worse?” can be a valuable perspective on what really matters.

Collector – be a collector. How many collectors do you know who are unhappy? Identify things or experiences that you enjoy collecting and become a curator of your collections.

Integrate ideas between domains – most people focus on details within the idea (especially academics), few people look at the interaction between big ideas. That’s where there’s not much incentive in academics, but it’s very interesting for investing money.

Occam’s razor- go for simple… with a proviso that was initially shared by Einstein “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not more so” Einstein. Anywhere there is a “lollapalooza result” (Charlie’s term for a hugely positive and rapid outcome)… look for a confluence of causes. Academic experts find one cause. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are rarely just single causes for high impact outcomes.

The problems of Social science– all chemists can answer “where do the rules of chemistry not apply?” In the high temperature plasma state. how many social scientists can answer “if you want to sell more should you raise or lower the price?” Where does this rule not apply? 1 in 50 will say “luxury goods!” Many social scientists forget to think of the exceptional cases.

Update… a summary of this post in a #shorts video

More on Charlie Munger’s thinking process

Charlie Munger’s Inverse Thinking Process

Short term Happy vs Long term Fulfilled

The best compliment you can receive… (thanks to Rajesh Setty)

Rajesh Setty shared some wisdom with me last year. One thing out of many that I remember was this idea: the most valuable compliment you can hear from another person.

I had the privilege of reading a draft of Rajesh’s newest book over the last month and I have written a recommendation that hopefully will appear when the book comes out later this year. Here’s some of his books and manifestos available as pdfs https://rajeshsetty.com/resources/books/

What is the best compliment you can hear?

How to Become worthy of this Compliment?

  1. Be interested in them – help them get clarity on who they are and what they want, their strengths and passions
  2. Connect people – put people in contact with others that share common passions, experiences
  3. Let them help you – let them see that I have changed myself because of their impact on me

“The most valuable compliment is: I wish I had met you 10 years earlier”

Rajesh Setty

If you enjoyed reading this post, you will also like Listening with your Eyes and What is the best advice you have ever received?.

A Life Lesson from The Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is back for its final season this week. This video comes from the beautiful city walls of Ávila, about 100kms to the west of Madrid in Spain.

I used to think that it was enough to be good at your job, and to be nice to people… and money, success and power would come. How wrong I was. The Game of Thrones makes it clear: if you have something of value, someone stronger will take it from you. You must be strong or be protected.

Are you Strong or are you Protected?

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

The secret to a good life? No, just a simple reflection on the nature of things. The important gestures you can make each day that really make an impact on others over the long time, are often so small that they are easily forgotten each day…  but over 10 years the presence or the lack of a couple of small gestures makes a huge impact on your relationships and what you can have achieved in life.

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Ancient Wisdom

This video comes from the beautiful location of Villa Ottoboni, on the outskirts of Padua in Italy. I had the privilege of teaching an interactive workshop on “The Psychology of Leadership” with the Ambrosetti organisation today.  

and that’s “Goodbye” from the central market of Padua

What’s the Most Important Lesson I have Learnt in Life?

Last week, my 13 year old niece Natia asked me: “what is the most important lesson you have learnt in your life?”

Natia was clearly quite serious (and had thought about her own answer), so I took a few minutes before responding. The video below explains my answer to her question.

How would you answer this question? What’s your lesson?

Leave it in the comments below 😉

The Simplest Definition of Success

I have worried for too much of my life about whether I am a success or not.

This video shares the simplest and most empowering definition of success that I have found.  It comes from Pema Chodron.  It is a wonderful reflection for me about how I am living my life.

Am I learning to forgive myself and to be a positive addition when I am with other people?

Thank you for your comments, reflections, shares and likes!

7 Life Lessons from a Broken Foot

This is a guest post by Tobias Rodrigues who will be collaborating with me next week in the IESE Executive MBA intensive week in Barcelona.  Tobias broke his foot this summer - and learnt some surprising lessons about himself, his family and what it means to be dependent on others.  

Over to Tobias…

39 Days, 11 Hours and 30 Minutes of Bandage

On June 29th at 10:30 pm, while I was out enjoying an evening jog, I tripped and broke the 5th metatarsus (the main bone of the pinky) of my right foot. On August 8th at 10:00 am the cast was removed.

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