October 6, 2024 | #597 | read on fs.blog | Free Version

Welcome to Sunday Brain Food, your signal in a world full of noise.

Tiny Thoughts

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90 percent of success is not getting distracted.

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Talent and potential mean nothing if you can't consistently do the boring things when you don't feel like doing them.

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The person who carefully designs their daily routine goes further than the person who negotiates with themselves every day.

Let inertia work for you.

Insights

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A timely reminder from Richard Feynman that you don't have to be the same person you were yesterday:

“You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even a day ago. You are here to create yourself, continuously.”

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Jerry Seinfeld on what to do when people say something bad about you:

“All this hand wringing worry and concern over how are people viewing me — someone said something bad about me, and you get so upset about it — is wasted time and energy. Your only focus should be on getting better at what you're doing. Focus on what you are doing. Get better at what are you doing. Everything else is a waste of time.”

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Estée Lauder on seizing the moments in life that matter the most:

“In every life there is a moment—an event or a realization-that changes that life irrevocably. If the change is to be a happy one, one must be able to recognize the moment and seize it without delay. Rose Kennedy once told me that good luck is something you make and bad luck is something you endure, a very wise observation indeed. People do make their luck by daring to follow their instincts, taking risks, and embracing every possibility.”

Mental Model

V3 | Systems | Algorithms

"Algorithms are recipes. A list of crisp, unambiguous steps that tell you how to get from point A to point B. But they’re more than just instructions. Algorithms are if‑then machines for tuning out the noise and zeroing in on the signal. Have the specs been met? Follow the algorithm and find out.

Thinking algorithmically means searching for processes that reliably spit out the desired results, like a vending machine dispensing the same candy bar every time someone punches in E4.”

— Source: The *Updated* Great Mental Models v3: Systems and Mathematics (pre-order now, release date Oct 15th).

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TKP

This conversation with John Bragg was one of my all-time favorites. I described it to a friend like this: "It’s like talking your grandfather … who started 3 multi-billion dollar companies in three completely different industries and still lives in the small town of 1,000 people he grew up in. Not kidding."

Learn from The Blueberry Billionaire. (Members can go even deeper and pair with the 97 excerpts I took while researching the episode.)

Thanks for reading,

— Shane Parrish

P.S. Nature is incredible.

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