FS | BRAIN FOOD

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Welcome to Sunday Brain Food: a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights for life and business.

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FS

"No matter what was going on in my life – no matter my struggles, errors, or mistakes, I never called my friends for help. I wanted to be self-sufficient. I thought that made me strong."

— A Lesson in Friendship

Explore Your Curiosity

★ "Early-career setback appears to cause a performance improvement among those who persevere. Overall, these findings are consistent with the concept that “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” which may have broad implications for identifying, training and nurturing junior scientists."

— Early Setbacks and Future Performance

★ "Steam, electricity, aviation, the automobile, the telephone, the computer, the microchip, the Internet, and many more in the future. These innovations tend to follow patterns, have similar growth rates, similar obstacles to growth, and so on. Cars at first had no highways and gas stations, the Internet had no broadband, telegraphs had no poles and wires. So there is a tremendous amount to be learned by studying how entrepreneurs and corporations dealt with such challenges, how technologies evolve, and how they die or are replaced with newer ideas"

— A Conversation with Gary Hoover

Insight

"I very frequently get the question: “What’s going to change in the next 10 years?” That’s a very interesting question.

I almost never get the question: “What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?” And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two.

You can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, “Jeff I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher.” Or, “I love Amazon, I just wish you’d deliver a little slower.” Impossible.

So we know the energy we put into these things today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it."

— Jeff Bezos

Tiny Thought

As a teenager in the 1990s, I had a part-time job selling computers. People would come in and buy the best computer they could afford but almost always get the cheapest mouse. The owner loved this.

Inevitably, the customer would come back in about a month and purchse a slightly better mouse. The process would repeat until they eventually 'caved' and bought a great mouse. Only by this point they've spent at least 1.5 times what they would have spent had they just bought it when they purchased their computer.

It might not seem like there's a lot to learn from this, but I think there is. Often what seems like an expensive solution is a cheap solution (in the long run) and what seems like a cheap solution is very expensive (in the long run).

A few years back a friend of mine had recently spent a very large sum of money on a house. We went shopping one day looking for a lamp. He found one he loved but the price tag seemed too expensive. Instead, he opted for one that was slightly less expensive but he only considered OK. I visited the other day and noticed the lamp had been replaced.

What seems expensive is often cheap in the long run.

Et Cetera

+ The most successful comeback in history was done by focusing on one play at a time.

+ Stop chasing the wrong happiness.

+ You want everyone to agree with you after.

Brain Food: Why Expensive is Cheap, Setbacks, and Influence

FS | BRAIN FOOD

FS

Explore Your Curiosity

Insight

Tiny Thought

Recommended Reading

Et Cetera

Older messages

Brain Food: The Three Timezones, Relationships, and Confident Knowledge

Brain Food: Remembering What you Read, Discipline, and Living a Meaningful Life

Brain Food: Believing, Toys, and Feedback

Brain Food: Thinking Time, Information Acquisition, and Doing Obvious Things

Brain Food: On When to Decide, Character, and Automatic Rules

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