Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Hidden Potential. A book about how to develop talent in yourself and others? I’m in. I read Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. It’s popular science about character, grit and potential. Too many anecdotes for my taste. One part from the book that truck me was Raj Shetty research that was new to me. Also, he says that the experience of K teacher shows up in earnings decades later. I knew that early childhood was important but fascinating that years of experience matters. Grant mentions other research that character in 4th grade was more predictive of adult earnings than cognitive / academic skills. Now I’m sure they controlled for the parents education and wealth, right?. In this category, the Talent Code is worth reading first.
Founder vs. Investor Mindset. Buffet is famous for his first rule of investing: don’t lose money. And his partner Charlie Munger talks about avoiding mistakes and then success takes care of itself. Sounds like a good strategy for most kinds of investing (but not VC? Discuss.) Founders aim at success. For example, Rockefellow urged his son to seek success and view oneself as your greatest asset. With that perspective, there is less risk of ruin as you can often find more financial capital. If you view your financial capital as more fundamental to your strategy than you don’t want to ever lose all of it, as that means you're out of the game.
Epistemology and Rhetoric for Kids. How do you teach your kids how to know who and what to trust? It’s popular these days to use ad hominem attacks as a reason to ignore someone’s ideas. An effective (if classically banned) rhetorical device is to claim that bad people only have bad opinions. This person is bad, therefore, we can ignore their opinions. Can teaching rhetoric again help our kids spot dodges and bad arguments to better be able to seek truth? Rather than protecting them from “misinformation”, can we teach them how to recognize it? Open to recommendations.
Until next time,
Miles