- Motivation = dissatisfaction with present + vision of potential future + practicality of executing to get there
- Acquiring things that signal success only requires the short time to purchase it versus acquiring resources
Do cost benefit analysis of very purchasing decision - college included
- Promotion is governed by requirement for seniority. Function of
birth rate
- economic growth / contraction / stagnation
highly dangerous financial decisions
- beware of overselling time to work leaving little time to generate other streams of income
- beware of debt it locks workers into their jobs
- do not treat buying things as a reward for hard work - its a death spiral
- continuous accruing of stuff forces you to buy a bigger house
**opt to be the renaissance man **
- specialized knowledge is much cheaper to acquire than generalized knowledge for companies -
advantageous for them
- not advantageous for you
- specialized knowledge can't be used as foundation for another specialized knowledge but generalized knowledge can
takes continuous effort to main a specialized skill
- there is an S-curve to skill maintenance
- constant market shifts makes today's specialized knowledge obsolete for tomorrow
- specialized industries tend to have high volume of people competing for the same jobs
Economic behavior
- Dimensions
coupling
level of dependence on the world
- tight versus loose
- organizational structure
linear versus non-linear
- Profiles
Renaissance man - loose non-linear
tries to solve the problem as a human rather than being part of a machine
- gets money from many different fields - though not as much as a salary man
- can generally drop off the grid
- Business man - tight non-linear
other people's money, highly leverage operation sensitive to economic trends
- Working man - loose linear
one gig to another but restricted to the same domain
- salary man - tight linear
too busy working to creating alternatives to buying products
- Overview
there is one dominant profile in each person
- different cultural periods is dominated by different profiles
**Attitudes **
- combined with action lead to habits over time resulting in specific deserved outcome
- agency = attitude that anything can be solved given enough time and resources
recommendation: to doing something that is considered very difficult at least once in your life.
Renaissance ideals
- To master one or more subjects while being competent in many subjects
in short supply
- all knowledge is based on a few limited mental models
synergy between different subjects helps create new solutions
- stronger and wider the foundation of models = easier to gain new knowledge
- creativity is a function of one's scope of knowledge
acquire knowledge from many different fields
- Easier to focus on what not to buy than to focus on selling
- strive for complexity
utilizing unused bandwidth while having down time from activity in another unrelated area
- Doing the right thing (strategy) is more important than doing things right (tactics)
- Approach world without prejudice - reduce and simplify
- buying parts is cheaper than buying the whole
fixing stuff doesn't need to be perfect
- seek to build out skillset for task that you need done often
reduce if not eliminate need for task that you don't often need
Areas of ability
- Physiological
- Economical
evaluation and distribute resource
- be able to put a price on value
- price versus value
- take into account second third order considerations
minimize negative second and third order effects when making decision
- alignment of second and third order effects reduces friction in your life style
- see whole and parts clearly
- Intellectual
critical thinking - to think for yourself instead of being told what to think
- thinking is a tool
- knowledge is the resource
- mental frame
prioritize relevance of information
- research in different areas
- put information in context of mental framework to ask further questions
- master fundamentals
- pursue relevant and correct knowledge persistently and consistently
- Emotional
- Social
- Technical
- Ecological
Education
- Learning a systematic way of doing things
- never stops
- who you are as a person versus what you know (training)
**Alignment **
- work to
learn new skills
- gain new connections
- create new communicaties
- don't work to earn money
- make each project self-supported
reduce projects that cost money
- projects that don't cost money
- projects that creates value (as opposed to just money)