A Learning a Day

I often say – only partly in jest – that Kung Fu Panda is one of the wisest movies of all time. One of my favorite exchanges in the first movie is when Po, the panda, talks to his adopted father, Mr. Ping, about the secret ingredient in his famous secret ingredient soup.

Mr. Ping : The secret ingredient is… nothing!

Po : Huh?

Mr. Ping : You heard me. Nothing! There is no secret ingredient.

Po : Wait, wait… it’s just plain old noodle soup? You don’t add some kind of special sauce or something?

Mr. Ping : Don’t have to. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.

Of course, belief alone isn’t going to get the job done. But, as with Po, if you’ve put in the work, belief makes all the difference.

In the past millennia, we’ve seen many exponential technology transitions. These transitions have, in simple terms, dramatically changed life on the planet.

The creation of the wheel and our ability to spark and then control fire were among the earliest exponential transitions. There have been so many such transitions over time – in domains that have helped us get from place to place (shipping, cars, air travel, and so on), get healthier (farming, vaccines, public health advancements), and harness energy better (steam engine, fossil fuels). In aggregate, they’ve created incredible amounts of wealth and, wait for it, exponentially better living conditions for humans all over the world.

I’ve observed two trends in our history. The first is that the interval between transitions has gotten smaller and smaller. The last hundred years arguably saw more transitions than the previous thousand and so on. The second is that our reaction to new technology is nearly always woeful.

Not novel technology. Just new technology.

When cars were first introduced in Britain, the law required a person to walk in front of it waving a red flag. Ignaz Semmelweiss was sent to a mental asylum for suggest that maternal mortality could be reduced by washing hands.

We aren’t rational creatures. So this resistance to messy transitions is understandable. It doesn’t make it easy though.

But it also means we’re in for an eventful next decade as I think we’re living through a unique moment with three exponential transitions happening simultaneously –

(1) Artificial intelligence is going to remake every industry in the next decade. Recent breakthroughs in our ability to run massive models at lower and lower costs change the game for all of us. AI was already connecting significant numbers of people to information, opportunity, and life partners than ever before – i.e., it is already a fundamental layer in our lives. But I think we’re just getting started.

(2) Renewable energy is going to change how we live as a species. Every new source by the end of the next decade will likely be solar, wind, or some other form of renewable energy (fusion? hydrogen?) that hasn’t been invented yet. Our ability to generate, store, and harness this energy at a scale that was unimaginable just two decades ago is going to change the game for humanity.

(3) RNA-powered therapies and vaccines are going to remake our species. The breakthrough work on CRISPR and mRNA vaccines in the past decade or so are just the tip of the iceberg. They’re going to change how we deal with ailments and diseases and will change what it means to be human.

Exponential transitions are challenging because we don’t just get to make the switch immediately. Transitions take time and face the resistance from the status quo. They don’t happen easily.

Every exponential transition also brings significant trade-offs. Ultrasound technology was used to save many a baby. Sadly, it was also used for large scale female infanticide. All of these discussions will be messy by definition. But it is worth keeping a close eye on each of these as it relates to your work and life.

As I wrote this, I realized there are many other contenders (metaverse, crypto, etc.) – but I’ve found my conviction on these 3 growing over the past years. Excited to write a lot more about each of these as I learn more.

It is a fascinating time to be alive.

In a conversation recently, a friend underscored the importance of becoming the “go to” person on whatever topic you are focused on at work. She referred to this as one of the most important habits you can build in your career.

As she talked about this, she shared something insightful – becoming the “go to” person isn’t all that much work. That’s because very few bother to do the pre-work. As she wisely observed, few show up to meetings with the pre-read done. Fewer still take the time to really absorb all the data available.

I found myself nodding fervently.

This is doubly true in life as well. Everyone has opinions – most of these are curated either from cherry picked data or “anecdata”/anecdotal data. That’s understandable. If it is hard to do the homework at a job where you’re paid to do just that, consider how many will actually dig deep enough to absorb source data* or look at a meta study (an analysis of multiple studies on the same topic) to then synthesize their point of view.

Just as it does in our career, I think the benefits to doing this in our life are incredibly rich. It helps us reason and gives us a depth of understanding that forms the foundation of thoughtfulness and equanimity.

So, become the “go to” person at work. Then, for subjects you care about, make the effort to look at the source data yourself to form opinions in your personal life. It takes work – but, on the bright side, it takes less work than you think.

*It is why aggregation/visualization of publicly available datasets created by initiatives like Our World in Data are so powerful. They make it so much easier to understand the data and to do the homework by democratizing access to information. We need more of these kinds of initiatives!

“In kindergarten, a child’s education is as much in the classroom as it is in the playground.” | A wise teacher

In truth, the world and all of this life is our classroom. And learning is equal parts perspective changing and fun.

All we need to do is show up willing to learn.

I was out at a restaurant today that had hung up a short story on the wall. It was about a man who got on stage and told the audience a joke. The audience laughed loudly.

He then repeated the joke.

A few people laughed this time.

He repeated the same joke for the third time.

No one laughed.

To this, he said – “You can’t laugh at the same joke over and over again. Why do you then keep crying and complaining about the same problems?”

Why indeed?

I was out in the evening recently and found myself gazing into the sky and appreciating the stars.

The stars are always there of course. I just don’t appreciate them enough.

Just like so many other wonderful things in this life.

My favorite source of stories in the past 3 years has been Morgan Housel’s blog posts on the Collaborative Fund’s blog. I’ve shared so many of these on this blog (thank you, Morgan). Today’s post on expectations was very well done. The story below definitely hit home.

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Dr. Dan Goodman once performed surgery on a middle-aged woman whose cataract had left her blind since childhood. The cataract was removed, leaving the woman with near-perfect vision. A miraculous success.

The patient returned for a checkup a few weeks later. The book Crashing Through writes:

Her reaction startled Goodman. She had been happy and content as a blind person. Now sighted, she became anxious and depressed. She told him that she had spent her adult life on welfare and had never worked, married, or ventured far from home – a small existence to which she had become comfortably accustomed. Now, however, government officials told her that she no longer qualified for disability, and they expected her to get a job. Society wanted her to function normally. It was, she told Goldman, too much to handle.

Every goal you dream about has a downside that’s easy to overlook.

I found this chart about electric vehicle adoption in China intriguing.

In early 2020, both China and the US were at about 5% penetration as a % of in-year sales. In early 2021, we got to 10%.

However, at some point in mid 2021, China’s penetration began taking off. In the last few months we’ve seen averages above 20% with a high greater than 25%. It definitely feels like it has hit a tipping point while the US has stagnated.

It got me wondering about that tipping point. Is the 15%-20% range the tipping point? Or was it better electric car charging infrastructure? High gas prices?

There isn’t enough data on this. But, looking at Norway’s new car sales, it is fascinating to see adoption take off around the 20% mark.

Tipping points are fascinating.

If we’re in the business of attempting to bring about transformational change, paying attention to and optimizing for them is often the difference between success and failure.

Our ability to drive a change in our behavior is directly proportional to our ability to check in with ourselves at a regular cadence.

Regular check ins enable us to hit reset and course correct. They also give us the opportunity to recommit (as many times as necessary) to the why behind our commitment when the wheels inevitably fall off.

Get the check in schedule right first, and the behavior change we’re seeking will follow.

The better your understanding of a domain, the better your ability to make high quality decisions with lesser data.