A Learning a Day

Chef Marco Pierre White was one of London’s top chefs through the 1980s and 1990s. He was an intense and controversial character – known for his hot temper and high standards.

As is often the case with folks with maniacal intensity, there are many sides to his story. He was one of the first celebrity chefs – the youngest chef to be awarded the coveted three Michelin stars. He also created an intense and unpredictable work environment for his staff. And he also trained a collection of chefs – including Gordon Ramsay – who went onto earn multiple Michelin stars.

However, he decided to retire at the age of 38. Although he worked with incredible intensity to achieve what he wanted in his career, he found it to be less fulfilling than he’d hoped. In his words –

“I was being judged by people who had less knowledge than me, so what was it truly worth? I gave Michelin inspectors too much respect, and I belittled myself. I had three options: I could be a prisoner of my world and continue to work six days a week, I could live a lie and charge high prices and not be behind the stove or I could give my stars back, spend time with my children and re-invent myself.“

No amount of external validation can solve a lack of internal validation.

It is why the relationship between extreme success and happiness is so fascinating. The more we understand extreme success, the more we realize how often it is caused by an absence of satisfaction, peace, or happiness.

Azeem, on his Exponential View blog, had an insightful post about how energy is transitioning from a commodity to a technology. This table summarizes the difference between the two.

We see these play out in commodity prices over time. Even as supply has gone up (more extraction), oil is concentrated in the hands of a few who set prices.

On the flip side, the cost curves of batteries and solar continue to head downward.

This is happening because both these technologies have learning rates of 20%. This means every doubling of production reduces costs by 20%.

And while we started with rare-earth metal, we’re increasingly seeing more mainstream materials being used to develop batteries.

This movement from energy as commodity to energy as technology has profound consequences. A few examples –

• Electricity replaces oil as the currency. Dollars per megawatt hour instead of Dollars per barrel. We already see this begin to play out as investments in datacenter technology continue to go up. No one is powering new datacenters with oil.
• 14% of countries control all the oil. With renewable sources, over 90% of countries will have the energy they need. Consider this – all our energy needs can be met if we simply used all the solar power we get from the sun for 3 minutes.
• Seasons could dictate consumption patterns. With the amount of excess solar in summer, for example, energy intensive processes could become viable.

These are just a few examples. Financing and regulation will both need to adapt as renewables have an upfront investment need that pays off for the next decades.

The implications of all of these changes will be profound. It is an exciting time for humanity.

I started using a Logitech M720 Triathlon mouse a year or so ago. It is a good mouse – a keeper. My favorite feature of the mouse is a small piece of elegant design.

A Bluetooth device like this typically requires a small USB pairing device. And it is easy to lose track of where you last kept that device.

The Logitech team had a simple solve – they designed a spot for the USB pairing device right next to the battery.

This means you always have it with you. Once you use it, you just put it back in.

An elegant solution. Well played.

The Sit-and-Rise test is a simple test of our ability get down to the floor and up again. You start by crossing one foot in front of the other and sit down in a cross-legged position without holding onto anything.

Now, from the same cross-legged position, you rise up – if possible, without using support.

A group of Brazilian and American researchers thought this might provide insight into longevity. So they tested 2002 men and women between ages 51 to 80.

6 years later, 179 (or 8%) of the study subjects had died. It turned out that the higher the subject scored in the test, the greater the improvement in their statistical likelihood of survival.

The likely cause is that this test is a measure of a person’s mobility. People with better mobility are less likely to fall and are more likely to be in better all-round health.

It is a useful test to understand our current state. More importantly, it is a skill worth improving.

(H/T: Built to Move by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett)

The 10 question annual reflection is a longstanding ALearningaDay tradition. I recommend doing it in 3 steps:

i) Carve out an hour in the next week to “look back and look forward.” It helps to do this in a quiet place with no distractions or interruptions.

ii) Work with a list of 10 questions that make you think. For a starter list, I’ve shared the 10 questions I ask myself below (here’s the Google doc – you can just make a copy onto your Google Drive). I prioritize keeping my list simple – some years, I get done in an hour and in other years, I spend a few hours diving deep into a question or two. The important thing is not the length/depth, it is simply carving out the time to zoom out.

iii) Archive your questions and notes for next year. Check in with them over the course of the year and read them before you start next year’s reflection. Looking at what was top-of-mind a few years later is also guaranteed to make you smile. :-)

---

1. What are the top 2 themes/memories/moments I will remember 2024 for? 

2. What were the 2 biggest lessons I learnt in 2024?

3. We learn from a mix of 3 sources – i) taking action and reflecting on our experiences, ii) people, and iii) books/courses or synthesized information. What did my mix look like in 2024? What would I do differently in 2025? 

i) Action + reflection:

ii) People:

iii) Books/synthesized info:

4. Looking back at how I spent my time in 2024, what were the top 2-3 themes/buckets x processes/outcomes I prioritized (Examples: Career – prioritized ABC project or getting a raise, Health – prioritized more outdoor exercise or losing 10 pounds)? Did what I prioritize align with what I intended to prioritize/were there any surprises? 

5. What are the top 2 themes/buckets x processes/outcomes I intend to prioritize in 2025? 

6. What do I most need to learn in 2025 and how do I plan to do this? 

7. What are habits/checkpoints I have in place to recommit to my priorities? (E.g. weekly/monthly check in)

8. What have I got planned in 2025 to prioritize renewal and memorable experiences (e.g. holiday plans, weekend activities, hobbies)?

9. Health, close relationships, and money are foundational to the quality of our lives on this planet. What are my guiding principles or habits as I think of these dimensions in 2025?

Health:

Close relationships:

Money:

10. Do I have a personal philosophy – a set of principles and/or virtues that I want to live my life by? (If not, would I consider putting together a first version?) What have I learnt about them in my attempts to live them? Do I plan to evolve them in 2025?

 [Note: Virtues are values we actually embody. Inspired by the code of the Samurais, the difference is what we believe (values) vs. what we do (virtues). Our values become virtues when living them costs us money, time, or something valuable]

---

I look forward to doing mine in the next 10 days. More to follow.

#OurWorldIsAwesome – Edition 6

---

The next stop in our African National Park journey takes us to Ngorongoro. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a Unesco World Heritage Centre. This area includes the Olduvai Gorge (Oldupai is the actual name – the name was misspelled as Olduvai) – also known as the cradle of humanity. Excavations in this gorge unearthed the remains of Homo Habilis from 1.9 million years ago and helped us understand the kinds of tools we evolved to be able to use.

I didn’t take a good picture while I was there. This picture (source) of the gorge shows the various colors of the rocks from millions of years.

The small museum at the gorge features a beautiful exhibition showcasing our evolution from our chimp cousins to humans – featuring tools and skeletons unearthed at the gorge.

This area is known for the famous Ngorongoro crater. It is the world’s largest inactive, inactive, and unfilled volcanic caldera or cauldron. You descend via a steep one-way route and reach the covering roughly 100 square miles. This is half-way into the descent.

Once you get down, the crater is teeming with wildlife.

The setting is surreal. Over to a few pictures.

This is the elusive caracal – one of the smallest African cats.

The static water is alkaline – contributing to the pink colors of these Flamingos.

A gazelle close-up – the bigger ones are Grant gazelles and the smaller ones are Thompson gazelles.

The superb starling has stunning colors.

A hyena eating the remains of a buffalo. The Ngorongoro crater is home to one of the longest running hyena studies. As the crater is flat, hyena packs have, over the years, become so dominant that they’ve chased the Cheetahs out of the crater. The only cats that can keep their prey from them once they kill are lions.

Lions spend their days resting and hunt at night.

This was a family of lions with 3 eager youngsters who were getting a lesson in patience from their mother.

The Ngorongoro crater is typically the first stop on a route featuring two iconic National Parks – The Serengeti and The Maasai Mara. While it is only a day trip for most people enroute to the Serengeti, it makes for an awe-inspiring setting – a reminder of just how amazing our planet is.

One of the things you learn to do as a leader is to let fires burn. Every problem can’t be dealt with immediately.

The challenge here, however, isn’t in understanding you have to let fires burn.

It is in improving our judgment on which fires we need to let burn and which fires we need to tend to.

One way to view work is to frame it as a multiplayer game. Every year, we work our way up to the next level.

The difficulty goes up as we make our way up these levels – linearly at first, then exponentially.

As a result, we never ever feel completely comfortable. Just as we get comfortable in one level, it is time for the next one. We just have to embrace that constant discomfort – it is where learning and growth happens.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while we’re at it. We have fun when three things happen.

First, we need to pick the right game. It starts here.

Next, we need to learn to fall in love with that process of learning and growth.

And finally, we need to find the right crew to play with.

If all three of these are in place in the game we’re playing, best to savor it… and make it count.

There’s a great story from Google X’s Astro Teller about a maxim they use.

Let’s say you’re trying to teach a monkey how to recite Shakespeare while on a pedestal. How should you allocate your time and money between training the monkey and building the pedestal?

The right answer, of course, is to spend zero time thinking about the pedestal. But I bet at least a couple of people will rush off and start building a really great pedestal first. Why? Because at some point the boss is going to pop by and ask for a status update — and you want to be able to show off something other than a long list of reasons why teaching a monkey to talk is really, really hard.

Tackle the monkey first is a beautiful way of visualizing the idea of testing the riskiest assumptions first.

Tackle the monkey first.

“Happiness is our quality of life – envy. “ | Jimmy Carr

This made me chuckle… and think.