Rules make decision making easy. Unfortunately the real world doesn’t follow a rule book. Real decisions are rich. People are complicated. Context is subtle and layered. Motivations are hidden. This richness make it necessary to mix real situations in with the study of theories. Survival stories like In The Heart of The Sea are fertile ground for examining decisions made in the face of danger instead of on a spreadsheet.
We are naïve. We want the world to be pleasant and fair, so we see it that way. But the world is harsh and pretending it isn’t doesn’t make it any more charitable. We ignore the real problems - push them from our minds – instead we fill our world with petty complaints. You know they aren’t important because those petty complaints vanish the instant we feel truly threatened.
This lesson is easily forgotten in our comfortable modern world. Our lives are rarely at stake. Companies are happy to provide products that keep the illusion of comfort. The harsh reality is out of fashion, we need Xenophon’s Persian Exhibition to strip away the modern dressing and expose the uncomfortable truth: Threats make us better.
Exhausted from nearly 30 years of conflict, the Greeks decided after the Peloponnesian War peace was worth any compromise. Despite being unhappy with the conditions of peace, they had lost their appetite for war.
So when Cyrus approached the Greeks to go on a punitive mission to quell several rebellious cities, they treated it like a job offer. They weren’t thinking in terms of life or death and became lackadaisical. Since they were going as mercenaries, the Greeks fooled themselves into believing that they could separate the spoils from the terror of war.
Nicolas Nassim Taleb has test to separate skill from luck. Only by surviving repetitive exposure to risk can someone proof that they are skilled not lucky. According to this test John Chatteron could be the best diver in the world.
Shadow Divers is a story about the edge of possibility. Everything that happens feel just marginally possible. A charter fisherman passed a location on to the local dive charter captain where he suspects, based on the plentiful fish, there is an unknown wreck. It turns out there is a wreck – an unidentified U-boat. Identifying the wreck is close to impossible; the wreck sits at 230ft, the practical limit for diving and does not easily yield its identity or artifacts. Three divers die in the quest to identify the U-boat.
What made Chatteron, the diver who successfully identified the U-boat, different than the three drivers who perished? He dove the wreck multiple times over several years and survived repeated exposure to risk – so it wasn't luck. I credit his sober awareness of the risks, his discipline to ignore immediate gratification, and preparation.
It is seductive to believe that what makes you different might also make you better. If you look, regardless of your symptoms, you can find theories and stories to indulge your fantasies that your different is a better kind of different. First you should be aware of the criticisms of being normal. In times of [...]
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon is great, but not as great Steve Jobs. In the comparison what biographies gain from personal access is evident. Both men obsessed about the customer, but their biographies taint that obsession with different hues. The personal access warms Jobs to the point he comes off [...]
You can’t work on a marriage the same way you work on yourself. Self improvement is a brutal endeavor. The first phase of self improvement tears down the dissociation between who you are and who you think you are. As your perception becomes closer to reality, you expose your weaknesses. During the second phase of [...]
Everyone has problems. They can be an excuse or they can focus you. Don’t convince yourself you have large, unsolvable problems. Your problem seems so large and complex you can’t possibly be expected to have an answer. You are playing the victim. There are some problems you can’t do anything about. We call them problems, [...]
Remember you are insignificant. You only exist in the present, the small gap between the past and future. You don’t even fully control the present. You have to share the present with all your instincts and biases. Yet, you continually forfeit your control. You lose control. You are impulsive. You are lazy. Be a philosopher. [...]
There is no benefit to just reading philosophy and strategy. The reward for studying philosophy is living philosophically. The reward for studying strategy is acting strategically. Don't study great men to memorize facts or learn their stories; you want their spirit to imbue yours. Living a philosophical life and crafting perfect strategies require action, yet [...]
You have two choices. Either feel trapped and hopeless or learn to see obstacles as the markers that guide the path. Nobody sets out to feel hopeless, so why do we? It's the easiest path. It is harder to hold your self accountable than make excuses. Reality is harder to see than your fantasies. Hopelessness [...]