20 Minute Playbook: Tactics, Routines, and Habits of World-Class Performers

In Episode #130, we deconstruct Robert Cantwell's peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. Robert is the Portfolio Manager at Compound Kings. We cover longevity in investing, source documents, and learning from fintwit.

“I wish someone told me that who you work with peer-wise is the number one driver of whether or not you enjoy working or not.” – Robert Cantwell

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/robert-cantwell-playbook 

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/robert-cantwell-playbook-transcript 

CHAPTERS

In this episode, we deconstruct Robert Cantwell’s peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. In it we cover:

(00:00:00) – Introduction

(00:02:13) – Longevity in investing

(00:03:37) – Investment philosophy at Compound Kings

(00:09:05 – Source documents can level up investment knowledge

(00:11:23) – Consuming info vs. processing info

(00:14:02) – Key tools and learnings from fintwit

(00:16:30) – Who you spend your time with is paramount

ABOUT ROBERT CANTWELL

Robert Cantwell is Founder of Upholdings and Portfolio Manager of Compound Kings, which is an exchange traded fund focused on investing in compounders. I had Robert Cantwell on last year in episode 23, where he joined me shortly after launching Compound Kings in late 2020. Before founding Upholdings and launching Compound Kings, Robert had an incredible career, both as an operator and an investor. Robert started his career as an analyst at Elevation Partners, which was co-founded by U2's lead singer Bono. He then worked at the long short hedge fund Meru Capital before serving as Everlane CFO for five years. Robert founded Upholdings in 2019 and officially launched Compound Kings in late 2020.

In this episode, we cover why Robert is obsessed with how we think, process information and make decisions. The single biggest lessons that Robert has taken away from launching and scaling Compound Kings over the last two years, how being a compounding focused investor is different than being solely growth or value focused, why he skips to the back of investment books and goes straight to the source material to form his own opinions about the contents of the book, the investing tools that he and his team use daily at Compound Kings to beat the S&P 500, and his three-step process for consuming thinking through and ultimately coming to conclusions about everything that he reads.

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ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy

ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

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Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s 20 Minute Playbook episode featuring Robert Cantwell. In it, Robert shares his favorite books, tools, habits, and more.

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Emi Gal shares the lessons he’s learned building Ezra, why he tracks 150 different biomarkers, what he’s learned doing a Yearly Challenge for the last 14 years, and why he’s focused on achieving peak health by 40, and more. As well as the origin story behind his extreme discipline and his advice for others that want to become more disciplined.

“To make progress in anything, but especially your health, you just need to nudge behavior a little bit every day. I find that tracking 150 different biomarkers does that quite well for me.” — Emi Gal

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/emi-gal-ezra-20-minute-playbook  

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/emi-gal-ezra-20-minute-playbook-transcript   

CHAPTERS

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:01:27) - Why and How Emi Gal Tracks 150 Different Biomarkers

(00:05:50) - How Emi Gal is Reaching Peak Health by The Age of 40

(00:08:54) - The Relationship Between Bone Density and Exercise

(00:10:27) - Why Emi Gal Has Done a Yearly Challenge Every Year Since 2008

(00:18:16) - Lessons Learned Studying and Becoming Antifragile

(00:22:23) - Lessons Learned from Studying with a World Memory Champion

(00:26:56) - Lessons Learned from Interviewing Elderly Americans

(00:31:31) - Why People Would Be Surprised at Emi Gal’s Discipline

(00:34:06) - How to Become More Disciplined

(00:39:05) - Emi Gal’s Favorite Books: Antifragile and The Patient Will See You Now

(00:42:57) - Emi’s Advice for His Younger Self: Embrace Optionality Early On

ABOUT THE GUEST

Emi Gal started his first company, Brainient, when he was just 19. He spent 10 years building Brainient into one of the leading ad-tech companies in Europe before it was acquired by Teads—one of the largest advertising platforms in Europe, with 1.8-billion impressions per month.

After working with Hospices for Hope, a non-profit in Romania that builds and operates hospices for terminally ill cancer patients, Emi realized that one of the biggest problems with cancer is the lack of a fast, accurate, affordable way to screen for cancer everywhere in the body. He founded Ezra in 2018 to solve this problem using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Artificial Intelligence. To date, he’s reduced the cost of getting a full-body cancer screening by 80% and reduced the time required to get screened by 66%.

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ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy

ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

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Listen as we decode how Emi Gal tracks more than 150 different biomarkers, what he’s learned doing an Annual Challenge for the last 14 years, why he’s focused on achieving peak health by 40, how to become more disciplined, and more. Emi Gal is the Founder & CEO of Ezra, which is bringing fast and affordable cancer screening to everyone.

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In Episode #128, we deconstruct Andrew Herr's peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. Andrew is the Founder and CEO of Fount. We cover how the brain acts under stress, commonalities of peak performance, and simple health experiments anyone can try.

“You can do incredible things if you are truly dedicated to it and surround yourself with the right people.” — Andrew Herr

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/andrew-herr-playbook/ 

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/andrew-herr-playbook-transcript/ 

CHAPTERS

In this episode, we deconstruct Andrew Herr’s peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. In it we cover:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:02:33 – From polyphenols to trust and mission focus

00:05:04 – How the brain acts under stress

00:10:15 – Simple health experiments everyone can undertake

00:12:59 – Patriotism, giving back, and dedication

00:14:40 – Organizing things into frameworks

00:18:03 – Commonalities of peak performance

00:20:36 – Listening to your circadian rhythm and optimizing breakfast

00:22:09 – The books that changed Andrew’s life

00:25:16 – There is no “room of adults” in life

ABOUT ANDREW HERR

Andrew Herr is the founder and CEO of Fount, which is on a mission to help everyone look, feel, and perform at their very best. Fount offers a highly customized three-month program that's born out of Andrew's work, enhancing the performance of special forces warriors in the U.S. military, including the Navy SEALs.

Before founding Fount, Andrew spent seven years running human performance and biotech strategy for the U.S. military special forces. WIRED Magazine described Andrew's work for the U.S. military as giving our soldiers mutant abilities. Andrew holds master's degrees in microbiology and immunology, health physics and security studies. He studied at Georgetown's famed School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., and he unsurprisingly comes from a highly decorated and long-serving military family.

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Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182

ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy

ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

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Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s 20 Minute Playbook episode featuring Andrew Herr of Fount. In it, Andrew shares his favorite books, tools, habits, and more.

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In Episode #126, we deconstruct Saad Alam's peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. Saad is the Founder and CEO of Hone Health. We cover radical transparency, daily gratitude, and constructing a purposeful life.

“I think that people that don't believe you can do it all, I think it's a load. And I think you just have to really sit down and engineer your day and your life a little bit more.” – Saad Alam 

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/saad-alam-playbook/ 

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes//saad-alam-playbook-transcript/ 

CHAPTERS

In this episode, we deconstruct Saad Alam’s peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. In it we cover:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:02:09 – Fixing healthcare and defining the soul

00:03:47 – Radical transparency and playing in the dirt

00:06:38 – Big swings vs. base hits

00:08:09 – Priorities and daily gratitude

00:10:43 – Confessions of an Economic Hitman

00:12:41 – Understanding markets and emotional intelligence

00:14:28 – Believing in what you do

00:17:59 – An obsession with wellness

00:24:52 – Constructing a purposeful life

ABOUT SAAD ALAM

Saad Alam is Founder and CEO of Hone, which is creating an entirely new type of healthcare company initially focused on helping men with low testosterone. Saad describes it as helping men age with confidence. Saad is a serial entrepreneur who founded two companies before he founded home. He's completely focused on building mission-driven companies that solve problems that have directly affected him. And he's probably one of the fittest guests I've ever had on the show. His daily routine, from his morning meditation to the way he works out, how he changes the personal trainer he uses every quarter, how he uses everything from an infrared sauna to hyperbaric chamber, is the most intense of anyone I've ever interviewed.

In it, we cover Saad's daily health and fitness regimen, from drinking water directly after he wakes up to meditating 10 minutes, two times per day. We talk through all of the equipment he uses, from his infrared sauna to an at home hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Saad shares why he writes down three things he's grateful for every single morning and how that practice shows up when he's burnt out and tired at the end of the day, and being able to remind himself about why he's doing what he's doing. 

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Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182

ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy

ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

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Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s 20 Minute Playbook episode featuring Saad Alam. In it, Saad shares his favorite books, tools, habits, and more.

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In Episode #123, we deconstruct Steve Vassallo's peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. Steve is General Partner at Foundation Capital. We cover translating non-human languages, enlightened procrastination, and his insatiable curiosity.

“Go deep, go early, go big.” – Steve Vassallo

EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED)

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/steve-vassallo-playbook/ 

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/steve-vassallo-playbook-transcript/ 

CHAPTERS

In this episode, we deconstruct Steve Vassallo’s peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. In it we cover:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:03:52 – Translating non-human languages

00:06:35– Having insatiable curiosity and a deep love of building hard things

00:08:27 – Investment philosophy can be distilled down to conviction

00:10:21 – You can always find a way to build something you’ve already sold, but you can’t always sell something you’ve already built

00:12:08 – Enlightened procrastination

00:14:44 – Thinking, Fast and Slow

00:17:10 – Invest in people you want to work with

00:21:01 – Take stock of what you’re granting your attention to

ABOUT STEVE VASSALLO

Steve Vassallo has been a general partner at Foundation Capital for the last 15 years. At Foundation, he's led the firm's investments in Stripe, Cerebra, Sunrun, Loft Orbital, Solana, and many other incredible firms. Steve is also the author of The Way to Design, which is a guide to how companies of all sizes should approach design. The book is a compendium of interviews with more than 50 designers, design scholars and tech founders who have gotten design right from day one.

Steve began his career at IDEO where he worked closely with IDEO's founder, David Kelly, to research design and deliver innovative products and services across industries. Because of Steve's early experiences at IDEO he's drawn to product-centric founders and has a wonderful knack for bringing design and engineering together to create incredible products.

In this episode, we cover why Steve has been fascinated with the wicked problems that exist in Crypto and why he thinks we're still in the earliest innings there. He talks about his work with the earth species project, whose goal is to decode non-human language in mammals of all sizes from whales to monkeys. Talks about how he combines insatiable curiosity and a deep love of building hard things in his investing work. He shares his advice for founders and investors, and he shares his favorite books, including why he loves Thinking Fast and Slow and Poor Charlie's Almanack.

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Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182

ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY

Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy

ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER

Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts.

Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s 20 Minute Playbook episode featuring Steve Vassallo of Foundation Capital. In it, Steve Vassallo shares his favorite books, tools, habits, and more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices