Future Skills

Stop thinking linearly. Start thinking exponentially.

Everyone who has read economics knows about scale effects. Like economies of scale or economies of scope. But a lot of people don’t know about the scale effects of experience and learning...

The Experience Curve states that things become cheaper and more effective to produce over time as you get better at it. The experience curve explains why specialization works so well.

This is originally a concept from management consulting, invented by Bruce Henderson, the man who founded Boston Consulting Group.

"[UNIT] Costs characteristically decline by 20-30% in real terms each time accumulated experience doubles."

—Bruce D. Henderson, 1968

The reason The Experience Curve is important is that it’s a general principle that applies to you as an individual as well. And you can use this to plan ahead better in your own career. Once you specialize, you shouldn’t assume a linear progress, but rather, an exponential effect.

How to make use of this idea

• Investing: Equity research, investment
• Work: Identifying promising industries or companies to work at
• Improvement: Focusing on the lowest hanging fruit for improvement

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Elkhonon Goldberg, Ph.D., is an author, scientist, educator, and clinician, internationally renowned for his clinical work, research, writings and teaching in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. He is a Clinical Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine. Diplomate of The American Board of Professional Psychology in Clinical Neuropsychology and Director of Luria Neuroscience Institute. A student and close associate of the great neuropsychologist Alexandr Luria, Elkhonon Goldberg has continued and advanced his scientific and clinical tradition. He has written three books about his research of the brain: The Wisdom Paradox (about cognitive aging), The New Executive Brain (about executive functions and decision making), and Creativity (the future of innovation).

This episode is heavy in the history of neuroscience. 

The first 20 minutes we talk about his background. And his mentor Alexander Luria.  And how he escaped Russia during soviet union.... by taking a bold risk and spending 6 months as a hospital orderly-- mopping floors.

After that we talk about neuroscience and his three books, and where he thinks the field goes in the future, and whether he thinks it’s possible to model the human brain and create a General AI.

Then for something completely different: The story of how he first got his idea about the 2 brain hemispheres -- while drinking beer with 2 pediatric doctors. And his acquaintance with Nassim Taleb and his friendship with Oliver Sacks.   

Finally, he tells us which Future Skill he recommends and what we can do to live more Wakeful lives. 

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In this week's episode Syding and Sunström recommends a wide array of physical tools and gadgets for improving your life, and making sure you stay healthy, happy and productive longer.

Mikael's two favorite things are noise cancelling in-ear headphones and a Kindle Paperwhite (B&W) e-reader.

Ludvig recommends a physical almanack and a whiteboard

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If you liked this episode, be sure to check out these as well:

From  episode 16 -- Avoid Chronic Stress.

• Blood-pressure monitor. Use about once per week. (Omron).

From episode 15 - the Top 3 preventive health tests to do:

• Vitamins and minerals. --(Werlabs for Sweden.)
• Hormonal tests (testosterone, estrogen, thyroid, cortisol, etc)
• Fatty acids (Omega 3, 6, 9 etc.) --Arcticmed.

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These are tools and resources we use. All free and readily available. Everything from Noisly (ambient sound) to Inflation Calculations.

The top advice we give is to try: (1) Have I been pwned (2) Just Delete Me, and (3) Unroll.Me. This will really do wonders if you get lots of spam email.

Email us at [email protected] if you want to recommend a tool/resource to us!

Much obliged,

-Jabba Da Hut

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In Survivorship Bias we go over 6 practical tips:

(1) Remind yourself of the concept of Survivorship Bias. It's very tricky and

(2) it's only becoming "stronger" due to social media and network effects

(3) Train yourself to be more Contrarian/Stoic, and less pop-culture,

(4) Acknowledge success is often the result of a complex combo of things

(5) avoid unrealistic expectations, like comparing yourself to 20-year old billionaires whos success you *don't understand* and

(6) Choose whom to follow/study/learn from with some caution - some industry leaders are very very very far removed from the basics. You might be better off studying someone just a few years ahead of you.

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We describe and discuss a useful metacognition tool: The Myers Briggs Test which is based on Carl Jung’s ideas about 4 Functions.

Jung’s functions are based on Input and Output, Information and Decision. How do you gather intel and how do you make your decisions. Fact-based and reasoning, e.g., or intuition and feeling?

Use the tests for inspiration on beginning your introspective journey. Use the tests for realizing what others might see in you. Use the tests for checking if what you are thinking is the same thing as others are seeing in you.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this episode:
The biggest takeaway is to know the 4 functions and start thinking about them. The 4 functions are:

● Sensing / Intuition | Are you organizing info (making sense of something), or are you
"distant", somewhere else, daydreaming, dwelling in the subconscious?
● Introversion/ Extraversion | Do you want to be alone or with friends now?
● Thinking / Feeling | Are you questioning why things are this and that way, analyzing
what it can lead to -- or is your mind quiet, you're in the moment, kind of grounded?
● Perceiving / Judging | Are you open-minded and ready to see something new, or are you close-minded and just want to affirm/strengthen what you know?

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Alexander Bard is most famous for his music career, where he's put together successful groups like Army of Lovers and Bodies Without Organs, and for being the top judge of Swedish Idol.

More importantly, however, Bard’s also a futuristic philosopher—one of the most well-informed when it comes to understanding how the Internet and social media is impacting the rest of the world (business, government, public debate).

Together with Jan Söderqvist, he's written the 4 books: Netocracy, (recommended), The Digital Empire, The Body Machines, and Syntheism, and soon -- their new book "Digital Libido".

Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this discussion:

• Giants of psychoanalysis: Freud, Nietzsche, Jung...
• Sensocracy: when sensors measure everything and people willingly give up choice
• What sex robots mean for the relations between the sexes
• About Bard’s coming book Digital Libido
• About psychedelics, LSD, Ayahuasca cycles and rites of passage, Ketamin, the dangers of opiates, of combining the wrong drugs, about legalization
• View of the importance of mentorship, context, networks
• Why religion has nothing to do with God
• How to become a philosopher
• How to write a book, and how to do research for it
• About the (difficult) philosopher Alfred North Whitehead

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This episode draws on an idea from Ludvig’s Ultimate Commonplace System. The Review File is like a virtual book summary book, only more extreme. It’s based on two learning methods: Spaced repetition and availability bias.

Your Review File is where you collect all the best materials related to your work, studies, investing, creative project, etc… and you want to review it every now and then over the long-term to make sure the best ideas stick to your brain, and become internalized.

4 Examples of a Review File:

1. For Creatives: To build a scrapbook of inspirational work.
2. For Marketers: To create a Swipe File of historically proven material
3. For Investors: To collect the case studies of successful/horrible businesses
4. For Everyone: To collect the best learning materials by category.

How You Can Build a Review File Now:

1. List your TOP 5 books and other learning resources (articles, videos, audio).
2. Divide this material into relevant categories (if you come up with a lot).
3. Create a Review File in your commonplace and link to the content if possible.
4. Set a reminder for when you should use your Review File.

The Review File is only a small piece of a commonplace.

If you want to learn how to:

• build a commonplace that works like a dashboard over your life,
• collect an archive of your work that grows in value over time (like compound interest)
• structure your work so that you can work from your phone (if you work with your head)
• and gain an extra 10 hours a week (if you forget things or do a lot of routine work)

Then check out Ludvig’s Ultimate Commonplace System:

https://futureskillspodcast.com/commonplace

Barry Schwartz is a professor of Psychology, serving as visiting professor at the University of Berkeley, in California. His numerous TED talks have been viewed and listened to more than 20 million times.  They include:  “Paradox of Choice”, “Loss of Wisdom”, “Practical Knowledge”, and why the way we think about “Work is Broken”.  He has also written several popular books, where The Paradox of Choice is the best-known one.  

In our discussion with Barry, we go over things such as: 

• When too much choice is a bad thing 
• In which areas do people prefer more choice 
• How Barry does his research (and the process behind his books and TED talks)  
• What he did before he find his own niche as a scientist and intellectual, and how long time it took him to do this… 

• Why we can’t always trust what people say 
• Why Barry thinks social media should be controlled  
• His greatest concerns for the 21st Century (and reasons for optimism)  
• And, finally, why he thinks soft skills and positive values will become more important as computers become better and displace many existing jobs 

Some thinkers mentioned our discussion include: 

Cass Sunstein & Richard Thaler, Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, Milton Friedman, Isaiah Berlin, Jeffrey Pfeiffer… 

Also listen to: 

Episode 4: “Are You a Maximizer or Satisficer?” as it ties into our conversation with Barry. (The idea comes from the Paradox of Choice.)  

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We cover the fundamental 5 steps to become an investor—based on Mikael’s personal guidelines.

Here’s a summary of the steps:

1 Psychology is more important than maths in investing

2 Read books and insightful articles about investing, not testosterone dripping online stock forums

3 Find a strategy that suits you. Refine it in company with likeminded truth-seekers

4 Use real money; it’s the only way to truly stress test your emotions and your strategy-psychology fit

5 Create a feedback loop of continuous improvement, your work as an investor is never done

Bonus tip: it’s not easy, anybody who says it is doesn’t know what they are talking about (or are actively trying to fool you). Anybody who has simple one-dimensional solutions to the ‘problem’ of investing is either a narrow minded sheep destined for slaughter, or a snake oil salesman out to trick you.

Follow-up: Check out Mikael’s blog post for a list of the books.

For serious students of investing: Check out TAOs (The Art of Sprezzatura) for Mikael’s investing framework.

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