MNTS #19

[Week 38/ Year 2023] Plato, Rubin, Blue team, Ricon, Ballerina, Projects, CGPT Custom Instructions, Harrison, Birkenstocks, HRV, Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Thinking

Mainly, Notes To Self - my weekly attempt to compress everything noteworthy I read, watched, listened to, and discovered during the past week.

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New Posts

I’m still working through a follow-up draft to last week’s piece, Musing: On Bridging the Gap Between the Abstract and the Material, which I plan to finish and publish tomorrow. I’m also working through several podcast notes, and I have a serious backlog of book notes I’ll be dropping throughout the next several weeks. Stay tuned.

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Reading

Slow going so far in reading The Republic of Plato; I’m through book II and getting cracking on book III. I’m gaining momentum now, but books I and II were a bit of a slog.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin - continues to be a lovely way to start each morning; if you consider yourself a creative of any kind, this is required reading and re-reading. I’m about 100 pages in and doing my best to savor it.

The blue team by CW&T - I’m totally this person that gets way over excited about witnessing something like this, plus bonus points for loving The Bear as much as I do.

Instead of calling for the ball, an open player would make a "boop" sound and the ball would be delivered. When a mistake was made, there was no yelling "gaah" or expressive dramatization. Just a quick hand raise to acknowledge the error, and everyone moved on. And even though the blue team was significantly in the lead, they continued to hustle. No one got showy, no one got lazy, they just kept doing their thing.

Massive input and/or spaced repetition by Jose Luis Ricon

Build a map of the domain with massive input, immerse yourself in the domain. Only then later apply spaced repetition for those final missing bits.

Walk Like a Ballerina by Tess Wilson

In ballet, you’re always carrying your body. Gravity doesn’t drag you down: you’re always lifting, holding every part of your body up. Even in the deepest pliés, energy is rising through the balls of your feet, up through your legs and hips, your stomach is pulled up and in, your neck is lifted, and your head is held gracefully atop your neck. In this way, it’s as if you are exerting very little impact on the ground.

Projects by Josh Pigford - The opposite of a reality distortion field. Super cool concept.

Using ChatGPT Custom Instructions for Fun and Profit by Dan Shipper - I’m excited to borrow some of this to refine the custom instructions I shared last week. See also Joel Hooks and Swyx for additional ideas from this realm.

The Rising Generation by Kyle Harrison

My perspective: the biggest disservice we do to our kids comes from two key forces:

(1) What your kids are exposed to is the path of least resistance

Life is too noisy to leave you alone. If parents don't help their kids get exposure to a broad variety of experiences, then life will put something in front of them. And the loudest, flashiest thing is unlikely to be the best experiences life has to offer.

Birkenstock: A 250-year-old Growth Story by Byrne Hobart - This is an interesting opportunity to put a little skin in the game to validate a Lindy investment thesis. The ticker is supposed to be available for trading sometime in September. I will definitely be adding to the watch list.

Birkenstock clearly targets the last model. They've been selling premium sandals for a long time, but have recently made a few alterations to the strategy that have accelerated growth. One is offering higher-end products; their cheapest options are €40 and the most expensive shoes are €1,600, and they cite mix shift as the main driver of pricing growth in their wholesale channel. That wholesale channel ties into another of their strategies: they're increasingly focusing on a direct-to-consumer model; DTC sales have compounded at 42% annualized since 2018.

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Listening

Podcast

This was super interesting! I have been intrigued by HRV for quite a while now. I read Heartmath Solution probably five years ago, and I wore a Whoop strap for over two years (2020 into early 2023), so I have a decent amount of data on my personal HRV. After listening, I ordered Dr. Leah Lagos's book and downloaded the Elite HRV app. I’m excited to experiment with this and try the 10-week program. I’ll do a write-up about the process and the results or perhaps even make it a section in this newsletter for some additional accountability. More to come on this topic.

Talk

Peter Kaufman on the Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Thinking - if you haven’t listened to this already, this will be the best thing you listen to this year. Massive hat tip to

Michael

for sharing this one (you way undersold this, IMO, ha!). This is up there with Naval’s How to Get Rich in tactical, practical wisdom. Drop what you are doing and listen!

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Random

Prince Archibald was groomed this week.

Human trapped in a dog’s body

Until next week.

Stay spirited, stay resilient.

Andrew