Shane Parrish on Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Rules for Better Thinking, How to Reduce Blind Spots, The Dangers of Mental Models, and More (#695)
Illustration via 99designs“Outcome over ego.”
— Shane Parrish
Shane Parrish (@ShaneAParrish) is the entrepreneur and wisdom seeker behind Farnam Street and the host of The Knowledge Project podcast, where he focuses on mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. Shane’s popular online course, Decision by Design, has helped thousands of executives, leaders, and managers around the world learn the repeatable behaviors that improve results. His work has been featured in nearly every major publication, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.
Shane is the author of Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.
Brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements, Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#695: Shane Parrish on Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Rules for Better Thinking, How to Reduce Blind Spots, The Dangers of Mental Models, and MoreThis episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.
Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.
This episode is also brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).
Their products are third-party tested (Informed-Sport and/or NSF certified), so you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else. If you want to try Momentous for yourself, you can use code Tim for 20% off your one-time purchase at LiveMomentous.com/Tim. And not to worry, my non-US friends, Momentous ships internationally and has you covered.
This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.
Go to EightSleep.com/Tim and save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia.
Want to hear another episode with someone who spends his life learning how to solve problems and optimize time? Listen in on my conversation with Atomic Habits author James Clear, in which we discuss habitual accountability, systemic scaffolding, capturing good ideas, leveraging maximal results from minimal scale, defying algorithms, how success generates opportunities and distractions, building good habits while breaking bad ones, optimizing environment for habit adherence, and much more.
#648: James Clear, Atomic Habits — Simple Strategies for Building (and Breaking) Habits, Questions for Personal Mastery and Growth, Tactics for Writing and Launching a Mega-Bestseller, Finding Leverage, and MoreWhat was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Shane Parrish:Farnam Street Blog | The Knowledge Project Podcast | Decision by Design | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Results .The Stopwatch Gang by Greg Weston | AmazonVillage of Carp, ONIntroduction to TELNET | GeeksforGeeksNortel | WikipediaCommunications Security Establishment | Government of CanadaHow a Former Canadian Spy Helps Wall Street Mavens Think Smarter | The New York TimesExperts Explain Mental State of Military Children | The United States ArmyThe Rational Man’s Approach to Fatherhood | Being DadsLetting Children Fail is Not a Dereliction of Duty | Farnam Street BlogSt. Paul’s SchoolLetting the World Do the Work for You | Farnam Street BlogUnlocking Your Potential: What It Means to Do Your Best | Farnam Street BlogIf You Want Something Done, Ask a Busy Person To Do It | Quote InvestigatorBerkshire Hathaway, Inc.35. Amateurs Should Stick With Low-Cost Index Funds | 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual MeetingRevisiting Warren Buffett’s Advice to Me in 2008 (Plus: 7 Lessons for Young Investors) | Tim FerrissBuffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein | AmazonDaniel Kahneman on Cognitive Bias and Systems | Walton Family FoundationCognitive Biases Archives | Farnam StreetA Simple Checklist to Improve Your Decisions | Farnam Street BlogThe Sunk Cost Fallacy | The Decision LabResults Are a Function of Position by Shane Parrish | InstagramTime Warp: Warren Buffett on the Stock Market, Circa 1999 | ForbesWhat Is the Bandwagon Effect? Why People Follow the Crowd | InvestopediaSmarter, Not Harder: How to Succeed at Work | Farnam Street BlogMental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (~100 Models Explained) | Farnam Street BlogThe Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish | AmazonThe Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology by Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish | AmazonThe Great Mental Models Volume 3: Systems and Mathematics by Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish | AmazonSecond-Order Thinking: What Smart People Use to Outperform | Farnam Street BlogThe Stoic Art of Negative Visualization | Daily StoicLateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step by Edward de Bono | AmazonSix Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono | AmazonLet’s Say FeedBurner Shuts Down… | CSS-TricksA Map of the Disney Entertainment Empire Reveals the Deep Connections Between Its Movies, Its Merchandise, Disneyland, & More (1967) | Open CultureWhy Farnam Street Optimizes for Loyalty, Not Pageviews by Herbert Lui | HuffPostShane Parrish’s Success: Scaling to 300K with Farnam Street | DiscoWhat is a Problem Statement? | Elsevier BlogThe Default-Thinking Method of Problem Solving | Farnam Street BlogAvoiding Bad Decisions | Farnam Street BlogWhy Walking Helps Us Think | The New YorkerAutomatic Rules for Success by Shane Parrish | InstagramFinding the One Decision That Removes 100 Decisions (or, Why I’m Reading No New Books in 2020) | Tim FerrissMaker vs. Manager: How Your Schedule Can Make or Break You | Farnam Street BlogUnderstanding Speed and Velocity: Saying “NO” to the Non-Essential | Farnam Street BlogMuch of What You’re Going to Do or Say Today is Not Essential | Farnam Street BlogAtomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear | AmazonJames Clear, Atomic Habits — Simple Strategies for Building (and Breaking) Habits, Questions for Personal Mastery and Growth, Tactics for Writing and Launching a Mega-Bestseller, Finding Leverage, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #648The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonThe Slow-Carb Diet One-Pager | Tim FerrissRocks, Pebbles, and Sand: Prioritizing Your Life | Mindful PracticesThe Four Types of Relationships | Farnam Street BlogCompound Interest Definition, Formula, and Calculation | InvestopediaHow James Clear Built a Huge Email List Before He Was a Bestselling Author by Josh Spector | For The InterestedEmail Newsletter by Tim Ferriss | 5-Bullet FridayNaval Ravikant (2017) #171 | Farnam Street BlogInvesting: The Rules of the Road | Farnam Street BlogDeal Flow: The Venture Capital Term for Business Sentiment | InvestopediaInvesting Archives | Farnam StreetInvesting in an Index: Overview, Examples, and FAQ | InvestopediaBill Ackman Liquidates Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, Largest SPAC Ever, and Returns $4 Billion to Investors | FortuneRethinking Investing: Common-Sense Rules for Uncommon Times | Tim FerrissNassim Nicholas Taleb & Scott Patterson — How Traders Make Billions in The New Age of Crisis, Defending Against Silent Risks, Personal Independence, Skepticism Where It (Really) Counts, The Bishop and The Economist, and Much More | The Tim Ferriss Show #691Opportunity Cost Formula, Calculation, and What It Can Tell You | InvestopediaThe 5 Levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs | Verywell MindShane Parrish: Make It a Little Less about Luck Every Day | I Will Teach You to Be RichPoor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger | AmazonProblem Solving Tools | Farnam Street BlogProblem Solving Archives | Farnam Street“Outcome over Ego.” | InstagramThe Wrong Side of Right | Farnam Street BlogWhy Write? | Farnam Street BlogHow to Think Better: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught | Farnam Street BlogStudy: Using GPS Navigation “Switches Off” Brain, Makes You Stupid | The DriveWeekly Whiteboard: Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast | McChrystal GroupSHOW NOTES[05:43] The Stopwatch Gang influences a D student.[10:54] How a low-grade troublemaker gets vetted for an intelligence job.[17:23] The impact of frequent relocation on a child.[21:33] The benefits of a challenging education (once the tears dry up).[31:09] From 68131-1440.blogger dot com to Farnam Street.[36:10] An early exploration of cognitive biases.[39:39] “Ordinary moments determine your position, and your position determines your options.”[45:55] Incisive, deliberate decision-makers.[47:44] Defining mental models.[50:47] The declaration of platform independence.[52:50] A Farnam Street business breakdown.[56:05] Scrutinizing the problem statement.[1:03:12] The power of asking “And then what?”[1:05:26] Setting yourself up for success with automatic rules.[1:21:31] Doubling down on email and the evergreen.[1:28:05] Investing with the benefit of deal flow.[1:32:41] Thoughts on index fund investment.[1:34:58] Factoring sleep into opportunity cost.[1:43:33] How to make better decisions.[1:48:10] Why should we write in the age of AI?[1:52:08] Parting thoughts.MORE SHANE PARRISH QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“Outcome over ego.”
— Shane Parrish
“Automatic rules turn your desired behavior into your default behavior, and they do it when you’re at your best.”
— Shane Parrish
“Why risk what you have and don’t need for what you don’t have and don’t want to begin with?”
— Shane Parrish
“Are you thinking independently of the circumstances, or are the circumstances thinking for you?”
— Shane Parrish
“Writing is the process by which we realize we don’t understand what we’re talking about. And it’s only when you sit down and put pen to paper or even type out an idea that you have, a decision you’re making, an idea you’re wrestling with, that you sort of see where you don’t understand it. And the process of writing is not only refining that idea and helping you reflect on it, but you actually generate new ideas in the process of writing.”
— Shane Parrish
“You tell yourself a story about why sunk cost doesn’t apply in this situation or why you’re not overconfident in this situation. And the smarter you are, the better those stories get and the more believable they get.”
— Shane Parrish
“If you put Warren Buffett in a bad position where all of his options are bad—it doesn’t matter how smart he is, it doesn’t matter how Warren Buffett he is—everybody looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad position, and everybody looks like a genius when they’re in a good position.”
— Shane Parrish
The post Shane Parrish on Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Rules for Better Thinking, How to Reduce Blind Spots, The Dangers of Mental Models, and More (#695) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
