Truths You Will Learn Too Late
Issue #173
Last year I read the book 100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late by Luca Dellanna (4 stars). It's full of unconventional, deep wisdom that can help you live a more fulfilled life. I'd like to share with you what resonated with me.
“Rule 2: The very important never feels urgent....Make the very important urgent, now. Incorporate it within your schedule. Treat your family time, friends time, learning time, and workout time as if they were meetings with clients. Give them slots in your calendar and be inflexible about them....your schedule is where your real priorities show up.” And as Michael Hyatt says, “What gets scheduled gets done.”
Regarding finding a mate, Luca writes, “You will not attract a great partner with a bold approach and some well-chosen words. Instead, you will attract them by having worked on yourself so that you have become a partner of value.”
“Rule 9: What got you here won't get you there....People plateau when they abandon learning new things....To get 'promoted' to the next stage of life, do not do what got you to the current stage. Instead, do what people at the next stage do....strive to put an artificial limit to 'your current stage's work' and free up time to do 'the next stage's work'.”
Luca writes that the following “'wasteful' activities are actually great investments: taking breaks, learning, looking for new ideas, trying something that might fail, building personal bonds, and having fun. Should any of these go into your schedule or to-do list?”
Luca says that “One of our most painful feelings is regret. It originates from not having understood, in the past, how something would have been important to us in the present....” I have a book about regret that I regret not having read yet (ha!).
“Rule 24: If you cannot take a big step, take a smaller one....There is always a step small enough that our brain is willing to take. Getting unstuck is about finding that small step, taking it, and gaining momentum.” See the issue about Mini Habits.
“Rule 25: Stress comes from unaddressed problems (a quote by Jeff Bezos).”
“Rule 26: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Many unhappy people won the game they decided to play....Careful not to choose games that hand you a loss even when you win.”
“Rule 29: If it hasn't been written down, it hasn't been planned....I am not serious about a plan of mine unless I write it down.” See my issue about Daily Planning.
Luca writes that “Money is great for increasing your life quality when you're poor, but it doesn't do much once you're rich.” Yes, the Law of Diminishing Returns can make your ROI turn negative.
“Rule 32: Metapractice. People who achieve mastery do two things differently: they practice more, and they adjust their practice more frequently...not only do they work to improve their skills but also to improve their practice. Metapractice—the ability to tweak one's practice to maximize its effectiveness—is the most underrated skill of them all.”
“Rule 38: Find out the implicit rules....one of the rules of the game is that you have to discover its rules....it is one of your tasks to discover what your implicit tasks are—the untold ones.”
“Rule 40: Build a reputation for not wasting time.” Some of the people I resent the most are the ones who steal part of my life by wasting my time.
“Rule 43: Listen to the old....'The Lindy Effect' [is] the older something not perishable, the longer it is expected to be relevant....The longer something has survived, the fewer assumptions it relies upon....When someone old says something you disagree with, perhaps it is because it's wrong, or maybe it applies to a broader context than the limited one you have experienced so far. You want to take the latter possibility into account. Older people have experienced more....You shouldn't rule out what has been experienced by someone else. It might happen again.” Like Nassim Taleb, I have great respect for things that have stood the test of time. I am not impressed by stories about how “This time is different.”
“Rule 46: Trust actions rather than words....our brain is made of multiple regions, and the one responsible for conscious thinking is not the one responsible for deciding what our muscles will do next....at most, [the conscious part of our brain can only] guess what the rest of the brain thinks. Therefore, the only way to listen to the rest of our brain is to observe our feelings and actions.” I've recently become fascinated by the potential to tap into the power of my subconscious brain. I plan to read at least one book about it and report back to you.
Regarding a long-term perspective, Luca writes, “...what's needed to succeed in the long term is never optimal for the short term. Therefore, it doesn't get done unless special attention is given to it.”
“Rule 52: Avoid shortcuts....Great lives are made of tackled problems.” Similarly, Rule 53 is “Solving the root causes of your problems does not cost you time; it gives you time.”
Regarding sustainability, Luca quotes a famous athlete: “I do not train until I succeed—I train until I cannot fail.”
“Rule 56: Work on your internal karma....Karma is what happens when the ripples of our actions coalesce into waves that hit us....Internal karma is the concept that our behavior conditions our mind's future actions.” Luca quotes James Clear: “Every action you take is a vote for or against the type of person you wish to become.”
“Rule 59: Play the long game....in the short term, learning doesn't matter, only results. But in the long term, learning is everything that matters....The longer your time frame, the more it pays to do more things yourself.” That's because you have more time to apply your knowledge and for your results to compound.
“Rule 60: The standards you have today determine the life you will have in a few years.” Quoting Tony Robbins, for most people, the current condition of their life is “based on a set of standards that they made choices about 10, 20 or 30 years ago.” Luca continues, “A standard is a criterion you use to determine what is 'acceptable.'...Your standards determine what you perceive as problems to be addressed....The higher your standards, the greater your self-growth.”
Regarding personality, Luca writes, “...most personality traits are habits. For example, whether we are resilient, brave, kind, and honest largely depends on whether we acted resiliently, bravely, kindly, and honestly the last time we found ourselves in a similar situation.”
“Rule 68: To win negotiations, build independence. The most important factor in negotiations is the willingness to walk away....This is achieved by having options available. The more options you have outside of the negotiation at hand, the better you will fare during it.” It is critical to have this ability as an investor, which is one reason I use limit orders.
“Rule 71: Extraordinary people are extraordinarily selective.” Yes! As we say in our family, “If something isn't a 'Hell Yeah!' then it's a No.” As Luca writes, “Everyone chooses how to spend their time, but how many make this choice intentionally?”
“Rule 73: The Silver Rule is better than the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is...'treat others as you wish others would treat you.' It seems a very nice code of conduct until you realize that people's preferences might differ from yours. As much as you might think you know what others need, the truth is that you don't....Instead, the...Silver Rule is universal: 'do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you'.”
From a political perspective, the Left knows what everyone else needs (despite over a century of catastrophic failures), and they need it urgently and at scale. Technically, they follow the Golden Rule. Libertarians only promise to not use force or fraud against peaceful people, and they believe that everyone owns themselves. So they follow the Silver Rule.
“Rule 75: Secure survival before optimizing performance....performance is subordinate to survival....Make sure that you can survive your mistakes. Never go all in.” Yes. This is why everyone should be a prepper. And it's why as an investor, you should always be concerned about the Gambler's Dilemma: how to earn gains without going broke. So your portfolio must be resilient so you can always live to fight another day.
Regarding effectiveness, Luca writes, “If I had to condense to four words my advice for being more effective, it would be 'act on the bottleneck.' A bottleneck is the one constraining factor or problem preventing efforts from generating significant results.... some of the most effective people I know are constantly laser-focused on identifying and removing bottlenecks....”
“Rule 95: Ruthlessly prioritize....Proactively look for bottlenecks, points of leverage, and Pareto distributions [the 80/20 rule]. Then, write down [on your to-do list] actions that directly address them.”
Finally, Luca agrees with the philosopher Thibault that life is about resisting erosion. Yes. In recent years, I have realized that life (and civilization) is generally a struggle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy).
In conclusion, I recommend you read this book, as it will expand your mind. Several other books by the author are in my tsundoku.
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Recommended Books (I receive a commission if you buy a book via this link.)
I would love to hear from you! If you have any comments, suggestions, insight/wisdom, or you'd like to share a great article, please leave a comment.
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