Brain Food – No. 562 – February 4, 2024
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Timeless ideas and insights for life. (Read the archives).
FS
“We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.”
— Charlie Munger on The Work Required to Have an Opinion
Insights
1.
“There is a Scandinavian saying which some of us might well take as a rallying cry for our lives: The north wind made the Vikings! Wherever did we get the idea that secure and pleasant living, the absence of difficulty, and the comfort of ease, ever of themselves made people either good or happy? Upon the contrary, people who pity themselves go on pitying themselves even when they are laid softly on a cushion, but always in history character and happiness have come to people in all sorts of circumstances, good, bad, and indifferent, when they shouldered their personal responsibility. So, repeatedly the north wind has made the Vikings.”
— Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Power to See it Through
2.
“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”
— Emerson, Essay on Self-reliance
3.
“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”
William James
Tiny Thoughts
1.
“98% of success is consistently doing boring things that no one sees. 2% is visible and exciting, so that’s all everyone talks about.”
2.
“Positioning is the silent force behind success.”
3.
“The greatest threat to success is inconsistency.”
TKP
Markel CEO Tom Gayner reflects on playing a long-term game in a short-term world, what to look for when evaluating a company, and the importance of evaluating your opportunity costs before making decisions. We explore debt, the value of reading fiction, and how simplicity is the superior management philosophy. Listen and Learn.
Thanks for reading,
— Shane
P.S. That’s awesome.