No. 702 – October 11th, 2026
Welcome to Brain Food, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in life and work. (Read the archives). Not subscribed? Learn more and sign up.
Tiny Thoughts
While you can’t make more time, you can make time more valuable.
If I need a forty-page contract before I can work with you, the cost is already too high.
A great reminder from Clear Thinking:
“One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances. You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them. Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad one.”
Insights
Businessman Harvey Firestone on titles:
“I have never cared much about titles—it did not bother me who had the title so long as I ran the company.”
Historian Will Durant on forgetting:
“Forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything, except what you’re going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.”
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on reading:
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”
Outliers
I’m excited to share this previously unreleased 2022 conversation between Charlie Munger and Todd Combs.
As with any Munger talk, the subjects are both deep and wide. I’ve pulled out the ideas that most resonated with me. You’ll learn how Munger recognized people worth betting on, chose problems worth solving, and turned a long attention span into an unfair advantage.
I also unpack one of Berkshire’s most underappreciated (and unnoticed) strengths: positioning themselves to master their circumstances rather than be mastered by them.
A special thank you to the Singleton Foundation, Todd Combs, and William Thorndike for letting me share this with you.
Listen on: YouTube | Spotify | Apple | Show Page
- Transcript of the Conversation between Charlie and Todd (PDF)
- Learn more about Henry Singleton
- Learn more about John D. Rockefeller
- Charlie Munger: The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next week.
— Shane Parrish
P.S. Humans are amazing.
P.P.S. You’re the first to know. More information soon. shh!