The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel is a book of twenty money lessons but really it’s about two things.
Thing 1: How the world works.
There is the world and there is how we think about the world. The more these ideas overlap the happier more calibrated the person. People follow stories (chapter 18), pessimisms sells (17), and tails drive everything (6) are all explanations about the world.
It’s through a combination of evolution, social pressure, and a history of this-worked-for-me that we drift. Sure, we think, Tom lost so money in crypto but he didn’t listen and get in when I told him the candlestick fed cycle jump was coming (luck, chapter 2). When something bad happens to us we’re unlucky. When something bad happens to them they’re idiots (1).
Things 2: How you work.
So it’s not just outside that we misunderstand. It’s inside too. We move the goalposts (3), confuse consumption (8), and aim for the rational rather than reasonable (11).
Asking what do I really want out of this big trip is not easy.
So we don’t.
Thankfully Housel is here to help. Think of time as freedom (7), just save (10), and don’t confuse consumption for wealth (9).
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The Psychology of Money is a difficult book to review because it’s personal. It’s how you see the world and understand yourself. Oof.
While the chapters are short, don’t spend little time on them. Read them. Stop. Think. Reflect. Note. The book is a refreshing break from the digital cycle. You’ll read this and think: Oh yes, this is a breath of fresh air and one I needed.
Peter Attia’s Outlive starts with the medicine: biology, physiology, chemistry and so on. There’s an excellent explanation on arterial plaque. I did not know that cardiovascular diseases were caused by the body trying to heal itself from within, dealing with LDL cholesterol as best it can. There’s also good explanations about our synapses and cancers.
But what’s the point?
Information does not change action.
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Attia’s book is about the four modern horsemen of human mortality: cancer, heart disease, type two diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Like other areas of discovery, medicine follows the pattern: identification, react, ‘proact’. The Ghost Map tells the story of choleras identification in 1854. Covid-19’s cadence meanwhile was within a year: sequence, treatment, and bundled with the flu shot.
According to Attia, there is a lot more room to proactively address the four horsemen.
Channeling Michael Pollan, switching from hundreds of pages to a few words that address the action, the advice might be:
Get stronger. Eat your best foods. Sleep well.
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The book is thick. Parts are dense. Even now, days later, I can’t explain parts.
But that’s okay.
The main point of the book is to be intentional. Like the vegetarian experiment and as good bayesians we should tinker. Attia is rarely absolute: Do this but not that! Instead it’s about you getting to this point of heart rate or insulin sensitivity or sleep.
One takeaway from Covid-19 was our heterogeneity (see: The End of Average). Outlive fits in this line of thinking. It’s your healthspan, it’s your lifespan, it’s your choice.
So get stronger, eat your best foods, and sleep well.
How to Fly a Horse is one of the best books you haven’t read. It’s part inspirational (like Rosling) part instructional (like King) and part historical (like Dan Carlin).
Simply, we are capable but more importantly, we are responsible for the world we want. “Everything around you that you call life,” Steve Jobs said, “ was made up by people that were no smarter than you.”
But this ain’t influencer stuff.
Everyone has creative potential, Kevin Ashton writes, but it takes work. “Time is the raw material of creation.” As Steven Pressfield noted, put your ass where your heart wants to be.
That’s just Insta-advice.
The world does not want creation. The system is designed against it in two ways.
A me problem.
We block our creations. There’s the genius myth: Creation is for a select few. That’s just not right. The End of Average explains this nicely. ‘Genius’ (or ‘athletic’ or ‘industrious’ or ‘lazy’ and so on) are collections. There’s no genius metric because there’s nothing to have.
Ya got it or you don’t is not true.
But this isn’t enough. It takes work, work, work. For a species designed for ease, work is hard.
There’s a paradox too: The better we get at something the more efficient we get and the less likely we are to see novelty. Think of “expertise” Ashton writes, as “efficiency”. There is nothing more deceptive, wrote Arthur Conan Doyle, than an obvious fact. Tyler Cowen calls this “once and for all-ism.” Experts have been rewarded for seeing the world a certain way, why change?
The solution to the paradox is to bring experience but not beliefs. To have a light identity footprint. To see the unexpected, expect to see nothing.
A them problem.
They, the others, those folks don’t want to see it. Or they can’t see it. It’s helpful to remember Demings, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” People don’t randomly red-pill, laissez le bon temps rouler!
The status quo is humanity’s default (this is an assumption of JTBD).
‘Different is bad’ is evolutionarily good. Our ancestors were the ones who didn’t try the new berries.
Rejection, hesitation, and reluctance are good things. First creators must expect it. Knowing first drafts suck, progress is slow, and TK takes the sting out. Second, creators must use this for guidance. Feedback presents the soil to sew, the path to plan for, the itinerary to travel. Ashton advocates for the creator to utilize not internalize rejections. Ask, okay, so how could this be better?
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The book is full of pithy quotes. Let’s end with two:
“We sell our soul when we waste our time. We drive neither ourselves nor our world forward if we choose idling over inventing.”
“The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.”
Rather than a traditional review, think about Learning to Build in the context of jobs to be done.
We believe there’s no such thing as a bad book so much as bad timing. In some version of the multiverse, you need any given book right now!
Similarly, jobs theory is about finding the pushes and pulls, habits and anxieties, and contexts for when people act.
In that spirit, here are the Jobs books for this multiverse.
Learning to Build is an introduction to someone who wants to learn more about Bob Moesta’s work. It introduces the five skills: empathetic perspective, uncovering demand, causal structures, prototype to learn, and making tradeoffs.
Competing Against Luck is for someone with a strategic angle. It’s for someone asking: What should we do here? The Mom Test is a faster, less academic path with similar idea vistas. How to Fly a Horse is a bigger and wider picture, with more history.
Uncommon Service is a “what to do and how” kind of book. If Atomic Habits is a what/how book for the person then Uncommon Service is one for service businesses.
It’s organized into four parts:
One: The tradeoffs. To have uncommonly great service, a business must make tradeoffs. Importance requires attention – and there’s an opportunity cost to that attention. In Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara writes about the front-of-house staff that aims to create “legendary” moments for the guests. They Google the guests. They run out at the last minute for just the right gift. They go above and beyond above and beyond.
But they don’t shine glasses, clean tables, or sweep the sidewalk. They don’t help with any of the hundreds of tasks that need doing every single night. That’s a tradeoff.
The LinkdInfluencer scoffs, be the best. But businesses that dig deeply into customers’ jobs find there are things the customers want more than others. Your customers want tradeoffs.
Two: Things cost money. Uncommon service isn’t free.
Customers could pay more and get more. Premium services like Disney’s Backstage Magic tour and The Four Seasons work this way but these opportunities are limited. Most businesses cannot simply charge more.
Instead, most businesses must find holistic solutions. Exceptional service leads to more word of mouth and less marketing spend. Specialized service leads to better processes and less loss or more gain. When Publix employees walk customers to requested items – rather than tell them the aisle – does that increase sales and decrease theft? Certainly.
Few businesses can claim it cost more and it’s worth it, but all businesses can think creatively about how to offer more and how to pay for it.
Three: A business’s team reflects a business’s tradeoffs.
Florida has a lot of mom-and-pop pool cleaning businesses. Our neighbor likes reports that detail the pH, chlorine, and salt levels. For him, the JTBD is visual and numerical.
But most cleaners want to show up, clean, and move on – while listening to whatever on Bluetooth headphones.
So the business owner makes it easy for their employees. Rather than have the cleaner communicate with the customer, they communicate with the office that prepares the report. Cleaners take a few photos, report some numbers, and move on. The office makes it look as nice and tidy as the pool.
(Alternatively, a business can try to hire people rather than design the system. We write a lot about that at Daily Entrepreneur.)
Four: Prepare the customer. The authors suggest service businesses imagine they are manufacturers. In ‘goods’ businesses customers don’t wander around the plant, inspecting machinery, and tinkering. No – and they shouldn’t do that in a service business.
But customers are part of the experience: they have varied expectations, arrive at different times, and spend different amounts. They are “locally logical”: what makes sense to one will not make sense to another.
Like employees, a business has two options. They can change the system for the people or change the people for the system.
We’ve written about financial stakeholders. An investor is only as good as their capital base. This is part of Warren Buffett’s persona: he draws people aligned with his approach. He picks the people for the system.
But not every business can filter their customers. In those cases, they must focus on the customer’s experience. How can a business operator systematize the times they bend over backward?
Historically Harvard Business books run dry with too much theory or too specialized examples. This book did not. It was uncommonly good, fast, and helpful.
Notes. Never Split the Difference addresses tradeoffs well. Both Never Split… and Uncommon Service are recommended by Bob Moesta.
How Will You Measure Your Life? is about what investors call “out-of-sample tests”. If an idea works in more than one area then it probably will work again.
Wisdom is an example. Proverbs 16:32, He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city becomes, it’s not if you win or lose but how you play the game.
Timeless.
Clayton’s choice combines business ideas with personal goals in two areas: career and relationships.
Measuring your career. There are legible aspects to a career: money, titles, promotions, and career paths.
Clayton cautions not to over-index on the legible. Careers, he writes, offer a mix of “hygiene” and “motivation” factors. Money, health insurance, and perks are hygiene factors. These factors have capped advantages and diminishing returns.
Non-legible, like motivation, interesting problems, and growth have an upside. This is the good stuff. Just because it’s hard to count doesn’t mean it’s not of value. In fact, it’s really valuable!
And because it’s hard to count and valuable means people underrate it.
But there are legible things to count. How do you spend your time? Your money? Do these reflect your priorities, hopes, and dreams?
Through legible and not, the aim is intentionality. Are you intentional about the important?
Who is this choice for?
“Parents have their own job to be done, and it can overshadow the desire to help their children develop processes. They have a job of wanting to feel like a good parent: see all the opportunities I’m providing for my child. Or parents, often with their heart in the right place, project their own hopes and dreams onto their children.”
We don’t have to teach our kids to tie their shoes. With technology, fashion, and other people it doesn’t have to happen. But it does.
Now apply that to everything.
Helicopter or consultant parent provides a good contrast. It feels good to be a helicopter parent. “See all the opportunies…”. But helicopter parents are selfish parents. Their choices are first for them, not their kids.
Instead, Christensen uses a short-term-pain long-term-gain model. Live verbs first. Experiences are expensive tuition but essential in the school of life. It’s the right choice for them.
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How Will You Measure Your Life? is a difficult book to report because the lessons are personal. For every, I never thought about it that way situation, someone else would have solved it years ago.
I needed Christensen to write this book.
It’s written by a man of faith. A Harvard professor. He’s a best-selling author. He developed a famous business theory. Anyone that knew him brings up how much they miss him, years later.
I needed his permission.
Permission to think about life, not hacks or hustle. For the important things, not the urgent things. You read it as a reminder of why we live and an admission that we need help to live better.
It matters that it’s Clayton freakin’ Christensen. He lived well and we aim to.
“How to Treat Other Human Beings” could be the subtitle to Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality. I loved this mix of stories, lessons, reflections, and mistakes. It felt honest. It read fast. I had a library copy but this is one of those put this on the shelf to page through later books.
Unreasonable Hospitality is going above and beyond to treat other human beings well. Take care of each other. Get out of your own head. Avoid your ego in favor of service.
It felt great to read, I’m still glowing.
And unreasonable hospitality is easy. It’s just three things.
First, a desire to do it. Your motivations may vary.
Second, a 95/5 mindset. Things cost money. It’s impossible to provide service without charging and even harder to be over-the-top. So the business model matters.
Guidara’s 95/5 approach is to watch ninety-five percent of the expenses like a hawk. At Eleven Madison Park this meant things like dishwasher racks to reduce breakage. While he managed the MoMA cafe it meant no fresh food an hour before closing time to reduce waste.
In his experiences at many restaurants, Guidara learned to manage costs. What could get cut? What couldn’t? What were the easy (and wrong) metrics? I pictured him like a wise carpenter. Rather than head to Lowe’s, he ripped a spare sheet of 3/4” plywood that was in the corner.
Now, what about that other five percent?
Third, the job to be done.
It’s about delight. Sometimes Guidara gave away the Tiffany champagne flutes to a newly engaged couple. Sometimes he fed the parking meters.
Sometimes it was complementary theater, sports, or concert tickets. Sometimes he served a classic New York City hot dog for a guest who hadn’t had one yet.
Sometimes it meant complementary cognac after dessert and with the arrival of the check. Sometimes it meant ten 100 Grand bars when a guest, preying on their hospitable reputation, asked for a million bucks. That guest loved it.
Why is this person here? What do they want? How can I serve them? What delights them?
The book is a chance to change that. With Guidara as a guide, anyone can put a little more hospitality into the world.
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Note: Part of this book’s impact is its identification. We have plenty of posts about words: words mean competition, the new dictionary series, and words hiding value. Words are important because they identify something. They’re landmarks on our map of life.
In 2008, the story goes. A bunch of NBA players returned to their hotel after a night (and morning) of revelry, only to see Kobe going to the gym while they were headed to bed. Those players saw that and took their careers more seriously. Kobe’s actions were a landmark.
Jurassic Park (1993) by Michael Crichton is a book about expectations. But first, we have to address the movie.
The movie was great. It was an amazing adaptation (and is connected to the Pixar story btw). But – it defines the characters. Hammond, Malcolm, Ellie, and Grant are the movie version in my version. Oh well.
Ok, back to expectations.
The Jurassic Park story turns when Malcolm tours the facilities and sees this:
See, Hammond says to Malcolm, everything here is normal!
But, Malcolm counters “that is a graph for a normal biological population. Which is precisely what Jurassic Park is not. Jurassic Park is not the real world.”
Jurassic Park is not the real world. It is a zoo. Cages. Fences. Pens. Controlled feeding. Controlled breeding (oops). Controlled everything.
Malcolm again, “Because the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way.”
Life finds a way.
“Now you see the flaw in your procedures,” Malcolm said. “You only tracked the expected number of dinosaurs. You were worried about losing animals, and your procedures were designed to advise you instantly if you had less than the expected number. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was, you had more than the expected number.”
Hammond expected to run a zoo.
Hammond expected a ‘normal number’
Hammond expected his problem to be ‘fewer’ not ‘more’.
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Expectations are heavy, they are hard to throw off. I could only picture Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm. Hammond could only picture Jurassic Park one way too.
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This isn’t really a book about dinosaurs, they’re just a stand in. For what?
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Also interesting that Waltrop’s Complexity came out around the same time. Something was bubbling in the early 90s. Something is bubbling now too.
Ben & Jerry’s: The Inside Scoop is an underrated business book. Traveling through the 1980s and 90’s it chronicles the growing pains of America’s favorite ice cream pints.
It’s a business book with two parts.
The fun stuff.
Two hippies create, grow, and scale a super premium ice cream brand from a converted gas station in Vermont! That’s fun.
On Black Monday 1987 the duo showed up on Wall Street with “That’s Life, vanilla ice cream with pieces of stale apple pie (the stale pieces held up better in the ice cream), and Economic Crunch, which was actually some leftover Nutcracker Suite from the previous winter, renamed for the occasion.”
Ben and Jerry drove around in a Cowmobile promoting the brand. On their one-year anniversary, they hosted a block party, with Ben and Jerry organizing, acting as characters, and offering free ice cream of course.
The grind.
“Amateurs talk about strategy,” said Omar Bradley, professionals talk about logistics.”
Ben & Jerry’s wasn’t the only super-premium ice cream. Häagen Daz was the market leader and a bunch of me-toos. Starting in Vermont, a state with no Baskin Robbins franchise was probably a blessing.
But the distribution was still a grind, sometimes literally as their beat-up delivery truck broke down delivering the pints. Once they contracted out to distributors it was a game of sharp elbows for shelf space, full of kickbacks, relationships, and lawsuits.
Every business is built on the foundation of its people. In a podcast with Brent Beshore, Anu Hariharan said she looks to invest in good teams with product-market fit. This is despite her technical and financial backgrounds. To paraphrase: It’s the people, stupid.
But that’s also the hardest part of a business.
While Ben & Jerry’s product line, market share, and revenue grew, the team’s expertise did not. They hired slowly. Not because of a great vetting process but because they were overwhelmed. They fired slowly too, a terrible combination.
Oh, and the finances!
We won’t recount the story here, but in Shoe Dog, Phil Knight writes about taking all of his profits back to the bank to say, see, these things sell, now please give me another, larger loan. That happened in Vermont too. Inventory. People. Facilities. Raw materials. New facilities. At least they could drown their sorrows in a fresh pint.
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Be your own boss with your best friend(s), but work like hell.
Pappyland by Wright Thompson is a book about wistfulness and wishfulness.
Kentucky Derby visitors are wistful.
“The day-trippers wear gangster suits and outlandish patterns and hats inappropriate to the latitude, temperature, or setting. It’s amateur hour. They hold liquor like ninth graders. The homogenization of America has left people wandering the land in search of a place to belong. We are a tribeless nation hungry for tribes. That longing and loneliness are especially on display in early May in Kentucky.”
That feeling is in late-night bourbon too. We feel nostalgic, “which I only recently learned comes from the Greek words for home and pain.” Bourbon, Wright writes, “It’s a drink made for contemplating, and what is usually being contemplated is the easy and often false memory of better days.”
It’s Springsteen’s Glory Days. Youth is wasted on the young. It’s melancholy.
There’s also wishfulness.
The book is centered around Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the bourbon brand Pappy Van Winkle. My impression was silver spoons, seersuckers, and bluegrass mansions. My impression was wrong.
David Chang once cautioned an interviewer that just because a restaurant was highly rated and busy did not mean it was also a good business.
Julian grew up well, running around the bourbon-born grounds. But like the Kentucky horses, bourbon’s success was short-lived. The glamorous inheritance from his grandfather couldn’t be salvaged by his father and the family business sold out.
That’s about when Julian wished for it back.
That’s about when Julian worked for it back.
Wright weaves a good story, which I won’t spoil. It’s about Julian’s past and present. Our past and present. Wrights too.
Can we be anything but wistful of the past? Is bourbon a conduit? We marvel at AI’s ability to generate the right information. Physical artifacts do that, bourbon does that.
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“We make fine bourbon at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon.” – Pappy slogan
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