This weekend I began reviewing some of the highlights in books I’ve read. I realized that I have a lot of physical books with highlights. The best ideas I’ve read are scattered across tons of physical books, which adds friction to my goal of regularly reviewing the best ideas from these books.

Having my highlights centralized in one digital repository that I can access from my phone would be valuable. I’ve been playing with a reading app that does this, but the process of getting text from a book into the app isn’t efficient. I must take a picture of each highlight, which the app converts to text. The conversion is suboptimal, so then I have to correct the text before storing the highlight. Once the highlight is digitized it’s great, but getting to that point is painful.

If I want to regularly review the important concepts from what I’ve read, I’ll need to either find a better way to digitize highlights from physical books or read digital books (e.g., on Kindle). I enjoy physical books, so the former is my preference.

I read a quote this weekend from Charlie Munger that got me thinking:

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

I believe what Charlie is getting at is that continual learning increases your chances of success in the long run. Learning leads to acquiring wisdom, which improves decision-making and changes behavior. Knowing what to do and when to do it increases your chances of achieving your goals in the long run. Regular learning is something the average person can do to achieve outsize results.

From my learning survey results, I see a desire among driven people to learn and achieve their goals. But I see lots of friction along the path to the wisdom that helps improve their decisions and actions. I’m wondering if some of that friction could be removed and what impact that would have on these people’s lives. Would it materially improve their lives long term?

I’ve been thinking about how to best capture and retain the most important concepts in the books I read. I highlight and make notes as I read, and yesterday I decided to start reviewing those annotations regularly. I think that will be helpful, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Reviewing helps with retention of ideas, but it doesn’t ensure clarity around them or the main concepts in each book.

After almost four years of writing daily posts, I’ve learned that writing helps you clarify your thoughts—mainly because you must first think clearly before you can write clearly. The writing process also aids in uncovering nonobvious insights.

Today I decided I’m going to test a new habit. When I finish reading a book, I’m going to write down the main concepts I learned from it and any new insights I formed. My goal is to distill the most valuable wisdom or ideas and capture new ideas sparked by the book. I think this will be a fun challenge that will enhance the value I get from my reading, and it may also bring value to others and myself in the future.

Wish me luck!

This is my two-hundred-fifth weekly reflection. Here are my takeaways from this week:

• Learning –This week I spent time dissecting an investment that hasn’t performed well. I was frustrated and motivated to figure out where I went wrong in my thinking. This analysis combined with my reading helped me uncover an error in my thinking about certain types of investments. Going forward, I plan to do something slightly different that I think could make a material difference.
• Reading – When I read, I highlight passages and take notes about important concepts. However, I’ve rarely reviewed the notes or highlights. This week I reviewed old highlights and was surprised at how much I’d forgotten. I realized that some important things from my reading don’t stick because of how much and how regularly I’m reading. I want to change this so I can maximize what I get from my reading. I’m going to play with using some of my reading sessions to review notes.

Week two hundred five was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

I’m reading All I Want to Know Is Where I'm Going to Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger—A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. I’ve never read a book structured like this one. It takes old quotes from various letters and interviews that Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett gave and structures the quotes as if they were part of a conversation with someone seeking their wisdom.

I’m not done with the book yet, but one quote from Charlie Munger caught my attention today:

I have what I call an ‘iron prescription’ that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another. I feel that I’m not entitled to have an opinion unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who are in opposition. I think that I am qualified to speak only when I’ve reached that state.

A few days ago, I shared that Henry Ford had a similar view of the importance of understanding other people’s perspectives. Ford and Munger are two credible people who achieved outsize business success. Ford died in 1947; Munger, in 2023. Since they reached the same conclusion although their professional careers occurred at different times, it’s probably timeless wisdom. I want to work toward mastering it.

I’m continuing with my learning survey, which has turned into customer discovery. This week I had a chat with someone working at a late-stage venture capital firm. He shared a helpful insight: the amount of information available has skyrocketed because of the internet, but its quality is questionable. A high percentage isn’t value add. It takes time and energy to distill all this information down to the knowledgeable pieces that add value and align with learning goals. This friction frustrates him and slows his learning.

The more I read about the history of capitalism and the great entrepreneurs who came long before us, I more I see a pattern: the best companies of all time were built by entrepreneurs who understood human psychology—mainly that people are more easily influenced by stories than by logic or facts. People find stories more relatable. Facts and logic can feel cold and impersonal. It makes sense that history’s greatest companies were built by entrepreneurs who were gifted in storytelling.

Mother Nature wired me to communicate with facts and logic. My natural storytelling abilities are average on my best day. For a long time, I’ve recognized the power of storytelling and wanted to be a better storyteller. But I’ve never put in the practice to improve this skill, so I’m still average. This year I want to change that. I’m going to seek out creative ways to publicly practice and improve my storytelling in 2024.

I’m following the rumored Reddit IPO, as it’s anticipated to be the first major technology IPO of 2024. The performance of this IPO could affect the actions of other late-stage technology companies and venture capital investors. With the NASDAQ trading just shy of all-time highs as of this writing, a well-performing IPO could unleash a wave of technology IPOs.

Last week, Reddit officially filed its Form S-1 with the SEC, indicating its intention to publicly list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Per CNBC, the company’s public market debut is expected in March (but that isn’t confirmed and is subject to change).

I’m curious to learn more about Reddit’s business and follow its post-IPO performance (assuming it moves forward with its public offering).

I read a quote today from Henry Ford that stuck with me:

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as from your own.

I try to see things from other people’s perspectives, and I’ve gotten better at it, but I’m not where I want to be. The Ford quote was a good nudge; it reminded me of the importance of mastering this skill. I’m committed to working on this until I’ve mastered it.

I’ve been discussing the topic of company vision with a few founders. These conversations reinforced to me that some founders aren’t clear on what vision means. They talk about how much revenue they’ll generate in five or ten years, what they plan to build, etc. It’s good to be clear on your aims, but that’s not vision. Those responses are too tactical.

I believe the root of why these founders are missing the mark isn’t a lack of ability or intelligence. It’s simpler than that: it’s a terminology mix-up and maybe not enough practice in thinking non-tactically.

Vision is painting a picture of what you think the world could look like. It’s painting a picture of how you want the world to look. It has nothing to do with your company.

Even when the term is defined, I’ve noticed that it’s hard for some founders to understand vision without an example. This week I spent time searching and found what I think is a good example.  

In a talk, Brian Armstrong, CEO and cofounder of Coinbase, detailed not only the company’s thinking behind its vision but also its mission and strategy. Here’s how Brian expressed the company’s vision and mission:

• Vision: Create more economic freedom for every person and business in the world over the next ten years.
• Mission: Create an open financial system for the world.

The vision is big. It will materially change the world if it becomes reality. The mission is what Armstrong’s company plans to do to accomplish its vision. I like how Armstrong explains the logic behind each statement, how they differ, and how they support one another.

At the end of the video, Armstrong ties the vision and mission together: “Our vision is to have a billion people in, say, five to ten years accessing an open financial system, through our products, every day. When we’ve done that, we will have materially changed the economic freedom of the world and we will have bent the shape of that curve.”

In a different video, Armstrong clearly explains his vision of the world: “I imagined a world where anybody with a smartphone could have access to sound money and financial services; where every payment could be as fast, cheap, and global as sending an email.”

Coming up with a vision isn’t easy. It requires zooming out and thinking about the future of the world and what’s possible. Hopefully, the example above is useful and helps founders articulate how the world will be transformed if their company achieves its mission.