[The Weekend Bulletin] #167: Cyclicality, Asymmetry, Fat FIRE, Great Work Repeated,...
What Matters More in Building Wealth, Alice Schroeder on Warren Buffet, Reading Better, Christopher Nolan, and more.
A digest of some interesting reading material from around the world-wide-web. Your weekly dose of multi-disciplinary reading.
Investing Wisdom
This long and dated interview of Warren Buffett's biographer, Alice Schroeder, makes for a very interesting read. The first half of the interview focuses on Alice's career, learnings, and her story leading up to the book Snowball. The second half of the interview focuses on her perceptions and discoveries about Warren Buffett. Some of the discussion is quite revealing like the key to Warren's success as a communicator, what it really means when he says his managers have all the freedom, the grey elements of his life, and so on. This will be an hour well spent.
This article answers the question: What's maters most when it comes to building wealth - Is it asset allocation, or investment horizon, or mindset, or something else? Read on to find out.
The financial independence and early retirement movement has gained a lot of prominence in the recent past, better known as FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Interestingly, there are multiple branches of fire, depending on the path you choose towards achieving your retirement goals - like lean fire, barista fire, and fat fireto name a few. This article explains what each of these different types of FIREs mean, and then digs deeper into the FAT FIRE, which is retirement without a compromise on lifestyle.
Mental Models & Behavioral Biases
The following two posts explain portions of the above quotes as they apply to life in general:
In a recent talk, Graham Weaver explores the concept of asymmetry. He starts with how his investment philosophy was initially aligned with Warren Buffet's two rules quoted above. However, over time, he came to realise that there is a better way to invest - by seek asymmetry. He then goes on to explain how seek asymmetry works not just in investing but in life as well, and lists four principles through which we can achieve the same.
Morgan Housel explains how cyclicality is all-pervasive, in this article. He explores the impact of cyclicality at different levels, including the economy, companies, and individuals. He further explains that these cycles are more often self-induced, not requiring any outside stimuli to reverse. While most of these cycles are inescapable, there are some that can managed around the edges.
Personal Development
This short note describes a highly effective but counter-intuitive strategy to get the most out of your reading. Following this simple strategy would require that we unlearn what we have learnt in school/college. While it is tough to give up an old habit, this small tweak will lead a significant improvement in your knowledge intake.
#164 carried a link to a deep meditation on the idea of doing great work. The article has caught the internet by storm given its density of information. If you have not yet read it, or found it too long to read, this podcast on the article might help. It discusses the key ideas from the article.
This week, we'll skip the next two sections - Blast From The Past and Readworthy Passage - to make time for an interesting podcast:
If you have even the slightest interest in watching movies, you would have encountered the superlative work of writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan. The tactful vengeance in Memento, or the cult of the Batman Trilogy, or the rivalry between two magicians in Prestige, or the many twists and layers of Inception and Tenet, or the time and space travel of Interstellar, or the historical narratives of Dunkirk and Oppenheimer - there is some element in each of these multi-faceted stories that would have you in awe of his work. If you would like to know more about the man, this recent podcast narrates the his story.
On a related note, amongst his lesser known works is his first movie called Following which he filmed over weekends while being employed during the week. If you have not seen it yet, you really must!
Quotable Quotes
"We want solutions, but what we really need are attitudes.
You don't need abs, but an attitude of training. You don't need the answer, but an attitude of curiosity. You don't need an easier life, but an attitude of perseverance.
Attitude precedes outcome."
- James Clear
"Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done. We think our way along by choosing between right and wrong alternatives, and the wrong choices have to be made as frequently as the right ones.
We get along in life this way. We are built to make mistakes, coded for error. We learn, as we say, by "trial and error." Why do we always say that? Why not "trial and rightness" or "trial and triumph"? The old phrase puts it that way because that is, in real life, the way it is done."
- Lewis Thomas
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That's it for this weekend folks.
Have a wonderful week ahead!!
- Tejas Gutka
[Aug 12, 2023]