Spice

Episode outline:

Out key lesson today, from the brilliant man who wrote the 'Little Prince', Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is this - “Perfection means that there is nothing more to leave out.”

- All of man’s industrial efforts, all his computations and calculations, all the nights spent over working draughts and blueprints, invariably culminate in the production of a thing whose sole and guiding principle is the ultimate principle of simplicity.

- The process of reaching an ideal state of simplicity can be truly complex, the problem is one of choosing what deserves to live, at the sacrifice of what deserves to die.

- And how can you and I achieve that? To apply this key lesson we follow the three steps: 

1. Defining a singular purpose:The essence of simplicity is utility, and so we ask ourselves, what is the purpose of a thing, of a relationship, of a product, of anything we want to focus on - what use does it fulfill, why it is here on this planet, what purpose does it serve?

2. The Second step is purpose-oriented creation:once the purpose is clearly laid out in front of you - then you start building. Here, there are two rules to keep in mind:

3. The third and last step is Consistent thoughtful reduction:Here we finally have an opportunity to stop, take a step back, and review what we have built. Now, we start the process of thoughtful reduction, we eliminate anything and everything that does not contribute directly to the defined purpose. 

The reason why millions of people are so dissatisfied with their work despite their high pay or accolades is because no fiscal reward can replace the dimmed light bulb of one's curiosity. If the things you work on don't give you the freedom to roam your own mind according to your interests, then time will be your enemy. You might be able to rationalize your predicament for a few years, but attempting to do so for decades will introduce an identity crisis that you won't be equipped to handle.

The best antidote to this warning by Paul Graham, is our key lesson - Make something people want, that expresses who you are

Chapters -

00:00 Pursuing Interests Over Status

02:46 Building Something Meaningful

06:10 The Importance of Implementation

09:02 Key Lessons from Successful Figures

12:14 Combining Insights from Paul Graham and Patrick O'Shaughnessy

15:01 Learning from Historical Failures

18:03 Expressing Personal Identity in Creation

20:45 The Edsel Fiasco: A Cautionary Tale

24:07 Understanding Market Needs

27:08 The Role of Personal Experience

29:56 Childhood Passions and Their Impact

33:08 The Journey of Creation

36:10 Combining Curiosity with Market Demand

39:03 Final Thoughts on Creation and Identity

46:26 The Vacuum Cleaner Revelation

51:45 Curiosity as a Driving Force

53:06 Identifying Startup Ideas

57:54 Mark Zuckerberg's CourseMatch Experience

01:01:01 Understanding Customer Needs

01:06:57 Summarizing Key Lessons

01:08:34 Building Facebook: A Case Study

01:12:33 Product-Market Fit Explained

01:16:19 The Future of Podcasting

01:27:32 Introducing Spice: A New Podcast Concept

In this episode, we understand Aliko Dangote's key lesson - the richest man in Africa tells us - know everything you can about your business, the ins and outs, or you are going to fail.

To do that, we understand how to build a strategy that will help us to cover the five pillars of business:

You must deeply understand you customer. Every business must start with the customer and work backwards from there.

You need to rationally understand the value you create. For the only foundation of real business is service.

You must understand and control the costs. Business could be summed up as acquiring resources fairly and, with the smallest possible addition of cost, transforming those resources into valuable consumable products. Control your costs! 

Relentless pursuit of innovation. Innovation is all about Embracing technological advancements, Constantly experiment, and Looking always for new ways to satisfy your customers

- When it comes to innovation, please remember this rule - utility over novelty.

Lastly, the essence of the key lesson today - risk. Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.To invert that, simple - know what you are doing, or don’t do it.

Usually people can't understand our journey. It looks weird to the people outside. We looked obsessed, we look like we lost our connection to reality. But that's how obsession looks like. It looks crazy. Hell, if anything, other people calling you crazy is the best prediction of your future success.

In this episode, we understand exactly that. How being crazy looks like, using three amazing stories. That of Mr. Beast, Sam Zemurray, and James Dyson.

Outline

00:00 The Journey of Innovation: From Crazy to Genius

03:03 The Mission of Spice: Practicality and Inspiration

05:51 The Stories of Obsession: MrBeast, Sam Zemurai, and James Dyson

09:05 Understanding the Early Days of MrBeast

12:11 Sam Zemurai: The Ultimate Hustler's Journey

18:13 The Rise of Sam Zemurai: From Bananas to Business

23:53 James Dyson: The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation

29:49 The Challenges Faced by Dyson: A Story of Resilience

36:05 The Crazy Idea: Dyson's Bagless Vacuum Cleaner

41:52 The Turning Point: Dyson's Business Lessons

47:58 The Conclusion: Lessons from the Crazy to the Genius

58:16 The Journey of Success: Mr. Beast's Story

01:02:00 Learning from Failure: Sam Zemurray's Revolution

01:19:14 James Dyson: The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation

01:33:44 The Common Thread: Curiosity and Obsession

01:48:11 Key Takeaways: Lessons from the Journey

In this today's episode, we use Rick Rubin's key lesson of breaking conventions in art and life, drawing insights from his philosophy. We focus on understanding what convention is, how to identify it (and run the opposite way) and how we can make sure we are the ones breaking it, creating the most interesting work while doing so.

Key takeaways:

Chapters:

00:00 Breaking Conventions in Art and Life

07:46Understanding Rick Rubin's Philosophy

13:24

The Nature of Conventions

19:01 Historical Examples of Convention Breakers

33:27 Identifying Established Conventions

57:03 Applying the Key Lesson in Life

In his truly brilliant book, Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink write this weeks key lesson: discipline equals freedom. Discipline is also the difference between being good and being exceptional. 

By discipline, Jocko means intrinsic personal will - the power to consistently practice self-control and focus in the pursuit of achieving your goals despite difficulties, distractions, or temporary desires.

In this episode we break this key lesson down, and understand how to apply it in our lives.

It in the nature of things, Charlie Munger once said, that life's many hard problems are best solved when they are addressed backward.And so, a wise solution would be toInvert, always invert.

In this episode we break this key lesson down, and understand how to apply it in our life. Because, inversion helps us to improve our understanding of a problem. By forcing us to do the work necessary, we are forced to consider different perspectives.

To do that, we need to listen to Ray Dalio’s advice who told us - Smart people are the ones who ask the most thoughtful questions, as opposed to thinking they have all the answers. Great questions are a much better indicator of future success than great answers. Inversion is all about asking the right, yet non-obvious questions.

Every successful person in history, regardless of the era, the industry, or their personal circumstances walked this path towards success. 

Either consciously and intentionally or not, they used these five steps. 

The first step, which John D Rockefeller called the father of success, and the one step that cannot be missed is an extreme self-belief. Self belief is an idea we have of ourselves that defines our future state as we wish it to be, coupled with the confidence we can make this idea a reality. 

The second step, the one I think is the most difficult, or elusive step, is intense curiosity turned into an obsessive passion. Obsession is what happens when an entire being excitedly, passionately, becomes immersed in another being. Whether that other being is another person, an idea, or an occupation even. That’s what we are looking for. 

The third step in this path is extreme level of focus. Focus is having the discipline to direct all your attention towards your obsessive passion. Anything and everything that distracts you from this vision, from your path, must be eliminated. 

The fourth step is the ability to mute the world, ignoring both the praise and the naysayers. If Focus is about attention and discipline, this fourth step is about conviction. The conviction that your grand vision for yourself will turn out to be real. The conviction that your taste, style, approach, are based on capabilities coming from deep within, that other people don’t and can’t understand.

And the last step, step number five that practically every successful person I ever studied followed, is being consistent. Staying in the game longer than most, or at least long enough. Being consistent is about self-control to do whatever needs to be done, regardless of whether you feel like doing it at the moment. Emotional intensity is far less important in the long run than disciplined consistency.

Mastery, in any field, is the ability to transform a thought, an idea, into a reality.

But we must remember that creation never comes from a complete void. As Mary Shelley said: “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”

And that is because: ‘creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.’ Our work, or creations, our innovations, are only possible because we are connecting, bringing new order, to the work of the greats who came before us.

As Isaac Newton said: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” 

And the best way, actually perhaps the only way, to create, is by first copy the greats and their work. And that is because, imitation precedes creation. 

"We live in an age of infinite leverage. Your actions could be multiplied a thousand fold, because now you can influence thousands or millions of people through your decisions, or your code. In this age, the most important skills, is judgment." This very important key lesson, is by Naval Ravikant.

In this episode we understand what Naval meant by that, which forms of leverage we can use today, and what and how to develop this most important skill - judgment.

Speed matters in business. It matters in business because, as the two stories we used demonstrate,a/ things are simply moving fast - especially these days with the advancements and transformations of technology, and b/- because our competition never waits.

So today, we learn how we can move faster. To move faster in business we need to learn how to make decisions faster.  And to make decisions faster, we need to follow a combination of the following steps: 

Be comfortable with failure, 

Segment decisions in 1 way, or 2 ways doors decision - no worries, I explain what that is in the episode,

Have an extreme long term view. And, 

Build your operational principles, your 'ten commandments'.

I hope you enjoyed it.

This phrase, evolving through the centuries, was always describing people who failed to master a single craft, and which by whatever circumstances and forces, either willingly or not, were meddlers and fixers, who could do many things well, but not one thing great. 

In this episode we break this key lesson, this warning down, and learn how to avoid it. The power of focus, of achieving mastery in a single thing, is what we are looking for here.

Like Matthew told us in the Bible - No man can serve two masters. for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. I would love to know what you think about this episode, and on Spice in general - leave me a note!

Steve Jobs once said: When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life, or your job, is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. But that’s a very limited life. Life could be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is, that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change that, you can influence that. You can build your own things that other people can use.

Today, we are going to understand which noises are limiting us from following our path, how to mute them, and how to go about building the world as we believe it should be.

This week, we brake down James Clear's key lesson, understanding how we define our identity to be aligned with our core beliefs, and with the person you want to become.

As James told us: You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training. The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wantsthis. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who isthis.

What Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome is teaching us, is that what prevents action, actually advances action. The barrier that stands in your way, is what will define your way. 

If the impediment to action turns out to advance our action, we want more impediments. We want to be challenged, we want to face trials, we want obstacles to appear on our path.

In today's episode, we will cover three parts:

First, we’ll understand what Marcus Aurelius meant when writing this line in his journal. 

Second, and because this key lesson is about perception and having the right mindset - you and I will understand how we can position ourselves, and adapt our mind so we can use it. 

Lastly, I think you and I will need some good examples of how this looks when applied by other masters.

In this episode we break down Richard Koch's Key lesson, and understanding how to identify opportunities for non-linear returns on our investment, work, and effort.

The episode is divided into 3 parts:

So first, I want you to better understand who Richard Koch is, and why I am so obsessed with his work. 

Second, we’ll break down the principle behind today’s key-lesson - the 80/20 principle, or the Pareto rule. 

Third, you and I will understand how we can find 80/20 opportunities in our lives

A summary of the episode: You do not usually get back what you put in; you may sometimes get very much less and sometimes get very much more.

Creative systems operate away from equilibrium. Cause and effect, input and output, operate in a non-linear way. At any one time, people of equal intelligence, skill and dedication can produce quite unequal results, as a result of small structural differences. 

The game is to spot the few places where you are making great surpluses and to maximize them; and to identify the places where you are losing time and energy, and get out.

No matter where you live in the world you must learn how to deal with, and how to influence power. So as you and I are building our mastery - we must learn how to keep the initiative, to get others to react to our moves, to keep our opponents and those around us on the defensive. If you want to win, in any game you choose to play in life - this episode is for you. When you make other people come to you, you suddenly become the one controlling the situation. And the one who has control has power. Two things must happen to place you in this position: You yourself must learn to master your emotions, and never to be influenced by anger; meanwhile, however, you must play on people’s natural tendency to react angrily when pushed and baited.

There is nothing I hate more working hard, investing time and energy, towards something that is unfruitful, or does not serve an intentional purpose.

So in this episode, we break down Epictetus key lesson, so we can understand what is the end towards which we are moving.

First, we’ll understand what Epictetus meant by his advice, and I will give you my interpretation of it. Second, you and I will understand how we can define for ourselves clear, relatable ‘ends’ or rather goals. When we think about Epictetus' advice, we truly need to think about everything we do. A goal could be overarching, like our life’s mission. But it could also be more specific, like losing weight, or learning a new skill.  Then, we will learn how to work backwards from a goal, design the path we should take, making sure every effort we put in is in service of that goal.

This week we break down the key lesson of IKEA's founder, who once said: "one of the cornerstones of IKEA's success has been our willingness to take risks and make mistakes. I have always believed that it is better to take action and fail than to do nothing at all. This philosophy has allowed us to innovate and grow, learning from each mistake and improving along the way. For instance, when we first introduced the concept of flat-pack furniture, it was a disaster. The instructions were confusing, and many customers struggled to assemble their furniture. But instead of giving up, we took the feedback seriously, refined the process, and eventually turned it into one of our greatest strengths."

Make mistakes, often, and remember what mastery looks like. It looks like being the man in the arena: It is not the critic who counts, the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.

Make mistakes, and march on.

Kevin Kelly once told Tim Ferriss, "you want to be doing something where it’s hard to explain to your mother what it is that you do.” So it’s like, “What is it (podcasting that is)? Well, it’s not quite radio. I don’t know. It’s like talking.”

Think about Tim Ferriss, explaining 10 years ago when he just started, what the Tim Ferriss Show is.

“And that’s a very high bar, he says, because it requires a tremendous amount of self-knowledge and awareness to get to that point, to really understand what it is that you do better than anybody else in the world. And for most of us, it takes all our lives to figure that out."

Today, we are breaking down Kelly's key-lesson, understanding how can we become the only ones doing something, in our own lives.

How many times have I wished I could roll back time, and undo my stupid mistakes. But the will can only will forward, and life could only be lived forward.

In today's episode I am breaking down Nietzsche's important key-lesson - redeeming our pasts, our mistakes, our failures, our regrets, so we could focus on what's important - our future.

In the first part we’ll understand why we must find redemption, the kind Nietzsche is talking about, redeeming our past so we can achieve mastery in the future.

Then we’ll understand what Nietzsche is telling us we must do to achieve it - there are three parts to this:

To redeem the past, we must have responsibility. Responsibility is self governance, and it is freedom, and freedom means: ‘I wanted it thus!’

The second part is ownership. Owning our actions, their outcomes, our failures and successes. 

The last part, which will allow us to have better options to choose from, increasing our ability to choose wisely, and feel empowered to own our lives, is positioning.

Today's key lesson all about, I believe, it’s about a basic human craving for confirmation. We need external confirmation from our loved ones, from our peers, from our community. Robert Greene, in his book the Laws of Human Nature, is telling us - From the moment we are born, we humans feel a never-ending need for attention. We are social animals to the core. Our survival and happiness depend on the bonds we form with others.

In this episode, I breakdown how can you and I use this law, and key lesson, to our benefit.

This very simple key lesson which we will be speaking about today, is one of my favorites. It sounds like a no brainer, it sounds simple and even too simple, idiotic almost - but it is a genius approach to business and life. 

We should break Monish's observation into three part: 

The first part is about risk. In everything we do in life, in every decision we take about an unknown future, there’s an inherent risk we cannot avoid. 

The second and the third parts are how to deal with that risk.

First, to reduce that risk, we need to make a few Bets, big Bets, and make these bets infrequently

Second, we will reduce risk if we learn how to play games where the odds are overwhelmingly in our favor

I try to take Monish’s lesson and implement it in every part of my life. I think it applies to relationships, to business, to the way I select the books or podcasts I read and listen to even. How I invest my time. Take this knowledge and use it, transform it into wisdom by practice and repetition. 

I am actually very excited about today's episode because today’s key lesson is not a piece of advice, but a warning. 

In our work, in our path, in our sacrifice to achieve mastery, we must not be those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. The souls who avoided their battles. Instead, we want to be the man, and woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who is making mistakes, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. If you are not failing, you are not even trying! 

Be the man in the arena, or be the man who bears the wounds of all the battles he avoided.  

I am actually very excited about today’s lesson, because this is my kryptonite. It is the single most difficult thing for me to do.

No one, outside maybe inhuman creatures like Elon Musk, can retain high levels of intensity for a long period of time. And when you are no longer as excited about that thing you started, when you captured the first hill of the battle you’re in, or when things suddenly become harder than you originally expected - then, all of a sudden, you’re bored, you can’t find motivation, you are anxiously looking for something to push you forward. You are losing pace.

And for us to find success, and to reach mastery - we must learn how to build sustainable, long term commitment. Because, true, in the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency.

Today we break down Charlie Munger's key lesson for success, and it is about the power of simplicity. If we take a simple idea, and we take it seriously, and consistently, I'll add - we will sure to find success!

Listen how successful people like Steve Jobs, or Henry Ford, the Boston Consulting Group, simplified to create the most compelling, easy to use, memorable, and successful products in the world.

Excellence is the capacity to take pain. This line has been called the best maxim in the history of entrepreneurship. Only two weeks ago, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia shared with Stanford grads - “One of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations. Most of the Stanford graduates have very high expectations. And you deserve to have high expectations because you came from a great school. People with high expectations have very low resilience”. And unfortunately, Jensen says, resilience matters in success. I don’t know how to teach it to you, except that I hope suffering happens to you”.

What does he wish us to experience? Suffering. Why? Because if we can withstand suffering, it means we are resilient, and resilient matters a lot, in business and in finding success!

If we learn to deal with pain, and suffering, we will find success. Because, Excellence is the capacity to take pain. 

Today we discussed what history's most successful people knew about the power of self belief, the fact that it governs success, precedes ability, and how they used it. Quoting David Senra, "belief comes before ability".