Ideas

  • The Right People To Raise Your Thinking

    There's a popular quote by Jim Rohn that states that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

    I think there's a lot of truth to that statement, but I also think it's true of larger groups. 

    The people and groups you spend time with influence who you are in the moment and over time. We all act differently within different groups of people, and that's part of why surrounding yourself with the right people is so important.

    You can see this when you visit your childhood home after many years, or spend time with your parents, or visit your old college. It is easy to revert to who you were when you were most influenced by that person or environment. 

    A few weeks ago, I spent a couple of hours speaking to Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein to record two podcasts.  The first was about building your own future and the second discusses surrounding yourself with the right people.  Here is a link to listen to the second podcast, "The Right People to Raise Your Thinking."

     

     

    For decades I have believed that you can predict a lot about your future based on who you choose to spend your present with.

    That is why I think participation in quality peer groups is critical. Peer groups help us set higher standards for our behavior, aim higher in our aspirations, and they help us stay better focused and committed to big-picture goals.

    I belong to several executive and business leader peer groups — groups that double as advisory boards, counselor’s offices, and idea factories. They allow me to see, hear, and discuss things I don't normally think about, talk about, or even notice.  Peer groups bring blind spots to my attention and keep me fully connected to trends that are transforming the world on a global scale.

    I love going to Strategic Coach because it has a unique approach to challenging people about how they think.  After years in the program, the frameworks have unconsciously become a part of how I work and live day-to-day. 

    If I could challenge you to do one thing based on the lessons in this podcast, I'd encourage you to lay out the framework for where you will be in 25 years. Who do you want to be? How do you want to live? What are you committed to building?  Who are you going to be spending more or less time with?

    The next part is easy. With those things in mind, start taking steps in the right direction today. 

    Onwards!

  • Getting To Next: How Thoughts Become Things

    Two weeks ago, I introduced Innovation Activity Centers which are the building blocks for my technology adoption model.InnovationActivityCenters2

    Today, I have a video and a worksheet for you that goes into the overarching Technology Adoption Model Framework. It explains how thoughts become things and how ideas scale with respect to capability, audience, and monetization.

    The four base stages of this framework are: Capability –> Prototype –> Product –> Platform. 

    It's a great use of 20 minutes. Check it out.

     

     

    While the Technology Adoption Model Framework stages are important, the ultimate takeaway is that you don't have to predict what's coming, only how human nature works in response to the capabilities in front of them.

    It's a bit cliche, but to paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, you just have to skate to where you think the puck is going to be. 

    Desire fuels commerce.  As money fuels progress, desire grows … and so does the money funding that path. As such, the path forward is relatively easy to imagine.

    This isn't about predicting specific technologies, but rather about the capabilities people will want.  I think of it as anticipating the natural path.  It is easier to ride the wave than it is to fight nature.

    Each stage is really about the opportunity to scale desire and adoption.

    It isn't really about building the technology, rather it is about supporting the desire.

    If you understand what is coming, you don't have to build it, but you can figure out where you want to build something that will benefit from it.

    This model is fractal.  It works on many levels of magnification or iteration.

    What first looks like a product is later seen as a prototype for something bigger.

    For example, as a Product transforms into a Platform, it becomes almost like an industry of its own.  Consequently, it becomes the seed for a new set of Capabilities, Prototypes, and Products.

    SpaceX's goal to get to Mars feels like their North Star right now … but once it's achieved, it becomes the foundation for new goals.

    This Framework helps you validate capabilities before sinking resources into them. 

    In the video, I walk you through several examples of companies, their innovations, and how they fit into each stage. I even used Capitalogix as an example. 

    I'm also attaching a fillable PDF of the form we used so that you can run through this with your business as well. 

    Tech Adoption Model for Entrepreneurs (1)

    As I continue to refine and work with this framework, I look forward to improving it and sharing it with you all. 

    As the world continues to change faster and more dramatically, this framework will help you anticipate changes, and it will also help you take advantage of them. 

    If you have any questions or comments about the idea, or how to implement it, feel free to reach out. 

    Onwards! 

  • Make News Beautiful Again

    My mother watches the news religiously. To her credit, she watches a variety of sources and creates her own takeaways based on them. Regardless, there's a common theme in all the sources she watched – they focus on fear or shock-inducing stories with a negative bias. As you might guess, I hear it when I talk with her.

    While I value being informed, I also value things that nourish or make you stronger (as opposed to things that make you weak or less hopeful).

    Negativity Sells. 

    Sure, news sources throw in the occasional feel-good story as a pattern interrupt … but their focus skews negative.  History shows that stories about improvement or the things that work simply don't grab eyeballs, attention, or ratings consistently.

    The reality is that negativity sells. If everything were great all the time, people wouldn't need to buy as many products, they wouldn't need to watch the news, and this cycle wouldn't continue.

    It's worth acknowledging and understanding the perils our society is facing, but it's also worth focusing on the ways humanity is expanding and improving.

    As a brief respite from the unending doom and gloom of mainstream media, Information Is Beautiful has a section of their site focused on "Beautiful News".

    It's a collection of simple data visualizations for positive trends, it's updated daily, and can be sorted by topic.

     

    Screen Shot 2021-06-06 at 2.20.21 PM

    Beautiful News via Information Is Beautiful

    If you're looking for more "good news", here's a list of 10 sources focusing on good news. 

  • Innovation Activity Centers

    In many of my recent talks, I've been focusing on a technology adoption model for entrepreneurs. It is a framework that explains how thoughts become things and how ideas scale with respect to capability, audience, and monetization.

    The four base stages are: Capability –> Prototype –> Product –> Platform. 

    You can listen to me talk about it in more detail on my recent podcasts, I'm also working on a separate video about this. 

    From a different perspective, each stage of the Framework requires the following Innovation Activity Centers. 

    InnovationActivityCenters2

    I shot a video going into more detail. Check it out. 

     

     

    Understanding the Technology Adoption Framework and the Innovation Activity Centers makes it easier to understand and anticipate the capabilities, constraints, and milestones that define the path forward.

    We are making lots of progress refining these models, and they are the basis for our plans to expand our Amplified Intelligence Platform.

    Ultimately, frameworks aren't important if you aren't using them. 

    If you have questions about this, or how you might use these models, feel free to reach out to me. 

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – May 23rd, 2021

    4Whamond

    Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

    Lighter Links:

     

    Trading Links:

  • Powering Bitcoin

    In April, I talked about Coinbase's public offering and the top 10 growing cryptocurrencies. 

    In the past couple of weeks, many currencies have reached record highs, and then seen a steep drop-off. Some say it was due to Elon Musk's SNL appearance, others say it was due to Tesla stopping support of Bitcoin short term. Still others say it was just due.

    In any case, there are growing reasons to be wary of Bitcoin as a viable long-term value store.

    On top of the many reasons I've talked about in previous articles, I'm hearing many more people talk about it as if they are crypto experts.  Consequently, it reminds me of the Dot.com bubble. Sure, the Internet continues to boom (but many of the early high-fliers don't exist today).  Meanwhile, it's possible crypto will evolve like the Internet, but at this point, it's hard to discern how much of the success in crypto is luck versus skill.   

    There is a ton of demand and interest.  But fear of missing out and enjoying the roller-coaster ride is not the basis of a long-standing Platform. Blockchain is a different story.

    Back to Crypto … Even a blind squirrel finds a nut in a forest during a bull market. 

    Governments have a disincentive to allow alternate currencies (not backed by their government).  In addition, another obstacle for cryptocurrency mining is the high cost of energy consumption. 

     

    Bitcoin-Mining-Electricity-Consumptionvia visualcapitalist

    Mining crypto takes a lot of electricity because when people are creating new coins they're really solving complex math puzzles with a 64-digit hexadecimal solution known as a hash. To solve those equations faster than your competitors you need massive data centers which can even overload local infrastructure. 

    It's increasingly expensive and energy-taxing to mine new coins. For context, it's estimated that the current annual power consumption for Bitcoin alone (not including other cryptocurrencies) rivaled the state of New York, and beat Norway. 

    To compare it to the tech giants, Bitcoin took 129 terawatt-hours of power consumption … Google took 12, and Facebook only took 5. 

    Many are looking for ways to decrease the energy consumption of mining cryptocurrency using methods like renewable resources. 

  • Biden’s $4T Economic Plan Visualized

    Biden campaigned heavily on an economic plan centered around bolstering the middle class, taxing the wealthy, and investing in healthcare and green energy infrastructure. There are other aspects of his plan – but those were the focuses.   

    Now that he's President and proposing his $4 Trillion economic plan, we can take a better look at where he intends to spend that money. 

    The NY Times put together a data visualization to put the plan in context. 

    Here's the simplified version: 

    Heres-President-Bidens-Infrastructure-and-Families-Plan-in-One-Chart-The-New-York-Times-thumbnailvia NY Times

    And here it is with more detail: 

     

    Heres-President-Bidens-Infrastructure-and-Families-Plan-in-One-Chart-The-New-York-Timesvia NY Times

     

    Much of the money President Biden intends on using to pay for this plan will come from higher taxes on the wealthy, and 15 years of higher taxes on corporations. With another portion of the money being invested in the IRS to crack down on tax evasion. 

    Many people, both Republicans and Democrats alike, have fears about the new plan. 

    Time will tell if the benefits outweigh the detriments, and what portion of his plan he actually accomplishes. 

    Frankly, I'm not sure how much of what was talked about were trial balloons and negotiation anchor points or his intended outcomes?

    Time will tell.  We sure do live in interesting times!

  • My Recent Podcasts with Dan Sullivan & Brett Kaufman

    I recently did two interviews I want to share with you. The first was done with Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein for Strategic Coach's Free Zone Frontier podcast… and the second was with Brett Kaufman on his Gravity podcast. 

    Please listen to them.  They were quite different, but both were well done and interesting. 

    Free Zone Frontier with Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein

    Free Zone Frontier is a Strategic Coach group (and podcast) about creating "Free Zones." It refers to the green space where entrepreneurs can collaborate and create without competition.

    It's a transformative idea for entrepreneurial growth. 

    In my episode, we focused on topics like building your own future, how decision-making frameworks and technology can extend your edge, and what it takes to get to the next level.   I realize there is a lot of Strategic Coach jargon in this episode, but it is still easy to understand, and there was great energy and an elevated conversation about worthy topics.

    As an aside, Steve Krein happens to be my cousin, and we joined Strategic Coach entirely separately before realizing we had joined the same group. 

    The podcast is 47 Minutes. I hope you enjoy it.

     

    Or click here to listen on: Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts 

    Gravity Podcast with Brett Kaufman

    Normally, I talk about business, mental models, and the future of AI and technology, but Brett Kaufman brought something different out of me. 

    Brett's Gravity Project is about living with intention, community, consciousness, and connection. He focuses on getting people to share their life experiences … with the intent that others can see themselves in your story. 

    In my talk with Brett, we do talk about the entrepreneurial journey … but we also probe some deep insights by discussing the death of my younger brother, how my life changed almost immediately upon meeting my wife, and why love is the most powerful and base energy in the universe. 

    This was not a typical conversation for me (a different ratio of head-to-heart), but it was a good one (and I've had a lot of people reach out because of this podcast). 

    The episode is 65 minutes. I hope you enjoy it. 

     

    Click here to listen on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Listen Notes

    Let me know what you think.

  • WallStreetBets Analysis: Market Crashes & Oreos

    During the Robinhood & Gamestop debacle, I wrote an article about r/WallStreetBets where I essentially said that most of the retail investors that frequent the site don't know what they're doing, but there is the occasional real post with strong research you would see at a real firm. 

    As an example of good research done by the subreddit, here's a link to a post where a user (nobjos) analyzed 66,000+ buy and sell recommendations by financial analysts over the last 10 years to see if they had an edge. Spoiler: maybe, but only if you have sufficient AUM to justify the investment in their research. 

    There are also posts that show a clear misunderstanding of markets, and more jokes than quality posts, but I saw a great example of correlation ≠ causation. 

    In the past I've posted about the Superbowl Indicator and the Big Mac Index, but what about Oreos?

    The increasingly-depraved debuts of Oreos with more stuffing indicate unstable amounts of greed and leverage in the system, serving as an immediate indicator that the makings of a market crash are in place. Conversely, when the Oreo team reduces the amount of icing in their treats, markets tend to have great bull runs until once again society demands to push the boundaries of how much stuffing is possible.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oreo_varieties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_market_crashes_and_bear_markets

    1974: Double Stuf Oreo released. Dow Jones crashes 45%. FTSE drops 73%.

    1987: Big Stuf Oreo released. Black Monday, a 20% single-day crash and a following bear market.

    1991: Mini Oreo introduced. Smaller icing ratios coincide with the 1991 Japanese asset price bubble, confirming the correlation works both ways and a reduction of Oreo icing may be a potential solution to preventing a future crash.

    2011: Triple Double Oreo introduced. S&P drops 21% in a 5-month bear market

    2015: Oreo Thins introduced. A complete lack of icing causes an unprecedented bull run in the S&P for years

    2019: The Most Stuf Oreo briefly introduced. Pulled off the shelf before any major market damage could occur.

    2021: The Most Stuf Oreo reintroduced. Market response: ???

     - LehmanParty via Reddit

    It's surprisingly good due diligence, but also clearly just meant to be funny. It resonates because we crave order and look for signs that make markets seem a little bit more predictable.

    Funny-mealso-me-meme-about-making-healthy-choices-but-also-eating-crap-like-all-stuf-oreos

    The problem with randomness is that it can appear meaningful. 

    Wall Street is, unfortunately, inundated with theories that attempt to predict the performance of the stock market and the economy. The only difference between this and other theories is that we openly recognize the ridiculousness of this indicator.

    More people than you would hope, or guess, attempt to forecast the market based on gut, ancient wisdom, and prayers.

    While hope and prayer are good things … they aren’t good trading strategies.

    A good reminder that even if you do the work, if you're looking at the wrong inputs, you'll get a bad answer. 

    Garbage in, garbage out. 

  • Assessments and You

    Over the years, I've used a number of different assessment tests on myself and our team. It's a great way to help people better understand each other and the different forms of communication and problem-solving styles we use.

    Here are several of the tests that have proven themselves time and again:

    1. Kolbe: measures a person's instinctive method of problem-solving, and identifies the ways they will be most productive.
    2. Predictive Index (PI) – helps you understand the way their traits manifest in relation to their true nature and their perceived role.
    3. StrengthsFinder: helps people uncover their talents, so they can do more of those things each day.

    On top of my normal tests, as a team of data scientists, it's always fun to see what's available. 

    For example, Ray Dalio recently created a personality assessment called PrinciplesYou that you can take for free. I've seen a number of articles claiming that the assessment is not only accurate, but that it also has impressive insights.

    Less meaningful, but still fun, I also found a website that lets you test your performance on various reaction and memory tests. Unsure how scientific it is, but it was an interesting use of 10 minutes nonetheless. 

    Image-2via Human Benchmark

     

    Progress starts by telling the truth … most often to yourself.