John P. Faris III

Things I'm Working On

Monthly Memo

Pace Yourself, Design as a Commodity, Career Advice

Pace Yourself

An interesting read by Dror Poleg…

“Even before people started working, the most gifted children were often forced to study at the same pace and in the same place as everyone else because it was not economically feasible to let each child study at their own pace and access the resources that are relevant to them at any given moment.

That meant that even people who had the skills to do more were forced to do less. Geography and scarcity handicapped above-average performers and protected the average ones. By “average,” I am not referring to people’s overall worth or potential. I am referring to their ability to perform a specific task for which they are paid.”

Does the traditional workplace throttle exceptional workers? If these constraints are removed, what happens to slower, less productive workers?

The internet continues to catalyze change.  The same thing that allows students to realize their full potential (by not being confined by the classroom) may very well be the thing that allows jobs to be moved around the globe (by not being confined to an office, country, or region). 

Two sides of the same coin. “One hand giveth, the other taketh away.”

__________

Investing 101

Morgan Housel wrote a good piece on how one can apply lessons from other fields to investing…

More important is this: If you find something that is true in more than one field, you’ve probably uncovered something particularly important. The more fields it shows up in, the more likely it is to be a fundamental and recurring driver of how the world works.

…five fields teach more about investing than most finance textbooks:

Health, and how people make short-term tradeoffs with long-term consequences.

Sociology, mostly people’s desire to belong to a tribe and signal their success.

Military history, and how people underestimate complex systems, become overconfident in their abilities, react in stressful situations in ways they hadn’t imagined, and underestimate risks that hadn’t been considered.

Evolution, which shows how competitive advantages are gained and squandered.

Nature (anything from geology to forestry) which has the best examples of compounding because incredible things happen over very (very) long periods of time.

__________

Design as a Commodity

David Perell wrote this article about the what he calls the “Microwave Economy”…

One of the weirdest things about modern urbanism, and the Microwave Economy in general, is that we build the opposite of what we like. We adore Europe’s narrow and car-less streets, but build skyscraper-lined cities with sterile shopping malls and six-lane roads, where pedestrians are always on edge. But the Microwave Economy is most visible in architecture, where the industry has overwhelmingly directed its innovative muscles towards making things scalable instead of more beautiful. It has prioritized machine-like reproducibility over workman-like craftsmanship.

And this from the same piece:

Simon Sarris calls this standardization the Aesthetic Deep State: “As the availability of stores like Home Depot (founded 1978) and Lowes (21 stores in the 60’s) spread — both have over 2,000 stores each today — the commodification of house hardware intensified. Today it is easier to find the things you are looking for quickly, for example if you need a replacement door knob. This also means that everyone’s door knobs look almost the same. As manufacturers and distributors consolidate, while carrying only a few brands, the details of houses converge… Before you can choose any options, you are limited by which choices are even available.”

__________

Career Advice

I’ve really enjoyed reading Tribe of Mentors. It’s a Q & A format and the chapters (of which there are many) are short, so it feels like progress even if you’re only able to read a few pages at a time. Here is a quote from Peter Guber…

“The seminal change in the business from then to now is that a young person should view the career pyramid differently rather than traditionally. Put the point at the bottom where you are now (at the start of your career) and conceive your future as an expanding opportunity horizon where you can move laterally across the spectrum in search of an ever-widening set of career opportunities. Reinvent yourself regularly. See your world as an ever-increasing set of realities and seize the day.”

— Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss

I love the thought that as we get older more opportunities are before us. This is an unconventional, glass-half-full way of thinking.

Follow Your Talent, Remote Work, and Taxes

Follow Your Talent

“People conflate a lack of focus with a lack of talent. Intelligence and talent are correlated with success, but the strongest signal of future success is your perseverance and resilience: what the books in airport bookstores call “grit.” Unless you are supremely disciplined, your career will have to be something that gives you some enjoyment, but don’t mistake focus for your “passion.” People who tell you to follow your passion are already rich: Follow your talent. The accoutrements that accompany being great at something (relevance, admiration, camaraderie, money) will make you passionate about whatever “it” is.”

Also, this from the same piece:

“Sector dynamics will trump your talent (I realize how awful that sounds). However, someone of average talent at Google has done better over the last decade than someone great at General Motors. Be thoughtful … any opportunity you have when you are young to choose among different paths is a profound blessing.”  (Scott Galloway)

__________

Remote Work

Interesting analogy…

“Referring to the internet as an “information superhighway” is retro in the most cringeworthy way. But here, the metaphor seems apt. Decades after the construction of the U.S. highway system allowed high-income families to move from downtowns to the distant suburbs, Zoom might do the same. Remote work could do to America’s residential geography in the 2020s what the highway did in the 1950s and ’60s: spread it out.” (The Atlantic)

__________

Task Masters

“Moravec’s Paradox describes the observation that our AI systems can solve “adult-level cognitive” tasks like chess-playing or passing text-based intelligence tests fairly easily, while accomplishing basic sensorimotor skills like crawling around or grasping objects – things one-year old children can do – are very difficult.

Anyone who has tried to build a robot to do anything will realize that Moravec’s Paradox is not a paradox at all, but rather a direct corollary of our physical reality being so irredeemably complex and constantly demanding. Modern humans traverse millions of square kilometers in their lifetime, a labyrinth full of dangers and opportunities. If we had to consciously process and deliberate all the survival-critical sensory inputs and motor decisions like we do moves in a game of chess, we would have probably been selected out of the gene pool by Darwinian evolution. Evolution has optimized our biology to perform sensorimotor skills in a split second and make it feel easy.”  (Eric Jang)

__________

Taxes

“Everything we do has a toll attached to it. Waiting around is a tax on traveling. Rumors and gossip are the taxes that come from acquiring a public persona. Disagreements and occasional frustration are taxes placed on even the happiest of relationships. Theft is a tax on abundance and having things that other people want. Stress and problems are tariffs that come attached to success.”  (Ryan Holiday)

__________

Proudest Monkey

“Proudest Monkey” is my favorite DMB song – and this is an extraordinary version featuring Hugh Masekela on the trumpet.  I love the way the energy builds as the song crescendos.  Almost as noteworthy as Masekela’s contribution is the blistering guitar performance by Tim Reynolds.

Proudest Monkey Live in Johannesburg with Hugh Masekela

Before you could just look up the words to a song on the internet, I’m pretty sure I thought the first line was “Sweet innocent tree”…which kind of works too! Here are the lyrics:

Swing in this tree
Oh I am bounce around so well
Branch to branch,
limb to limb you see
All in a day’s dream
I’m stuck
Like the other monkeys here
I am a humble monkey
Sitting up in here again
But then came the day
I climbed out of these safe limbs
Ventured away
Walking tall, head high up and singing
I went to the city
Car horns, corners and the gritty
Now I am the proudest monkey you’ve ever seen
Monkey see, monkey do

Then comes the day
Staring at myself I turn to question me
I wonder do I want the simple, simple life that I once lived in well
Oh things were quiet then
In a way they were the better days
But now I am the proudest monkey you’ve ever seen
Monkey see, monkey do
Monkey see, monkey do

– Dave Mathews Band “Proudest Monkey”

Long December, Robert Burns and Deduction

Long December

And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
A Long December by Adam Duritz

What’s better than a song that perfectly resonates with the way you feel?  When one of your favorite songwriters takes his song and masterfully melds a cover of another great song into it.

Here’s Counting Crows covering “Live Forever” and then seamlessly transitioning into “A Long December”…

Live Forever / Long December (Video)

Tip:  Plug in a pair of headphones to fully appreciate this one, otherwise you’ll miss the lows.

…..

I was somewhat familiar with the backstory to “A Long December”, but I didn’t know anything about the song “Live Forever”.  Turns out there’s an interesting story there too…

“Noel Gallagher began working on “Live Forever” in 1991, while working for a building company in his hometown of Manchester. After his foot was crushed by a pipe in an accident, he was given a less-strenuous job working in the storeroom, allowing him more time to write songs. One night, he was listening to the Rolling Stones’ album Exile on Main St.; while playing one of his own chord progressions, Gallagher noted that it sounded good against one of the vocal melodies from the album: “It was the bit from “Shine a Light” that goes [sings], “May the good Lord shine a light on you””, Gallagher recalled. Gallagher incorporated the melody, changing the line to “Maybe I don’t really want to know”. For a period afterwards, that was the only part of the song Gallagher had completed.[3] …Noel Gallagher presented a fully composed “Live Forever” to the band for the first time in early 1993 during rehearsals.” (Wikipedia)

Silver linings, right?

…..

Here’s a good version of another one of my Counting Crows favorites…

Omaha (Video)

“If you’re right to the heart of matters
It’s the heart that matters more”
– Counting Crows, “Omaha“

_______________

Robert Burns

On the 25th of January each year millions of Scots and people of Scottish descent get together across the world to celebrate the life and work of Robert Burns. – The Scotland Shop

“His poem (and song) “Auld Lang Syne” is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and “Scots Wha Hae” served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country.” (Wikipedia)

Fun facts…

There are 57 statues and busts dedicated to Robert Burns scattered across the globe.

When asked for the source of his greatest creative inspiration, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan selected Burns’s 1794 song “A Red, Red Rose” as the lyric that had the biggest effect on his life.[55] (Wikipedia)

_______________

Deduction

One of the most important skills in life is to be able to look at the evidence before us and come to our own conclusions – to think for ourselves. Never in history have we had more information at our fingertips than we do now.  And yet, its seems we are often too busy to “do the work”. 

“We would all like to be and aspire for our children to be as analytical as Sherlock Holmes. We want (and want our children) to think “outside the box” as well as to think well overall, with such thinking based upon careful awareness and evidence. Getting there requires more than is often assumed. We need what is too often missing from our understanding, missing ingredients of a sort. As I often say (and as my masthead proclaims), information is cheap, meaning is expensive.” – Bob Seawright

Sherlock Deduction (Video)

2020 Year in Review

To say this was an unusual year would be an understatement. I started the GSP Updates Newsletter in November 2017 when there was no shortage of local economic news. This year Upstate business headlines were scarce as the pandemic became the center of focus, and I felt it was time to push pause on GSP Updates and redirect my efforts.

I decided to try another newsletter that was more closely tied to my website jpfaris.com. While I may revisit GSP Updates in the future, I’m really enjoying the new newsletter and it appears you are too (thanks for sharing!).

Here’s a summary of the year as it relates to my newsletter and website.

Top 5 Newsletters

Freedom and Forgiveness (May)
Habits and Learning (January)
Alive Time and Character (April)
Peer Presence and Snowflakes (March)
Jefferson, Adams and Independence Day (July)

Top 5 Blog Posts

The Work You Don’t See (2019)
All That Remains (2014)
Finding the Right Metrics (2019)
How We Spend Our Lives (2019)
What Will We Leave Behind? (2019)

Top 5 Strategy Articles

Part 2 – Déjà Vu All Over Again (2017)
10 Predictions for 2020 (2020)
Who Would Buy an On-Demand Fuel Delivery Company? (2018)
Part 1 – It’s not about disruption, it’s about segmentation (2017)
Mobile Refuelers Aren’t Selling Fuel (2020)

Best Purchase Under $200

While this is actually a subscription service, it’s helped me make better book purchases. Blinkist produces summaries (think Cliff’s Notes) for many popular books. It became an integral part of my routine when I discovered you can listen to the summaries like you do podcasts. You can also highlight passages you would like to reference. It’s less than $9/month when you pay for a full year.

Favorite Software

I used Trello years ago when I was building multiple websites. After completing these sites, I stopped using it and kind of forgot about it until I needed something to manage a large project this year. If you are looking for a simple project management tool that can grow along with your needs give it a try.

__________

Of the things I read, watched or listened to this year, these are worth mentioning:

Books

I’ll write a full blog post on the books I read in 2020, but here are my five favorite.

Open by Andre Agassi

Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

The Daily Stoic and A Calendar of Wisdom

The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham

Podcasts

These are my go-to shows…

The Prof G Show with Scott Galloway
Strong language and strong opinions (half of which I don’t agree with); this is the most entertaining business podcast around. I can’t look away. Scott makes boring tasks fly by.

Revisionist History
Gladwell is one of the best storytellers of our time and he has mastered a new medium. It’s worth going back and checking out “Food Fight“, “My Little Hundred Million” and “Generous Orthodoxy” from 2016.

The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim has a huge catalog of podcasts that I am slowly working my way through. Too many notable ones to mention, but his interview with Jamie Foxx has been the most memorable one to date.

Presentations

Future of Transportation by Tony Seba
Tony opens your eyes to just how fast things are changing as it relates to transporation.

Rory Sutherland: Sweat the small stuff
I’ve been fascinated by every presentation and interview I’ve ever listened to featuring Sutherland. He is a genius marketer, focused on behavioral economics.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Happy New Year,
John Faris

Paying Your Dues

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

__________

Paying Your Dues

This is a metaphor for so many things in life…

“In undisturbed ancient forests, youngsters have to spend their first two hundred years waiting patiently in their mothers’ shade. As they struggle to put on a few feet, they develop wood that is incredibly dense. In modern managed forests today, seedlings grow without any parental shade to slow them down. They shoot up and form large growth rings even without a nutrient boost from added nitrogen. Consequently, their woody cells are much larger than normal and contain much more air, which makes them susceptible to fungi—after all, fungi like to breathe, too. A tree that grows quickly rots quickly and therefore never has a chance to grow old.”

(Blas.com , H/T The Collaborative Fund)

__________

Restless

Suzman calls attention to the changing nature of work. He draws on the writing of the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who pointed to a crucial difference between “primitive” and complex societies called interchangeability. For hunter-gatherers, chiefs and shamans could, and did, moonlight as foragers and hunters. Overlapping duties preserved a strong sense of community, reinforced by customs and religions that obscured individual differences in strength, skill, and ambition. Shared labor meant shared values.

But in industrial economies, lawyers don’t tag in for brain surgery, and drill sergeants don’t harvest wheat—and the different jobs people do, requiring different skill sets, command (often vastly) different pay. As specialization spread and superior performance was rewarded, a cult of competition emerged: High achievers believed they could and should always toil harder for a fatter raise, bigger house, higher honor, or more wondrous breakthrough. Where rest once beckoned, now restlessness did. The productivity mode thrived—and it just might deserve credit (along with luck) for almost all scientific progress and technological ingenuity. But it also bears the blame for what Durkheim called a “malady of infinite aspiration,” which by now we’ve discovered is chronic.  

The Atlantic

__________

Actions Speak Louder

“When all is said and done, more is said than done.” We are drowning in words, many of which turn out to be lies we tell ourselves or others. How many times do we have to feel betrayed and surprised at the disconnect between people’s words and their actions before we learn to pay more attention to the latter than the former? Most of the heartbreak that life contains is a result of ignoring the reality that past behavior is the most reliable predictor of future behavior.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Gordon Livingston

__________

Local Flavor

Falling down a rabbit hole, I found myself reading an article from 2019 on Bon Appetit’s website about Gullah Geechee culture, which is worth checking out if you are a fan of the Low Country.  There was a reference to a place called Igbo Landing that I wasn’t familiar with. For those that are willing to put in the time to read the Wikipedia article about this historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, you will learn about an influential and grave piece of history.  You will also find a connection to Marvel’s Black Panther movie.

__________

Community

“The definition of community is ‘where you keep showing up,’” said someone I met, whose name I’ve forgotten, back in the days when it was normal to meet new people whose names you could forget. I haven’t forgotten that line, though: Community is where you keep showing up. What a lovely idea.

Derek Thompson