Saturday Serendipity
Quote, Mental Model, Twitter Thread, Question.
Quote
“Contrary to popular belief, winners quit a lot. That’s how they win.”
― Annie Duke, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away
Mental Models
Breakpoints:
The engineering idea of breakpoints – that’s a very powerful model, too. ~ Charlie Munger
This one quote from Munger on breakpoints has always irritated me as this mental model has not been written about a lot nor has it been explained from different perspectives properly. So I have used my own thinking in a way to kind of connect the dots of this model to life and investing. But first, we have to know what it means from an engineering perspective.
In computer science, breakpoints are a point in a program that enables the programmer to interrupt the running program by a debugger. It is used to pause execution and dump the values of some or all program variables.
In Investing
If I was to use a breakpoint with the help of a debugger to help bring out errors in programming then from an investing point of view the first thing that comes to mind is a checklist. Having a checklist is like a breakpoint as it eliminates most of the ideas you have. If it does not drop the idea then it at least makes you think about it. You can see checklists as debuggers for investors.
In life
Breakpoints in life are very common you can use them for better relationships, better project and time planning, etc. They are very common in our life because we have to debug a lot of the problems of our life. If you were to use it in your diet you could have a breakpoint in skipping a meal or having a healthier alternative to that meal and exercising. This improves your health. You can use the same process with addictions to drugs, alcohol, etc.
Breakpoints are there so that there are no big errors are made. The errors are got out of the way in small parts. It is a simple process in a complex system which can be applied to many disciplines.
Twitter Thread
Question to ask yourself
Elevated standards create elevated results.
You notice this whenever you work with an outlier. The bar they set for themselves and others is beyond what most people imagine.
Standards apply not just to the quality of work you produce but the opportunities you work on. If you accept substandard work from yourself, you'll only get average work from others. If you say yes to average projects, you'll have no time for exceptional ones.
Raise the bar to raise the results.
The question is simple:
Are you raising the quality/standards of your work?
That’s it for this week! Enjoy the weekend and happy learning!