Doing on the Job

Business to me is bottom of the barrel There's no actual skill called business It's too generic of a thing It's like a skill called relating, like relating to humans, That's not a skill, it's too broad So a lot of what goes on in business is essentially just anecdotes They call it case studies, but it just anecdotes And they're trying to help you pattern match by Throwing lots of data points at you, but the reality is, You will never understand them fully until You're actually in that position yourself (Until you're actually in that position yourself) You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job Even then you will find that basic concepts from Game theory and psychology and big mathematics, Computers, and logic will serve you much, much better I would focus on the foundations I would focus with a science bent I would develop a love for reading That is a foundation for your self-education When it comes to your learning curve, If you wanna optimize your learning curve, One of the reasons I don't love podcasts, Even though I'm a generator of podcasts, I like to consume my information very quickly I can read very fast but I can only listen at a certain speed And it's hard to go back, it's hard to highlight, It's hard to pinpoint snippets and save them in your notebook A lot of people think they can become really skilled At something by watching others do it, Or even by reading about others doing it You're gonna learn a lot more by operating Your own lemonade stand, that is how you're gonna learn, On the job Because a lot of the subtleties don't express themselves Until you're actually in the business You know, I've learned that tit-for-tat iterated prisoner's dilemma Is the piece of game theory that is worth knowing the most The best way to learn game theory is to play lots of games I never even read game theory books, I consider myself extremely good at game theory I've never opened up a game theory book and Found a result in there where I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's common sense." I just grew up playing all kinds of games And so it's just second nature to me You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job But doing is a subtle thing That word "doing" encapsulates a lot If I start a business where I go in every day And I'm doing the same thing Let's say I'm running a retail store, stocking the Shelves with food and liquor every single day, I'm not gonna learn that much, I'm repeating things a lot So I'm putting in thousands of hours, But they're thousands of hours doing the same thing Thousands of iterations, that would be different The learning curve is across iterations, If I was trying new marketing, changing up the inventory, Branding and the messaging, changing the sign It's the number of iterations that drives the learning curve The more iterations, the more shots on goal, The faster you're gonna learn It's not just about the hours put in The way we're built, the way the world presents itself, Offers us very easily the opportunity to do The same thing over and over Really, we'd be better served if we went off And found ways to do new things Doing something new the first time is painful, And high odds are that you will fail So you just have to get very, very comfortable With frequent small failures So you just have to get very, very comfortable With frequent small failures You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job You can always learn better by doing it on the job By doing it on the job By doing it on the job Nassim Taleb made his wealth by being a trader, He relied upon black swans Losing little bits of money every day and then Once in a blue moon he would make a lot when The unthinkable happened for other people Most people want to make little bits of money every day, In exchange they'll tolerate lots of blow-up risk, They'll tolerate going completely bankrupt We're not evolved to bleed a little every day If you're out in the natural environment, And you get a cut, you will eventually die You have to stop that cut We're evolved for small victories all the time But that becomes very expensive That's where the crowd is, that's where the herd is So if you're willing to bleed a little bit every day But in exchange you'll win big later, you will do better That is, by the way, entrepreneurship Entrepreneurs, bleed every day They're not making money, they're losing money, They're constantly stressed out, all the Responsibility is upon them, But when they win they win big On average they'll make more