Sustainable sources of competitive advantage. This might be the most important topic in business and investing because other than luck it is the only path to long-term success. The only truly sustainable sources of competitive advantage I know of are:
Everything else – intelligence, design, insight – gets smashed to pieces by competitors who are almost certainly as smart as you.
Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. People believe what they’ve seen happen exponentially more than what they read about has happened to other people, if they read about other people at all. We’re all biased to our own personal history. Everyone. If you’ve lived through hyperinflation, or a 50% bear market, or were born to rich parents, or have been discriminated against, you both understand something that people who haven’t experienced those things never will, but you’ll also likely overestimate the prevalence of those things happening again, or happening to other people.
Start with the assumption that everyone is innocently out of touch and you’ll be more likely to explore what’s going on through multiple points of view, instead of cramming what’s going on into the framework of your own experiences. It’s hard to do. It’s uncomfortable when you do. But it’s the only way to get closer to figuring out why people behave like they do.
- Ideas That Changed My Life
- Learn faster than your competition.
- Empathize with customers more than your competition.
- Communicate more effectively than your competition.
- Be willing to fail more than your competition.
- Wait longer than your competition.
Everything else – intelligence, design, insight – gets smashed to pieces by competitors who are almost certainly as smart as you.
Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. People believe what they’ve seen happen exponentially more than what they read about has happened to other people, if they read about other people at all. We’re all biased to our own personal history. Everyone. If you’ve lived through hyperinflation, or a 50% bear market, or were born to rich parents, or have been discriminated against, you both understand something that people who haven’t experienced those things never will, but you’ll also likely overestimate the prevalence of those things happening again, or happening to other people.
Start with the assumption that everyone is innocently out of touch and you’ll be more likely to explore what’s going on through multiple points of view, instead of cramming what’s going on into the framework of your own experiences. It’s hard to do. It’s uncomfortable when you do. But it’s the only way to get closer to figuring out why people behave like they do.
- Ideas That Changed My Life
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