The Difference Between Having Opinion and Having Conviction
Or, why temperament is more important than intellect
đ Hey there! My name is Abhishek. Welcome to a new edition of The Sunday Wisdom! This is the best way to learn new things with the least amount of effort.
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Today, letâs talk about empty opinions. In other words, what most people practice in real life. But before that, let me tell you a story.
A startup that has been in business for about two years, and growing pretty well, has just been offered a billion dollars to sell. The twenty-something founder, after considering the offer long and hard, decides to pass.
The board, the execs, the media, the journos, the reporters, the advisors, the friends, and all other âopinionatedâ intellectuals think itâs a stupid move. Heâs foolish to pass off $300M which he is supposed to gain personally from the deal. They try to put some sense into his head, but he wonât listen. Because he knows something they donât.
In 2006, Facebook was on the cusp of launching new products that would entirely change the trajectory of the company, and the world as we know. They were limited to only colleges when Yahoo! offered to buy, but Mark Zuckerberg stood his ground. Fifteen years later, Facebook has a market cap of $969 billion (closing in on the $1 trillion mark) and Yahoo! is history. How do you like them apples!
Iâm not a big fan of Facebook the company due to their lax attitude towards user privacy, but Iâm a huuuge fan of Facebook the business and Zuckerbergâs fighting spirit. I want you to take a moment and try to get your head around the amount of pressure he must have felt as a 22-year-old when all the âadultsâ were advising him to sell. Anybody in his position would have folded and taken the deal, albeit reluctantly. And after Yahoo! would have gone down with Facebook a couple of years later, it would have been perfectly okay for him to say, âI told you so!â People would still think he did the right thing, and life would go on.
And thatâs where the difference between having opinion and having conviction lies.
A decision maker isnât right or wrong because the crowd agrees with them. A decision maker isnât right or wrong because the crowd disagrees with them. Itâs not a business where you take polls. Therefore, it doesnât matter what you âthinkâ or believe unless you act on it. It doesnât matter what your âforecastâ is unless you bet on it.Â
You see, âtawkingâ is easy, opinions come cheap. But the world is run by deeds, and how often your âthinkingâ is right is irrelevant in the real world. A decision maker is as good as their thinking and analysis translated into action. Everything else is meaningless. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb would say, âNever ask anyone for their opinion, forecast, or recommendation. Just ask them what they haveâor donât haveâin their portfolio.â
Good decision making is more about temperament than intelligence. You need some intelligence â the minimum intelligence to comprehend what Iâm trying to say. But, as Warren Buffett would say, âYou donât have to be able to play three-dimensional chess or be in the top leagues in terms of Bridge playing or something.â
You need a stable personality, the temperament of a person who derives pleasure neither from being with the crowd nor against the crowd.
Whether you are an investor or an entrepreneur (two fields where what you do is more important than what you say), your primary job is thinking, analysing, and acting on them â and not getting over-stimulated by empty opinions.
Interesting Finds
Iconic director Martin Scorsese is worried about cinema. He has spent the past couple of years distinguishing what he considers âreal cinemaâ from the âtheme park moviesâ of the MCU. But what if this whole distinction doesnât really exist? And what if the key to proving it is⌠William Shakespeare? (Wisecrack / YouTube)
The sounds of nature influence where animals lived and how they forage. For each 12 decibel increase in white water noise volume, bird abundance decreased by about 7 percent and bat activity decreased by about 8 percent. Birds were especially deterred by white water noise pitches that overlapped with birdsong. (Nikk Ogasa / Science News)
You donât need to watch hiking videos to hike. An impossible burden of our digitally intertwined lives is the omnipresent spectre of inadequacy, or of seeing someone elseâs life and wondering why ours canât be that cool. (Grayson Haver Currin / Outside)
Amazonâs towering success doesnât accrue to their hourly workers. Employees feel managed largely by app, algorithm, and strict but poorly explained rules. If they go beyond the requirements, thereâs no reward. Amazon intentionally limited upward mobility for hourly workers. Itâs impossible for them to get leadership roles. (Karen Weise, Grace Ashford, Jodi Kantor / NY Times)
Donât say, âItâs not personal.â When someone is hurt, angry, or otherwise clearly affected by something youâve said or done, telling them itâs not personal only adds insult to injury. If you actually care, why not acknowledge and own that it is personal to them, even if not to you? If you canât do that, donât say anything about âpersonalâ at all. (James R. Detert / Harvard Business Review)
Only 45 percent of the population in El Salvador has internet access. It remains to be seen how exactly the national government thinks it will improve connectivity, particularly in rural areas, and get powerful enough devices into peoplesâ hands to support a bitcoin economy. (Aaron Mak / Slate)
RELATED: Hugo Conteras photographs surfers and sells the best shots for about $20. Heâs taken Bitcoin occasionally, but the dips in price burned him. âNow I tell them itâs $25 if they want to pay in Bitcoin. You donât know when itâs going to go down.â (Ezra Fieser /Â Bloomberg)
Naomi Osaka has given a public face to a growing, and long overdue, revolt. Like so many other women, the tennis prodigy has recognised that she has the right to put her health and sanity above the unending demands imposed by those who stand to profit from her labours. In doing so, Ms. Osaka exposes a foundational lie in how high-achieving women are taught to view their careers. (Kelli MarĂa Korducki / NY Times)
Seek to contribute, advises Marc Andreessen. Find the hottest, most vibrant part of the economy you can and figure out how you can contribute best and most. Make yourself of value to the surrounding people, to your customers and coworkers, and try to increase that value every day. (Noah Smith / Noahpinion)
My Directive
When we cannot change the situation, we have to change our response. What happens to us is not nearly as important as the attitude we adopt in response.
Because, if every misfortune can be blamed on someone/something else, we not only miss the opportunity of examining our contributory behaviour, but we also silently accept that no matter what we do, life will always be full of misfortune.
Quote to Note
Learnâbecause itâs not the knowledge itself thatâs as important as showing that you have the generic ability to learn and complete schoolwork. Signalling also explains the sheepskin effect, where actually earning a diploma is more valuable than the individual years of learning that went into itâbecause employers prefer workers who stick around and finish what they start.
â Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson, The Elephant in the Brain
Talk to Me
Do you agree with what I said, or do you think otherwise? Send me counters, comments, questions, and tips to resist $300M. đ¤đ¤
Until next Sunday,
Abhishek đ
I no longer get your youtube videos. Are you still producing youtube videos? If so, how can I get them again?