"Eleven Wisdom Tools"

Wisdom correlates with everything desirable. And you can deliberately make yourself wiser.

Here are 11 practical tips and tools recommended by the world-class experts from the Accelerating Wisdom Series. 1. "The Values Bracket": Create a list of your 16 core values, compare them in pairs, and narrow it down to 1. It's a quick, intense tool for self-discovery during life transitions.

It took me all of this year to synthesize a decade's work into the 8 part "Accelerating Wisdom" series.

Each one features a world-class expert.

It’s free.

And it will take you less than a single working day to enjoy. Episode 1: How to accelerate expertise in business and life, thanks to a special lecture from @ejames_c theleading-edge.org/accelerating-w…

At the end of every year I look back on the previous 12 months and pull out the best things I’ve read, watched, or listened to.

Thread of 10: 1/10 This year’s theme was the mysterious power of curiosity.

It was also central to the best essay I read this year: How to do Great Work by @paulg paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

Finally got to read "Behind The Curtains of Buffett's Life with Alice Schroeder" by @NeckarValue.

MAKE TIME FOR IT TODAY.

In the oceans of ink spilled on the icon, Frederik unearths the human, helped by Schroeder's 2,000 hours of interviews.

Some highlights:

Last weekend's essay, "How To Do Great Work" by @paulg, is an absolute classic. It's at least a 60min read, but worth it.

Here are 11 insights that really resonated. 1. "Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what's worth paying attention to."

"Seven Summer Gems."

With the long weekend ahead of us, it’s time for my annual summer recommendations.

Here are some of the things I’ve enjoyed the most over the last year. 1. "Ed Thorp: My personal blueprint." @FoundersPodcast has profiled over 220 of the world’s most successful people. This wildly entertaining podcast explains how Thorp seems to have nailed a balanced life. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/222…

I spent the formative years of my career on a trading floor during the subprime crisis.

I learned 6 hard lessons that I still believe are true today. 1. Timeframes compress.

"Seeing the present clearly" becomes even more valuable than abstract forecasts.

This means finding people that really understand the relevant unsexy corners of market plumbing.

Something incredible is happening, and I'm only just starting to fully realise what it is.

It's worth paying attention to. We are in the middle of what @adam_tooze has called “the polycrisis”.

It’s resulting in environmental destruction, inequality, world wars, genocide, and nuclear arms races.

I've spent all of this year learning about "the pursuit of wisdom" and there's one core concept I just can't get out of my head.

👇 This is “RELEVANCE REALIZATION (RR).”

I find @vervaeke_john to be the most interesting voice of wisdom. One definition of RR he has used is:

“The ability to ignore vast numbers of options (hopefully poor ones) and focus on a small set of potentially fruitful ones.”

This year I spent about 2,000 hours exploring a single topic:

"The pursuit of wisdom."

"Wisdom" seems tightly correlated with both happiness and success. Here are 18 articles on ideas and tools I found interesting and useful.

👇 This time last year, we interviewed @dr_mcgilchrist about his masterpiece “The Matter with Things.” He argues we are approaching the world in a dangerously “left-hemispheric” way.

What it would mean to rebalance back toward right-hemispheric thinking? thekcpgroup.com/insights/insig…

Every year I look back on the previous 12 months and pull out the best things I’ve read, watched or listened to. A theme usually emerges from the exercise.

This year it was more obvious and more interesting than ever before. thekcpgroup.com/insights/the-i… Thanks to @BrettPAndersen for writing the best essay I read this year. A worthy challenge. Excited for you to hear his @InfiniteL88ps on 29th Dec. brettandersen.substack.com/p/intimations

Running through the more thoughtful strategists, looks like the long-term forecast is:

- Long EM
- Value over Growth
- Short Big Tech
- Long Commodities
- Long Active Management

Curious what you're all seeing and thinking... ...Our KCP view is slightly more nuanced (in a single picture):

Is this idea insane or obvious?

A short thread.

You have an infinite selection of potential romantic partners. So “attraction” is evolution’s way of narrowing the options. … but they have to “love” you back. Is is a two way relationship.

Why do other things not work in a similar way?

Random thoughts on the hidden value of Sherpas.

We think about a Sherpa as someone who guides you UP the mountain, to the glorious Everest summit selfie.... ...But 75% of falls happen coming back DOWN the mountain.

A good Sherpa is surely even more valuable on the descent.

Summer Reading.

Every year I compile some of my favourite recent pieces and highlight some consistently brilliant writers.

4 amazing pieces, 4 writers I pay for and some insightful people to follow.

PLEASE send me your favourites too!

👇 #1 "The Depths She’ll Reach" via @longlead (25 min read).

This isn’t an article as much as a full-blown multimedia experience. Without revealing too much, it’s about a free-diver’s path to personal redemption. I found it EXTREMELY moving. onjustonebreath.com

Eight of my favourite ever podcast episodes.

I'd be SUPER grateful if you added your own with a link below.

👇 Perhaps my fave ever. From earlier this year, @tferriss with @BoydVarty on the deeply resonant link between lion tracking and navigating life itself. A rare mix of hilarious stories and genuine wisdom. open.spotify.com/episode/4rxIDx…

Some incredibly resonant moments from what has rapidly become one of my favourite podcasts ever, @tferriss with @BoydVarty.

👇 "The first thing that you will have to do, if you want to go track a lion in the wild, is you will have to become super uncomfortable with unknowns... . All trackers operate using unknowns to almost bring them to life."

Two opposing concepts are exploding into mass consciousness right now.

They are "Moloch" and "Slack".

These terms were made famous by two remarkable Slate Star Codex articles.

If you can feel the world shifting right now, these are the poles it's moving between. Moloch is the Canaanite god of child sacrifice. And the subject of a chilling Alan Ginsberg poem.

The Slate Star article is the absolutely scariest thing I’ve ever read. It describes the emergent nature of evil.

Myths and Meaning.

Today: Moana. I've now watched this over 40x in the last 2 years. Because I'm a bad parent.

It's an absolutely archetypal Hero's Journey. So super interesting.

[Alessia Cara's How Far I'll Go is also objectively the best song in Disney history.] Moana is under pressure to be chief of her tribe. The drive to conform.

Her environment on the island starts deteriorating.

But her "heart" calls her to the ocean. "Love" as the force that moves us into exploit mode.

The call to adventure driven by increasing uncertainty.

A weirdly-timed article. "It cannot be emphasized enough, however, that signals permanently excluded from conscious processing as well as transitorily excluded signals such as non-attended sensory stimuli still have a massive impact on behavior." thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/meditation-and… "For complex problems with numerous entangled variables, it often turns out that subconscious processes lead to better solutions than conscious deliberations because of the wealth of heuristics exploitable by subconscious processing."

The Attention Span. “Articulate and Incompetent.”

As volatility rises, opinions multiply. Temperament and experience becomes more important.

What if there was a way you could enhance your emotional resilience, expert intuition and physical and mental health?

Oh look a 🧵👇! On Wall Street it’s widely accepted that pessimism sounds smarter and sells better. This is especially true during the kinds of volatile periods we’re experiencing right now.

It has also been a catastrophically bad long term investment strategy.