Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best. It also enables you to draw a blueprint for what it takes to get extraordinary things done. You can share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation here.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession, to drive peak performance.
Death By Optimism.
James Stanier, CTO, Veterinary at Nordhealth, writes about an interesting concept, taking a leaf out of Charlie Munger’s thinking on inversion and applying it to software programming projects.
We all know how software development or IT projects can go out of control, despite all planning and contingency measures. James suggests applying the ‘inversion principle’ to software programming and IT projects.
What is ‘inversion principle’?
‘Thinking too optimistically is one of the reasons that we keep getting things wrong in software engineering. Can we instead use a pessimistic mental model? Rather than trying to work something out directly, you assume the opposite and work toward a contradiction.’
James writes, ‘Munger adapts this into practical situations: to succeed at an outcome, you should invert it by thinking about what would have to happen for you to fail, and then completely avoid all of those things in order to succeed.’ It’s about asking and preparing for questions like:
“What would make this an absolute disaster?”
“How could this fail without us knowing?”
“What if we need to roll this back at 3am?”
“What happens when real load exceeds our assumptions?”
“What if everything that we depend on breaks?”
“How could we break this ourselves?”
“Is it possible for us to corrupt or lose data?”
By asking many more questions like this, you can make the projects or programs you lead better, safer, and more resilient.
Read the entire article here.
Charlie Munger: The Psychology Of Human Misjudgment.
Why do smart people make bad decisions?
Shane Parrish, Founder, Farnam Street, shares some of the learnings that Charlie Munger shared in his legendary talk, where he outlined 25 psychological tendencies that quietly distort how we think. These are lessons distilled by Charlie Munger after years of studying history and observing how many intelligent people think, often quickly jump to conclusions and make decisions that may not look right in hindsight. But the harsh truth is that this happens again and again when you study history!
How do you insulate yourself and be extremely mindful of these behaviours to avoid misjudgement? Listening to this episode is a must for you. It contains invaluable insights and advice.
Listen to this episode on:
AI And The Future Of India’s IT Giants | Dr. Vishal Sikka | dAIlogues by Stellaris.
Alok Goyal, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, is in conversation with Dr Vishal Sikka, a technologist, founder and one of the most influential thinkers in enterprise software.
Here are some key concepts Vishal Sikka talks about:
Challenges of AI and the issue of its answer accuracy.
What is enterprise-grade AI, and why is it important for legacy organisations to adopt this thinking?
The opportunity for AI + Services for Indian IT services firms.
Does India still have an advantage in the AI race, or has it been left behind?
The impact of AI - AI and the threat to mass unemployment, or AI opening up new employment and business model opportunities.
You can click on the above link and watch the video.
Become A Pragoptimist.
It is not uncommon to see articles and videos about ‘positive’ mental talk, ‘positive’ self-talk, ‘positive’ affirmations, ‘positive’ attitude, etc. At the other end is pessimistic thinking, where people tend to imagine undesirable outcomes, dwell on negative aspects of situations, and blame themselves for failures, etc. But James Stainer’s article and Charlie Munger’s talk on the psychology of human misjudgement raised some interesting ideas and thoughts.
To avoid misjudgments and not be swayed by biases, perceptions, or herd mentality, it is important to develop yourself into a ‘Pragoptimist’, which is nothing but ‘optimism fueled by practicality and grounded assessment.’ What differentiated Charlie Munger from others is his ability to stay grounded and pragmatic. This is despite some of the missed opportunities he may have had in life, while maintaining the ability to look at the future positively, leaving his mistakes behind and striving hard not to miss any opportunities that may arise in the future.
The other capability Charlie Munger seems to have built is learning from others and also studying their success journey. It developed in him a deep sense of belief that ‘success creates its own biases and not falling for it.’ Therefore, he concluded that success creates an ‘Excessive Self-regard’ tendency and a tendency for ‘overoptimism’. And consequently, there is a critical need to guard ourselves against it.
What does it take to be a ‘Pragoptimist’?
Refuse blind idealism and incessant pessimistic thinking.
Have optimism that’s not naive at its core but gets filtered through an understanding of constraints and available evidence.
Develop ‘evidence-led hope’ in anything that you do. Before scaling an idea, run small experiments to validate your hypothesis and assumptions.
Ability to spot an opportunity in reality.
Learn to act with imperfect information.
Spot and moderate overly rosy projections without killing ambition.
Understand and learn to appreciate that progress comes through movement, not ideal or perfect plans.
Learn to see failure not as a dead end but as validation and feedback from the market or your assumptions.
Remain steadfast in your long-term beliefs even when there is volatility in the short-term.
Use optimism as a motivation, not as a justification.
In one of the ContraMinds Podcast episodes, Rajesh Jain defined an entrepreneur not as a risk-taker but as a risk minimiser.
As a ‘pragoptimist’, you must develop the ability to craft a bold vision while aligning it with execution milestones.
Therefore, to be a ‘pragoptimist’, best-case scenarios must inspire you, proactively ‘worst-case’ scenarios must prepare you for the unexpected and most-likely scenarios must act as a kind of a guide or an anchor for you.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
To succeed at an outcome, invert it by thinking about what would have to happen if it were to fail.
Become aware of psychological forces that can disrupt your thinking.
Enterprise-grade AI has the potential to solve the challenge of AI’s answer accuracy.