Staying True To Your Instincts And Conviction.
Edition #153
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 and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please 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.
Truth In Artificial Intelligence
In this brilliantly written and thought-provoking article, Prof. Vasant Dhar argues why it is ironic that truth has become an afterthought as AI has gotten smarter.
Here are some interesting thoughts for you to think about and reflect on from the article:
“When I got into the field in the late 70s, logic was a major part of the AI paradigm for representing knowledge. Truth plays a big role in logic. The AI systems of the 70-s and 80s were mostly based on variations of this type of logical reasoning.”
“The centre of gravity of AI began to tilt towards machine learning in the late 80s and 90s, with the maturing of database technology, the emergence of the Internet, and the increasing abundance of observational and transactional data.”
“AI became much more statistical and adopted future predictive ability as the primary criterion for something to count as knowledge.”
“LLMs have learned to predict the next word in a sequence very well, based on the vast amounts of freely available text data on the Internet to train from.”
“Modern AI has been designed without a purpose other than to carry out a human-like conversation about anything.”
“Does the level of general intelligence in AI pass the famous Turing test? In this test, we must determine whether a response to a question is coming from a human or a machine.”
“The larger problem is that Machine Intelligence and truth have parted ways on the march towards human-like general intelligence.”
“For one thing, it is impossibly difficult for humans to specify everything they know about a subject, let alone express it in logic or rules. Much of our knowledge is also tacit, and we seem to invoke it on demand in all kinds of creative ways.”
Read the entire article here.
Truth About Forced Savings
This conversation may include many American tips for investing in various asset classes, which you can ignore. Still, it reveals the truth about why discipline is essential and what forced savings can do. In conversation with Steven Bartlett, the legendary Scott Galloway shares some compelling insights on why you need to develop a forced savings habit.
Here are some key thoughts shared by Scott during the conversation:
“If you can, force savings. 98% of us will spend everything we get our hands on. It is very hard to have the discipline to take money that is within your grasp and invest it.”
“Realize there's some things you can't control, focus on the things you can control. One thing that is within your control is spending.”
“Develop a savings muscle.”
“The way you get a million pounds is by investing that 500.”
“Most young people don't have the discipline to invest any money they get their hands on.”
“We don't believe we're going to get old. We don't recognize how fast time is going to go. We don't appreciate the power of compound interest.”
“Find forced savings mechanisms that are taken out of your check.”
The key takeaways about forced savings are already summarised here. But if you still want to listen to the conversation, you can do it through the links below too:
At Home With the Billionaire CEO Behind Airbnb
In this free-wheeling chat with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Originals, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shows his other side. This is more about the man, his beliefs, his value system, and his drive and motivation than the ‘perfect, clean, and right image' corporate CEO persona we usually read or see in the media about CEOs. It is genuinely refreshing.
Here are some thoughts that captured our imagination and inspired us. You, too, can get inspired:
“I don’t want to be this ivory tower CEO.”
“People aren’t just numbers. People are people. You need to be emotionally connected to what you are doing.”
“I am less of visionary than expeditionary.”
“Most tech companies try to understand the laws of physics. We need to understand a law of a different nature - human nature.”
“The lessons that pandemic taught me - who people really are, I learnt to focus and point every single person to one single direction, I learnt to stop apologising to people about how I want to run the company the way I want..”
“Your culture is forged in your darkest moments.”
“I stopped obsessing over making money, and we ended up generating $ 3.5 billion of free cash flow. There is a paradox there…”
“You are always what you are growing up.”
“The details are the details. They make the product. I am absolutely involved in the details.”
“Simplifying something is not removing something, but it is getting to the essence of something.”
“ I started as an artist, then a designer and then an entrepreneur.”
“The way you make something people want is to care about people.”
“ A great leader has to be in the details of the people.”
“A lot of CEOs don’t write anything they have their name on.”
“The discipline of being in a tough environment teaches you something.”
“You need to marry the best of the digital technology with the best of the physical world.”
“The new things that we are going to be doing are about bringing people together.”
“As long as you are in a constant state of becoming, changing and growing, you are going to be ok.”
“How can you believe greatness until you see it.”
You can watch the entire conversation by clicking on the above link.
Staying True To Your Instincts And Conviction.
Believing, thinking and making decisions based on your instincts and convictions seem to be the hardest things to do when you start working. The degree of difficulty to use them becomes even more challenging when you become a leader, founder, or CEO, as you need to ‘appease’ many stakeholders - investors, employees, board members, etc.- which Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky has shared candidly, too. He emphatically states that none of the CEOs ‘write’ their company statements that are released while their names are on them! This raises questions about these people having enough leverage to act using their instincts and conviction.
Why does this happen?
Fighting hard to preserve and protect their professional position: When people don’t drive the correct long-term strategic agenda as their own agenda for the firm, which they feel convinced about, they slowly stay away from putting their necks on the line. Putting their neck on the line involves taking a ‘call’ on the strategy, making space for informed risk-taking, maybe taking a contrarian position vis-a-vis stakeholders' views, lacking learning and focusing on diligent execution irrespective of complete buy-in from others, etc. The pressure to comply with many stakeholders, even though they may feel it is incorrect, the potential risk of being blamed for the failure and a dent in an individual’s reputation deter them from doing it. They live every day to retain and stay in that position rather than make the right decisions for the business.
The most fundamental challenge is a visible decline in personal stake while driving the agenda. Leaders go through the motions when the approach turns into ‘Do-as-directed’ or ‘Delivering-to-consensus decisions’. Even a slight deterioration or decay in acting without conviction and not using their sharp, professional instincts leads to poor motivation, involvement, commitment and a reduced quality of decision-making. This eventually snowballs into a crisis over time. Alternatively, when they start feeling suffocated and find less flexibility to apply their instincts, it is also a signal to take some hard calls, which many resent or stay away from doing.
Inability to stay the course with patience: Instinct and conviction, when deployed as actions, can take time to play out. This may lead to conflict with other stakeholders, leading to severe criticisms when things don’t go as planned or committed in the near term. This can also lead to pushback from all stakeholders. Not being affected by these distractions and noise is essential.
Not able to let go: The inability to let go is a massive barrier, as people carry a notion of ‘emotional investment’ and ‘past success and reputation’ in their heads. Hence, when efforts are being made in the company contrary to their instincts and convictions, the strength to walk away after sufficiently influencing and continuously nudging the stakeholders without any success is key.
Forget their roots: The willingness to start all over again allows people to break free of all the shackles they have in their minds. Leaders don’t live in their own bubble when they develop this mindset. These kinds of people, therefore, strive to understand what’s happening on the ground, are open to their common biases and mistakes, have a realistic view of problems, and don’t get swayed by opinions and sycophants around them. They have considerable strength to speak their minds to stakeholders and make decisions. The ones who forget the roots continue to stay in the bubble.
Try being yourself in any situation and surround yourself with people who are comfortable being themselves. This can not only make a big difference to your ambitions and aspirations but also lead to professional fulfilment.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Truth is increasingly becoming an afterthought as AI gets more smarter.
What matters for wealth creation is not what you earn but what you save over time.
Try to understand the ‘Laws of human nature’ as much as you learn to understand the ‘Laws of physics.’