Some people want to be an olympian, I want to be a mental decathlete
/By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time: 5 mins
One Sentence Summary: I want to be the best at getting better, specifically the best at getting from Level 0 => Level 10.
“Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally.” Sam Altman.
At first this sounded ridiculous to me… then I slowly changed to think it was ridiculous to not aim to be the best in the world at what you do professionally.
*note: this isn’t necessarily how everyone wants to spend their life and I think that is totally fine. I only want to aim to be the best during my work hours, olympic athletes don’t train 7 days a week, so high performance needs no performance? I’ve written about Relax Mode vs Work Mode, I think I’m better at work mode than relax mode :(.
Anecdote: I remember when I started at a fund manager at 25 years old, my boss was 47 and knew more about basically everything. If I recall correctly he called himself a ‘post marxist neo keynesian’ and said that I ‘didn’t know much about post modern critical thought’. The truth was a lot worse than this, I didn’t know what marxism was, what keynesianism was, or postmodernism. It was classic Dunning Kruger, I didn’t know enough to know how little I knew. He was so far ahead of me in terms of knowledge acquisition and mental acumen that I had no idea how far ahead he was.
In hindsight, talking to him about the world was like being a ‘one legged man in an ass kicking contest’. I literally didn’t even have the tools to step to the plate.
IMO the way I talk about education academic research and pedagogy is unrecognisable from even 18 months ago. Eg 18 months ago Duncan wouldn’t understand the conversations Today Duncan has about pedagogy. This is kind of like 25 year old Duncan having no idea about postmodernism.
Jingle: some people want to be an olympian, I want to be a mental decathlete.
1. Problem solving ability = 2. Generic problem solving ability * 3. Broad useful Knowledge * 4. Problem space knowledge (blog on a previous generation of this equation here)
2. Generic problem solving / innovation skills
See below for a more extensive list.
I think ‘generic innovation skills’ are the tools with which you can go from L0=>L10 in a new area. I know this is mixing terminology a bit, but I think you want to get to L100 in ‘generic innovation skills’ as, again, they are the way to get from L0=>L10 in a new area.
3. Broad useful knowledge
I have found knowing something about politics is super important, knowing something about economics, about sociology, about as many different types of people as possible, mental health, management, emotional intelligence, etc etc.
Basically getting to ~L1-L5 knowledge in as many fields as possible can have mega 2nd order positive impacts for me. It’s also much fun!
I wrote a blog with some thoughts on how I try to read: Diverse Reading vs Undiverse Reading AKA Building Knowledge vs Digesting Facts.
4. Problem space knowledge = industry specific knowledge
While I think it’s good to be at L1-L5 knowledge in as many fields as possible I do think there are some fields where you want to be L100. For instance, Edrolo a company I co-founded is in the education space, I want to know more about education academic research than anyone else and I want to go to more schools and observe more classrooms than anyone else ever. I want to be the best in the world at this.
Decathlete was just after the olympic sport, not a specific go at 10 being the right number skills or areas to be good in. Below is a list of ‘generic innovation skills’ I put together, not necessarily some definitive list. I’d back all of these skills as super important for problem solving / innovating… but that doesn’t mean they are the most important ones or the only ones I think... one needs. One needs lots.
Generic innovation skills list:
Sequential screening (mapping process from start to finish)
Finding multiple complementary lenses to also MECE through (eg bigger problems likely should have multiple lenses)
Making equations, another blog on making equations (aka thinking strategically)
Crunching equations that represent the real world inside of spreadsheets. IMO you can convert anything into an equation and crunch it in a spreadsheet, it’s obviously an abbreviation of sorts but it’s normally very enlightening.
Making user personas and getting to understand each persona and why they act the way they do better than the actual people in the persona grouping. I try to understand the people we are trying to help better than they understand themselves!
Synthesis => writing ability. A blog on this, another blog on this, another blog blogging… and another. Yeah, I think your ability to ‘write’ is the best indication of your ability to think / synthesize, innovate.
No Hacks: “There is no easy way. There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.” – Jocko Willink
I’m unsure of how to jump levels. I am aware of how to systematically upgrade, you just do the work!
Reading, thinking, talking, writing and building.
IMO no one is born ‘the best in the world at anything mental’. IMO what the best do isn’t hard, it’s the outcome of hard work.
If you don’t work, nothing will.
If you are wondering, I read the equivalent of one book's worth of information before 8am every day. I wrote about 500,000 words in 2020… and people say I can talk under water!
Aiming to be the best, the only acceptable goal? For some, I hope so.
For myself, doing the work to try to level up to be the best = lots and lots and LOTS of fun!