Photo courtesy of fusion-of-horizons and Flickr
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
Last week I listened to Dave Rubin interviewing the brothers Bret and Eric Weinstein. The interview was fantastic. Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist who was recently in the news over a furore at Evergreen University. Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and the managing director of Thiel Capital, the investment firm behind some of the world’s biggest exponential organisations. They’re both incredibly deep and insightful thinkers, and during the interview Bret mentioned that if you spend a few hours exploring 4 or 5 key ‘games’ from game theory, it can really help you unweave many of the puzzles of day to day life. I reached out to Bret on twitter and asked him what games he suggested people study, and I was delighted that he got back to me right away with this (a reply that’s been retweeted 1600 times in the past few days):
“The most important patterns:
1. Prisoner’s Dilemma
2. Race to the Bottom
3. Free Rider Problem / Tragedy of the Commons / Collective Action
4. Zero Sum vs. Non-Zero Sum
5. Externalities / Principal Agent
6. Diminishing Returns
7. Evolutionarily Stable Strategy / Nash Equilibrium”
2. A fantastic interview with the Weinstein brothers
Here’s the interview I referenced above. Highly recommended! (Here’s the youtube version, but you can also listen to The Rubin Report wherever you get your podcasts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmXq97do-tQ
3. This week’s glimpse of the future
If you’ve seen the excellent Black Mirror episode, ‘Nosedive’, then you’ve already caught a glimpse of what the Harvard Business Review are referring to as ‘the reputation economy’. You’ll never look at Uber ratings the same way again! https://hbr.org/2018/01/as-ai-meets-the-reputation-economy-were-all-being-silently-judged?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
4. Something I’m learning as much as I can about
I’ve spent a bunch of time over the past few days diving in to game theory. Here’s my first port of call, “Game Theory 101” – a very comprehensive youtube course presented by William Spaniel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSVmOC_5zrE
5. This week’s 3 minute miracle
I still remember the night in 1994 when I had a ‘road to Damascus’ style conversion. My friend John and I had driven to Bristol, and he’d played a wretched house music album, “Renaissance: The Mix Collection” all the way there. It was a torment. That night, we went out to a club called Lakota and took ecstasy. We spent the night dancing and I fell in love with house music. The next day, that same album had magically transformed from wretched to astonishingly brilliant. I stopped taking ecstasy more than 20 years ago, but my love of the tunes remains. The first 15 minutes of disc 2 of Sasha and John Digweed’s masterpiece are still one of the best things I’ve ever heard in my life. Here it is (if you don’t like a dramatic buildup, start at 2 minutes in): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVrLSt5GGVo
That’s it for this week!
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart
Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PLUS: Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you get the clarity and results that matter to you:
1. Hire me to speak at your event
If you want an entertaining and impactful keynote speech or breakout session for your conference, offsite or town hall meeting, click here https://www.jamiesmart.com/book-jamie-to-speak-about/
2. Join the Profitable Coaches Group
Join the Profitable Coaches Professional Group and connect with the growing community of like-minded transformation professionals who are passionate about exponentially increasing their grounding, impact and their livelihood. You can join for free at https://www.jamiesmart.com/profitable/
3. Join Chip Chipman, Jan Chipman and me in Tenerife
Each year, my team and I head off to the Canary Islands for a week with my dear friends, colleagues and mentors Jan and Chip Chipman for the Clarity Life Transformation Retreat. We spend 5 days diving deep into the principles behind clarity, and lives transform in the process. If you’d like to find out more about it, If that’s you, email Nikki on info@jamiesmart.com and type “Tenerife” in the subject line.
4. The Thriving Coaches Blueprint
We’re putting together a new practice-building case study group at The Thriving Coaches Blueprint in March. Stay tuned for details… If you’d like to work with me and my team on growing your practice… email Nikki at info@jamiesmart.com and type “Thriving Coaches Blueprint” in the subject line.
PLUS: check these out :
Get your free Profitable Coaches Scorecard book www.JamieSmart.com/scorecard
Listen to the Results Mindset Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/resultspodcast
Listen to The Profitable Coaches Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/pcp
Read the first 2 chapters of my Sunday Times Bestseller RESULTS: Think Less, Achieve More www.JamieSmart.com/instantresults