#51 Planck Knowledge & Stuff & Things
Fighting The War Against The Monkey Mind I nicpeterson.substack.com
Fighting the war against the Monkey Mind.
I haven’t been posting (here) as much, but I have been writing like a mad man. Most of it is buried deep into a Google Drive where it’s waiting to be improved, finalized and sent out as the Letter.1
If you’re a subscriber here, I’m guessing it’s because you like to read my stuff, or were at least interested enough to see what stuff (and things) comes next.
What comes next…?
What an interesting concept/question.
More on that later.
What’s more interesting to me is what’s in the rearview mirror2. Explained in the footnotes.
Here’s are some things in the rearview mirror that might help inform us of the next best step.
Planck Knowledge & Alignment.
Charlie Munger often says there are two types of knowledge. Here’s how he explained it in the 2007 Commencement to the USC Law School
I frequently tell the apocryphal story about how Max Planck, after he won the Nobel Prize, went around Germany giving the same standard lecture on the new quantum mechanics.
Over time, his chauffeur memorized the lecture and said, “Would you mind, Professor Planck, because it’s so boring to stay in our routine. [What if] I gave the lecture in Munich and you just sat in front wearing my chauffeur’s hat?” Planck said, “Why not?” And the chauffeur got up and gave this long lecture on quantum mechanics. After which a physics professor stood up and asked a perfectly ghastly question. The speaker said, “Well I’m surprised that in an advanced city like Munich I get such an elementary question. I’m going to ask my chauffeur to reply.”
We often refer to it colloquially as book smart vs street smart. In the Gray Wolf we’ll make the distinction between knowing about something and becoming it.
Munger continues:
In this world we have two kinds of knowledge. One is Planck knowledge, the people who really know. They’ve paid the dues, they have the aptitude. And then we’ve got chauffeur knowledge. They’ve learned the talk. They may have a big head of hair, they may have fine temper in the voice, they’ll make a hell of an impression.
But in the end, all they have is chauffeur knowledge. I think I’ve just described practically every politician in the United States.
And you are going to have the problem in your life of getting the responsibility into the people with the Planck knowledge and away from the people with the chauffeur knowledge.
And there are huge forces working against you. My generation has failed you a bit… but you wouldn’t like it to be too easy now would you?
When thinking about “What’s Next” I have been thinking more about “what am I leaving behind?”.
And the answer, I hope, is helping bring back “Planck knowledge” by encouraging people to engage the field and BECOME something instead of just knowing about it.
I’ve also realize that the best way for me to walk the walk is to 1) engage the field and 2) get in a position to answer the hard questions as often as possible. What does that mean? It means I’m sending less time presenting the sausage and more time making it - and I’m way happier this way.
In the short to medium term my priorities are:
Build our companies (engage the field)
Get into as much dialogue as possible to challenge by knowledge
Which means there are three primary types of content that will be produced:
Dialogue with others like podcast interviews or QnA
Over the shoulder look/view at what’s happening in realtime
The Letter. This is where the best of the best will go because building the Letter is part of my Engaging The Field.
I may never had pretty, polished, well presented video (except for other people’s interviews with me)… and that’s okay. It’s just not that important to me.
My Number One Productivity Tip.
This is from a decent interview with a podcast that’s going to be dropping soon. You'‘ll be able to see the whole thing on the Subscribe To Success podcast and newsletter platform when it’s live.
Full article and resources:
Try This Productivity Tip Now by The Guardian Academy and Dr Jeff Spencer
Wealth Strategy Secrets.
Dave Wolcott asked me to jam with him, so we fired up a zoom and had a convo about… whatever came up. You can listen to the entire episode here.
If I could have dinner with anyone…
Who saw that one coming?
Prompts.
Speaking of Planck knowledge and engaging the field.. one of the things we’ve been focused on for our educational companies is “Prompts” - little triggers to inspire action. Here’s an example:
Via Negativa.
Give the exercise a try. You can see the rest of last months prompts right here.
It’s strange sending a bunch of short form content. For many reasons, my heart belongs to long form (and physical product). But alas here we are - and if you found it helpful, all I ask is that you share it with someone like you.
THE LETTER
Above you will find links down all kinds of rabbit holes. Explore what is interesting to you, disregard the rest.
If you want one package a month delivered direct to your doorstep with everything you need to move the needle, get on the waitlist for The Letter. It’s a letter, but it’s so much more (IYKYK).
See you on the other side
Nic
PS. More rearview mirror stuff… many of my unlisted videos from deep in the archive are making their way to Man Bites Dog here.
Always love the introspection you share. Always helps me to re-identify center and move back toward it.
Always appreciate you, your writing and perspective.
As Dr. Jeff would say.... Onward and Upward!