Business
I’m excited to announce a mini-series double header. They will be called “The Easy Series” and “The Hard Series.” These will be punchy episodes focused on giving you themes to ponder, threads to pull, and stories to remember. Arthur Schopenhauer said: Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see. This quote gets at the core of strategy. There are two paths: the easy way and the hard way. And there’s a time and place for both! Each is based on avoiding prisoner’s dilemma and exploiting non-crowded (and therefore high-yield) channels. The Easy Way: Use Perception The Easy Way is only “easy” because it’s the hidden target. It’s represented by the target no one can see. To paraphrase Howard Marks, all it takes to be a great investor is superior insight. Sure—but how do we get that superior insight? We need to be able to perceive the truth—to find what’s retrospectively obvious. We’ll call it “easy” because it uses the brain instead of using pain. The difficulty is understanding the principles and seeing where to apply them. Luckily, we can largely steal these principles from the smartest people ever to walk the Earth. Then it’s generally a process of turning over rocks to see what we find underneath. When you think of “The Easy Way,” think “we copy them,” as in—the greatest to play the game. (“Easy” might be a bit of a misnomer, but let’s go with it.) The Hard Way: Use Pain On the other hand, “The Hard Way” is the target no one else can hit. It’s totally obvious what we have to do. These are the things that everyone knows yet no one does. It’s generally as simple as “this is so painful that no one else will be able to do it.” We’ll call it “hard” because it uses pain—not the brain. These things are generally slogs. Uncomfortable processes with long time horizons. Frustrating, painful, and tedious. What’s the upside? Most people can’t stand to do them. So yes—competitors could copy us—but they probably can’t stand actually doing it. The hard way is where the rubber meets the road. When you think of “The Hard Way,” think “they can’t copy us.” Why? Because it’s too painful. Support Links Rate and review the podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategy-chain/id1492935567 Find Amazon affiliate links at http://strategychainpodcast.com/support Send me questions at http://strategychainpodcast.com/contact Sign up for the email list at http://strategychainpodcast.com/ Social Media @strategychain (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Medium)