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.
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.
A Quick Poll
Many of our subscribers have been writing in, saying we must publish this newsletter mid-week or weekend rather than Monday, as Monday mornings are pretty hectic. We are happy to listen, take your feedback to improve and ensure the time you spend with our newsletter is valuable for you.
Machine Customers Will Decide Who Gets Their Trillion-Dollar Business. Is It You?
In this interesting article about technology trends by Gartner, the analysts mention that non-humans will decide large commercial transactions as more and more people start to use intelligent virtual assistants.
Here are some interesting trends that they talk about:
An autonomous car will know when it’s got a flat tyre and find the nearest repair shop for you. The car will book a service and send the store all the relevant details about itself. The car will ask if you want to place an order from a preferred restaurant and text your family, too!
For the first time in the history of humanity, companies will manufacture customers!
There are over 7 billion phones, tablets, PCs, smartwatches, smart speakers, and connected personal and commercial printers. Each of these has a steadily improving ability to analyse information and make decisions.
Read or download the article here.
Reflections From My Dinner With Charlie Munger
Last week, Charlie Munger, the legendary investor and right-hand man of Warren Buffet, passed away at the age of 99. David Senra, who reads biographies of entrepreneurs and helps you find ideas you can use in your work in the Founders’ Podcast, shared his experience on the dinner he had with Charlie Munger as a tribute to the legend.
Here are some thoughts and ideas for you to reflect on:
Being yourself, irrespective of where you are - at the office, at home, with colleagues, friends, investors, board members, etc.- is critical.
Charlie Munger was a biography nut and was a voracious reader. Reading and learning from the life of the dead was his way of getting himself ready for the world out there. Remember, knowledge compounds over time.
It took him 41 years to find his life’s passion!
‘Learning is not memorising information. Learning is changing your behaviour’.
Be indifferent to problems. They are a part of life! Try to learn much from history; remember, you cannot change human behaviour. They will keep repeating themselves. Wisdom is prevention.
Go for great. Surround yourself with great people.
Practice extreme patience. When you find a good business, act fast.
Listen to the entire podcast on:
Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Website
How We're Reverse Engineering The Human Brain In The Lab
In this mind-blowing TED talk, Neuroscientist Sergiu P. Pasca talks about how he has made it his life's work to understand how the human brain builds itself.
Here are the breakthrough science ideas he discusses in this video:
His team has figured out how to grow "organoids" and what they call brain "assembloids" -- self-organising clumps of neural tissue derived from stem cells.
These clumps of tissues, when brought together, can form circuits and communicate with each other.
He also explains how these tissues, when they come together, look like miniature parts of the nervous system. He hypothesises that this may be how the brain sends impulses between various parts of such tissues.
He believes the work he is doing at his lab is bringing us closer to demystifying the brain.
You can click on the video link and watch it.
Finding Simplicity In Complexity
Two contrarian views were expressed in this week’s articles. The leading research firm Gartner identified an emerging trend of machine customers over the next decade. They explain how machines will learn to infer our needs and make decisions on our behalf. On the other hand, the legendary investor and businessman Charlie Munger talks about going back in history and spending time with the dead by reading their autobiographies to learn from their lives. He talks about the fact that human behaviour is very difficult to change, and most situations of the past will keep repeating. You can make decisions when you have this wisdom, which gets compounded over time and also make informed decisions by learning from history.
Enhancing Your Power of Intuition, Observation and Perceptiveness
When machines start to augment humans in making decisions, one thing is sure - years of accumulated learning, individual behaviours, and collective behaviour of different people - often called federated learning will undoubtedly be valuable. Knowing when to use it and ignore it will become increasingly important.
Here are a few things you may want to consider and think about:
Not all decisions you make are rational and calculated. At the end of the day, humans are not machines. Sometimes, we don’t make the same decision for a similar problem as the person on the other side may be going through a challenging period, or you may be feeling a little different at that moment, or you may sense the environment and intuitively believe an alternative decision may help etc. The power of intuition, feeling and sensing the situation is something you must never lose. If at all, you must keep improving and get better at it.
When you rely more and more on machines to remember and make decisions, you tend to accumulate less and less information in your brain. Your ability to note and retain information, incidents, situations, moments, etc. and hence store these little episodic information or data depletes rapidly. This is what differentiated the likes of Charlie Munger from data-hungry investment analysts. He built an elephant memory of whatever he read and saw around him. Any amount of vast data can be analysed, but nothing can beat human observation and perceptiveness. You must only use complex algorithms to help and support your decision-making rather than letting them take over.
Not all data require the use of quantitative applications for making decisions. Most decisions often require a qualitative filter, and that is never stored in bits and bytes all the time. It’s fleeting and changing based on external factors. You then need to trust your instinct and train for that. You need to learn to allow the simplicity of your instincts to get the better of the complexity of algorithms.
Becoming more human(thro’ the application of observation, intuition, perceptiveness, etc.) when a majority of human beings become less and less human when making decisions can give you a competitive advantage.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Machine customers, through the help of intelligent assistants, will infer your needs and start making autonomous decisions on your behalf.
Nothing compounds like knowledge, not even money. When knowledge compounds, money can compound faster.
When you reverse engineer things, it helps you better understand how things work.