Circle Three 64 / Glorious
As the world awaits the financial heat death of the universe that seems to be around the corner, all eyes are (or should be) on the Phillies. Phillies winning the World Series has been the best recession signal of the past 100 years. Best stat I saw all week. Correlation and Causation strike again.
& a warm welcome to our new readers!
Contents:
brain bites: Psychology & Health
Leadership lessons from the world’s best CEOs.
Understanding Propaganda: A History of How You Get Fooled Daily
brain bites: Business & Investing
Monetary Policy is Non-Linear.
Peloton CEO Emails Employees
brain bites: Technology
Lyric: Glorious by Macklemore
brain bites: psychology & health
Understanding Propaganda: A History of How You Get Fooled Daily. Article ****here. What’s the difference between education and propaganda? Depends on what or who you believe. Successful propaganda creates action — it doesn’t have to be true — and it’s up to us as viewers/listeners/believers to remind ourselves that we are susceptible to it.
Simply put, propaganda tells you an idea is true, and then reinforces its assertion by fooling you into believing you came to the conclusion independently - or even better, that you had held the belief all along.
Interesting fact: the word ‘propaganda’ was first documented in 1622 by the Pope at the time.
Leadership lessons from the world’s best CEOs. Noteworthy stories to learn from as FirstWatch approaches the one year mark. TL;DR:
Recover and learn. React to pivotal moments — things will go wrong — but keep a broader view of where to go and how to course-correct for the future. Call it “stagility”: both stable and agile.
Resilience and faith. Getting to the truth and acting early can form the foundation to not get caught up in the role. I’ve gotten lost at times and need to recenter, so this particularly resonates. Trusting outside experts and being open with them can provide the needed perspectives.
Only a few key decisions matter. Dupont’s CEO said only 15 decisions that he made truly mattered in 23 years.
The “to be” list is just as important as the “to do” list.
And in the spirit of the mission of Circle Three:
Their embrace of learning started early. They were willing to try new things and in doing that gained experience. With experience comes pattern recognition and resilience, the ability to separate yourself from individual setbacks enough to see that the far side of failure is success if you reflect on the lessons.
brain bites: business & investing
Monetary Policy is Non-Linear. From Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory here. I like the comparison of biological anomalies to financial policy. And I agree that we have not seen the behavior change required to move the needle on inflation. But once it happens, it will happen non-linearly, potentially devastatingly.
The relationship between water density and temperature is non-linear, meaning – obviously enough – there’s not a straight line relationship between density and temperature. More importantly, though, the relationship between water density and temperature is non-monotonic, which means the relationship reverses at that magic point of 40 degrees F.
The relationship between Fed interest rate-setting and inflation is also non-linear and non-monotonic, and the magic point where that relationship reverses is somewhere (IMO) around 4.5%.
Peloton CEO Emails Employees. Published on February 8 this year. Sent during a difficult time, I like the email, but it’s a humbling reminder that change takes time and experimentation. The stock is down 78% since this was published.
brain bites: technology
Podcast.ai. Website here. Following the trend of “artificial intelligence is taking over the world,” this entire podcast interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs is AI-generated.
I try to keep this newsletter about articles thought pieces, but this was too mind-blowing.
Lyric: Glorious by Macklemore
There are a handful of lyrics that will come to mind regularly. The bold line below is one of them. Every time I mention the name of someone gone, their legacy is present. Kind of like the movie Coco.
I heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave
And the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your nameSo when I leave here on this earth, did I take more than I gave?
Did I look out for the people, or did I do it all for fame?I feel glorious, glorious
Got a chance to start again
I was born for this, born for this
It's who I am, how could I forget?
Cheers,
Dan