Fellow traveler,
One of my most memorable lessons has been from Warren Buffett’s wise partner, Charlie Munger who has been credited for this saying: “It's remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”
In other words, one of his ‘tricks’ to making quality decisions is not brilliance. It’s just avoiding stupidity.
You’ll find this episode of The Joy List exploring the spectrum of making good decisions - and more importantly, avoiding bad decisions. If you do find it worthwhile, be kind to share with three people in your circle.
With joy,
Damola
Worth reading
> “Being influenced by the actions of people who are playing a different game than you are. The idea that advice can be good for one person and terrible for another is rarely obvious. Taking your cues and advice from people with different goals, abilities, and desires than you is an easy road to misery. But it’s common, because smart people you look up to tell you it’s good advice. The number of things that are true for everyone…is small; everything else is just figuring out how much risk you want to take and what you want out of life, which is different for everyone.” — Common Causes of Very Bad Decisions
> “We are master storytellers. We tell ourselves fanciful stories to motivate ourselves to get vast amounts of work done in small amounts of time. We jot down task after task after task, sure that we can complete them all within a standard workday. And yet, at the end of the day, we’re stunned to find that work remains unfinished and we have to dash to the finish line. We’re not deliberately deceiving ourselves about what we can do with our time. But despite past evidence, in the moment our predictive engines gum up, and we’re convinced we’ll be able to achieve the extraordinary in an ordinary day….
When we depend on magical thinking to vanquish the tyranny of the clock, we diminish our capacity to get things done. By realistically confronting our fantasies, we increase our ability to make extraordinary progress without supernatural effort.” — Be More Realistic About the Time You Have
> “Most of us can observe and react accordingly. But to truly learn from our experiences, we must reflect on our reactions. Reflection has to be part of your process, not something you might do if you have time. Don’t use the excuse of being too busy or get too invested in protecting your ego. In short, we can’t learn from experience without reflection. Only reflection allows us to distill experience into something we can learn from to make better decisions in the future…The rule is to be less busy, keep a learning journal, and reflect every day.” — Avoiding Bad Decisions
> Your relationships are a major place to avoid bad decisions. Don’t chase passionate love, rather, go for what psychologists call “companionate love”—love based less on passionate highs and lows and more on stable affection, mutual understanding, and commitment.” The Kind of Love that Makes People the Happiest
> Finally, this is an exploration of the psychological risk of meditation which I came across earlier. As some of you may have noticed, we have talked about the positive effect meditation has. Out of curiosity, it is pleasant reading about the risks too.
Announcement from Joy, Inc.
> Nigerian Singer, songwriter, and performing artiste, Tobechukwu Victor Okoh, popularly known as Peruzzi, is our guest on #WithChude this week.
Watch his soulful conversation with Chude today at 9:00 pm WAT, on TVC Entertainment.
A repeat broadcast will be on Wazobia Max on DSTV Channel 259, as well as GOTV channel 98, Star Times Channel 195, and on Terrestrial TV - at 5:00 pm on Sunday. And on Pop Central Station on DSTV Channel 189 - at 8:00 pm on Wednesday. And on Ebony Life TV on Star Times satellite channel 191 and digital terrestrial channel 107 - at 7:30 pm on Thursday.
The extended play podcast is up at 10:00 am Wednesday morning. Search for #WithChude wherever you get your podcast.
> Know someone that needs help and needs someone to talk with? You can connect them with The Joy Hub. Have them call 0700-THE-JOY-HUB (0700-843-569-482).
> Let us support the work you do by giving you access to host your meet-up and sessions at The Joy Hub. Interested? Let's talk :).
Worth thinking about
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” – Elisabeth Kübler Ross