What if you could predict the future?
What if you had invested $10,000 in GameStop stock when it was $4. The stock would go on to hit $400 a share, turning your $10,000 into $1 million. But was your decision brilliant or risky?
The series of events that came together to cause the stock price to rise so far beyond expectations was a series of incredibly low-probability events. There are likely many more versions our timeline where the stock didn’t rise to $400 or even dropped further.
We are taught to think of time as a series of linear events…
I used to play junior tennis. I lost a lot of matches, but the ones I won, I won by a large margin. The score would often be 6–0, 6–0 or a similarly one-sided score.
Why win by such a large margin? 6–0 is the same result as 6–4.
The reason is margin of safety. The difference between being up 2–0 serving vs. 1–1 is infinite. If you lead by 2 games you can afford to lose one game and still win the match.
While professional tennis players will continue to compete regardless of the score, junior tennis is heavily…
Showing my city
Seattle is a port city of contradictions. It is a technical utopia, home to some of the largest fortune 500 companies in the world including Amazon and Microsoft. At the same time it’s casual. In the 90s it was the birthplace of grunge rock. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix, Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, Postal Service, and many more hail from the quiet city.
There’s a phrase: pick a strategy, doesn’t matter which one, and stick to it. If it was that simple, then why doesn’t everyone do it?
Sticking to a strategy is really, really hard.
It’s easy to stick to a strategy when things are going well, but very hard when they aren’t. But sticking to the strategy when things aren’t going well is often the critical part of realizing value from the strategy.
Tennis example
Tennis is a fascinating game of strategy. For the most part, professional tennis players hold their serve. This means, winning a tennis match will come down whether you…
There’s a popular phrase in the startup world: find a situation where 1 + 1 = 3.
The idea is that you can take distinct components, put them together in a way where the sum is greater than the parts. This is a great way to think about value creation and probably the most talked about one.
Another point of view
Another point of view that is less discussed, but very common is the inverse: find a product of high value and figure out a way to deliver an equivalent experience for cheaper.
For example, with SpaceX, Elon Must found a cheaper way to…
I believe happiness is joy you feel pursing your potential. For me that is meaningful work and meaningful relationships.
I’m fascinated with the power of storytelling. It’s our ability to construct narrative from the seemingly random events of life. They can be the stories we learn about from history. They can be the stories we tell others. Perhaps most important, they can be the stories we tell ourselves. Those stories make us who we are.
I started writing on Medium just for me. A private online journal in the dark forest of the internet. As you get older, you start…
Roger Federer doesn’t look at the ball
When I first learned Roger Federer doesn’t look at the ball I was dismayed.
How could the best tennis player in the world not look at the ball? How do you hit the ball without looking at it? It sounds impossible.
Except it’s not. I started doing it and it’s amazing. Allow me to explain.
What should you look at?
I look at my racket to make sure it follows the path I have visualized in my mind. Other than making sure I make contact with the ball, I don’t look at the ball. …
The Myth
We picture important life decisions as memorable moments in time. As clear forks in the road. We can feel the sweat forming as we consternate over the the two paths in front of us before carefully choosing the correct one.
Many important decisions go by completely unnoticed.
There are millions of decisions you make every day, without realizing it. I’m not talking about active decisions like where to apply for work or what to major in. I’m talking about decisions aren’t even aware you are making. For example, investing $100 in a stock that could be the next Amazon. …
Passion isn’t an input, it’s an output
One of the most valuable commodities on earth is motivation. Pursuing our potential is what makes us feel alive. The phrase “find your passion” is misleading because passion is the output of doing doing meaningful work, not the other way around.
You can work for someone else and still be pursuing your passion
Some believe the spark for motivation has to come from within. They say if we are working for someone else, it cannot possibly be our passion. But that’s not true. Everyone is passionate about something and great leaders are experts in unlocking the unrealized motivation within an individual.
The truth is, working for someone else can be the easiest…
I came across a story from a woman writing about her marriage. She spoke about her husband who was always chasing big ideas. Failure after failure, he kept chasing those ideas. Throwing more and more money into the failed projects, each time rationalizing away the reason they had failed. “If only I had more time”, “If only people could have seen the potential”. But he kept chasing because he was convinced that he was always one step away from “making it”.
His wife tried to show him how rich his life already was. He had a family who loved him…
Gersh Payzer
Design, games, tennis, storytelling & motivation.
