“Buying Go [Airline] will produce a 100 per cent step-change in growth by bringing expansion more quickly and smoothly,” said Webster (Easy Jet CEO) P81
“This is a cash positive transaction for us”. P104
Icelandair Air purchased 8.4% stake in easyJet. This is an example of how purchasing shares in other peoples companies may provide the best return on investment. P194
The most intolerant wins. The dominance of the stubborn minority.
The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in ways not predicted by its components. The interactions matter more than the nature of the units. Studying individual ants will almost never give us a clear idea of how the ant colony operates. For that, one needs to understand an ant colony as an ant colony, no less, no more, not a collection of ants. This is called “emergent” property of the whole, by which parts and whole differ because what matters are the interactions between such parts. And interactions can obey very simple rules. P69.
The minority rule explains why a small intransigent minority of people (with a high level of intolerance / skin in the game) will even at a small level of 3 or 4 % of the population dictate the behaviour of the whole population.
For instance nearly all soft drinks that are sold are Kosher in the USA. Very few people actually want Kosher food. But those people who do want it wont eat anything else. The majority don’t really care if the food is Kosher or not as such they simply accept it when it is. It is therefore easier for shops to stock and drinks company to sell drinks that everyone can buy. The preference for Kosher is therefore imposed on the majority even though the majority have no preference for it.
The whole population submits to the dominance of the minority because the majority do not care enough and do not have enough invested to fight the minority on their preference. The minority who feel deeply about the issue are prepared to change their behaviour and create disruption for the majority so causing behaviour change in the majority.
Therefore, influencing a small highly motivated, active group can lead to the whole population to adopt positions they otherwise would never take. (think USA gun control, USA rules on campaigns finance etc) (my summary of ideas P69 -74).
Don’t give crap. Don’t take crap.
Start by being nice to every person you meet. But if someone tries to exercise power over you, exercise power over him. P22
You can criticise either what a person said or what a person meant. The former is more sensational, hence lends itself more readily to dissemination. The mark of the charlatan… is to defend his position or attack a critic by focusing on some of specific statements (“look what he said”) rather than blasting his exact position (“look at what he means” or, more broadly, “look at what he stands or” – for the latter requires an extensive grasp of the proposed idea. P181
It can be useful to consider that many superstitions and beliefs exist and have remained in place because they provide some benefit in their outcome rather than the fact they are logically valid. Thus the value in many beliefs is in their outcomes not their logic. (my summary)
In real life, belief is an instrument to do things, not the end product. This is similar to vision: the purpose of your eyes is to orient you in the best possible way, and get you out of trouble when needed, or help you find prey at a distance. Your eyes are not sensors designed to capture the electromagnetic spectrum. Their job description is not to produce the most scientific representation of reality rather the most useful one for survival. P213
We can not possibly measure and assess everything as if we were a computer; we therefore produce, under evolutionary pressures, some short-cuts and distortions. Our knowledge of the world is fundamentally incomplete, so we need to avoid getting into unanticipated trouble. And even if our knowledge of the world were complete, it would still be computationally near-impossible to produce a precise unbiased understanding of reality. P216
I have shown in Antifragile that making some types of errors is the most rational things to do, when the errors are of little cost, as they lead to discoveries. For instance, most medical “discoveries” are accidental to something else. An error free world would have no penicillin no chemotherapy…. Almost no drugs and most probably no humans. P217
Lets consider a betting at a casino. For the sake of argument lets say that 1% of gambler go bust. If you gamble at the casino over the same time window then you will also have the same chance of going bust at the casino. But if you gambled every day for 100 days. You go bust on day 28 so now there is no longer a day 29. By increasingly the time line of the bets you increase you chances of going bust to almost 100%.
Many recommendations fail to take into account the impact of time on risk. That is to say you get continually exposed to the risk. They also fail to take into account that you will likely to be unable continue after you have become the victim of this risk.
So recommendations based on the long term results of the financial market. You can not expect to match the average of the market because at some point something is likely to happen to get in the way of you doing so and so prevent you continuing. This may for instance be because you need to reduce your exposure due to losses or something in your personal life stops you such as a divorce.
We can not apply cost benefit analysis to situations that have a defined stop in them. (going bankrupt at a casino or getting shot when betting on Russian roulette). The stop point means that you can not calculate an expected return because if you keep playing you hit a stop point (death in Russian roulette) meaning expected returns are not calculable.
People confuse risk of ruin with variations and fluctuations. In other words can you keep playing. If so then risks may actually be beneficial. Even when the risks are in volatile situations. You want to gain the benefits of risk without hitting the down side of an end point. (summary ideas from P.223 -233)
The book looks at how clubs value players in sport. The characteristics that are valued by clubs often did not reflect the characteristics that lead to results. Thus characteristics that were valuable (such as on base percentage) were undervalued.
Clubs often overvalued things that actually had impact on performance like whether or not a player appeared confident or had a good looking playing style. The statistical data showed that these measures were flawed. Leading some players undervalued. Such as having emotional problems, being physically small or being overweight. But if the data shows their actual performances these perceived weakness are irrelevant the actual performance is what counts.
Instead the Oakland As looked at statistical data. This eliminated the inaccurate and flawed judgements of individuals. It also eliminated biases such as the Availability Heuristic which lead scouts to make judgements based on recent performances. Or from limited viewing in a small number of games. Where as the long term statistical data is far more revealing of what is actually going on. This also tackled the fact that people tend to over value their own experience as if it is the most valid. Taking emotion and bias out of the equation with statistics eliminates these biases.
This insight lets us understand that perhaps the way we look at people is biased and may not lead us to getting the best options based on our own biases. We might unfairly discriminate against an older worker, someone who is quiet, or someone who seems overweight when in fact this bears no relation to their performance. We may therefore unwittingly miss out on the best options in favour of options that appear good on the surface. We don’t have statistical data like baseball clubs do but we could perhaps place a greater weight on past performance as an indicator of future performance. If we want an innovator for example we should probably look for someone who on close inspection has implemented lots of innovations in their career history. Not someone who talks about innovation at interview and sounds good at interview but can not back it up with a proven history of action. We might also consider that people who are not sociable or do not interview well may in fact be good employees but this fact is disguised by the process we choose to use to select them.
(Summary of the book [above] and my thoughts on it).
It is the process that matters not the outcome. People tend to overvalue outcomes and disregard process. But if a player gets the desired result by doing the wrong thing this is actually something that will hurt you in the long term. (eg running when they shouldn’t but getting way with it) But a player who fails when doing the right thing will befit you in the long term (getting caught out when doing a statistically safe move). The fact that luck and factors out of your control means that something that does not work out should not necessarily lead to a change of course. Instead you need to focus on the correct process and understand that luck means that even the correct process won’t work all the time. But sticking to the correct process will lead to greater success in the long term. P 146. (paraphrase and own notes on idea)
It is very hard to teach certain skills. Even when you try to drill it into people. For instance, it is very hard to make someone disciplined who is not with in a work environment. It may be simply better to hire for these skills if they are important to you. Acknowledging that other skills may be more easily taught such as product knowledge so someone who lacks them than basic personal skills. P148 (idea developed by me)
Bill Beane did not watch the games of the Oakland As : “All they provide me with is subjective emotion and that can be counterproductive” (P245 – quote) Instead he focused on non-subjective data (statistics).
Peter Drucker suggested the question “ If we did not do this already, would we, knowing what we know now, go into it?” P69
Do not embrace a strategy with out understanding the conditions in which it succeeds or fails. Certain approaches are not necessarily good or bad but may be situationally dependant. (P91 Idea Re-Written)
Social influence has a significant impact on buying patterns. Therefore small differences in the initial purchase patterns and therefore visible “status” to customers makes a massive difference to overall lifetime sales. P 113 (Idea Re-Written) fffffffff
Consider using free-lance reps, wholesalers and distributors to sell products for you. Go direct to local shops.
Produce cash flow forecasts.
The smaller you are the more important it is to look professional.
Discounts. Sliding scales are a bad idea as distributors sit on the sales until they hit the next level of discount. Look at a flat discount.
Response rate changes with approach. Just mail may get 2%, Phone only 2-10%, Mail then phone 2 – 15%, Phone then mail 5-15%, Phone then mail then phone 10 -20%. (according to Calcom Group) P108.
Combining different advertising methods towards the same customer increases response.
Fulfilment centres can be paid to distribute flyers with products they send out.
Marketing like war is a zero sum game. If you want something you have to take it from someone else. In order for someone to win, someone has to lose. P35 So you have to be a competitor you need to be prepared to make waves and upset people.
If you your two favourite foods together they don’t taste twice as good. In fact they probably taste worse. Marketing people need to learn the same lesson. More is less. You can’t have more than 100%. You can’t add something without taking something away. That’s why propositions need to be single minded so 100% of your marketing spend is on the main message. P40. (paraphrased)
An advertising problem always involves the question, how do we get someone to do (or think) what we want? So the simple equation is always “What’s in it for them?”. P49
If we want something that works for them we need to forget about what works for us. P55
It doesn’t matter what went in to it. It matters what people get out of it. P63
There are loads of ads I love but I don’t buy the product. Does that mean advertising doesn’t work? We if you believe that advertisings job is to sell things to people they don’t want then no it doesn’t work. But if you view it as a way of persuading people who are interested, to give you an edge over your competitors then it does work. P74 (idea re-written in my words)
Criticism is not always negative. I can mean that someone thinks you are worth investing time in to improve. P 84 (idea re-written)
We are only ever talking to one person (an individual customer). When we communicate via media. P113 (idea re-written)
Don’t let other peoples view of what is reasonable stop you. Come to your own conclusions. P246 (idea re-written)
“Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” P194 (quoting a common saying)
As Aristotle wrote a long, long time ago, and I’m paraphrasing here, the goal is to avoid mediocrity by being prepared to try something and either failing miserably or triumphing grandly. Mediocrity is not about failing, and it’s the opposite of doing. Mediocrity, in other words, is about not trying. The reason is achingly simple, and I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (p. 8)
pick a goal, make a realistic plan to reach that goal, work through each step of the plan, and repeat. (p. 12)
Some people learn to lose. Others lose and learn. The latter is a much better approach in my opinion because it focuses the mind on the positives and keeps your thoughts away from the negatives. One of my favorite Japanese proverbs is “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” (p. 25)
There’s me in a hostile environment, when I need to be hard and without pity, and then there’s me when I’m in relaxed surroundings. There’s quite a difference . . . At the end of high school, I stopped talking to people, stopped connecting and just focused on myself. I discovered a darker side, a darker place in my existence. I’m not sure exactly how to explain it. I just think it was part of my evolution. I’ve been a good and nice person at times, and it has helped me win opportunities, and other times I’ve been pitiless because that’s what the situation demanded of me. (p. 38)
I was making decisions. Train instead of party. Work instead of play. Perfect practice instead of casual repetition. (p. 40)
One of the lessons I learned in all those years of practicing karate is that progress only comes in small, incremental portions. Nobody becomes great overnight. Nobody crams information if he wants to be able to use it over the long term. (pp. 71-72).
Think about climbing a mountain. If you decide you’re going up Everest, you don’t start with a sprint. You’ll never make it out of base camp if you do that. The secret is twofold: make sure your approach is consistent and steady so that you can maintain the progress you’re making as your journey continues. (pp. 73-74)
The kind of practice we participated in is called randori. Essentially, it means freestyle practice of one-on-one sparring. The goal is to resist and counter the opponent’s techniques. The Japanese translation of the word randori is “chaos-taking,” or “grasping freedom.” Well, they almost fought over me. I suffered my share of whoopings. I ate a lot of randori, let’s say. I was really discouraged at first, but I went there to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to learn the art of fighting on the ground from the experts. Those guys really are the best in the world. (p. 93)
You need to practice the integration of wrestling, striking and kickboxing. (paraphrased)
Now, most people learn a little boxing, they learn a little wrestling, they learn a little Muay Thai, and they haphazardly patch them together. Then they hope for the best when they get into a mixed martial arts competition. That’s the extent of most people’s development. But the possession of great credentials in any one of the martial art components guarantees nothing in your ability to shootbox, or your ability to punch your way into a takedown. You can be a great boxer, yet be afraid to throw a punch in a shootbox—because you’re afraid of being taken down. You can be a great wrestler, but you can’t score a single great takedown—because you’re afraid of being punched in the face. And so on. Therefore, people can have what would appear to be outstanding credentials to make them a great shootboxer, and yet fail. (p. 121)
My front foot always points to my adversary. This is important because it stops my opponent from having or developing an angle on me. You can never allow that to happen because, quite simply, it exposes your blind side. It creates weakness. A fighter can’t afford to leave his flank or his blind side open, ever. Not addressing the opponent with your foot exerts a very negative influence on your power too. Misalignment reduces the power you can generate from one side of your body. So maybe you can throw a jab or a leg kick, but you make it very difficult to follow with a powerful combination from your strong side. In addition, you give the opponent more attack options while limiting your own angles and approaches. (p. 118)
My system is designed to read the other guy’s code; it’s designed to counter any attack coming my way, which complicates things for all my opponents. So first, what the heck is a fighting code?
Well, it doesn’t just exist in martial arts—it’s about the origins of all movements and how our minds respond to seeing them. In baseball, for example, you can tell someone’s going to swing the bat before the hands and arms even start moving to swing the bat—and that comes from looking at the hitter’s hips, or sometimes his eyes. Or in poker, a skill game based on your cards, and your opponent: if you are good enough, you can tell when another person is bluffing you, or trapping you. All it takes is for your eye to catch someone’s “tell,” his or her code. In any fighting art, a punch, kick or lunge has a beginning, a middle and an end. A jab, for example, starts on one side of the hips. So the code for a jab is a twitch in the hip.
When I watch my opponent, my mind automatically checks for all these signals, these codes, so that I can predict what’s coming. Each one of his tactics is connected to a code. This is why preparation and practice are so crucial in the lead-up to a fight: you practice being able to tell what the other guy is planning on doing, because one thing is for sure: your mind is faster than any part of your body, and it controls your reflex time.
This is crucial to my style of fighting, because everything I do is built on speed: recognition and reaction. Many of my takedowns, for example, actually come when most other fighters would be moving backward to avoid contact. But when my mind catches a signal that your right-hand lead is coming, I have trained myself to be ready to pounce forward and avoid contact. I dip my head to avoid the punch, I move my hand upward to ensure there’s no contact or damage, I dip my shoulder into your mid-waist area, and I try to take you down as fast as possible to gain an advantage and position. (p. 122)
It all begins with training at very slow speeds. If you ever get a chance to visit Tristar Gym when I’m training, you can see me in the ring, boxing almost in slow motion without gloves on. My practice partner and I are taking turns throwing different punching and kicking combinations so we can recognize the code—we need to give our powerful brains the time to get used to the code. As we get warmer and better, and as our brains start developing better reaction times, we gradually speed up into full sparring mode. (p. 123)
I have a belief that all human greatness is founded upon routine, that truly great human behavior is impossible without this central part of your life being set up and governed by routine. All greatness comes out of an investment in time and the perfection of skills that render you great. And so, show me almost any truly great person in the world who exhibits some kind of extraordinary skills, and I’ll show you a person whose life is governed largely by routine. (p. 130)
That’s why we get along—because John and I are both obsessively compulsive. We will spend hours repeating a single technique, over and over again until I get it right. We will repeat the move. We will sit and discuss it, then start over again. We will block out all other things. We will restart until the world dissolves completely. Until nothing else matters or even exists. We will repeat it until it is mastered, no matter when that will be. One certainty, though: it will be. (p. 130)
… Yet, many was the time that I would show a class a technique, and then I would go away and teach other classes back to back. I would look over at the far side of the academy and see Georges, still working that same technique, having gone through six or seven training partners because no one else could keep up with the intensity of his own training. (pp. 130-131)
… I have no choice, because there are two kinds of people who do martial arts: those who practice a thousand different kicks one time each, and those who practice one kick a thousand times minimum. (p. 131)
And so the question arises: How will you control chaos? Why is it that when Georges St-Pierre is 22–2, most mixed martial artists are 10–10? Why are Georges and Anderson Silva nearly undefeated? What is different about these guys? How do they control such a chaotic situation? What I always advocated in my teaching of Georges is the high-percentage approach. Minimize the risk while maximizing the risk to your opponent. (p. 136)
The key for me was to understand the use of all fighting stances. Fighting stances meet and are are connected by an invisible thread. Your brain is the one that controls the thread and makes strategic choices. Broken down simply, here’s how my brain works it: take a boxer to the ground, keep a wrestler on his feet, and never waste energy in transition to try and bring someone to ground—it’s too tiring. Think about it. A specialist will use a lot of energy to bring you to his strength. Tactically, you have to manage this so that, even if you don’t end up in his strength area, his energy reserves are depleted compared to yours. I often let guys out of a hold because I don’t want to waste energy trying to keep them down while they just sit there, breathing, resting and thinking. (p. 137
I’d rather pick my spot than take one shot so I can try to deliver five in return. My body is my working tool and I don’t want to harm it, if possible. My favorite fighters are guys like Hopkins, who’s still fighting in his forties because he was able to control the big hits he took and minimize their long-term impact. He can roll with the punches. It’s all about absorption and constantly moving and staying out of the striking axis. Simply getting out of the way. Sometimes you take a shot, but not a direct shot. Roll, be fluid and never stay right in front of your opponent. (pp. 137-138)
Did you know that our toes and feet can keep our balance better than anything else? They keep us centered. Every single movement we make starts with our feet. Feet are the genesis of all movements, especially in mixed martial arts. It’s where most of our power comes from.
Think about it and try it: if your feet are not well positioned on the ground, how can you effectively change direction? If your base is not well positioned, you have to move one of your feet first, then apply pressure to generate movement, then move the other foot, and only then can you generate any kind of power or momentum. This sounds a lot like walking, I know. In the octagon, or on the basketball or tennis court, or when you’re running after a ball or trying to deke your opponent, walking isn’t the solution. It takes time and it wastes energy. By being in the right position to begin with, you save time and energy, and you maximize power. (pp. 152-153)
The elementary truth is that feet are all about posture; they determine how you carry yourself. They play a role, whether you slouch or stand upright with your shoulders rolled back. (p. 155)
To me, Georges is an ant. Everything he does can be compared to ants and how they live, what their existence is about. First of all, Georges is always going somewhere. He always has a place to go. He never stops moving, he never stops doing things that will get him closer to his goal, no matter what. And that’s because he’s part of a greater idea. (p. 158)
What happens when you accept and embrace your fear? Fear becomes your weapon. Some people are totally incapable of seeing fear as an opportunity to get better at something. To develop the best version of themselves. (p. 162)
The big lesson here is this one: fight his weaknesses and avoid his strengths. (p. 176)
“You don’t get better on the days when you feel like going. You get better on the days when you don’t want to go, but you go anyway.” (p. 178)
But I’d been working out less than before. It makes me feel so dumb for all the years I did things wrong. Now I know: resting is growing. (p. 187)
There are times when hitting the bags is important, but those decrease in importance as my expertise grows. Bruce Lee talked about this a lot. Hitting the bags or the dummies is good to create muscle memory while I’m trying to perfect a movement—a punch or a kick. But it means nothing else. Once I learn a movement or a style of kick well, I need to perform it against a willing opponent. (p. 187)
Knowing yourself lets you differentiate between luck and movement. It places them at opposite ends of the spectrum. Luck is not within anybody’s control or prediction. It occurs, and it’s great when it does, but you can’t base your entire life on it. Movement, on the other hand, puts success within reach. The more you know about yourself, the better your movement through all facets of life. (p. 191)
86% of a person remembers is seen as opposed to 9% being heard. We should therefore focus more on visual communication. This is seen in the fact that most people process only 7 verbal bits (or 4 if you take into account modern distractions) of information in 30 seconds but can process 15 bits of visual communication in the same time.
The author suggests that the visual learning is much greater than verbal learning. We should therefore use more visual learning to communicate than we do.
The average person reads 250 words a minute but they can not comprehend this level of information. Therefore we tend to scan or miss things. The average email has 100 words and so is read in 25 seconds. But it likley that you can only comprehend only 45 words in these 25 seconds.
There are three types of attention.
“self-control is like a muscle: when you actively exert volitional effort, “ego depletion” occurs, and the muscle soon becomes fatigued. Consquently, your willpower and ability to overide impulsive behaviour will temporarily diminish on a wide variety of tasks that demand self control.” P 216/7
“The motivational interpretation of effortful persistance simply argues that mind sets, self standards, and goals guide when we will become invigorated rather than drained by our efforts, and when we need to relax, nap and self reward” P 219
We need to cool our immediate impulses and heat the later “push thetemptation in front of you far away in space and time, and bring the distant consquences closer in your mind” P256