NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

advice

Dinner with Peter Thiel

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I once had dinner with Peter Thiel…

….and whenever someone asked his opinion on something, he’d give a “spectrum of possibilities” for every answer.

Example: If I asked his thoughts on the future of the Dollar, he would respond:

“Ok, here’s 3 scenarios…”

Then he would give 3 different “scenarios” ranging from:
– Normal and boring scenario.
– Good and Bad mixed scenario.
– Crazy worst case scenario.

Then he’d backup each scenario with data or comparable past events.

He rarely thought something was black and white, but that everything was a spectrum of possibilities.

It was super cool to see his thinking in action!

The new “Sell a course” is “Sell a community.”

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Course sales are lumpy based on launches, communities can level that out with recurring revenue.

With a digital community the 3 factors that change income are:
– Price
– Time stayed
– Number of Customers

This chart shows sample revenue of a community size from 100 to 1,200:

This chart shows revenue of a community priced from $10/mo to $200/mo:

This chart shows revenue of a community where customers stay from 1 month to 24 months

“Motion beats meditation”

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This quote means sometimes JUST DOING THINGS to advance a goal is better than pondering on it:

….it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop and think, but if you’re feeling inspired you can start writing that article, buying that domain name, or making a mockup…and the motion helps you move forward.

For example this is just PART of my collection of useless domain names:

…but buying a $7 domain name is often the first step in helping me take a project seriously.

So what if I waste $200 in a year buying dumb domains? One success out of those can return 1,000x.

Some “motion” towards an idea will help you work on it faster.

Two motivational quotes

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Here’s two quotes I really love:

This is a quote about having a goal you’re working towards:

“When things are hardest, a clear goal is the most important thing. To have a fountain of energy to draw from. Establishing a worthwhile goal is the hardest part. It gives you a place to go and a reason to get up.”  – Earl Nightingale

This one is about building confidence, and that it comes from having a bunch of smaller experiences of success:

“Confidence is built upon an experience of success.”

Toughen up bitch

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There’s A LOT of talk about mental health, and that’s great. But like any trend, it tends to swing too far at some point.

It’s starting to get common for people to take “mental health days” anytime they’re sad or don’t feel like doing something.

Well toughen up bitch.

Being sad sometimes is normal.
Being tired sometimes is normal.
Being anxious sometimes is normal.

These are not mental disorders. There are normal, everyday, human feelings.

If you just tell yourself whilst feeling sad, “this is a pretty normal human emotion. It’s usually temporary. It can almost always be solved by hanging out with loved ones, getting some exercise, or taking a walk outside.” You will then be able to bear this emotion like a big boy or girl.

A story in my mind that sticks out:
Someone once asked Arnold Schwarzenegger whilst he was going through a nasty divorce, and a cheating scandal, and other political stuff how he was holding up. And he replied, “Well it’s better than being in the coal mines in Austria.”

2,000 calls

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Saw a cool quote:

“You’re 2,000 cold calls away from being a millionaire.”

Everyone I know who started a big company generally did 50 to 100 to 1,000 calls with potential customers to really get the product down.

Things Working and Not Working

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Things that are working:

  • Newsletter to interact with audience. Stay top of mind.
  • Short Clips to stay top of mind, get new audience.
  • Long Form Podcasts to meet people, cut up into clips, have interesting conversations.
  • Community as a form of scaled training, work on tons of cool projects inside, deeper connection with audience.
  • Social Media to meet people IRL, distribute content, and interact with audience.
  • Great Posts & Stories that can be turned into social media content + videos + articles.
  • Using AI as an assistant to making content….sometimes.
  • Uniqueness in your content or brand. 

 

Things that are not working:

  • SEO focused articles that compete with generative AI.
  • Content for the sake of content.
  • Fully generated AI articles. If someone can get the same answer from ChatGPT you’ve added no value.

 

Warren Buffett Old Interview

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I enjoyed this old interview with Warren Buffett (1985):

Berkshire Hathaway was 20 years old at this time.

“If you buy things for far below what they’re worth, and you buy a group of them, you basically don’t lose money.” 1:05

 

Q: Warren, what do you consider the most important quality for an investment manager?

A: It’s a temperamental quality not an intellectual quality. You don’t need tons of IQ in this business. You do not have to be able to play three dimensional chess. You need a stable personality. You need the temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd. This is not a business where you take polls, this is a business where you think. Ben Graham would say “You’re not right or wrong because a 1,000 people agree with you or disagree with you. You’re right because your facts and your reasoning are right.”

 

“The real test of whether you’re investing from a value stand point is if you care if the stock market is open tomorrow. If you’re making a good investment in a security, it shouldn’t both you if they close down the stock market for 5 years. All the ticker tells me is the price. Prices don’t tell me anything about a business. Business figures themselves tell me about a business. I’d rather evaluate a business first without knowing the price, so the price doesn’t influence me, then look at the price later to see if it’s way out of line than what my value is.” (2:20)

 

“There may be many wonderful pitches to swing at, but if you don’t know enough, you don’t have to swing. You can sit there and watch thousands of pitches and only swing at ONE when you know a bunch about it. I might not swing for 2 years. It would bore most people, and certainly boredom is a problem with most professional money managers.” (5:50)