Mastering Mental Models, with Shane Parrish [Invest Like the Best, EP.17]
My guest this week is Shane Parrish, who created the extremely popular Farnam Street—a website dedicated to understanding the world by mastering the best of what others have already figured out. More than 100,000 people subscribe to the Farnam Street Newsletter which summarizes what Shane and his team learned and wrote that week. I read it every Sunday. Shane and I cover a lot of ground including the future of work, automation, mental models, and reading. Shane is a voracious reader and offers unique suggestions for finding your next great book.
Please enjoy!
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Books Mentioned
The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution
The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Links Referenced
Farnam post (biology enables, culture forbids)
Show Notes
1:31 – (first question) Looking at some of the things that have helped Shane with his success, starting with things that look easy to him but require hard work.
2:56 – Exploring the pace at which Shane reads books and why reads many of them twice
4:40 – Looking at books that Shane has read twice and got a lot more out of it the second-time through
4:46 – The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution
4:48 – The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business
5:00 – Marcus Aurelius Meditations
5:59 – How Shane’s reading has shaped the Farnam Street newsletter and how that led to a huge audience.
8:30 – The Books for Schools program and why having a real person behind made all the difference
9:35 – Shane is asked about the future of work
11:55 – We don’t have enough uninterrupted time to work through a problem
13:25 – The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
14:07 – Will the future of work be focused around smaller teams and outsourcing more tasks
15:17 – What are valuable aspects of computer science and programming that anyone can use to improve their work environment
18:14 – Figuring out what processes can be automated vs what should be done creatively
20:50 – How automation may create a blindness
22:20 – The two mindsets at war, the growth mindset vs the fixed mindset
25:07 – How does Shane personally keep the growth mindset
27:48 – The way Shane has his day set up to improve his life
30:33 – How the people around will help you maintain the growth mindset in your life
34:34 – Looking at a recent Farnam post on how biology enables and culture forbids
39:40 – Mapping out your personal and competitive advantage
42:32 – Why every day is very memorable for Shane
43:52 – What is the kindest thing people do for Shane
45:05 – Figuring out what books or genre of books you should avoid
45:38 – Potbelly of Ignorance (article written by Shane)
47:57 – Shane explains why forcing people to read something would not be beneficial to them
50:18 – Why checking in with a variety of resource is so important
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
