“With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top.”
— Seth Godin
From Fs Blog
There are tremendous benefits to being the best in any particular area. Top performers might be only slightly more skilled than the people one level below them, yet they receive an exponential payoff. A small difference in relative performance—an athlete who can run 100 meters a few microseconds faster, a leader who can make better decisions, an opera singer who can go a little higher—can mean the difference between a lucrative career and relative obscurity. The people at the tops of their fields get it all. They are the winners in that particular market. And once someone is regarded as the best, they tend to retain that status. It takes a monumental effort for a newcomer to rise to such a position. Every day new people do make it to the top, but it’s a lot easier to stay there than to get there.
I could not agree more, when you are a prospect if you know someone is the biggest you know there is no risk. If so many people buy there it must be ok. That is also why my wife wants to go to a crowded restaurant and not to a empty one. If you are number one you should let everybody know that. people don't want to take risks.
Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still
I am not like this guy (MacGregor below ) at all I speak with a few friends and clients that have done it. Usually it's a very good way to filter bad ideas.
To ask family & friends is not a good idea , usually there are other interests involved. I am with you MacGregor after all
The results from the chess study provide a crucial insight into the interplay between talent and practice in the development of various skills. While people with certain innate characteristics -IQ, in the case of chess study - may have an advantage when first learning a skill, that advantage gets smaller over time, and eventually the amount and quality of practice take on a much larger role in determining how skilled a person becomes.
Anders Eriksson
Stop and digest that for a moment: among these young, elite chess players, not only was a higher IQ no advantage, but it seemed to put them at a slight disadvantage. The reason, the researchers found, was that elite players with lower IQ tended to practice more, which improved their chess game to the point they played better than the high-IQ elite players.
Anders Eriksson
Peak by Anders Eriksson is a must read book. He proves without fault that Talent/intelligence etc... help anyone in the first steps in any new venture or activity. The smart kid learns faster but after a bit the person who works more, practice more & better not only equals but normally surpasses the talented one. This is why it's difficult to predict who is going to do well in life, there is no innate characteristic that is a sign of success. IQ for chess predicts who will do well in the first steps of chess, the smarter person grasps the game faster but then stops . The slow one starts heavy & slow but soon surpasses , yes surpasses the smart one that thinks he/she is smart. In one big study of super elite Chess players their IQ is no higher than a normal average person that is not a grandmaster! Amazing.
Yes everything is possible but you have to work pass the initial impression that you are not good at something , don't ever give up. The way you perform in the beginning has nothing to do with what happens in the end.
“How did you convince the German people to accept all of this?"
Göring: “It was easy & has nothing to do with Nazism. The only thing you need to do to enslave people is to put fear in them. If you can think of a way to scare people, you can do anything to them."
In many fields, people who are widely accepted as "experts" are actually not expert performers when judged by objective criteria.
Anders Ericsson
In a famous California wine tasting competition the experts are given 30 wines to taste each member of the Jury. Robert Hodgson run an experiment and 3 glasses of the same wine were given to each. All gave different grades some of them gave the same wine from the same bottle 91, 87 and 87 points. No one was consistent.
If you are a brain surgeon or a plumber you are an expert otherwise disaster occurs immediately , if you are an expert economist, analyst, wine expert, phycologist (yes no different results from anyone without training) you can be an expert forever. Easy life.
I am a no inflation guy as you know. I believe that there is a spare capacity in the world, too much of everything, if there is no impediment to commerce forget long lasting inflation. This graph is a trade not a long term trend.
Of course if there is a change in the psych of people this guy (below) might have the day. Today the mindset is next year it will be cheaper. I don't think it will change.
As Karl Otto Pohl, Bundesbank boss in the 1980s, put it: “Inflation is like toothpaste. Once it’s out of the tube, you can’t put it back.”
