| |
|
|
|
|
IN THIS ISSUE
The pursuit of purpose Heatwaves’ variable impact Designers |
|
|
|
|
|
Good
morning,
Rolf
Dobelli’s lovely book, The Art of Thinking Clearly, offers a list of
mental models many of us fall prey to. And often, at that. Consider the
Chauffeur Effect, as he calls it. Its significance must be underscored in the
times we live in.
“After
receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918, Max Planck went on tour across
Germany. Wherever he was invited, he delivered the same lecture on new quantum
mechanics. Over time, his chauffeur grew to know it by heart: ‘It has to be
boring giving the same speech each time, Professor Planck. How about I do it
for you in Munich? You can sit in the front row and wear my chauffeur’s cap.
That’d give us both a bit of variety.’ Planck liked the idea, so that evening
the driver held a long lecture on quantum mechanics in front of a distinguished
audience. Later, a physics professor stood up with a question. The driver
recoiled: ‘Never would I have thought that someone from such an advanced city
as Munich would ask such a simple question! My chauffeur will answer it.’
According
to Charlie Munger, one of the world’s best investors (and from whom I have
borrowed this story), there are two types of knowledge. First, we have real
knowledge. We see it in people who have committed a large amount of time and
effort to understanding a topic. The second type is chauffeur knowledge —
knowledge from people who have learned to put on a show. Maybe they have a
great voice or good hair, but the knowledge they espouse is not their own. They
reel off eloquent words as if reading from a script.
To guard against the chauffeur effect, Warren Buffett,
Munger’s business partner, has coined a wonderful phrase, the ‘circle of
competence’: What lies inside this circle you understand intuitively; what lies
outside, you may only partially comprehend. One of Munger’s best pieces of
advice is: ‘You have to stick within what I call your circle of competence. You
have to know what you understand and what you don’t understand. It’s not
terribly important how big the circle is. But it is terribly important that you
know where the perimeter is.’ Munger underscores this: ‘So you have to figure
out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the
aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain
as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an
edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.’”
Have a great day! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The
archives of Harvard Business Review often point to some great sources of
wisdom, such as this essay from 2017 on purpose by John Coleman, an American
investor and writer.
“We’re
all looking for purpose. Most of us feel that we’ve never found it, we’ve lost
it, or in some way we’re falling short.
But
in the midst of all this angst, I think we’re also suffering from what I see as
fundamental misconceptions about purpose — neatly encapsulated by the question
I receive most frequently: ‘How do I find my purpose?’ Challenging these
misconceptions could help us all develop a more rounded vision of purpose.
In
achieving professional purpose, most of us have to focus as much on making our
work meaningful as in taking meaning from it. Put differently, purpose is a
thing you build, not a thing you find. Almost any work can possess remarkable
purpose. School bus drivers bear enormous responsibility — caring for and
keeping safe dozens of children — and are an essential part of assuring our
children receive the education they need and deserve. Nurses play an essential
role not simply in treating people’s medical conditions but also in guiding
them through some of life’s most difficult times. Cashiers can be a friendly,
uplifting interaction in someone’s day — often desperately needed — or a
forgettable or regrettable one.
But
in each of these instances, purpose is often primarily derived from focusing on
what’s so meaningful and purposeful about the job and on doing it in such a way
that that meaning is enhanced and takes center stage. Sure, some jobs more
naturally lend themselves to senses of meaning, but many require at least some
deliberate effort to invest them with the purpose we seek.
Some
people genuinely do seem to have an overwhelming purpose in their lives. Mother
Teresa lived her life to serve the poor. Samuel Johnson poured every part of
himself into his writing. Marie Curie devoted her energy to her work.
And
yet even these luminaries had other sources of purpose in their lives.
For
me, I find purpose in my children, my marriage, my faith, my writing, my work,
and my community. For almost everyone, there’s no one thing we can find. It’s
not purpose but purposes we are looking for — the multiple sources of meaning
that help us find value in our work and lives.
Professional commitments are only one component of
this meaning, and often our work isn’t central to our purpose but a means to
helping others, including our families and communities. Acknowledging these
multiple sources of purpose takes the pressure off of finding a single thing to
give our lives meaning.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Heatwaves’ variable impact |
|
In
The Conversation, climate researchers Alan Thomas Kennedy-Asser, Dann
Mitchell and Eunice Lo explain why similar heatwaves can have different impacts
due to humidity in the location and preparedness of the community. Therefore,
don’t just look at the temperature.
They
write:
“Underlying
health conditions and other personal circumstances can lead to some people
being more vulnerable to heat stress. Yet heat stress can reach a limit above
which all humans, even those who are not obviously vulnerable to heat risk —
that is, people who are fit, healthy and well acclimatised — simply cannot
survive even at a moderate level of exertion.
One
way to assess heat stress is the so-called Wet Bulb Globe Temperature. In full
sun conditions, that is approximately equivalent to 39°C in temperature
combined with 50% relative humidity. This limit will likely have been exceeded
in some places in the recent heatwave across south-east Asia.
In
less humid places far from the tropics, the humidity and thus the wet bulb
temperature and danger will be much lower. Spain’s heatwave in April with
maximum temperatures of 38.8°C had WBGT values of “only” around 30°C, the 2022
heatwave in the UK, when temperatures exceeded 40°C, had a humidity of less
than 20% and WBGT values of around 32°C.
Two of us (Eunice and Dann) were part of a team who
recently used climate data to map heat stress around the world. The research
highlighted regions most at risk of exceeding these thresholds, with literal
hotspots including India and Pakistan, south-east Asia, the Arabian peninsula,
equatorial Africa, equatorial South America and Australia. In these regions,
heat stress thresholds are exceeded with increased frequency with greater
global warming.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Show us some love?
Move us out of your promotions and into your inbox. So that you don’t miss any edition.  Help Founding Fuel grow. Forward this to three of your smartest friends and tell them they can sign up by clicking the button below. Missed an edition? Read the archives.
|
|
|
|
FOLLOW US AND ENGAGE WITH US |
|
|
|
Warm regards,
Team Founding Fuel
|
|
|
|
Need a productivity boost or just a break from work? Try these |
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2022 Founding Fuel Publishing Pvt Ltd, All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
|
