Reading podcast thoughts

I often talk with my clients about identifying overconfidence in their decision making data.  By analyzing the ‘game tapes’ of decisions over time we can identify outlier behavior or lapses in the basics of the job. For a hedge fund PM that might mean peak beta adjusted gross exposure and for a VC that might mean abandoning the due diligence discipline to not miss a new class of companies (aka FOMO).  

Failure is often a reality and yet we rarely practice how to fail, learn, and move on.  Even more rare is the concept of a premortem where we establish up front what would cause a project or investment to fail and then address those prior to taking risk.  Freakonomics recently did a three part series on failure which might make you reframe failing. 

Health

Research on the role and scope of the vagus nerve system in our body is expanding.  Already, electrical devices called vagus nerve stimulators are used to treat epilepsy, depression, and obesity.  New research is focusing on the connection to inflammation and potentially holds promise in inflammation sensitive illnesses ranging from heart disease to Parkinsons. Pattern recognition is manifested in our bodies as gut instinct so pay attention to your physical clues that link gut to mind.