MONTHLY MULLING💡

Bad decisions, Sunk Cost, and WTH!? Season 2

Tapan Desai

Oct 25, 2020

Hi👋,

Tapan here.

Monthly Mulling is a newsletter sending the best ideas from the web to your inbox for free. High signal. Low noise.

If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe here.

Happy Sunday y’all!

As you grow up, it becomes difficult to meet new people. Or is it just me?

You’re not going to college, classes, no more parties, your friends get busy with their own life so you’re not meeting them or their friends, and now COVID which makes it impossible to even make work friends.

This has been a challenge I have been facing ever since I moved to London. Just struggling to meet new people!

So here is a question for you - how do you meet new people? Just email me or reach out through my social handles (Instagram or Twitter). Maybe I could learn a thing or two.

Onwards.

💭MULLING

🤔A 5-Step Process for Literally Anything (James Clear - 3-2-1 Newsletter)

Here’s an idea from James Clear’s newsletter that I think can help you create a workflow.

A 5-step process for nearly anything:
1) Explore widely. Find out what is possible.
2) Test cheaply. Run small, quick experiments. Sample things.
3) Edit ruthlessly. Focus on the best. Cut everything else.
4) Repeat what works. Don't quit on a good idea.
5) Return to 1.

I feel this is a brilliant workflow for everything you do in life. Personally, I think step-3 is the most important piece. At least it is for me right now.

Edit ruthlessly. Cutting things that don’t have an impact.

I recently did a post on Instagram about Charlie Munger on mental models. Charlie talks about Disconfirming Evidence - destroy your best-loved ideas.

If the idea you love is not making an impact, edit it out. Just focus on the best. Use the 80-20 rule and work on 20%. Everything else can be cut.

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🧠Common Causes of Very Bad Decisions by Morgan Housel (Article - 12 mins)

Morgan Housel talks about what drives us to make bad decisions. The article starts with a quote from Italian psychologist, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, who says that these are the reasons for bad decisions -

Inattention, distraction, lack of interest, poor preparation, genuine stupidity, timidity, braggadocio, emotional imbalance, ideological, racial, social or chauvinistic prejudices, and aggressive or prevaricatory instincts.

Morgan goes ahead and adds a few more reasons. Here are my favorites reasons why we make bad decisions -

Incentives - Incentives can make you push boundaries. Financial. Ethical. While good incentives can drive brilliant decisions, they can also lead to a lot of bad decisions.
Group Consensus Bias - No one wants to be that “guy” or “girl” in the group. So everyone agrees, even if it’s a bad idea.
The Aggregate of Marginal Gains - Lots of small bad decisions can drive to one big bad decision. Compounding. This can be often seen in workplaces, where if the partner is a jerk about small things; the entire team’s work culture is impacted.
Survivorship Bias - Wrongly assuming that the information you have at your disposal tells a complete picture of what you’re dealing with.

🗺 The World’s Worst Border - India-Bangladesh (Video - 3 mins)

World’s worst border, geographically, is the India-Bangladesh border.

I was surprised when I saw this video. So here’s how it goes -

A piece of India is in Bangladesh which is in India which is in Bangladesh which is surrounded by India😕

This causes a lot of problems for people living in that enclave in terms of voting, public services, and so on.

Imagine, if you want to go to India but you can’t because you're surrounded by Bangladesh to cross which you need a visa which you can get from India. WTF!?

🚢Sunk Cost by Seth Godin (Article - 2 mins)

Seth Godin talk’s about Sunk Cost

Tomorrow is another opportunity.
What happened yesterday already happened. It’s a gift and an asset from your previous self. You don’t have to accept if you don’t want to.

So many times, we are stuck to our past decisions which might not have gone as we thought but we continue on that path.

This is called Sunk Cost Fallacy - individuals commit the sunk cost fallacy when they continue a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources.

Seth talks about how more opportunities are lying ahead. Just cut your losses and mover forward.

📖The Rabbit Hole - Book Summaries (Website - it’s a rabbit hole indeed)

Someone recommended this site on Twitter. It has over 700 book summaries with notes, key takeaways, and ideas. Highly recommended.

But beware. The name of the site holds true.

🆕CONTENT UPDATE

I have been struggling to write an article. I have created a bunch of drafts but unable to drive them to completion. But promise more articles coming soon.

🎙PODCAST

🥳WHAT THE HAT!?

WTH!? is a weekly podcast discussing the journey of graduates from mostly engineering colleges. Releases every Saturday.

We are live with season 2🥃

We also started WHAT THE HAT!? Insights - a newsletter (every Sunday) providing you an update on the episode releases, behind the scenes, various segments, and other things in a readable format!📰

SUBSCRIBE TO WTH!? INSIGHTS

🎓 S2E1- Dr. Hari Vasudevan talks about leadership, the future of education, and spirituality

A great conversation with our principal from D. J. Sanghvi College. Going into the conversation, we were concerned about how to make it interesting. But Hari sir talked a great deal about spirituality and leadership; insights that could be applied by everyone.

Note: If you like our podcast, share it with your friends on Twitter, Instagram, or anywhere else! Don’t forget to tag us! (Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn)

💰COLD BREW MONEY

Our weekly podcast discussing money because your friends and family won’t. We are now on YouTube! So hit that subscribe button? Plis.

✈ #14 - Economics of Moving to a New Country

We discuss what goes behind financially when you move to a new country covering renting, bills, and investing.

📈 #15 - In Conversation with Divraj Singh, an Equity Research Analyst

One of my favorite conversations on the podcast - we talk to Divraj Singh who does fancy finance stuff. We talk about long-term and short-term investing, trading, and a lot more.

🤯 #16 - Let's Talk About Mental Models

We are discussing one of my favorite topics - mental models. We are covering what are they, why do we need them, and mental models for investing.

Note: If you like our podcast, share it with your friends on Twitter, Instagram, or anywhere else! Don’t forget to tag us! (Twitter | Instagram)

Ciao.

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You can reach out to me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or just reply to this email!

Nov 26, 2023

Tough to argue with Charlie Munger. I like to focus people on eliminating the noise from decisions and using the facts. For example, I received a call from an investor who asked me, "Why is the attorney general in Michigan expanding his investigation into your company?" I asked the investor for the source of the information and he pointed to a news story. I asked him the AG actually said those words on the record or if it was something the reporter simply embellished to get clicks? Needles to say, the investor had as good laugh at himself, and I made a new friend.

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Monthly Mulling by Tapan Desai