What is the central question of your life?

Plus the multiverse in strategic discussions and games to hone mental skills.

Life’s Work

A few months ago I finished the fourth book in Robert Caro’s fantastic political biography of Lyndon Johnson (he has one more volume). I first came across Caro’s work by reading The Power Broker, his equally enthralling biography of Robert Moses, the man responsible for many of New York’s urban planning decisions during the 20th century.

Robert Caro has spent the last 40 years researching and writing his LBJ books, making these books his life’s work. I’m fascinated by individuals who dedicated themselves to a single endeavor. It reminds me of Renaissance artists who would spend their entire lives working on a single sculpture.

Robert Caro’s work can be boiled down to one central question. 

How does someone acquire and wield power?

Having a single central question to guide your efforts can be powerful. It can function as a north star, guiding you during challenging times. 

What is the central question of your life (or organization)?

Dark Matter

Over my summer break, I read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. The book centers on one of my favorite ideas, the existence of the multiverse. Superhero movies have beaten the multiverse idea into a trope but the multiverse boils down to the potential existence of parallel realities to ours. Some could be identical except for a few details and some are vastly different.

In one world, you decided to marry someone else, while in another, you turned down your current job and went in a different direction. Every decision creates branches of possibilities and if you fast forward enough time, your life may seem unrecognizable. The multiverse challenges our entire notion of time (past, present and future) while allowing us to rejoice in alternative life paths (what if questions).

The multiverse is relevant for us as strategic discussions are mental explorations of future realities. 

Should we expand into market X?

Do we specialize in this one area or the next?

What if I hire this person?

Don’t see the future as a cloudy vision. Instead, imagine the chain of decisions from following one path.

If you do expand into market X, you would then need to build a team with a specific expertise, you would need to change your production capabilities and you would need to adapt a new way to market. 

You can never guarantee certain outcomes but you’re not also throwing the dice at the universe. 

Daily Exercises

A few months ago I started playing the Connections game in the New York Times app. The game is in the same place where you can find Wordle. 

Connections is a simple game of grouping four words by a theme. The themes can be obvious (movies) or they can be quite abstract. There’s a new puzzle every day and the game only takes a few minutes, unless you refuse to give up. 

I enjoy the simplicity of the game while practicing one of my key strengths: pattern recognition. The game allows me to hone in a meta skill that I can then use in other areas of my life. I wouldn’t rely solely on this game but it is a fun addition. 

Think of your mental strengths and how you can build them through daily exercises. 

A marketing executive may deconstruct billboards in Times Square for lessons in branding, a hedge fund manager may connect newspaper headlines to changes in markets or an architect may mentally redesign a building around them for beauty or more efficiency.

These games are all around us, we just have to look around.

Ruben

P.S. If you’re interested in working together on your organization’s strategy, send me an email. I work with 3 - 5 organizations (I call them Thinking Partners) at a time and a spot opened up recently.

The first step to explore a working relationship is a 30-minute video call where we get to know each other. If it seems like a mutual good fit, we proceed to step two.

The second step is a 60 - 90 minute video call with you and your team where we will dive deeper into one of your top issues. This longer session is similar to the work we would do together so we can both get a feel on what a working relationship would actually look like. If your team is complete after the second session, we will end here. If you’re interested in exploring further, we move on to step three.

The third step is to go over a bespoke proposal for an engagement. Every proposal is tailored to each organization and the issues that came up in the previous steps.

The goal is to find issues that are important to your team, issues that can be solved through better strategic thinking and issues that are exciting for both of us.