The World's Leading Brains
As I look back on the past year, who has inspired me to become a better version of myself?
Hi. My name is Dylan and today is my birthday. I turn 24, and I feel quite old. But apparently, this can be interpreted as offensive to people who are actually old. Who knew?!
As another year passes, and a year in which I’ve changed, I want to look back on the people in our world who inspire me to never stop learning. This is my intellectual love letter.
Here are the best discoveries of my year that boosted my entire life:
1) Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck:
I used to care far too much about what people thought of me. This book helped me a lot. I enjoy hiking and I’ve been high up on mountains countless times. But after reading this chapter about Mark at The Cape of Good Hope, I’ll never experience a hike the same again. There is something completely liberating about standing above the world, being such a small part of it, and realising what’s important to you. Don’t fall!
2) Ray Dalio’s Principles (Life, Big Debt Crisis, Changing World Order):
All three of these books are vital, especially today. Principles have brought organisation and structure to my life. I’m building up my experience and knowledge that enables me to learn from my failures. Principles allow me to track this forever. We are in the final chapters of the long-term debt cycle and the world order. Please read his books to see how to navigate them. Also, download the principles app to always have your own principles to hand. It's useful for creating your own and tracking mental models suitable for your life.
3) Peter Zeihan – The End of the World is Just Beginning:
One reason I enjoy reading Peter Zeihan’s books is his differing opinion towards China against Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio believes China is emerging as the greatest superpower in the world. Whereas Peter Zeihan lists many reasons why he thinks they won’t. China has always struggled to feed itself, especially with a massive population. Their population demographics are already suffering due to the One Child Policy. Birth rates are at 1.16 versus the 2.1 needed for a stable population will not help this. Peter's newsletter with accompanying YouTube videos keeps everyone up to date on geopolitics.
4) Bill Blain’s Morning Porridge:
Another person was introduced to me through Macro Voices. Bill is very funny. Whether it’s his subtle swearing carefully incorporated into his writing, or his not-so-subtle view of British Politics, it always entertains and educates me. The new Shard Lite-Bite podcasts also provide a great back-and-forth discussion.
5) Dr Pippa’s Pen & Podcast:
In my eyes, brilliant at producing her own ideas about the world we live in and backing them up. A wonderful storyteller and former US presidential special advisor, Dr Pippa’s expertise is unrivalled. One of my biggest writing inspirations, Pippa entertains and leaves us thinking deeper.
6) Love People, Use Things by The Minimalists:
In my generation and people younger than me, very few people spent their upbringing outside. Tech and screens have completely taken over. This takes from building deep connections with other people. I’m lucky I have people in my life who I did explore the outside world with and still do now. Lots of us take life too seriously and have very little time for play. COVID exacerbated this. Being stuck inside with all our screens removed some of the fun, playful aspects of life.
I was lucky to encounter the minimalists when I did. They teach us to live simple lives. To have few possessions as most of them don’t actually mean anything to us, and to be in touch with our personal values. We then have time to love people with similar values to us.
The internet and the world of capitalism teach us that more is better. That’s how businesses operate, they always need to distract you more, so you give them more. You might think something becomes an absolute necessity in your life. If you look deeper, you might realise it isn’t. The Minimalists have lots of strategies to live a more purposeful life.
7) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant:
The most I’ve made notes ever when reading a book. I could write pages about this book, but I’ll only put the twelve best bits (I couldn’t reduce my list anymore!) from the book that I try to embody every day:
- “The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move”.
- “Great people have great outcomes. You have to be patient. It never happens in the timeline you want”.
- “Value yourself. Nobody will value you more than you value yourself. Think you’re worth a lot more than the market thinks you are and treat yourself that way”.
- “Looking back from your deathbed, all the interesting things will be the sacrifices you made, and the hard things you did”.
- “To make an original contribution, be irrationally obsessed with something. Have mentors but be yourself passionately. Listen and absorb, but don’t emulate.”
- “Get used to acceptance by tracking failures and suffering to see how you’ve grown.”
- “You will die and nothing you do will matter. So enjoy yourself, do something positive and spread love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little bit. Appreciate the moment. And do your work”.
- “Socially we’re told to go to work and look good. To play a multiplayer competitive game. We’re told to make money and buy a big house. Another multiplayer game. Train yourself to be happy internally. You should compete against yourself from yesterday”.
- “Happiness is there when you remove the sense of something missing in your life. Remove desires and want nothing and then nothing is missing. Your mind stops running to the past to regret something or the future to plan something”.
- “Most suffering comes from avoidance. Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life”.
- “Everyone has their perfectly valid and complete life going on in their head”.
- “The smartest and most successful people start out as losers. If you view yourself as a loser, as someone cast out by society who has no normal role, you will do your own thing and be much more likely to find a winning path. Be happy being you”.
Honourable Mentions: Lex Fridman Podcast. The Knowledge Podcast (FS Blog). Hidden Brain. 10-Minute Contrarian. Actionable Intelligence Alert.
Most of the things I’m trying to pass on currently are the teachings of others who inspire and motivate me. Also, the best way to learn is by teaching, so it benefits me to repeat the expertise of others. I hope one day to do the same for other people, teaching with my own theories and knowledge. It’s all about the journey, not the destination. And what’s the rush?
Now I’m going to have a brownie for lunch and write a letter to myself to open in 5 years, as Sahil Bloom does. My first year doing it and I’m very excited! Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week, month, and life.
What is Geopolitics Explained?
This idea started in July 2020. I love trading and investing and wanted somewhere to see good information on which to base my investment and trading decisions. Then I came across Peter Zeihan and Pippa Malmgren on Macro Voices Podcast, and I was introduced to Geopolitics. They both demonstrated enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the world and got me hooked. It’s a constantly changing environment. Always something to be curious about. Always more to research. How did we get to this present moment? Where are we heading from this present moment? This tied together everything I wanted to do. I’m curious and question everything. I don’t spend my days watching Netflix anymore. I research, write, and brainstorm ideas for investing, trading, and geopolitics. That’s what Geopolitics Explained is to me.
When you find what you’re meant to do in your life, it’s all you think about. I think about how I can make this more valuable to other people, and I have a hell of a lot of ideas. Right now I’m reinforcing knowledge in my own brain. Writing and teaching give me much more clarity on topics that interest me, and I’ll continue to do it for this reason. But I also want to pass this on to help other people with a similar curiosity for everything in this world we live in. I have a massive list of topic ideas for these Thursday weekly threads and it's expanding at a quicker rate than it's shrinking. I’m very excited about what this next year brings, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride with me.
Thanks for reading! If you want more like this then follow me on Twitter or subscribe on Substack for these posts directly to your email inbox. I write and research geopolitics and financial markets to organise my own thoughts and prepare myself for anything I can control. If any of this helps you to be more prepared and ease your mind, then that’s great. If you like what you read please share it with others. Have a good week.
Happy birthday! (A little bit late) I'm glad I found your sub and I'm excited to see where you'll get.