When Luca Dellanna speaks, I listen. Unlike many of the other management, productivity and behavioral gurus out there, Luca is ruthlessly committed to providing actionable, tangible advice which is rooted in the messy, chaotic reality of daily life. This conversation, my second with Luca, revolves around his excellent new book, Winning Long-Term Games: Reproducible Success Strategies to Achieve Your Life Goals - https://luca-dellanna.com/winning-long-term-games/. Why should you care? Because long-term strategies consistently deliver better results. In other words, being able to identify, play, and win long-term games is, quite literally, the secret to success. With examples ranging from NASA janitors to Stonehenge spray painters, we discuss how to successfully identify reproducible long-term strategies and how to persuade others to get on board with them. We also explore how hypotheticals can be an insanely powerful tool for ensuring our short-term actions remain consistent with our long-term goals (and yes, before you ask, my beloved premeditation makes an appearance). I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did! For more thoughts on the episode, the full transcript, and bucketloads of other stuff designed to make you go; “Hmm, that’s interesting!” check out our Substack - https://newsletter.osv.llc. Important Links: - Winning Long-Term Games: Reproducible Success Strategies to Achieve Your Life Goals - https://luca-dellanna.com/winning-long-term-games/ - Luca’s Website - https://luca-dellanna.com - Luca’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/dellannaluca?s=21&t=vtqwBZ0zdc1S-VbrHeivzA - Luca’s Previous Episode - https://www.infiniteloopspodcast.com/luca-dellanna-on-survival-signals-success-ep174/ - Five Counterintuitive Truths We Learned From Luca Dellanna - https://newsletter.osv.llc/p/5-counterintuitive-truths-we-learned Show Notes: 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:58 Main podcast 0:01:42 The Tale of the Three Bricklayers 0:07:55 Tighten Up Those Feedback Loops 0:13:21 The Perils of Short-Term Thinking 0:20:35 How to Signal Long-Term Intentions 0:27:45 Reproducibility is King 0:39:58 The Mighty Power of the Humble Hypothetical 0:48:52 Concretizing the Abstract 0:51:19 Goldilocks Solutions 0:55:18 Extracting Tangible Benefits From Stratospheric Objectives 0:59:26 Intuition & Luck in Long-Term Games 1:04:53 Risk of Tactic vs Risk of Strategy; Flexible North Stars 1:15:42 Build Your Own Long-Term Company 1:22:59 Tesla’s Risky Success 1:27:50 Luca as Emperor of the World Books Mentioned: - Winning Long-Term Games: Reproducible Success Strategies to Achieve Your Life Goals - https://luca-dellanna.com/winning-long-term-games/; by Luca Dellanna - The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by Joseph Henrich - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; by Douglas Adams - Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder; by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Infinite Game: How Great Businesses Achieve Long-Lasting Success; by Simon Sinek
Why is hard work a form of laziness? Why should we be wary of short-term success? How can imagining parallel worlds help us make better decisions? Author, management advisor, and researcher Luca Dellanna joins us to discuss these questions and more! Important Links: - Luca’s Website - https://luca-dellanna.com - Luca’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/dellannaluca?s=21&t=vtqwBZ0zdc1S-VbrHeivzA Show Notes: 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:25 Main podcast 0:02:23 Ergodicity: survival is king 0:07:07 Why sample size matters 0:11:10 The two types of competitors 0:14:04 Teaching by signalling 0:25:46 The parallel worlds approach to decision-making 0:31:09 Racing to the bottom 0:35:19 Why working hard can be a form of laziness 0:44:34 The three things managers should prioritize 0:50:19 Why desiring change isn’t enough 0:54:06 Fighting avoidance with actionable small steps 1:06:36 “Mixed values produce mixed results” 1:09:53 Thinking by writing 1:18:15 What Luca has learned from living in multiple countries 1:22:27 Luca as Emperor of the World Books Mentioned: - Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder; by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - What Works on Wall Street; by Jim O'Shaughnessy - Ergodicity: Definition, Examples, And Implications, As Simple As Possible; by Luca Dellanna - The Control Heuristic: The Nature of Human Behavior; by Luca Dellanna - 100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late; by Luca Dellanna - Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu
Why will writing problems down often lead to a solution? “If you have two beliefs which are incompatible, they can live in your head…when you write two things against each other, next to each other, you will notice if there is an incoherence.” — Luca Dellanna