Elonism, Disney's Magic Formula, and Mental Models!
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious- Einstein 😎
Bonjour…Hello…and Namaste !
Hiii, I am your host Nayan😎
Welcome to the Second issue of Curiosity Culture.
let me introduce Curiosity Culture 🤔 - A weekly newsletter about Marketing, Creativity, Business, and Culture with lots of curiosity.
The newsletter will hit your inbox every SUNDAY.
3 Rules of the club 😎 (For new people who have joined the club last week)
You should have ‘Boundless Curiosity’
Remember the first Rule
We DO TALK OPENLY about Curiosity Culture.
On that note
let’s get started.
(Click on the underlined text to feed your curiosity - All external links)
Elonism 🚀!
Big News: Elon Musk aka real Ironman has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person.
Meanwhile Jeff Bezos:
Just to get a gist of his curiosity and determination -
This was the elevator pitch of Elon Musk in 2001 when he wanted to learn about rockets and space technology.
We all are aware of his success story through Social Media, YouTube, and many other sources. But, I have always wondered “How he thinks and make difficult decisions?” and that thought led me to this story.
During a one-on-one interview with TED Curator, Chris Anderson, Musk revealed how he thinks and take decisions. He uses a mental model - “First Principles.”
Musk: Well, I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first principles reasoning. Generally, I think there are — what I mean by that is, boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy.
Through most of our life, we get through life by reasoning by analogy, which essentially means copying what other people do with slight variations.
In simple terms, the first principle of thinking is questioning every assumption you think you know about the given problem or event. The idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then creating new knowledge and solution from the scratch. It is easy to read and understand but hard to train your mind to use this mental model while solving problems.
Elon Musk broke down the problem - Space Rockets. He challenged each assumption and the pre-conceived notion that emerged in the process. He tried to question assumptions like - rockets cost a lot of money, you cannot make them lighter, you cannot have boosters that come back. And came up with cheaper parts, a lighter body, and reusable boosters.
He combined the new parts to make something never imagined before and created Falcon Heavy. Here is the video of Elon Musk explaining the “First Principle” mental model and how he put it into practice. Absolute Gold!
In summary - Break it down to its fundamentals and combine it with completely new things or combine old elements in such a way that has never been done before.
So, how to put it into practice?
Socratic Questioning: To put the first principle in practice, use the Socratic questioning playbook -
Clarifying your thinking and explaining the origins of your ideas (Why do I think this? What exactly do I think?)
Challenging assumptions (How do I know this is true? What if I thought the opposite?)
Looking for evidence (How can I back this up? What are the sources?)
Considering alternative perspectives (What might others think? How do I know I am correct?)
Examining consequences and implications (What if I am wrong? What are the consequences if I am?)
Questioning the original questions (Why did I think that? Was I correct? What conclusions can I draw from the reasoning process?)
Now you know the secret sauce, put it into practice. All the best!
Walt Disney’s Magic Formula 🎁
The above image depicts the original corporate strategy of The Walt Disney Company in 1957. It has many boxes and arrows but in the end, it beautifully explains the business model canvas of Disney. One can take inspiration from this model.
Their core business is - Theatrical Films.
Once customers come into the Disney family, he will be exposed to various verticals of the empire, which is connected in many ways to each other.
For example, Films plug content and stars to Walt Disney's magazine. It fed raw materials from the films directly to Disney's publication, which in turn did direct advertising for Disney's movies and theme parks. And the park provided a sales outlet for Disney merchandise. Similarly, they plug Television and Music into their films and parks and did cross-promotion often.
When Disney produces great content, it can extract value from it across a wide variety of its business verticals. A hit franchise like Star Wars doesn’t just make billions at the box office, it also sells merchandise, creates potential spin-off TV shows, draws the audience to its theme parks, and with Disney+ coming into the picture - that content contributes to the library of streaming service which people will watch over and over again.
Now, this is called a wonderful business model one can imagine. Over the years Disney's business has added lots of vertical and now it requires lots of boxes and lines to draw such a map.
But fundamental principles, insights, and intuition would remain constant for sure.
Walt Disney's vision helped Disney create a record-breaking growth business today!
Take a bow!🙌
Mental models to make difficult decisions 💪
Mental models are frameworks for thinking. It helps simplify complex problems in the world. We can’t keep all the details of the world in our brains, mental models help our thinking to understand complex problems. There are plenty of mental models to help you make difficult decisions. We are going to look at two mental models I have come across which I found super interesting and helpful -
Regret Minimization — To maximize your long-term happiness, prioritize the projects you’d most regret not having pursued by the time you’re old and looking back at your life. Choose the option you’ll most regret not having done when looking back at the end of your life.
Our brains aren't wired to prioritize for our future selves, so we need mental models to help us out. Jeff Bezos used this mental model when he wanted to start an internet company then selling books and now everything under the sun - Amazon
Here you can watch the video of Jeff Bezos explaining how he used Regret Minimization to make the most important decision of his life -
Well, if you are pumped up after watching this video, Take That Decision! 😎
……….
The second mental model I came across when I was watching CRED Curious session on YouTube. In that session when Zerodha’s founder Nithin Kamath was asked about “How do you make difficult decisions in your life?”, his answer was very interesting -
Always think about the worst possible situation when trying to make a difficult decision - If you can make a peace with it - Go ahead - If you can't then don't take that decision.
For example, let’s say you have this great idea and now you want to start a startup. But, you are confused and afraid of taking that difficult decision. Now, imagine the worst possible situation, what worst could happen? - The startup will fail!
Can you make a peace with it? Are you ready to fail?
If the answer to those questions is YES. Go ahead take the decision. Because now fear of failure has gone which is the biggest obstacle in taking a difficult decision.
USE THESE TWO MENTAL MODELS WHILE TAKING DIFFICULT DECISIONS IN LIFE.
Weekly Recommendations 😍
CRED and ZERODHA - Most talked about boys in the town!
When two great minds meet who have built different businesses and have a deep understanding of how consumers behave - You get lots of insight. Here is a great conversation between Nithin Kamath and Kunal Shah.
My biggest takeaway from the session:
▶ To get into any business or starting a business, you need to sharpen your ax. Work in the existing industry and learn the skills needed for that industry.
▶ There is no sure formula for the growth of the startups - Bootstrapped vs VC Fund - Depend on what kind of business you are in!
▶ How to stay sharp? - Try to learn new things and skills, Be Curious - Don't constraint yourself to a particular area.
▶ Always try to do what right for the customers and the team - Don't think about the short term - You won't have to hard-sell anything.
▶ Most of the people will try to convince VCs that there is potential in the market. Stay true to the data and yourself.
………………..
JALLIKATTU - India’s official entry to the Oscars and why you should watch it?
What is cinema mean to you? Take a moment and ask yourself.
For many people, it’s a medium of escape. And for some, it reflects the reality of our existence. Okay, that’s too much pep talk
Jallikattu is one of the finest gems in the last decade with a mixture of art, experiment, and entertainment. The movie is filled with metaphors and is open to interpretations. The film portrays how every human is a hunter deep within, irrespective of gender, caste, or creed, how greed consumes anything and everything around us, and how it brings out the worst in everyone. We described some creatures as wild, but sometimes we become even worse than animals. The movie is a good depiction of the analogy between cow & humans. It shows how humans are beast from within in the form of social. In the end, you will eventually question the very essence and life of humans.
Every scene of the movie feels like a new image that has been marvelously shot & designed by director Lijo Jose Pellissery & compiled with a fabulous background score given by Prashant Pillai. Jallikattu beat 26 other movies to emerged as a sole contender for official entry to Oscars 2021.
Jallikattu will be remembered, studied & enjoyed over the coming years. Now, grab yourself some snacks because you are about to experience a Cinema. It’s available on Amazon Prime Video
This short and crisp review is written by my friend Subham Chanekar
Connect with him to get more dose of Films.
Threads of the Week 🧵
Handpicked by me. I am sure, you will love it.
What is your definition of SUCCESS? What does SUCCESS mean to you?
This is an eye-opening and brutally honest thread about success and failures in life by Ankur Warikoo (Renowned entrepreneur and Content creator).
(Directly click on the tweet to read it)
Advertising and Creativity Masterclass
You must have noticed the “Masterclass Ads” on Instagram or Facebook. There is an amazing “Advertising and Creativity masterclass by Goodby & Silverstein”. This thread covers 15 important insights from that masterclass. Now you don’t have to buy it. Just read this.
Thought-provoking Ideas by the greatest curious mind - Stephen Hawking!
This thread is a collection of some great thought-provoking ideas by Stephen Hawking - His thoughts about the universe, Life, Our existence, Creator, and Curiosity.
A must-read thread of course!
Curiosity Shots 🤔
▶ Wolf Gupta, the imaginary child - The specific problem in WhiteHat Jr’s advertising is that they mix the unreal with the real. So, while ‘Wolf Gupta’ is fictitious, ‘Google’ is not. That juxtaposition makes the viewers/audiences assume that the story is possibly real. The broader problem with deceptive advertising is that it starts the communication on a false note. The article explains all the sides of WhiteHat Jr’s controversy. Read here.
▶ Startups: The Very Beginning - There are 3 most important qualities in the founders of startups - The most important quality is determination. There’s got to be at least one super determined founder. I've seen so many smart and talented people fail because they couldn't stick with it when things got tough. The second thing you need in the founding team is domain expertise. At least one of the founders should be an expert in what you're working on. The third quality you need in the founders is the ability, or at least willingness, to sell. Read this brilliant article by Jessica Livingston, a cofounder at Y Combinator (Startup School).
▶ One Big Idea - Consuming as many books as possible has become a competitive sport for knowledge workers who want to show off their intellectual curiosity. To do so, they race through books like they’re collecting mushrooms in Super Mario Kart. This modern reading habit stems from deep-rooted cultural insecurity. We no longer believe that one idea can be transformative. In contrast to the sprint to read every book on Kindle, Charlie Munger once said: “Take a simple idea and take it seriously. Read this interesting article on “How one big idea can be transformative”.
Personal Update 😛
Hello...Hello...Lovely people!
We are a community of ‘60 Curious Minds’ now in a span of 10-12 days ❤
Many of you have given me great feedback and I have jotted down what I am doing good and what I can still improve on! I am overwhelmed by your appreciation and suggestions 😊
We will improve together throughout this journey and create a community of curious minds!
And I am listening to Harry Style’s album this week - Fine Line
What an absolute treat!
My personal favorites: Watermelon Sugar, Golden, and Adore you 🎵
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Okay…
Signing off…Until next time with new stories. Take Care ❤