Replay of a great conversation with @ShaneAParrish and the late Daniel Kahneman. One of the last interviews he recorded before he died. Always interesting. Whether you believe the research or a bit skeptical 🧠

Morgan Housel on the difference between rich and wealthy:⁣ ⁣ "Rich is making your payments. Wealthy is independence.⁣ ⁣ Wealth is the money you DON'T spend—the car you didn't buy, the house you didn't upgrade.⁣ ⁣ Wealth is invisible."⁣ ⁣ Source:

Main Street Mondays 🎤 Overheard on Mainstreet: "The secret to getting the world to work for you? Go out of your way to help others first." During his chat with @BrentBeshore on the Main Stage last year, @ShaneAParrish broke down why leading with value beats leading with potential every time. When you demonstrate genuine help instead of just talking about what you could do, people remember. They trust. They want to reciprocate. It's not about networking—it's about showing up authentically and making someone else's day a little easier. What small way could you help someone today? #MainStreetSummit #OverheardOnMainStreet #ShaneParrish #Leadership #GiveFirst #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #Value

"One question I always ask myself in appraising a business is how I would like, assuming I had ample capital and skilled personnel, to compete with it. I'd rather wrestle grizzlies than compete with Mrs. B and her progeny. They buy brilliantly, they operate at expense ratios competitors don't even dream about, and they then pass on to their customers much of the savings." — Warren Buffett on Rose Blumkin

"The hours nobody wants compound into the life everybody wants."

David Heacock on why momentum is everything:⁣ ⁣ "In life, you're either progressing or regressing. There's no steady state. Once you lose momentum, it's incredibly hard to get back."

12 Lessons from my conversation with former chairman and CEO of Pepsi Indra Nooyi: 1. Leave the Crown in the Garage: The day Indra became president of PepsiCo, she rushed home to share the news. Her mother cut her off: "The news can wait. Go get milk." Indra returned furious. Her mother's response was surgical: "You may be president of PepsiCo, but when you come home, you're a wife, a mother, and a daughter. Nobody can take your place. Leave that crown in the garage." Someone else can fill your role at the company. Nobody else can be you at home. Leave your title at the door. 2. Zoom In Before You Zoom Out: As a consultant, Indra visited factories, walked manufacturing lines, and talked to R&D teams. "My philosophy was zoom in before you zoom out," she says. Some call it micromanaging. She calls it micro-understanding. "If you don't understand the business down to where the rubber meets the road, you can make decisions at the top which are not implementable." You can't fix what you don't understand. Most leaders stay at 30,000 feet. The best descend to ground level first. 3. The Right Side of the Decimal: When you're the CEO, you think in millions. But money is made in pennies. Steve Reinemund taught her about "the right side of the decimal"—the tiny costs that compound. Can you remove a penny from each delivery route? Half a cent from packaging? "I'm selling a 25-cent bag of Doritos," her team would say. "Don't talk about millions." The micro-pennies add up. If you want to be great, you need to master both sides of the decimal. 4. Know the Politics, Don't Play Them: "Where there are people, there's politics," Indra observed. "Understand the politics, but don't play in the politics." Know who doesn't like whom. Understand how meetings really work. Then focus on the job. Once you meddle in politics and gossip, you become a negative force. Most people get sucked into the game. The best observe it and opt out. 5. There Is No Such Thing as Balance: When I asked her about work-life balance, she laughed. "What balance? It doesn't exist. It's juggling all those roles. It's not even harmony, as sometimes it's not very harmonious." You juggle and hope the most important balls don't crash and burn each day. They're all full-time roles. "You don't get to be CEO by being the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect everything. You do the best you can." Most people seek balance. The honest ones admit it's juggling. 6. Signal Without Static: Indra learned to be surgical with feedback. Tell them what they did well. Tell them what they didn't. Tell them exactly what to improve. Be clear. Be direct. Be kind. No leaving people guessing. When someone rolled their eyes or cut someone off in a meeting, she'd call it out immediately but gently: "Can you let her finish?" Most managers bury the message in comfort. The best deliver it clean. 7. Passion Looks Like Crazy: Steve Jobs taught her to show passion. When he hated a campaign, he'd throw things and demand a new one by morning. "I don't utter four-letter words and throw things around," Indra says. But she learned to say "I hate it" when she hated something. "If you care about something, show your passion." Most people hide their intensity to seem professional. The best let it show when it counts. 8. You Can Always Find the Data: While working on a competitor's plant expansion, Indra needed specific details. The site was hidden in woods. Traditional sources had nothing. So she filed a Freedom of Information Act request for satellite photos at different altitudes. Got them in days. Could see the bays, estimate the products. "Don't tell me you can't get the data," she says. "Find a way." The data exists somewhere—directly, indirectly, tangentially. Most people stop at the first obstacle. The persistent find another angle. 9. High Agency Means No Blame: The best people at PepsiCo raised their hands for difficult assignments. If something went wrong, they didn't look for someone to blame. They'd say, "I could have led differently" or "I could have staffed my team differently." These people constantly looked for ways to improve the company, not chase the next promotion. They put company before career. Most people dodge hard assignments. High-agency people volunteer for them. 10. Complaining Is Not a Strategy: Indra grew up in post-colonial India, where everyone was pushing their kids. "Satan has work for idle hands," her family would say. When she wanted to complain, there was nowhere to go. Every aunt and uncle pushed their kids the same way. "If I complained to an aunt or an uncle, they'd say, 'Oh, I'm doing the same with my kids.'" The entire community operated on one frequency: work harder. All the energy you spend complaining comes at the expense of working with reality as it is. 11. Take the Blame, Give the Credit: "Blame flows upwards. Credit should flow downward." When something goes wrong, Indra takes responsibility. When something goes right, the team gets recognition. After driving a major product launch as "program manager," she made sure the team got all the credit. "You couldn't have done it yourself," she says. Most leaders do the opposite. The best flip the script. 12. When the Environment Changes, Change Your Mind: Indra led the spin-out of bottlers in the '90s, then led the charge to bring them back. "People say, 'Oh, you flip-flop.' No, the environment changed." When markets grew, independent bottlers thrived. When growth slowed, they fought over a shrinking pie. Strategy isn't dogma. It's a response to reality. "You cannot be dogmatic about your strategic direction." Most leaders stick to decisions to seem consistent. The best adapt when the facts change. Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top of PepsiCo and the Cost of Getting There [The Knowledge Project Podcast Episode 234]

This was a really awesome @farnamstreet episode, probably one of my fav in recent years Loved the "You need to requalify for your job annually" frame

"But Les understood reciprocity: humans are biologically wired to return favors. Those free repairs converted more customers than any ad campaign ever could. Most businesses demand payment before delivering a service. Les reversed it. Give first, without keeping score, and the universe will do most of the work for you."

13 Lessons from Les Schwab: 1. Get the Incentives Right: Les gave store managers 50% of profits but made them keep every penny invested until their stake equaled his. "If I share half but the store is more successful, my half is worth more than my whole used to be." By locking in their wealth, he ensured they'd think long-term. They couldn't cash out until they'd created real value. No manager ever quit. Every store exploded. The magic wasn't just win-win profit sharing, it was ownership. When people can only get rich slowly, they tend to build things that last. 2. Bet on Yourself: At 34, Les sold his house, borrowed against his life insurance, and scraped together $11,000 to buy a failing tire shop with no running water. He'd never changed a tire. His competitors had decades of experience. But Les had something they didn't: no backup plan. When failure means ruin, you find ways to win that comfortable people never discover. One year later, he'd quintupled revenue. Half-measures guarantee half-results. 3. High Agency: Everything is your job. Les bought his first tire shop having never fixed a flat. Day one: a customer needs tires mounted. Les fumbles with hand tools on cold concrete, making a complete mess until his employee arrives and saves him. Instead of hiding behind "that's not my job," Les insisted on being taught immediately. You don't need permission. Just start and improve quickly. 4. Go Positive, Go First: Les gave free flat repairs to anyone, customer or not. Competitors called him crazy. Why fix flats for people who bought tires elsewhere? But Les understood reciprocity: humans are biologically wired to return favors. Those free repairs converted more customers than any ad campaign ever could. Most businesses demand payment before delivering a service. Les reversed it. Give first, without keeping score, and the universe will do most of the work for you. 5. Dark Hours: Every morning before dawn, teenage Les ran his paper route. Not biked. Ran. For two months, he sprinted through dark streets on foot, saving for a bicycle. While classmates slept, he delivered. By senior year, he owned all nine routes in town and out-earned his high school principal. The hours nobody wants compound into the life everybody wants. 6. The Work Is the Way: Les wrote: "Life is hard... for the man who thinks he can take a shortcut." He ran paper routes on foot before he could afford a bike. He learned every job in his stores from the ground up. He paid cash for every expansion rather than borrowing for speed. The work is the shortcut. 7. Invert the Hierarchy: Les paid store managers more than executives, including himself. "Too many corporations think all the brains are in the main office. The truth is that success is at the other end." He told people: if headquarters executives ever out-earned the best store managers, the company would die. Most businesses worship the office and exploit the front line. Les worshipped the front line and made the office serve them. 8. Stay Paranoid: Stay Paranoid: Les warned his managers: "If we become complacent, brother it's all over with." He saw it starting to creep in. Success sows the seeds of its own destruction. It takes a lot of vigilance and effort to stamp out complacency. 9. You Can't Make a Good Deal with a Bad Person: Les learned this early: "A handshake deal with Pleas Brown is better than a long contract with most any man." No contract can create trust. The wrong person will find loopholes in any agreement. The right person doesn't need one. 10. Ride the Wave: Charlie Munger spotted Les's secret: "The Japanese had a zero position in tires, and they got big. So this guy must have ridden that wave." While competitors stayed loyal to American suppliers who screwed them on price, Les partnered with hungry Japanese manufacturers who needed distribution. When you get the trend right, you can make a lot of mistakes. 11. Lead, Don't Follow: Les told his wife: "There was a better way to do business, and I had to explore my own ideas, even though it was going to make my life more complicated." He could have stayed a franchise owner, followed their rules, and collected safe profits. But something in him wanted to lead, not follow, to play by his rules, not theirs. 12. Your Name Is Your Business: In the 1960s, Les ripped down every Goodyear and Firestone sign from his stores. Insane move. Those signs meant manufacturer support and co-op advertising dollars. But Les bet customers bought from people, not brands. Within a decade, "Les Schwab" meant more than any tire brand in the Northwest. He turned his name into a promise. Your reputation either works in your favor or against you. There's no neutral. 13. Think in Decades: Investment bankers waved billion-dollar offers at Les. He refused them all. "What would I do with the money?" The real reason: buyers would "fix" his upside-down pay structure where store managers out-earned executives because they didn't understand why it worked. Some things are worth more than money.