Article available in Spanish here. If you live in one of the cities I am visiting, register here. One more thing. We are considering holding a reader event in Denver at the end of August around the 28th, 29th, or 30th. If you are interested in attending, register here. We'll be giving away signed copies of my Little Book of Sideways Markets.
Please email a proof of donation and your mailing address in the US only to Barbara pa imausa. Don't forget to tell your friends! This offer ends August 31 st. The writer and investor in me are on never-ending quests. The writer is always seeking new stories, while the investor is looking for new ideas, mental models, and ways to optimize our current portfolio.
It is difficult to distinguish where the writer ends and the investor begins β the two identities have a considerable overlap. As my wife would tell you, my brain is constantly active. I have written extensively about how I write I dedicated several chapters in Soul in the Game to this topic. I also wrote a lengthy essay in the past on how I work; therefore, here I will focus specifically on research and travel. The way we do research resembles organized chaos; it looks nothing like the work life of a typical knowledge worker.
How does typical knowledge work proceed? Even though most people reading this are not working on assembly lines if you are, my respect! Fast food restaurants β take McDonald's and Chick-Fil-A for example β are just small food factories run by assembly line processes. Here is the issue: Most people who become knowledge workers had a job at a fast-food restaurant early in their lives.
There is nothing wrong with that, except that it reinforces in our young minds what work is: going into a place with four walls, clocking in, diligently working for four hours, taking a lunch break, working for another four hours, clocking out, and then going home. The assembly line mentality is appropriate for making burgers, where the worker falls into a temporary coma as he mindlessly repeats a narrowly defined set of tasks. The work switch turns off when he punches out and goes home, unless he is making burgers at home for dinner.
