I play tennis, and I think too much. It’s a bad combination.
In The Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey writes, “In short, [tennis] is played to overcome all habits of mind which inhibit excellence in performance.” I love this concept because it’s about trusting your skills so you can act immediately and without self-doubt.
I rowed in college, and training was intentionally brutal. My coaches would say the point was to build muscle memory that could carry you through a race at peak exhaustion. Similarly, though with less need for hand-eye coordination,* training eliminated the need to think.
A bulletproof foundation gives you that luxury: to react with confidence, without overthinking.
Charlie Munger captured this idea beautifully in a different context:
“Neither Warren nor I are smart enough to make decisions with no time to think. We make actual decisions very rapidly, but that’s because we have spent so much time preparing ourselves by quietly reading.”
I think about this a lot in my professional life. I’ve spent decades studying business models and financial statements. Early in my career, I’d ask if I had exhausted all available information. But over time, I’ve come to see it differently. It’s about continually exploring what fascinates you so you can move fast when it counts.
Or as Richard Feynman put it:
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent, and original manner possible.”
In practice, no decision should be paralyzed by overanalysis. Preparation matters, but the best data comes after you execute. What really matters is speed to decision and the humility to course correct in response to new information.
You won’t always get it right. But if you pair foundational knowledge with speed and flexibility, you can adjust quickly. That’s how you iterate toward success.
When working with a team, this mindset matters even more. You need to balance analytical rigor with an understanding of the psychology behind hesitation. Trust your process. Respect your team’s thinking. And surface the biases that slow momentum.
Teaching through ASimpleModel.com has been an unexpected gift. It’s forced me to revisit the fundamentals as my career has evolved. Revisiting them in different contexts is wildly helpful. It sharpens the mental models that inform decisions, which is how good judgement becomes instinct.
If you’re early in your career, I’d encourage you to build skills across disciplines. Choose one and go deep. It may not be driven by passion initially, but you’ll find it as your curiosity expands. And don’t dismiss topics that only mildly interest you. Eventually they might surprise you if you keep going. You’ll find unexpected connections. Learning will feel less like a task and more like momentum. You’ll fixate less on what you want to become and more on what you find fascinating. Which makes work a lot more fun.
*Which was great because I didn’t have it.