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Personal development

Interview with Anne Wojcicki – CEO of 23andme

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Hey Everyone,

Anne Wojcicki is the Co-Founder and CEO for 23andMe. Her company helps users learn about their ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits via at-home genetics test kits and genetic mapping research. In 2007, 23andMe became the first company to offer autosomal DNA testing for ancestry, becoming a pioneer in the field, and developing technology that has lead the way for every other at-home genetic testing service to come after it. The saliva-based, direct-to-consumer genetic testing business was named “Invention of the Year” by Time magazine in 2008. Anne discusses the impact her family had on her vision to build 23andMe; challenges she faced building the company; why we should all take ownership of our health; how 23andMe can help researchers find medical cures, and more!

Anne Wojcicki’s talk covers the following topics:

  • Her relationship with Google (Anne’s story about Google burritos, Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, and the first iphone)
  • Anne’s approach to Healthcare
  • Beginning Stages of 23andMe and genetics
  • The struggle with the FDA and the drive to persevere
  • 23andMe’a current offerings and the potential expansion of offerings
  • Investment and the reality of the Drug Industry
  • Using data to increase development of 23andMe
  • Connecting people to resources for their health
  • How health is the sum of your actions everyday
  • Empowering people of their privacy and the freedom to compare
  • Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
  • Virtual Healthcare
  • Publication of genetic association of 23andMe discoveries
  • And much more!

 

If you liked this talk, and you don’t want to miss any other great talks,  subscribe to my newsletter! You can find my other interviews with Ray Dalio, Tim Ferriss, Sebastian Junger, and many more here .

Interview with Annie Duke of World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions winner and author of Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts

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“Don’t get so down on yourself for your bad outcomes and don’t pat yourself on the back so hard for the good ones.” – Annie duke

Hey Everyone,

Annie Duke, World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions winner, joined us to talk about talk about her latest book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts.  We all know about her fantastic poker career, but few us (myself included) knew about her equally impressive academic background.  Annie double-majored in English and psychology, then went on to pursue a doctorate in cognitive linguistics. Annie talks about the latest research in decision making and how she applied this research in poker and in business. Make sure to take notes for this one because it’s jammed packed with great information.

About the book: “Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it’s difficult to say “I’m not sure” in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don’t always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don’t always lead to bad outcomes.

By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don’t, you’ll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You’ll become more confident, calm, compassionate and successful in the long run.”

 

Annie Duke’s talk covers the following topics:

  • How poker is a natural laboratory to study decision-making
  • Two factors that can affect a good decision making
  • The importance of motivated reasoning
  • Why decisions should be treated as bets
  • What is resulting and how is it hurting  your decision making
  • Two things that determine how our lives turn out
  • Hidden information in luck
  • The importance of Ulysses pacts
  • And much more!

 

If you liked this talk, and you don’t want to miss any other great talks,  subscribe to my newsletter! You can find my other interviews with Ray Dalio, Tim Ferriss, Sebastian Junger, Gad Saad, Ryan Holiday, and many more here .

Eric Barker – Barking Up The Wrong Tree

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Hey Everyone,

Recently I hosted author and blogger Eric Barker, who has been featured in Time Magazine, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, to talk about his latest book Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong.

His talk covers the following topics:

  • Filtered un filtered leaders
  • Finding your own pond
  • Understanding the power of WOOP (Not whoop there it is)
  • Why if you’re a drug dealer, you should have a big network to stay out of jail
  • Why we choose confidence over expertise and how lower confidence helps us learn
  • The emperor of Mexico, who lived in San Francisco
  • What are intensifiers, and how can they benefit us
  • What we can learn from Glen Gould
  • How to become a super connector
  • How is success influenced by timing and context
  • What four metrics should you monitor to keep your life on track
  • Great tips on mentoring and networking
  • And much more

If you liked this talk, and you don’t want to miss any other great talks, you can find my other interviews with Tim Ferriss, Gad Saad, Ryan Holiday, and many more here. and make sure to subscribe to my newsletter!

 

Topics covered in the talk:

Tim Ferriss – Tools of Titans

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Hi Tribe,

Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Ferriss at Google.

We talked about his podcast, his routines, how he keeps himself mentally and physically healthy, and much more. At the end of the talk he asks Googlers if we would be interested in a book about his podcasts. Tim’s book idea became Tools of Titans. I had the pleasure of conducting research on this book with Tim Ferriss and Hristo Vassilev. Enjoy!

 

If you liked this talk, you can find my other interviews here.

P.S – As Homer Simpson once said, “Thou shalt not take moochers into thy hut.” If you like what you read, please share this post, check out my blog, or subscribe to my newsletter!

A CEO at Berkshire Hathaway shares his productivity tips

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After I college I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I decided to take real estate classes at night while working as a temporary employee at Google.

My real estate Professor was Gino Blefari. He was the president and founder of Intero Real Estate. Recently his company was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway and he’s the CEO of their HomeServices  division. Earlier this year I interviewed him at Google to talk about Real Estate investing and his productivity tips.

During his real estate class he shared with me 45 productivity tips (I incorrectly said 63 in the interview. Give me a break, I’m a senile >.>). Anyone can use these tips to become more effective in their work and personal lives.

During my time as a temporary employee at Google, I would read his list to see which ones I could apply to my role. After applying these tips to my work, I was able to increase my effectiveness which lead to greater projects resulting in a conversion to a full time role at Google.

You can find the tips here.

Let me know how these tips work for you!

Please Note: He does mention prospecting, if you’re not in sales, think of this as Deep work time, time to focus on projects that require great focus or time spent learning new skills.

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How to build habits like a programmer

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Programmers use If-Then statements to instruct a computer to do something if certain conditions are met. If “X” happens, do “Y”.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could use this technique to build personal development habits?

If-Then statements for personal development

It’s easy to set up our own If-Then statements, all it takes is a small commitment. The best If-Then statements have a clear stimulus and follow up action. The stimulus is a wake up call to your brain to take action, but the stimulus should be easy to understand and happen on a regular basis.

In order for the If-Then statements to take hold you need to start with one, and work on it for 66 days as mentioned in Jay Papasans one thing.

Examples of great If-Then statements

If I wake up early in the morning then I need to work out right away.

If I’m stuck in traffic then I will  listen to an educational podcast.

If I’m waiting in line then I will study spanish with duolingo.

If I’m feeling uncertain then I need to track this thought with my journal.

If I’m frustrated then I will take 25 minute break to work on a side project.

If I’m in bed early then I will start reading a book.

If I learned something from the meeting then I will take 30 seconds to write it down in my journal.

You can create If-Then statements for almost anything

The possibilities are endless. Try experimenting with one and let me know how it works out.

Try this experiment and let me know what happens in the comment section.

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