Views taken from other people, and summarised.

Personal algorithms

Personal algorithms are an interesting idea: using an algorithm to simplify and improve the decisions we make in our lives. Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint project is the classic example — he manages his own health and longevity with a health algorithm. He has given up his own authority over health decisions and handed those decisions to an algorithm he and his team developed.

What is a personal algorithm?

A personal algorithm can be understood as a systematic method: making decisions from rules and data set in advance. It can be applied to any part of life — health, time, financial planning. The core idea is to reduce a complicated, changeable decision process to a binary choice: follow the algorithm, or don’t.

Bryan Johnson’s health algorithm

Bryan Johnson’s health algorithm is built around longevity and health, and he uses it to manage his diet, his exercise and his other health-related activities. Specifically, he reduces hundreds of daily health decisions to one simple choice: follow the algorithm or not. That lets him concentrate on execution rather than agonising over each individual decision.

An example

Say you are losing weight and someone offers you a doughnut. In the ordinary decision process you might weigh up a great many factors: you like doughnuts, but you are watching sugar and carbohydrates; you went to the gym yesterday, and if you go again today maybe that makes up for it; but then two days ago you had that slice of cake; and so on. Complicated thinking like this leads to decision fatigue, and in the end you may make a decision that works against your long-term goal.

But if you use a health algorithm, the way Bryan Johnson does, the decision becomes very simple and direct: “The algorithm says no doughnuts in the diet, so no.” The whole decision process is taken over by the algorithm, you barely need to think about it, decision fatigue drops, and the decisions that favour your health accumulate easily.

Where our decisions fail

People are often bad at making long-term decisions for themselves, because we tend to chase short-term satisfaction while being too optimistic about our future performance. That makes it very hard to stick to long-term goals — health, building habits, career development.

What personal algorithms could do

What would happen if we applied a Johnson-style algorithm to other parts of life: building habits, breaking bad ones, reaching career goals? Suppose an omniscient agent controlled your actions. What would it have you do?

This potential lack of autonomy frightens a lot of people, but is it really a lack of autonomy? Or is it just letting your “smart self” decide ahead of time on behalf of your “weak self”?

With a personal algorithm we are really using our own intelligence and reason to make the best decision for our future selves, and so avoiding the damage that short-term desires and impulses do. That reduces decision fatigue, and it also keeps us moving more firmly towards the long-term goal.

Winner takes all

May 2024. The winner-takes-all logic is intensifying. The gap between the few and the many will keep widening, so that the best get the most resources and the most opportunities.

The winner effect

In every field, the best creators will attract the most attention; the best doctors will see everyone; the best pizza chefs will make pizza for the whole world; the strongest countries will dominate global culture. The way we operate is changing, and it is making the differences in ability larger and larger. Small differences in ability lead to enormous differences in productivity, and the link between productivity and income is tightening too. The cycle is accelerating, and it produces a world where the winner gets the most.

We cannot reverse or slow this shift, because doing so would slow progress. In a world with equal opportunity, better technology and more freedom, the best will get the most.

Complex work and the spread of ability

Among people doing complex work, the spread of ability is wider even when the training is identical. However much training founders, creators or marketers receive, huge differences in their ability remain.

The more complex the work, the more possibilities there are. A factory worker, for instance, has limited choices at any given moment, which makes the way they work relatively simple. An artist has unlimited choices and possibilities, which makes their work more complex.

For simple work, enough training can bring you close to the best. The best factory worker is only somewhat more productive than an average one. But the best founder is many times more productive than an average founder; the average founder may fail, while the best founder achieves something incredible.

Even if the best entrepreneur or artist coached a student round the clock for ten years, the spread in ability among students would still be wide. Complex work demands more talent and creativity, and some people are simply born better at meeting what people need.

If we plot professionals’ ability on a chart, we find it follows a power law. The best is far better than the second best; the gap between second and third is smaller; and so on.

Leverage and complexity

Greater leverage makes work more complex, because we can skip the simple work and make the complex work more complex still. Leverage means: the less time it takes to realise an idea, the greater the leverage.

Before computers were invented, we spent a great deal of time on numerical calculation. As technology advanced, we could spend more time thinking about what to create and how, which is far more complex than calculation alone.

Leverage makes what was once impossible possible, and increases the complexity of the work. Once smartphones spread, software development became more complex, because both what could be built and who could be served increased.

Leverage also increases the speed at which we make decisions. When realising an idea takes a long time, the differences between individuals do not show up quickly. Imagine a game of chess in which every move takes five years. By the time the players die, their differences are not obvious. But if every move is quick, differences in ability turn into differences in productivity fast.

The gap between the best and the middle

Teams will no longer be able to hire people who are not the best. If one of the best is 1000 times more productive than an average person, then waiting to hire one of the best makes more sense than hiring 1000 average people.

As opportunity becomes more equal and the world more connected, competition will get fiercer. That will bring more innovation, raise leverage, and widen the productivity gap between the best and the ordinary further still.

In a fair, high-leverage world, the best will be rewarded the most.

Fair and unfair opportunity

There are two kinds of opportunity. One is determined by birth; the other by access to tools, education and freedom.

Everyone is born with different abilities, personality and emotional disposition. No two trees are the same, and no two stones are the same. Humans differ in ability, and for any complex activity some people have an innate advantage.

Trying to create equality at birth is dangerous, because it means erasing our uniqueness. We underestimate how much biology shapes our personalities. Gene editing in pursuit of sameness would cost us our diversity, and in the end fail the species.

We should strengthen our uniqueness, not eliminate it.

Inequality in access to tools, education and freedom is unfair.

Both fairness and unfairness produce unequal outcomes. We cannot say the world is unfair merely because outcomes are unequal.

The economy and the distribution of wealth

In a fair world, equality of productivity and wealth is possible, but only where the work is simple. For complex work, in a fair world, outcomes will not be perfectly equal. If the outcomes of complex work look equal, you do not have to look far to find a few people who are better than the rest.

In a fair, high-leverage world, upward mobility is hard. It is hard not because opportunity has shrunk, but because becoming one of the best is harder, and because it is harder to know what you could be best at.

So we cannot use the difficulty of upward mobility as our measure of unfairness. That is like saying chess is unfair because I cannot become a professional player and make a living at it. Life is not fair; a game can be.

A better measure is to look at where the winners started. In a fair world, we would find almost no correlation between the privilege of their starting point and their final outcome. We still have a long way to go, but things are better now than ever.

The winner-takes-all future

We are accelerating into a winner-takes-all world. In the next few years, inequality will rise sharply, by a margin that may exceed the last century, or more. It will shock us.

Leverage grows exponentially, and it accelerates the productivity gap between the best and everyone else.

Global GDP understates leverage, because leverage also increases the transactions that involve no money, and those are not yet reflected in GDP. As leverage grows, GDP will become more accurate.

No middle class: those who are not the best at something will not be able to make a living. The middle class existed only in a world where the work was simpler and there was less leverage, where the productivity gap between the best and the ordinary was small.

In theory anyone could be the best in the world at something, because the number of activities is unlimited. In practice, that is unlikely to happen.

Some people’s strengths will show only in activities the world does not value (or will not value within their lifetime). Some cannot discover their strengths, and however hard they try they will not be the best at anything. And some will not train themselves the right way.

So we need a universal basic income that grows with leverage.

Why a universal basic income is necessary

A universal basic income will never “feel like enough”. If it were high enough, the feeling would be brief anyway. That is because the next breakthrough in medicine, technology or culture will make you want what a basic income cannot buy. Those breakthroughs will come more often, and people who depend on a basic income will always want things they cannot get, things that feel like basic necessities.

A basic income will never be high enough to bring the best outcomes close to the average, because that distribution would not maximise growth (GDP).

“Winner gets the most” applies to countries too: those unable to compete on growth will face a new kind of colonialism. They will need the winners’ help, and that help will come with uncomfortable conditions. Recipients will be forced to cut their basic income to the amount that maximises growth, and their culture will be swallowed by the winners’ culture. We are already seeing early signs of this.

To survive, countries will be unable to raise a basic income to the point of damaging their competitiveness. Those that do will be forced to cut it as a condition of receiving help. As leverage grows, resisting these incentives will get harder.

Nobody created these incentives. Any group of organisms that wants what it wants quickly will feel them. The winners are just better at optimising for them.

Do not rely on a basic income to get what you want; treat it only as:

Finding your own strength

Find what you can be valued for in the world (or will be valued for in future), and be the best at it. Leave the rest to nature.

Ultra mindset — lessons from ultrarunners

The sun had only just set as I climbed a muddy, little-used trail in Oregon’s Coast Range. My 100-mile race was 40 miles in, and the long night was still ahead. I checked in with myself: “Feeling good, Alexa. Keep at it. You know these trails better than anyone.”

The moment I finished that thought, a sharp pain shot through my right knee. It hurt so much I fell to the ground. I tried to get up, and realised with horror that I could barely put weight on that leg. I was five miles from the next aid station, where my crew were waiting to help. I sat down in the wet branches and brush at the side of the trail and took a deep breath. Breathe. Plan. Act. This was where I was, and nothing could change that. Instead, I had to find a way to deal with it. I stayed calm and tried to stand, and fell straight back down. In frustration I realised I had no choice but to cover the next five miles on a leg that would not work, and that my race was over. Thinking about all the time I had put into training for this, and all my goals shattered by a small ligament in my knee, tears ran down my cheeks.

I beat that thought by reminding myself of my strength and my grit. Come on — I had trained hundreds of hours on these trails, through snow, sleet and fast-running rivers. I could absolutely cover the next five miles. It might be slow and painful, but I had to do it. I took a deep breath, got up, and started limping slowly down the trail. I breathed deeply the whole way, and remembered that today was another beautiful day in the forest. This would not be my last race.

The ultrarunner’s psychological profile

When ultrarunners talk about deliberately running 50, 100 or more miles, they get odd looks. Typical responses are “like… all at once?” or “why would you do that? It sounds awful”, or most often “I don’t even like driving that far!”. Which raises a good question: why would anyone want to run such a painful distance? Fortunately, scientists are curious about this too, and the research shows that ultrarunners are psychologically a little different from other kinds of athlete. There is a lot we can learn from ultrarunners, and their ultra mindset is something we can apply to everyday life. So let us look, through Alexa’s anecdotes and varied experience as an elite ultrarunner, at how ultrarunners handle difficult situations.

Ultrarunners endure extreme exercise fatigue, boredom, gut trouble, pain and injury. They run all day and all night, through wind, snow, rain, thick fog, extremes of temperature and altitude. What brain chemistry lets them reach these physical limits, enjoy it, and keep going back?

“When I realised how much training I had put into this, and that all my goals had been shattered by a small ligament in my knee, I could not help but cry.”

Alexa Hasman racing for the win at the 2020 Antelope Canyon 100 Mile.

The key psychological traits of ultrarunners

“Every time I sign up for an ultra, I look forward to the struggle. I love that intense feeling of fighting through the hard physical moments. I love being alone in the woods, working out how to keep going when I do not want to. When I talk to my ultrarunning friends, they often describe the same craving. The need for struggle and challenge. That is what drives us.”

Scientific studies comparing non-athletes with ultrarunners have reached some interesting conclusions. Ultrarunners are more resilient and more adaptable, and react less to negative stimuli (1). They also score lower on agreeableness and extraversion (less social warmth and friendliness). That may be an important factor in running long, lonely stretches alone in the forest, but it seems at odds with the tight-knit ultrarunning community.

What we can conclude from that is that ultrarunning is a social club for people who do not like socialising. In this community, people can talk and connect about the solitary sport they love while eating soggy crisps out of a bowl in the woods. When conventional forms of social interaction fall outside our comfort zone, this is how we connect.

One study found that ultra-endurance athletes score higher than the general population on openness to risk and experience seeking (2). One look at an ultrarunner’s inner world and those traits are obvious. The study showed that participants in ultra events tend to choose activities that carry danger and risk.

Surprisingly, the same study also showed that ultra athletes score lower than the general population on disinhibition. They tend to avoid drugs, alcohol and other substances they believe might harm their performance.

“I started putting the aid-station pancakes, which looked delicious, into my mouth. It was 5 a.m. and the sun was starting to come up. I should have been crossing the finish line in about an hour. Instead, I ran 20 miles and started vomiting uncontrollably. This was not the day I wanted. I had to stop and rest. I did not feel good, and I was moving slowly. As I started biting into the pancake, I threw up all over the high desert trails of Oregon. In that state, I doubted whether I would carry on. I would finish later than planned, or not at all. I could not keep food down, and I was seeing wildlife and ghosts in every tree. But then again, I had already run 80 miles. Why stop now? Why not see whether I could finish and conquer this race under conditions this hard?”

Ultrarunners score low on the boredom susceptibility scale (3). That makes sense, since running alone in the forest for hours requires a certain capacity to entertain yourself. Another interesting study, in the Journal of Pain, tested ultra-endurance athletes’ pain tolerance. It found that ultrarunners score 40% lower than the general population on the pain anxiety symptoms scale. The authors hypothesised that ultrarunners’ use of pain intervention and avoidance techniques means they cope with pain better because of how they process it psychologically, not because they have a higher physical pain tolerance (4).

Using these traits, we can sharpen our skills and improve our craft. That means spending time honing our pain tolerance through breathing techniques, and reminding ourselves that we are fine (in cases where the pain is not injury or danger). Understanding these traits also helps us see why we, as ultrarunners, may be unlike other people, and why our hobby looks strange to the ordinary observer.

The non-ultrarunner’s view

It is worth asking how ultrarunners compare with non-athletes and with athletes in other sports. Here too we see significant differences. Research rates ultrarunners as more neurotic than short-distance runners. But because they spend longer running in nature, they also experience more flow while running (5).

“Most of the time, when I talk to people who do not run ultras, they respond: ‘that sounds awful. I would never do that. Why would you want to run that far?’ My thought is, ‘why wouldn’t you?’ Why wouldn’t you want to work towards a goal that looks impossible? A goal that scares you and astonishes people. Why wouldn’t you want to explore the depths of your own capability, and see the incredible beauty of our planet in such a vulnerable, singular way.”

Many studies find that ultra-endurance athletes are more motivated than athletes in other sports to explore their own psychological and physical limits (6). They also have more grit, drive and motivation (7). The most important factor is the difference in motivation level between endurance and ultra-endurance athletes, with the latter scoring higher on that trait.

This helps us understand why we look forward to the next hard event, and how and why we can push ourselves out of our comfort zone. We can also conceptualise our capacity to persist and keep going when most people would not. Finally, we can see that our motivation drives us inevitably, which makes it important to examine and reflect on what that motivation is.

Where ultrarunners’ drive comes from

“I always tell my athletes that many of their training runs will not be rainbows and butterflies. They are hard, relentless, unforgiving. You will question why you are doing this and think about quitting. That is when you remind yourself why you are doing it. How will you feel when you cross the finish line, when you climb to the top of that big mountain, when you taste the pancakes at the aid station at mile 80? How will the hug at the end of the race feel? How will the world feel? Will you feel different? Yes, you will! You get that feeling through these relentless, unglamorous training miles,” coach Alexa explains.

The science of motivation is interesting. Research shows that for ultrarunners, achieving a personal goal is what motivates them (8). The motivation to reach those goals is intrinsic, not about impressing others with their athletic feats. They are trying to prove to themselves that they can do it. This is very different from participants in other endurance sports, such as marathoners, whose motivation is driven by health and self-esteem. A study that compared ultrarunners’ motivations directly with those of marathon and half-marathon runners showed that health and weight matter less to ultrarunners, and that life meaning and belonging are what keep them going (9). Strikingly, 74.1% of ultrarunners said they would not stop running even if ultrarunning were found to be bad for their health (10). They justify this by saying that running satisfies their need for achievement and their psychological needs.

Ultrarunners are often looking for their next goal race or a more challenging terrain. That is what keeps them moving. It is not about proving anything to other people (although it does make a good story over coffee). Having a clear goal and realistic expectations of yourself helps you prepare. Ultrarunners know it will be hard, but they also know it will change them as people, and change how they see the handling of a situation.

74.1% of ultrarunners said they would not stop running even if ultrarunning were found to be bad for their health.

Grit — the ultrarunner’s secret

Talking about ultrarunning, the subject of mental toughness is unavoidable. There is no question that ultrarunning takes enormous mental toughness, but what is it? And are ultrarunners better equipped with it?

“Six in the morning, on a dusty course in Arizona, I watched the field start. They slowly disappeared into the distance, and when I looked around I found myself alone. This was my first 100-mile race, and suddenly I questioned everything. Why am I this far back? Am I that bad? How is this possible? My mind raced as I tried to work out what I had done wrong. I looked down at my watch and realised I was running well. I realised I needed to control my own mind. I took a deep breath and remembered to run my own race. I should not be worrying about other people. I cannot control any of those runners, so why worry about them? All I can do is stay calm, breathe, and focus on myself and how I feel. In the end those runners would come back to me. By mile 60 I had moved up to first woman and eighth overall. By working on my race and my mindset, I beat the demons of self-doubt and fear. If I had worried about the other competitors, I would not have been in that position at mile 60. It would have exhausted me, and I would very likely have failed to finish.”

In one study, researchers interviewing ultrarunners learned that “mental toughness in ultramarathon running is the persistent use of psychological skills to overcome physical, mental, emotional and environmental obstacles in the relentless pursuit of a goal” (11). The study further established that mental toughness helps athletes overcome physical and psychological distress, allowing them to maintain emotional control and stay positive in adversity.

Ideas for building grit and mental toughness

Get through the hard parts of training. There will always be training days harder than others. Rather than giving up, endure the discomfort and keep going.
Assess the difficulty in front of you now, and take a moment to ask yourself how you could get through it.
Watch how you feel, deliberately. Turn negative thoughts into positive ones. Instead of saying “I can’t do this”, take a moment to rephrase. “This is hard, I am struggling. I am going to walk for a bit and see whether that feels better. I know that usually it does.” Remember not to show weakness to your own mind.
Remind yourself of your training, and of the last time you finished something hard or something you did not think you could do. It motivates you and gives you confidence.
The single best predictor of success in life happens to be grit. Watch Angela Duckworth’s superb TED talk — Grit: the power of passion and perseverance.

“As training tapers, we start to doubt ourselves. Have I run enough? Have I climbed enough? Do I even know how to use my poles? Wait, am I sure I like Tailwind? When you look at the race’s elevation profile your palms sweat, remembering the many miles of vertical ahead. Is this really possible? Fear and self-doubt are normal, and they help when you are on the start line on race day. Without that emotional response we would not have the drive and purpose behind the action.”

Learning from ultrarunners

“Ultrarunning teaches us a lot. It teaches us patience, grit, determination, and how to handle things when they do not go to plan. We can apply those lessons to life. Everyday life does not go to plan; how we choose to handle it matters. What we do on the trail affects how we handle things in the real world, which takes patience, grit, determination and adaptability.”

Ultrarunners persist, commit fully and push forward, and that lets them keep running even after the zombie hallucinations and the conversations with trees. A rare and incredible sense of achievement motivates them, running a distance most people do not even enjoy driving. All these traits make for incredible, determined, impressive athletes, psychologically a little different from ordinary people, but in every respect the best.

In summary

There are many lessons to take from ultrarunning and apply to the pressing situations in life. Every problem can be broken into smaller parts and handled; emotional stability brings clarity of vision; and so on. It teaches us patience, grit, determination, and how to handle things when they do not go to plan. Breathe — plan — act is always a good plan. We can apply these lessons and many others to life. Everyday life does not go to plan; how we choose to handle it matters, and what we do on the trail affects how we handle things in the real world — patience, grit, determination and adaptability.

Compounding

A tiny 5% improvement each year in some area of your life can mean that 15 years later you perform twice as well at something.

The maths of it

The rate of improvement each year is 5%, that is (1 + 0.05 = 1.05). The formula for compound growth is:

$$ A = P \times (1 + r)^n $$ where:

(A) is the final result
(P) is the initial value
(r) is the growth rate
(n) is the number of periods

Setting the initial value (P) to 1, the growth rate (r) to 0.05 and the period (n) to 15 years:

$$ A = 1 \times (1.05)^{15} $$ which gives:

$$ A = 1 \times 2.0789 = 2.0789 $$ So improving 5% a year means that after 15 years your performance has risen to 2.0789 times what it was, or roughly double.

Concrete examples across areas

Education

Say you spend 100 hours a year learning new things, and increase that by 5% each year: 100 hours in the first year, 105 in the second, and so on. After 15 years you will spend 207.89 hours a year learning new things. The cumulative effect of that learning will greatly improve both your store of knowledge and your ability to learn.

Professional skill

If you are a programmer and you improve your programming skill by 5% a year — learning new languages, algorithms and tools — then starting from a skill level of 100 you reach 207.89 after 15 years. That makes you much stronger at solving complex problems and building efficient software.

Interests and hobbies

Say you like painting, and you improve your technique and creativity by 5% a year. Starting from 100, your painting reaches 207.89 after 15 years. You will be able to produce more complex and more beautiful work, and you might even hold your own exhibition.

Health

On health, improve your habits by 5% a year — more exercise, better diet. If you exercise 100 minutes a week and add 5% a year, after 15 years you will be exercising 207.89 minutes a week. Sticking with it over the long run will significantly improve your fitness and your health.

Increase your social activity, or the time and quality of your interaction with friends, by 5% a year. If you see friends 4 times a month and add 5% a year, after 15 years you will see them 8 times a month. That way your social network and your friendships become closer and wider.

Through small improvements accumulated in each of these areas, over the long run those improvements significantly raise your overall performance and the quality of your life.

Compounding in relationships

When we talk about compounding we usually think of financial investment. But there is a more powerful force: compounding in relationships. This idea struck me deeply in a conversation with Scott Galloway on the Uncensored CMO podcast.

Understanding the role of relationships in success

We often overestimate our own role in our success and underestimate the crucial part others play. Think about it: how our parents raised us, the circle of friendships we have, the excellent team at work, the mentor who encouraged us to take the job, the investors who backed us, the network we have built on social media — all of it keeps accumulating.

Surrounding yourself with people who can make you, people who give you good advice, is a superpower.

How do you maximise the compounding in relationships?

I think the key is this:

👉 Be generous — give away your time, advice and expertise freely. It looks mad, but the habit of “giving first” tends to repay you astonishingly.

👉 Show up — spend time outside your normal environment, at events, dinners, award ceremonies, associations. You will be exposed to new networks.

👉 Ask for help — when you ask for help, other people’s generosity always surprises me. It is a wonderful way to build a relationship.

👉 Refer friends — ask for an introduction, or make one. The transfer of trust when you introduce someone is enormous.

👉 Create community — start a WhatsApp group, launch a podcast, write a newsletter, share content on social media. Give people a reason to follow you and take part in what you do.

👉 Invest in others — nurture a relationship by recommending something or offering help. Do things without expecting anything back.

If you want an example of someone who does this very well, follow Sophie Devonshire, chief executive of the Marketing Society ⚡️. Not only does she run an outstanding organisation that helps marketers around the world make a difference, she constantly posts recommendations, podcasts and events worth other people’s attention. Privately, she is a “super connector”, using her wide network to bring people together and let good things happen.

It may feel uncomfortable at first, or like extra work, but I promise that when you invest in relationships, the returns are enormous.

Conclusion

Compounding in relationships reaches far beyond what individual effort can. By being generous, showing up, asking for help, referring friends, creating community and investing in others, we can build a strong, lasting network of relationships that keeps paving the way to our success.