Alpha doesn’t come from common knowledge
One of the best things you can steal from great people is their ideas, and the fastest way to get smarter is to read smarter people. While studying their daily rituals, I’ve started believing this line more and more: “Alpha doesn’t come from common knowledge.”
I found this on the Daily Rituals website, but sadly, the site has shut down. It was about Sir Isaac Newton’s routine:
“One of Newton’s assistants noted the physicist’s habits in the 1680s. Newton rarely went to bed before 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., and sometimes not until 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. Yet, “in a morning he seem’d to be as much refresh’d with his few hours’ sleep as though he had taken a whole night’s rest.” During the day, Newton was never seen taking a walk or engaging in recreation. His assistant recalled hearing him laugh only once. Food was also a dispensable luxury. Newton dined sparingly and often forgot to eat at all. If reminded that he hadn’t touched the meal set before him, Newton would reply, “Have I?” and absentmindedly take a few bites before plunging back into his work.”
Stories like these inspire me every time I read about Newton, or any other artist.
I also saw a tweet by a person named Ron where he said:
“Thiel did a fireside chat my freshman year (2014) of college where someone asked: ‘Could the next Zuckerberg be in this room?’
Thiel: ‘He would never show up to an event like this.’
Basically, there is endless advice out there on how to live, think, and act. But the people who actually do bold things don’t always have time to sit around consuming information all day. They do things, get stuck, and figure them out.
That’s why I believe in questioning most advice and walking your own path. People give advice based on their own situations, goals, and perspectives. Your situation is probably very different. They’ll try to fit you into their world, but you probably need to build your own.
There’s a good quote by Jeffrey Pfeffer: “You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns.”
Imagine if someone had suggested Vinci, Newton, or Tesla avoid extreme routines and maintain active social lives. Would they necessarily have become who they became?
I don’t think their unusual habits were necessarily the reason they became extraordinary. More likely, their unusual habits were a consequence of being unusually obsessed with something.
Here’s another example from Daily Rituals:
“(Francis Bacon’s) idea of dieting,” Mason writes, “was to take large quantities of garlic pills and shun egg yolks, desserts, and coffee, while continuing to guzzle a half-dozen bottles of wine and eat two or more large restaurant meals a day.”
From history to today, every artist who creates something meaningful seems to have unique, and often weird, traits that make them who they are. For me, that’s what makes studying great people so fascinating.
Thank you so much for reading!