The Heart of Lifelong Learning: How to Develop and Preserve the Investor's Edge
Preserving Your Attention
To become a successful investor is to become a lifelong learner.
But here’s the question: how many who claim to be lifelong learners truly are? Do their actions and habits back up their words?
In today’s newsletter, we’re focusing on the cornerstone of lifelong learning: preserving your attention. Without mastering this skill, the rest of the journey becomes much harder, if not impossible.
Today we'll explore:
The learning principle: understanding the micro to grasp the macro.
The impact of attention-deficit culture on our learning.
My personal strategy for preserving attention.
At its core, lifelong learning isn’t just about breadth—it’s about the depth. Protecting your ability to concentrate and engage deeply is what truly drives progress.
The Learning Principle
The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick. Our obstacle is that we live in an attention-deficit culture. We are bombarded with more and more information on television, radio, cell phones, video games, the Internet. The constant supply of stimulus has the potential to turn us into addicts, always hungering for something new and prefabricated to keep us entertained.
When nothing exciting is going on, we might get bored, distracted, separated from the moment. So we look for new entertainment, surf channels, flip through magazines.
If caught in these rhythms, we are like tiny current-bound surface fish, floating along a two-dimensional world without any sense for the gorgeous abyss below. When these societally induced tendencies translate into the learning process, they have devastating effect.
Source → The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
What is focus ?
Focus is the act of concentrating mental energy on a single point for an extended period.
Who's our biggest enemy?
Anything that disrupts this concentration or shortens the time we can sustain it.
With this understanding, it’s clear that distractions like reels, notifications, and endless scrolling drain your attention reserve. In contrast, activities like deep reading, meaningful conversations, and self-reflection restore and strengthen it.
To preserve attention in an age of distraction, you need to be a contrarian—abandoning the sinking boat of an attention-deficit culture for the reliable boat of an attention-surplus ecosystem.
Guard your attention fiercely and allocate it intentionally to activities that matter.
Your attention is your most valuable resource as a lifelong learner.
My Strategy for Preserving Attention
As the year begins, I’m committing to a simple strategy: starting and ending each day with offline reading instead of social media.
To keep myself accountable, I’ve created a scoring system:
+1 point for each morning and evening session of offline reading.
-1 point if I start or end my day on social media or my phone.
At the end of the year, I’ll evaluate my progress using the 1% compounding formula:
For example, if by the end of the year I have 300 days of focused reading and 65 days of social media sessions, my growth would be 20.31x.
I call this system Focus Compounding.
Strategy: Start and end each day with offline reading instead of social media.
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My Offline Reading Material
Here’s my current lineup of books for offline reading:
1. Rereading:
Richer, Wiser, Happier
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
2. Daily Reads:
The Greatest Salesman in the World
The War of Art
The Creative Act
This is Strategy
4. Current Reads:
The Most Important Thing
Expectations Investing
5. Bedside Reads:
How to Win Friends and Influence People
The Intelligent Investor
Do you have any book recommendations you read regularly or revisit often? Feel free to share them with me!
This is a daily battle to reclaim our focus and attention, and to build a stronger, longer attention span. Let’s take on this challenge together!
Happy New Year!
Key Takeaways
1. Preserve Your Attention
2. Attention Deficit Culture is an Obstacle
3. Focus on One Activity for Extended Periods
4. Reels, Notifications, and Endless Scrolling Drain Attention Reserve
5. Deep Reading, Conversations, and Self-Reflection Restore Attention
6. Be a Contrarian - Move from Attention Deficit to Surplus Environment
7. Your Attention is Your Most Valuable Resource
8. Guard Your Attention Like a Warrior
9. Start and End Your Day with Offline Reading
10. Build a Long Attention Span
11. Embrace Focus Compounding
12. Share Your Favorite Rereads
Content Diet This Week
🎥 Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder
📝 The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking ⭐⭐⭐ (personal favorite)
📖 Expectations Investing by Michael J. Mauboussin, Alfred Rappaport
💭 Quote of the Week 👇🏻
“Success has to be there where sincerity is at its background.”
P.S.
Wishing you a New Year filled with focus, fulfillment, and lifelong learning.
Let’s make 2025 a year of growth and sustained success. 🎉
Happy New Year!
#long_attention_span
#you_are_more