The Chomp #038

Lessons From LBJ, Ingredients for Innovation, and More...

Hey Everyone,

Welcome back to The Chomp—your weekly dose of the best strategic thinking content and top emerging business trends from the internet and beyond, designed to expand your mind and get you thinking. If you’ve been sent this email and you’re not a subscriber, you can join by clicking on the blue button below. With that, let’s dive into it.

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Quick Bite

Five Lessons on Power From the Life of Lyndon Johnson: This is a new piece I put out yesterday. You can read it on a separate page by clicking the link.

The life of Lyndon B. Johnson was a whirlwind, as were the years of his leadership in public office. No man wanted to be remembered as a great leader more than LBJ. He didn’t just want public approval he needed it. As Robert Caro thoroughly chronicles in his incredible biography series The Years of Lyndon Johnson, LBJ’s life was driven by his ferocious need to be remembered and his relentless pursuit of power.

With his ascent to the Oval Office, LBJ became the most powerful man in the free world. With power in hand, LBJ often used it as a force for good. Through his leadership, LBJ was able to engineer the greatest advancement in Civil Rights since the Civil War. However, despite his success in civil rights and social reform, LBJ's legacy will always be clouded by the Vietnam war. LBJ’s lack of leadership nearly tore the country apart and drove his decision not to run for a second term in 1968.

Putting his divided legacy aside, there are plenty of valuable lessons about power that can be taken away from his life and career. Below are five of my favorite lessons I’ve taken away from reading over 2,750 pages of Robert Caro’s work on LBJ.

1. Watch their hands, watch their eyes.

   Lyndon Johson once told his staff “Read eyes. No matter what a man is saying to you, it’s not as important as what you can read in his eyes.” LBJ understood the importance of reading between the lines and used this skill to great success in getting what he wanted out of a conversation. LBJ believed that the most important thing a man has to tell you is what he’s not telling you. He said “The most important thing he has to say is what he’s trying not to say.” If you’re able to read between the lines and determine what’s important to the person across from you, you’ll be at a huge advantage in negotiations.

2. Look for potential in areas that others disregard as having no potential.

   One of the most impressive aspects of LBJ’s creativity was the ability to look at an institution that had limited power—an institution that no one else thought of as having the potential for power—and see in it that there was actually the potential for substantial power. Once he discovered this potential, LBJ worked tirelessly to transform an institution into something with power, and in doing so he was able to reap substantial power for himself.

3. No matter how much time another person is willing to put into something, be willing to put in more.

   In the case of LBJ, no matter how much time a man was willing to spend arguing with him, he was willing to spend more. While LBJ’s attitude on arguing isn’t one I subscribe to, a broader lesson can be taken away here. If you're truly driven to win or succeed at something, you need to be willing to outlast every last person in whatever it is you’re doing.

4. When in doubt, mind your own business.

   LBJ once said that “the graveyard of good intentions is filled with the remains of individuals and organizations who nosed into affairs which were not their own.” I’m sure we can all recall times in our lives where, despite our good intentions, we should have left well enough alone. While there are situations where it’s appropriate to step into the affairs of others, it’s important to weigh the potential outcome of your decision to get involved before you do so. Taking an extra step to evaluate whether your involvement is warranted will often save you in the long run.

5. While pragmatism is essential to the pursuit of power and the achievement of goals, so is idealism.

   Pragmatism and idealism are often put at odds, but great leaders are able to combine elements of both in their lives. In order to be a great leader, you need to be able to think in terms of larger ends. In today’s world, with the increasing importance of social impact, the best leaders are able to align themselves with something greater than themselves. This holds true both in politics and business.

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Deeper Dive

The Ingredients For Innovation: “If we want to come up with new ideas as individuals, we should consider ourselves as part of a system. In particular, we need to consider what might impede us and what can encourage us. We need to eradicate anything that will get in the way of our thinking, such as limiting beliefs or lack of sleep.”

Inventing something new is no walk in the park—it’s hard work. After inventing something, you then need to get people to accept and adopt your invention. This is often harder than the invention itself. To put something out into the world that sticks, you need a lot to go your way. You need the right recipe, and more importantly, the right ingredients for innovation.

While invention occurs at the individual level, individuals do not live in a vacuum. Individuals set out to innovate and improve the world around them in response to their environment. According to historian Joel Mokyr, author of The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, there are three key factors in an environment that set the tone for invention and innovation. They are social infrastructure, social incentives, and social attitudes.

On the infrastructure front, society needs to have a supply of “ingenious and resourceful innovators who are will and able to challenge their physical environment for their own improvement.” To foster this supply, the population needs access to things like education and good nutrition. The ability to move around plays an important role as well. If it’s easy to move and migrate, individuals can move from what might be a stagnant area to a creative hub.

Beyond social infrastructure, there need to be incentives in place to encourage innovation. This is especially true for completely new inventions, such as the car. Inventions like this require a leap of faith, and thus the right incentives need to be in place for people to go after these opportunities. Whether these incentives are money, power, or recognition, they need to be substantial enough for individuals to accept the risks that come with the potential reward.

The last component is the social attitude. In order for a society to foster innovation, it needs to be diverse and tolerant. People need to be open-minded. They need to be open to ideas from outside their society in addition to those that surface within. If a society views ideas and knowledge from other countries or regions with skepticism or irrelevance, they are at a disadvantage compared to societies that willingly embrace external influences. This also holds true at the individual level and is certainly worth keeping in mind as geopolitical tensions continue to rise in our world.

With an understanding of how these factors come together to foster innovation at the societal level, we can then apply them as individuals. By recognizing that innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum, we can adopt the mindset that we’re part of a system. We can start to define what incentives inspire and motivate us, as well as what hinders our creativity. We can also take steps to ensure we’re exposing ourselves to new ideas and avoiding filter bubbles.

Innovation isn’t easy, but when it’s done well the impact is felt everywhere. Take a look at this article from Farnam Street to go a bit deeper into the importance of these key ingredients for innovation.

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Chum Bucket

• Jack Dorsey on Twitter’s Mistakes (NY Times)

• TikTok and the Sorting Hat: (Remains of the Day)

• The Panopticon Is Already Here (The Atlantic)

• Epic Games is suing Apple (The Verge)

• An Oral History of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (The Ringer)

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Tweet of the Week

✏️Sketch Sumo 🤯 @HelloSketchSumo

“If you want to look good in front of thousands, you have to outwork thousands in front of nobody.” — Damian Lillard via @ShaneAParrish

Song of the Week

Apple Music Link

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Books

Currently Reading

Recently Read

• Essentialism is a book that I wish I knew about much sooner. Greg McKeown’s philosophy of essentialism is a powerful antidote to the craziness of our non-stop world. McKeown lays out the argument that we can actually accomplish more by doing less through the relentless pursuit of focusing on what’s essential. By setting out on the path to essentialism, we can all make the highest possible contribution to the things that really matter to us. Essentialism was an impactful read that will now be high up on my list of recommendations. (4.5/5)

• With finishing Master of the Senate, I’ve now made it through ~2,750 pages of Robert Caro’s masterful The Years of Lyndon Johnson series. Clocking in at 1,200 pages, Master of the Senate is one of the most detailed and impressive chronicles of the U.S. senate ever published. While I encourage, and highly recommend, reading the entire series, Master of the Senate can easily be read on a standalone basis. It’s a phenomenal read that will leave you with a working knowledge of how our legislative system truly works. As I have said before, and I’ll say again, Robert Caro is the best biographer to ever put pen to paper. (5/5)

Parting Thoughts

This Week in History

• On August 12, 1973, American golfer Jack Nicklaus won the Professional Golfers’ PGA championship for his 14th major title, surpassing Bobby Jones’ record of 13 major championships. Nicklaus went on to win 18 major tournaments, a record that still stands today. (Source)

“I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself."

—  Jack London

If you found something that piqued your interest this week, please help me out in expanding the reach of The Chomp by forwarding it along to a friend or sharing it with others in your network. Until next week.

-CM

This newsletter is created and authored by Cody McCauley and is published and provided for informational purposes only. The information in the newsletter solely constitutes Cody’s own opinions. None of the information contained in the newsletter constitutes—or should be construed as—investment advice.