Position Yourself for Success | Adam Robinson | Knowledge Project Podcast 168

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Treat your body as an early-warning system, and pause often to check how an idea feels.

  Robinson says he processes information physically, pausing about once a minute while reading to notice how an idea feels and what it connects to. George Soros said his back acted up when something was wrong in markets, and Einstein described a kinesthetic sense in his thinking. Animals processed their surroundings through their bodies long before the Greeks invented logic. Robinson cites Julian Jaynes's provocative thesis that consciousness as we know it is only about 3,000 years old. His point is practical: we function unconsciously all the time, as on a long drive we can't remember, so learn your body's 'vocabulary' instead of dismissing it.

• 02

  If something seems a little strange, it's very strange. Leave first and figure it out later.

  His rule comes from Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, a book about street smarts. When a street or room feels off, our rational mind hunts for reasons instead of acting. Robinson removes himself immediately, and applies the same rule to investments, negotiations, hires and marriages. A companion rule: never make a decision when you're confused, tired or stressed, which he calls 'the stupid zone'.

• 03

  Learn which positions you do well in, and steer toward them from the first move.

  In chess, the 'position' is how the pieces sit on the board, like players on a field. Robinson prefers quiet, slow positions where he can arrange his pieces for 10 or 20 moves before battle, so he avoids openings like the Queen's Gambit that he doesn't enjoy. A trader might learn they're bad in the opening hour or on Fed announcement days and simply stay away. Buffett and Munger stick to industries and situations they know well. No position is right for everyone; what matters is knowing your own.

• 04

  Chess forgives losses but investing doesn't, which is why 'never lose money' matters.

  Chess has complete information, while poker hides cards, and in both you can still misjudge. Bobby Fischer played to win and didn't mind losing, because after a loss you're the same player the next day. In investing, a loss leaves you less capital tomorrow. Simply becoming decent takes a year or two, and too many costly mistakes along the way can leave you skilled but broke. Because human enterprise compounds, avoiding loss alone lets money grow. That's Buffett's Rule No. 1.

• 05

  When machines can answer anything, the edge belongs to whoever asks the best questions.

  Robinson uses ChatGPT as a thought partner and a 'lightning-fast research assistant'. It's strong at deduction but can't make insightful leaps. When he fed it his own insights about the Princeton Review and markets, it couldn't reach them. Even its wrong answers are useful, because you ask why it went wrong. As Yo-Yo Ma draws more out of a cello, a master gets more from AI. A used-car salesman could ask what questions buyers will raise about a car and catch ones he'd have missed. School trains students to answer, Robinson says, but they need to learn to ask.

• 06

  A good question opens up more choices, so ask 'who knows how?' and look for the question behind the question.

  Replace 'how do I do X?' with 'who knows how to do X?', which turns your constraints into options. When a friend asks for meditation books, the real question may be how to help a stressed teenage daughter. Since she's a dancer, movement meditation may beat a book. In the classic elevator story, engineers worked on cutting wait times, but the real problem was complaints. An architect installed mirrors. Robinson frames it as giving tenants another way to use the time rather than distracting them.

• 07

  Learning speed is the number of feedback cycles, so cut the friction between question and answer.

  Early in the Princeton Review, which he co-founded with John Katzman, Robinson tutored 10–12 hours a day, seven days a week: 60–90 students a week on the same test. One girl accepted a 6 a.m. slot without negotiating. By Wednesday he could predict that a student had chosen C on question 13. He later paid programmers to automate market tests that took an hour in Excel, so they now take five seconds, and then he iterates. He makes the 'outrageous' claim that this gives him more market knowledge than anyone alive. One finding: JPMorgan outperforming other banks is slightly bearish for financial stocks, perhaps a flight to safety.

• 08

  People ignore warnings, and all wisdom is a warning in disguise.

  Robinson defines stupidity as 'overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information'. 'Let them make the first offer' implies a warning about making it yourself. People skip warnings because they can't picture themselves in the situation: 'that's for other people'. Medicine bottles should say that if you think it isn't affecting you, you're definitely affected.