Sauna is the best substitute for church.

What is it you believe to be true that other smart people you know think is crazy?

Does:

  • Contain an element of surprise.
  • Reveal information about how a person understands the world.
  • Allow you to see how quickly the person can put together an argument.
  • Help find contrarians.

Does not:

  • Work as well now, as many come prepared for it.

What is one mainstream or consensus view that you wholeheartedly agree with?

Does not:

  • Select for intelligence or intellectual acuity.
  • Make the person feel threatened or challenged.

Does:

  • Contain an element of surprise.
  • Not easily allow itself to be brushed-off.
  • Probes how a person interacts with the authority of mainstream institutions.
  • *Gives the person a chance to signal their values and orientation in a way that is nonthreatening.

Life Advice from Joe Pera

Constitutions: rules about rules.

  • Should I eat this?
  • Will I eat this?
  • Can I afford this food?

In the modern supermarket, where I can have anything, I must draw the line myself.

My budget each week is 70 dollars… With this check, I aim to get the calories necessary to be an effective grandson, boyfriend, and United States citizen.

Beyond the Five Factor Model for Talent Acquisition

Behavioral qualities to think about when hiring, from Talent, by Cowen and Gross.

  • Sturdiness – Get something done every day.
  • Generativeness – Vitality and energy in one’s ambition, creativity, and ideation
  • Insecure Overachievement – Push ambition toward imposter syndrome; “One study of the psychosocial features of elite and super-elite Olympic athletes found they ‘came from families who strongly valued a culture of striving and achieving, while experiencing moderate sibling rivalry.”
  • Pessimistic Perfectionism: Don’t sabotage yourself early so that you don’t have face failure
  • Happiness/Fun-ness: An infectious, positive, can-do attitude
  • Clutteredness: “Their words and writings are cluttered because their minds and thoughts are cluttered too.”
  • Vagueness and Precision: What do you need, a salesman or an analyst?
  • Precocity: When is the first time to plant a tree?
  • Adhesiveness: Be a team player
  • The ability to perceive, understand, and climb complex hierarchies. Focus on the most relevant challenges. “Knowing how to perceive and climb the right hierarchies is one of the most stringent but also most universal tests available. It requires emotional self-regulation, perceptiveness, ambition, vision, proper sequencing, and enough order in one’s activities to actually get somewhere.”
  • Conceptual Frameworks at One’s Disposal: How good is one at cracking cultural codes – opening up and understanding new and different cultural and intellectual frameworks?
  • Know your place in the pecking order. If you’re not Google, what is wrong about the people you are trying to hire? AKA, the Groucho Marx Effect: “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.”