20/52: Fingerspitzengefühl
#CapitalAtRisk
The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur.
The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.
“A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
Signals & noise
In his book, The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene writes that it is important to develop what the Germans call ‘Fingerspitzengefühl’. That is, your fingertip feeling. It’s the ability to sense what’s really going on in a situation and then to act with great speed.
However, having effective fingerspitzengefühl isn’t something you can conjure up at the first time of asking. Robert says that this feel for nuance, for what’s just beneath the surface and an intuition for what makes people tick, is gained as if through osmosis over many ‘battle-scarred’ experiences.
Napoleon certainly had this. Warren and Charlie too. Robert even writes about how Rommel had it and, for him, it served him well1.
Do you have fingerspitzengefühla? Can you get it? Will you?
In other news
🍻 The 9others Summer Party will be on Thursday 10th July in London. This is when everyone who has been to a meal with 9others, plus other good folks, to meet and help each other out. Details and signup here.
🍽️ Last week the very kind Jonny Goldstone treated me and a few others to a terrific dinner at Luca in Farringdon, below. He wanted to get some good folks together so thought, right, I’ll book somewhere and invite them. What a joy.
More from me?
If you like my writing you can get more by buying my book, ‘Find your 9others’. It’s on Amazon here.
And if you’ve already read ‘Find your 9others’ please leave an Amazon review here.
Q&A
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#CapitalAtRisk
Good he didn’t win in the end though eh?!