Subtraction Method

Last call: Tame your ox-head

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Today is the last day I will be promoting Subtraction Method, a free training by Tom Grundy.

Tom’s a London banker who writes great daily emails about career and life success. He was once in my Write & Profit coaching program.

True to its name, Tom’s Subtraction Method is about how to subtract the actions and ideas keeping you stuck.

The way I figure, Subtraction Method can be relevant if you feel stuck in your current job or role… if you get distracted and do too much of what’s NOT important… if you’re not making progress the way you feel you should be… and if you worry that there is something uniquely wrong with you as a result of all this.

But maybe a story can explain this better? Here’s an ancient story I read recently, which struck me:

There was a time when Alexander the Great wasn’t “Great” yet. Was a time when Alexander was just an ambitious 15-year-old at the court of his father, Philip of Macedon.

A horse dealer came to Philip, offering a horse for sale, for the fabulous price of 15 talents of silver.

“Yes, the price is high,” said the horse dealer. “But look at this magnificent animal.”

Sure enough, the horse he was selling was a huge wall of muscle. It had a huge head, too — hence its name Bucephalus, which in Greek apparently means “ox-head.”

The only problem was that Bucephalus was not only huge but wild. It kicked, bit, and reared up on its hind legs whenever anyone tried to ride it. It was powerful but more dangerous than useful.

Philip of Macedon took a look at the rampaging horse and said, “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

But Alexander (not yet Great) asked his father for a chance to tame Bucephalus.

Alexander noticed that the beast was made aggressive by seeing its own shadow playing on the ground.

And so, with the entire court of Philip watching, Alexander approached the giant horse.

Alexander spoke gently to calm Bucephalus a little. He took it by the bridle, and he turned its head towards the sun.

With its shadow no longer visible, Bucephalus, the ox-head, turned calm and manageable.

Bucephalus became Alexander’s lifelong companion. He carried Alexander across Alexander’s greatest conquests. He became part, parcel, and mechanism in the success and legend of Alexander the Great.

And maybe, maybe there’s an analogy in there that speaks to you?

The Subtraction Method is not my expertise. I don’t know exactly what Tom is going to be teaching.

But maybe Subtraction Method can tame your own wild and unruly ox-head — no offense meant — by turning it towards the source of light, and away from the shadows playing on the ground, distracting you, upsetting you, giving you doubts and fears, eating away at what you’re capable of?

Tom’s training is happening tomorrow, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.

I won’t be sending more emails before then.

If you’d like to tame your own mind, ox-headed or not, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/subtraction

Swan song for famous forecaster

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Today’s top headline in the New York Post:

“Renowned election guru Nate Silver reveals latest forecast for presidential election”

That’s news to me because I remember Nate Silver as a famously failed forecaster.

Silver confidently predicted the 2016 election for H. Clinton. After Trump won that election, Nate Silver waffled and said the data was right but his own weakness got in the way. The implied promise was, “I’ll be right next time.” People around the Internet shrugged and said, “That’s good enough.”

I think there are lotsa lessons to be learned from the ongoing career of famed forecaster Nate Silver. I will draw just one for you today, one I read in Lawrence Bernstein’s newsletter a few days ago:

“Rule #1 of Financial Copywriting 101: It’s better to be wrong than wishy-washy.”

This applies to any copy, not just financial.

So I’d like to make a confident prediction of my own. We won’t be hearing from Nate Silver again, at least not in front page stories for big publications like the New York Post, and not around major future contests like the 2028 presidential election.

Because Silver seems to have lost his nerve, possibly after the last Trump election he had to call. While people dearly want him to make confident predictions, he’s hedging his bets now. From the NY Post article (emphasis mine):

“Renowned election guru Nate Silver called the race for the White House a “PURE TOSS-UP” Sunday as he gave ex-President Donald Trump a SLIGHT EDGE over Vice President Kamala Harris in his latest forecast.”

Who’s got any use for wishy-washy forecasts like “pure toss-up?” My prediction is that the media will find a new Zoltar, one who is willing to confidently say what will happen and cheerfully be wrong.

Another prediction:

Tom Grundy’s Subtraction Method training will happen this Wednesday at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.

Tom will talk about how to think less pedantically, how to be okay without clinging to the latest mental-model-of-the-month, and how to do better in life as a result — emotionally and maybe even practically.

Tom’s training is free for you because you are a subscriber of my newsletter.

If you’d like to sign up for it before the polls close:

https://bejakovic.com/subtraction

“Get closer, sensor!”

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I’m visiting my home town of Zagreb, Croatia. Frankly, it’s looking run down, ragged, and dusty.

This morning I went for a walk. I passed by a car ramp that keeps cars out of the old medical school campus. On each side of the ramp were two installed street signs, which instructed drivers, “Get closer, sensor!”

This made me think. Zagreb is full of non-functioning tech like this. Stuff that came out 10, 20, 30 years ago and seemed exciting when it appeared. But soon, the glitches became obvious (“The stupid ramp won’t open!”).

The new tech became the butt of jokes and the foil in funny anecdotes as the burghers of Zagreb sat around and drank their coffee for hours.

People chuckled and shook their heads. “All this newfangled technology… it will never replace a good old human parking lot attendant who knows your name and who lifts and lowers the ramp for each car.”

Except of course tech improves, always.

I don’t know where you live. If it’s a less dusty place than Zagreb, odds are you’ve never seen a sign that reads “Get closer, sensor!” Modern car ramps work flawlessly, 24 hours a day, without missing a beat.

But the same psychology obtains everywhere.

New generations of people, at least those over 25, still make fun of the newest tech, once the initial excitement has worn off. “Haha stupid AI, it made another blunder, it will never really replace humans!”

Except tech improves, always.

I listened to an interview with Sam Woods a few days ago. Woods is a former direct-response copywriter turned AI guru. He seems to be doing well in his new career, and not looking back with longing to his copywriting days.

Woods was asked what remains for humans in the age of AI. He replied:

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For now, you want to get away from the labor part… you want to quickly move through the intelligence part of your job that requires you to think, and that’s where you’ll be in a good place for the next few years.

But even beyond that, you need to start moving towards what looks more and more like wisdom work, which sounds esoteric. But the easiest way to think about that is doing the right thing at the right time.

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How do you get wisdom? How do you develop it? How do you uncover it?

I don’t know. But I know somebody who might. Because when I heard Sam Woods predict “wisdom” as the future for humans, I realized I had heard the same argument already, but months earlier. It came in one of Tom Grundy’s daily emails. Tom wrote:

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By “wisdom” I don’t mean “IQ”.

Wisdom and IQ could not be further apart.

It is categorically not the people who can create snazzy financial models, solve partial differential equations or complete a Rubik’s Cube in 60 seconds who will thrive in a world where AI can do all this in the time it takes to click my fingers.

That much should be clear.

I mean the wisdom which helps guide us to make decisions, gives us clarity when we don’t know which way to turn and answers questions which spreadsheets, robots and computers will never be able to answer.

This wisdom comes from the deepest part of what it means to be human.

And in a world where AI will do most of the heavy-lifting, I predict this wisdom is what will set humans apart.

Those who possess this wisdom will, I believe, have a huge advantage in their working lives for many years to come. Just like the Egyptian philosophers & scholars who held the positions of influence and prestige.

Good news is, finding wisdom can be taught and learnt.

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Next Wednesday, Tom is putting on a training he’s calling The Subtraction Method. This training is free for you because you happen to be a subscriber to this newsletter.

The promise for The Subtraction Method is that it gives you an approach that uncovers the enthusiasm, creativity, and maybe even wisdom that Tom believes are there for all of us.

Those might sound like broad, vague, even esoteric promises. But maybe that’s just the ticket in an age when specific and narrow and highly practical is something that can and will be automated.

Tom’s training will happen this Wednesday, Nov 6, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.

I will be promoting Tom’s training until this Tuesday. In case you don’t want to miss it, it might be WISE (I know, I’m hilarious) to sign up for it now. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/subtraction

“Thank God I’ve missed my big chance”

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A couple weeks ago, I made the mistake of looking up a clip from The Godfather on YouTube.

Since then, YouTube has been serving me up a steady diet of Al Pacino interviews, which I of course have allowed myself to be “force-fed.” At least I found out the following curious anecdote:

During the shooting of a scene in the Godfather, Pacino was supposed to jump into a moving car. But he missed the car and almost broke his ankle.

Pacino said later he was shocked by the feeling of relief that passed over him.

“Thank you God,” he said as he lay on the ground. “You’re gonna get me out of this film.”

Pacino had felt like an underling on set, unwanted and unfit for the role of Michael Corleone.

“This injury could be my release from that prison,” Pacino said later.

Of course, that’s not how it ended up. The director, Francis Ford Coppola, liked Pacino too well. That, plus a bunch of corticosteroid injections, meant Pacino stayed in the movie.

In that way, the career of Al Pacino – from young theater actor, talented, unknown, but hopeful, to massive Hollywood star and international celeb, jaded, paranoid, and alcoholic — mirrored the progression of Michael Corleone in the Godfather — from the modest, good, patriotic son with plans of a respectable career, to ruthless head of the Corleone mob family, addicted to control and power, even at the cost of everything in his family and inside himself.

Before I get you too depressed, I wanna make it clear:

This email is not about the vanity of pursuing any kind of achievement or success in life.

Over the next few days, I’m promoting Tom Grundy’s Subtraction Method training.

Tom’s story is that he quit his high-powered London banking job in order to seek enlightenment. Enlightenment found, Tom ended up going back to the bank.

Curious, right?

The first time around at the bank was miserable, says Tom. The second time around has been enjoyable, stress-free, and even fulfilling.

What made the difference is what Tom calls the Subtraction Method.

The Subtraction Method is not about the kind of minimalism that involves living in a hut in the backwoods of Montana, shooting and skinning rabbits and melting snow for drinking water.

Rather, it’s about a different kind of minimalism, one that has to do with ideas and attitudes.

The end result can be that you achieve all the external success you think you want now, and you do it on such terms that you’re not eaten out from inside like Michael Corleone or Al Pacino.

Or the end result can be you don’t achieve the external success you think you want now, and you find out that that’s perfectly fine, because what you thought you wanted is not what you actually want.

Here is where I start waving my hands and waffling and mumbling a little too much. Because the Subtraction Method is not my area of expertise. Rather it’s Tom’s area of expertise.

That’s why I’d like to invite you to sign up to his training. The training is free. It’s happening next Wednesday, Nov 6, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I’ll be there. If you’d like to be there as well, you can register to get in at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/subtraction

Announcing: Subtraction Method

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There’s a link at the bottom of this email and honestly I’d like you to go click it and sign up for the free training that’s waiting for you on the other side.

But first a bit o’ background:

This free training is being put on by Tom Grundy, who at one point was in my Write & Profit coaching program.

I’ve mentioned Tom a few times before in these emails because he writes interesting and engaging emails himself, which I read pretty much daily.

Tom also happens to be a London banker with an unusual career trajectory:

He quit his high-powered London banking job because stress and misery… he went in search of fulfillment… he found fulfillment… and then he went back to his high-powered London banking job, because he actually kinda likes the work and the people and the environment now.

Tom’s free training is about what’s allowed him to find sense and satisfaction along with success. This is what he calls the Subtraction Method.

Earlier this year, Tom approached me about promoting a workshop about “mindset.”

I tentatively agreed because 1) I like Tom and I know he knows stuff about self-development and psychology, and 2) I know Tom had already delivered a weeks-long series of workshops on mindset at his company Lloyds Bank. These workshops went so well he’s been rerunning them at Lloyds and even getting asked to do them at other banks too.

Still, I agreed only tentatively, because to be honest I’m a little repulsed by the entire idea of “mindset.”

In particular, I imagined Tom’s workshops were about wholesome 1920s topics like the power of positive thinking… and how to set goals… and clutching to the idea of your children’s college fund as you try to reframe the humiliation of, say, dancing on TikTok to build up your 7-figure personal brand.

But!

It turns out Tom teaches none of those things in his workshops. In fact, he teaches pretty much the opposite, which again he calls the Subtraction Method.

Tom explained his Subtraction Method to me last month. I found that I can get behind his approach 100%.

Tom’s Subtraction Method matches the vague conclusions I’ve been able to reach in my own lifelong search for some sort of understanding and management of my own feelings and internal drives. It’s just that Tom has much more specific and concrete ideas about this, where I’ve only caught some occasional glimpses.

So there you go:

Tom’s free training for you on the Subtraction Method, with my 100% endorsement and in fact personal interest (I will be there on the training too).

As for the details:

1. This training is happening live over Zoom on Wednesday November 6 at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.

2. Tom will be offering a paid series of group workshops on the back of this one-off free training. These workshops I imagine will follow the ones he’s been putting on at his bank.

That said, this one-off live training is not just a tease or a sales pitch for those workshops, because Tom will reveal fully the concepts behind the Subtraction Method.

In other words, if you wanna work through those concepts with a group of people, with Tom at the helm, you will have that option following this one-off training.

If on the other hand, you just want to learn about the Subtraction Method just for curiosity’s sake, or so you can try it out in your own life, in your own good time, by yourself, then this training will give you all the info you need.

3. You might have doubts about what a London banker can teach you about fulfillment and achievement and happiness. After all, odds are you yourself are not a London banker. You might live in a very different kind of world and do a very different kind of work.

My best response is to suggest you go sign up for Tom’s training, and then read a few days’ worth of Tom’s emails, which will start landing in your inbox.

If Tom’s emails really say nothing to you, then skip the training and unsubscribe.

If on the other hand, you find yourself both amused and intrigued by what Tom has to say, the way that I do when I read Tom’s stuff, then you won’t have nothin’ more to do, except show up on Zoom on Wednesday Nov 6, and hear Tom explain the Subtraction Method.

If you’d like to sign up now:

​https://bejakovic.com/subtraction