The Gunn Show - 7.14.24

What I'm Thinking, What I'm Reading

Hey everyone!


And welcome back to The Gunn Show, Edition #23.


It’s a big Sunday for us here in Texas, as a long awaited day is finally here: Day 1 of the MLB Draft. Each year, this day marks the culmination of an incredible amount of work and collaboration put in by people across our organization, all with a singular goal in mind: finding the future stars of our game.


This year is extra special for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it marks the first time in organization history that we will pick last as the defending World Series Champions. Even 9 months later, that still feels surreal to say. We’ll have to wait much longer to make our first pick than we are used to as a result, but ask anyone in baseball and that is a tradeoff they’d be willing to make in a heartbeat.


Secondly, we are fortunate enough to be hosting the All-Star Game (and all the events that come with it) in Arlington this year. It is a unique opportunity for the organization to take center stage for the next 4 days, and the excitement and energy around the ballpark as a result are palpable. Can’t wait to experience everything that comes with the Mid-Summer Classic over the next few days.


If you are interested in following along with the Draft tonight, it will be on ESPN starting around 6PM CT. Look for us on TV at approximately 7:30PM CT when we should be making our first round selection. Let’s go find some Rangers.


- CG

What I’m Thinking - Preferences

As a nature of Draft season, I’ve been spending a good deal of time thinking about the idea of preferences - the things we like, and why we like them.


I find the concept fascinating in that preferences are ultimately the story of differences emerging from similarities - how we can come to entirely different conclusions (and decisions) even when presented with the exact same starting information. From my perspective, it is to preferences that we owe a great deal of our uniqueness as a species. They are the avenue through which sectors of society grow and differentiate - things like music, fashion, culture, and more - like different flowers all growing from the branches of the same tree. I find it to be a marvel of human psychology that our world bends increasingly towards diversity even when we all begin with virtually the same ingredients, how each of us is capable of telling a different story when given the same characters.


Looking beyond the surface level of preferences is an invitation to exploration, an opportunity to study deeper levels of human psychology. They provide us a window into each of our souls, a looking glass through which to observe the things that each of us cares most deeply about for a simple reason: preferences are the path that ends at values. By studying what we choose, we begin to understand who we are.


When it comes to thinking about how preferences emerge - and what they reveal - fields such as economics and behavioral science are quite instructive. Namely, they teach us that there are certain conditions under which they are most apt to be studied: environments that are defined both by symmetric information and unconstrained choice. Only when all parties have access to the same knowledge and are free to make their own decisions without restriction can we begin to truly asses what preferences reveal.


It is for this reason that I find myself thinking about the concept in the midst of Draft season - because from my lens, the nature of information and choice within it perfectly fit these environmental requisites.


The modern era of the Draft is one in which information tends to be highly symmetric - long gone are the days where teams captured value by simply ‘knowing more’ than everyone else. What has replaced it instead is a landscape in which each organization has access to the same things as the others - the same performance data, the same tracking data, the same video, and so on. As a result, as the game of baseball has arced from from the asymmetric environments of the past to the symmetric ones of the present, the leverage point now lies much more in what you do with the information you have rather than whether or not you have it in the first place.


The Draft also fits the bill in regards to choice, as it provides an environment in which teams have a remarkable amount of freedom. From the moment you go on the clock, the decision on which players you will select is yours and no-one else’s; no other organization will make your pick for you, and the league office will not push you in one direction or another. The only constraint is the board itself - the players that are left when it comes your time to choose.


The result is that come each July, the Draft provides us a front row view into what organizations value through the lens of the players they select - as well as what they do not. Given the same board and the same information about those players remaining on it, teams will come to an infinite variety of decisions - all owing to their specific preferences. It is a large part of what makes predicting the MLB Draft and which players will go where such an interesting exercise - over time, with enough picks to study and line up together, consistent patterns can reveal behind the scenes preferences unique to each team. Team X may like a certain ‘profile’ of player, while Team Y may opt for another.


More generally, what these differences in preference revolve around are differences in values. It is here where gray begins to muddy the black and white, because values are far from objective - it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to say which values are ‘right’ and which are ‘wrong’. Values are instead highly subjective - meaning that they are entirely dependent on the eye of the beholder.


The result is that there are a million different possible values that can give rise to an equal amount of possible preferences. We don’t need to look hard to see that this is true - in fact, this fundamental principle helps forms the basis of everything from attachments to diets (Carnivore vs. Keto vs. Paleo vs. Vegan), attachment to music (Rap vs. R&B vs. Country vs. Pop), and even attachment baseball players (Power vs. Contact for hitters, Pitchability vs. Stuff for pitchers). None of these are any more ‘right’ than the other - they simply ‘are’, and that recognition should be enough.


With all of this in mind, it strikes me that it is not nearly as important to have the right preferences as it is to have them in the first place. And subsequently, to be convicted in them in a manner that allows us to stick to them consistently. Put simply, I think each of us could benefit from doing a bit more soul searching to figure out what we like, but most importantly why we like it.


Because without preferences, or an understanding of why we have them, we have no guidance for our choices. In my view, this is most frequently where people - and organizations - go wrong: we lack an understanding of what we value, leading us to oscillate back and forth between an endless amount of possibilities. The result is no strategy, no consistency. We have nothing to lean into, nothing to fall back on, meaning we are destined to become feathers at the mercy of the wind.


The antidote is simple: find your preferences, and be comfortable leaning into them. Don’t feel the need to apologize for whatever you have found works best for you, so long as you have a backing as to why. Recognize that ‘best for others’ may not mean ‘best for you’, that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the domain of values, per say. Know that you and others may come to some different conclusions, and that is entirely okay.


That differences can get carved out of similarities is something that makes humans truly unique. The more we recognize and appreciate this truth, the better off I think we will all be.

What I’m Reading

Health/Fitness

Exercise for Aging People: Where to Begin, And How to Minimize Risk While Maximizing Potential - Peter Attia (~57 min)


A great listen from Dr. Peter Attia that centers around the topic of starting or returning to an exercise routine over the age of 50. While this is a worthwhile share for anyone in your life that might fit into this category, I thought there were some relevant implications hidden within it that apply regardless of age, namely the following:

1. Think of Exercise as Having 4 Pillars → Stability, strength, aerobic efficiency (Zone 2), and peak aerobic output (Zone 5) form the foundation of a healthy body. Regardless of how old you are, you can design a weekly exercise that addresses each of these core systems to optimize for health and longevity.
   
   

2. Think of Exercise as a Retirement Account - As Peter says, it is never too late to start saving for a retirement account. But you have to understand the longer you wait to start the harder it will get - and the more risk you will need to take. Just like it is never too late to start saving, it is never too late to start exercising. Don’t wait.
   
   

Note: If you prefer reading over listening, you can find the full show notes at the above link that I’ve downloaded into my Readwise Reader app as a premium subscriber of ‘The Drive’.

Personal Growth

High Agency Learning - George Mack (~1 min)


A great short note on a concept we’d all benefit from getting familiar with: our education is in our hands, and no-one else's. This quote George highlighted within it hit hard:

One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey - Dee Hock

Learn like an eagle on the hunt, not a dog waiting for it’s master.


Become Undefinable - Dan Koe (~1 min)


Loved this perspective from Dan on becoming ‘irreplaceable’ by becoming ‘undefinable’:

Become undefinable.


Run a marathon one day, write an essay the next. Direct a short film, build an app, deadlift 500lbs, strategize a marketing campaign, or do whatever your curiosity draws you to.


If you can be defined as "____," you face either competition or replacement.

Mental Models/Principles

The Right Kind of Stubborn - Paul Graham (~8 min)


I find Paul Graham, founder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, to be one of the best synthesizers in the world on common traits found in high performers.


This was a great piece in which he argues for finding people that are the ‘right kind of stubborn’, which he defines as *persistent (*people are attached to their goals) rather than *obstinate (*people who are attached to their ideas). While both seem similar in that they are ‘hard to stop’, Graham’s perspective is that successful people tend to fall much more so into the persistent bucket because they are willing to exchange their ideas in service of whatever it is they wish to accomplish. Though these two quotes were especially good framings of the differences between the two:

The reason the persistent and the obstinate seem similar is that they're both hard to stop. But they're hard to stop in different senses. The persistent are like boats whose engines can't be throttled back. The obstinate are like boats whose rudders can't be turned…….

The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are attached to their ideas about how to reach it.