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The only real shortcut in life
Each year since 1993, the Goodwood Festival of Speed has attracted a sold out crowd of 150,000 to watch cars race up a hill. In 1999 a F1 car set the record at 41.60 seconds, until 2019 when this happened.
The Volkswagen IDR absolutely obliterated the record, taking 1.7 seconds off the twenty year old time.
How did this happen? Well, Volkswagen had developed this car to win a legendary “hill climb” race in the USA, called “Pike’s Peak”. They then brought the car and river (Romain Dumas) to Goodwood and the rest is history.
Whoever thought of that didn’t have to take twenty years to work out how to beat the Goodwood record, they simply came up with a shortcut.
From the latest FS newsletter:
The only real shortcut in life is to understand it backwards. It’s easier to solve a maze backwards and the same holds true with life.
Learn from people further down the path than you and make their hindsight your foresight.
From Shane Parrish and his Farnam Street “brain food №393” newsletter