How do you Practice Your Profession?

Tyler Cowen is an economics professor at George Mason University, and is one of the leading thinkers in neoclassical economics. He also keeps a blog, a podcast, and an online university focused on economics. On his blog, he wrote about how he “practices” being a thought-leading economist, podcaster and writer. For some people, it is obvious how they can practice their craft. For others, specifically knowledge workers, it’s hard. Outside of “just getting reps” in your profession, how do you know what to practice? How do you know you’re improving? He ends the article with a penetrating question:

Recently, one of my favorite questions to bug people with has been “What is it you do to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales?”

I think it begins with defining one’s domain and expertise. For me, my domain is being a professional investor. I make decisions about where to bet time and capital - essentially, I make judgments for a living. My expertise is in consumer products, particularly food & beverage. I use my expertise to enhance my domain, and after I’ve made an investment, I’m often using my domain to enhance my expertise. This applies to most executives and business owners as well, but generally anyone who is applying knowledge to build value.

To exercise good judgment, you have to understand things about the reality and then apply these understandings to specific problems. You have to understand how the world works. Many learn things in school and then forget them later in vocational life, but I derive insight and perspective for life from studying culture (anthropology & sociology), people (psychology & religion), and systems (economics, physics, biology, computer science). I am a big fan of this Charlie Munger saying:

Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try to bang ‘em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.

Therefore, for me, my practice is two-fold: (1) it is in building a latticework of theory. Shane Parrish from Farnam Street collects and documents these isolated facts in the form of what he calls “Mental Models.” I am not that deliberate, but I do appreciate what Shane is doing. I make a practice of studying one highly technical, hard subject at a time (it’s Physics for me in second half 2019), and writing notes to myself after I learn hard materials, essentially demonstrating to myself I can teach it. By self-teaching and constantly increasing the difficulty of material, I know I am building a better “Judgment Engine,” something I’ll write about more in the future. (2) I believe one’s specific expertise requires practice as well. Some of our portfolio company managers or former clients are reading this, and I’d love your feedback on areas I should grow in. For the most part, I often hear: (a) “help us get better at selling products to retailers,” and (b) “help us grow and our manufacturing operations more efficient.” These are the two areas I am spending most of my time learning and meeting new people.