Let's be Fwends #129:

The Relation between Self-Control, Power, and Lofty Goals

"You can’t rule the Universe from a shack."

~Douglas Adams

Welcome to issue 129 of Let's be Fwends. It's a week late, but the delay was kinda-sorta planned, because last week I was adding new songs for my 2024 Year in Strava Music on the beautiful island of Mallorca (go here for my 2023 Year in Strava Music).

Also, it's a bit shorter, because promptly after returning, I got sick 🤧. Nevertheless, there's a really interestin study about the link between self-control and power, a visual explainer about the physics of wings, and a link to something some people can use on a daily basis.

Self-Control and Power

Apparently, there's an easy way to get into positions of power: Act as if you're equipped with high self-control.

"(I)ndividuals with high self-control were seen as more powerful, and as better suited for powerful roles, than individuals with low self-control."

In turn, people with perceived high self-control are more often promoted into positions of power. We basically hand over power to people who we think have great self-control (being defined as "to behave in ways aligned with their goals" in this context).

One way to do that is, surprisingly, to low-ball your ambitions:

The researchers also found that people are perceived as less powerful and less suited for powerful roles when they fail to meet ambitious goals, even if their performance is the same as their peers. In an experiment investigating how self-control often leads to power, a group of undergraduate students interacted with individuals who set various reading goals. Some set an ambitious goal of reading 200 pages each week, while others set a more moderate goal of reading 50 pages per week. All of these individuals read the same amount – 100 pages – but those who didn’t meet their goal were seen as less powerful by study participants. Furthermore, study participants were less interested in having those who didn’t meet their goal as the group leader in later tasks.

Again, this kind of makes sense: You want people to be able to accurately predict their abilities, the more so if they are in a position where they might take big decisions for a group of people. If you claim to be able to read 200 pages per week, but you only manage to read just as much as anyone else - aren't you some sort of dreamer?

One interesting aspect of this is when it comes to goal setting: It's not uncommon for companies to assign "moonshots" or "stretch goals" for individuals and teams. Those goals are typically very ambitious and more or less impossible to achieve. Personally, this idea always rubbed me the wrong way. A goal is a goal, and if I think it's unreachable, then it's no longer a goal, but a dream. You can dream, fine, but then please remove it from your framework of envisioning the near-future state of a product or the company. Also, I never understood what we should do with such a goal. Should we try to reach it? Is the stretch goal our target, or is the defined "regular" goal the target? If we should really try to reach it, then it might even work against us: If we want to read 100 pages per week and set that as a goal, with a stretch goal of 200 pages per week, and we manage to read 100 pages, are we then really successful?

How an Airfoil Works

Back in the day, I shared a link about the fundamental difficulties we have explaining the basic principles of flight, and while nothing has changed about that, here's an amazing visual and interactive explainer about hoe airfoils (read: "aircraft wings") work.

Bartosz Ciechanowski's work is extraordinary on many levels: His explainers are easy to follow, start with first principles and add layers of understanding over time, his visuals are well-thought-out, and the implementation in web technologies is also great.

Featured already here with a link to his explanation of mechanical watches. What might also be of interest to this audience is his visualisation of the physics of bicycles.

Insult Generator

If you insufferable stewpan of variolar Polled Durham refuse want to come up with remarkable insults on the spot, be sure to check out the "Insult Passphrase Generator" which you can or cannot use to create pass phrases to safeguard your account and/or generate random insults for your subscribers.

Do not confuse with Matt Shirley's Insult Generator for Kids which requires a bit of manual work, but produces interesting results as well, you squishy bum hamster.

That's it for this edition of Let's be Fwends. Despite adverse circumstances, I managed to meet the deadline, displaying an impressive amount of self-control. Send offers for positions of power by replying to this email. Thanks! 🧞‍♀️