Luca Dellanna — How to Play (and Win) Long Term Games (EP.228)

Infinite Loops

When Luca Dellanna speaks, I listen.

Unlike many of the other management, productivity and behavioral gurus out there, Luca is ruthlessly committed to providing actionable, tangible advice that is rooted in the messy, chaotic reality of daily life.

This conversation, my second with Luca, revolves around his excellent new book, Winning Long-Term Games: Reproducible Success Strategies to Achieve Your Life Goals.

Why should you care? Because long-term strategies consistently deliver better results. In other words, being able to identify, play, and win long-term games is, quite literally, the secret to success.

With examples ranging from NASA janitors to Stonehenge spray painters, we discuss how to successfully identify reproducible long-term strategies and how to persuade others to get on board with them.

We also explore how hypotheticals can be an insanely powerful tool for ensuring our short-term actions remain consistent with our long-term goals (and yes, before you ask, my beloved premeditation makes an appearance).

I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did! For more thoughts on the episode, the full transcript, and bucketloads of other stuff designed to make you go; “Hmm, that’s interesting!” check out our Substack.

Important Links:

• Winning Long-Term Games: Reproducible Success Strategies to Achieve Your Life Goals
• Luca’s Website
• Luca’s Twitter
• Luca’s Previous Episode
• Five Counterintuitive Truths We Learned From Luca Dellanna

Show Notes:

• The Tale of the Three Bricklayers
• Tighten Up Those Feedback Loops
• The Perils of Short-Term Thinking
• How to Signal Long-Term Intentions
• Reproducibility is King
• The Mighty Power of the Humble Hypothetical
• Concretizing the Abstract
• Goldilocks Solutions
• Extracting Tangible Benefits From Stratospheric Objectives
• Intuition & Luck in Long-Term Games
• Risk of Tactic vs Risk of Strategy; Flexible North Stars
• Build Your Own Long-Term Company
• Tesla’s Risky Success
• Luca as Emperor of the World
• MORE!

Books Mentioned:

• Winning Long-Term Games: Reproducible Success Strategies to Achieve Your Life Goals; by Luca Dellanna
• The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by Joseph Henrich
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; by Douglas Adams
• Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder; by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The Infinite Game: How Great Businesses Achieve Long-Lasting Success; by Simon Sinek