CrossFit Games App #1 in Sports...how would a Munger Mental Models app fare?

The CrossFit Games announces the first workout in the open entry portion of its competition. It's a great thing.

If you've never heard of it, sign up for the Games. It'll cost $10. It's worth at least 10 times more. If you have heard of it, get ready for a series of inspiring stories about the amazing things people in the Open are doing.

One bit of information that stood out among all of the incredible personal profiles and absurd Danny Broflex commercials (see video below) was a simple picture Zach Wentz recently tweeted: 

CrossFitGames App is #1 in Sports. Thanks Zach Wentz.

The CrossFit Games app is the most popular free app in sports. More popular than the NFL, NCAA, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, and every other sports app. Turns out it reached #1 for sports in several countries.

CrossFit Games App international ranking.

It's a cool piece of information. And the underlying reality that makes it possible (that 1. lots and lots of people like CrossFit and are participating in the movement's signature competition, and 2. that those people also have iPhones) is really staggering. CrossFit and the Crossfit Games have come an impossibly long way in a short period of time.

Contemplating the way Greg Glassman has revolutionized the fitness industry--and in a way that extends far beyond the vast reach of his own company and its thousands of affiliates--I'm excited. I don't see a Munger's Mental Models app going #1 anytime soon in any category or in any country. But Glassman's success provides hope in the capacity of the business titan Charlie Munger's ideas to transform society and our educational practice. After all, how many people currently clamor for education reform? Contrast that with the number of people who, at the time Glassman founded CrossFit in the early aughts, would have ever considered that fitness needed even a minor overhaul?

It's nice that the CrossFit Games has stirred me from a too-long, work-induced break from this blog. I'll have more soon about a few ideas I have about Munger's ideas and how those who are interested in them might work together to put them to good use. Any ideas on that topic either in advance or after that effort are welcomed, as always.

As promised, here's Danny Broflex's invitation to sign up for the 2014 CrossFit Games:


  

Looking for a Few Good Men (& Women to Teach Munger's Mental Models)

CrossFit instructor and participant Josh Everett has landed his dream job. He provides strength and conditioning training to U.S. soldiers in the Naval Special Warfare Group.



Few if any jobs place more, or more unpredictable, demands on the human body. Being physically prepared to be a special forces soldier is a tall order.

CrossFit founder Greg Glassman's formula: constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement is just about a perfect recipe for a special forces soldier. And Josh Everett is just about the perfect coach. He's right when he says that the training he provides has a "real world analog," and that the exercises his troops do "carry over very greatly" to the demands of their jobs. When you don't have any idea just what your job will require of you, it's good to be broadly, generally prepared. 



A 'real world analog' to the physical demands placed on special forces soldiers is your job. Few if any jobs in today's economy (at least any that anyone would want) draw on neatly-defined, unchanging mental skills and capacities. Even the best training by the greatest teachers and leaders in any field will inevitably come up short.

I've taken a look at what Warren Buffett called the life-changing moment when he encountered Benjamin Graham's book. Buffett went on to study with Graham. But, as great as the education Buffett got from Graham was (Charlie Munger said that what Buffett learned from Graham was enough to make anyone rich), that if his partner hadn't learned anything else Berkshire Hathaway would be a pale shadow of its present self.

CrossFit recently re-tweeted CrossFit Games runner-up Julie Foucher who wrote, "Two hour AMRAP of practice questions, 100 flash cards for time, then time for the gym!" with the analysis: Cognitive fitness.

Med Student Julie Foucher is Physically & Cognitively Fit.

Charlie Munger's ideas on building a latticework of mental models prepares people for general intellectual fitness even better than the advice from this Harvard Business Review piece on 'cognitive fitness' (some examples from HBR: manage by walking, read funny books, play games, learn a new language or instrument, exercise). Not surprisingly, the HBR piece cites Charlie Munger's partner Warren Buffett as someone who defies "the widespread belief that our mental capacity inevitably deteriorates as we get older.

Now all we need are a few Josh Everetts to teach Munger's mental models and some educational institutions with the will and wherewithal to do it.