Dr. No #69 – The Two Rules That Quietly Run Every Relationship (Including at Work)

Hey lawyer,

Peter D. Kaufman is one of those people who should be famous and isn’t.

He runs an aerospace company (Glenair), edited Poor Charlie’s Almanack, and gave a talk on “multidisciplinary thinking” that feels like someone handed you the operating manual for human behaviour.

His “life hack” is almost offensively simple.

And it works.

1) Food for Thought

If your life (and your legal team) is basically a set of repeated interactions…
what exactly are you repeating every day that you expect to compound?

Because whatever you repeat is what you’re building.

2) Great Insight

Kaufman’s big idea: if you want to understand complex life, don’t live inside one professional “well.” You need multiple lenses. He borrows from physics, biology, history, psychology.

Then he lands on two “big ideas” that show up everywhere:

Big Idea #1: Mirrored Reciprocation (go positive and go first)

Newton’s Third Law in human form: action gets reaction.

In Kaufman’s examples:
If you treat a cat badly, it scratches you. If you treat it well, it purrs.
Same with people. Same with teams. Same with CFOs and CEOs.

GC translation:

• If Legal acts like a gatekeeper, the business acts like a bypass artist.

• If Legal acts like a partner, the business starts treating you like one.

• If you enter a meeting cold, you get cold back.

• If you enter with generosity, clarity, and calm, you get cooperation.

The mind-bending part: most people wait for others to “go first.”
They end up getting nothing, repeatedly, and call it bad luck.

Big Idea #2: Compound Interest (be constant)

Kaufman quotes Einstein calling compound interest “the most powerful force in the universe.”
His definition is better than any finance book:

Dogged, incremental, constant progress over a long time.

GC translation:

• One good legal playbook is helpful. Simplifying and updating it constantly is transformative.

• One clear stakeholder relationship is nice. Compounding trust over years is power.

• One process improvement saves hours. Doing one every month changes the department.

Most people don’t fail because they’re wrong.
They fail because they’re intermittent. They stop. They restart. They lose compounding.

Kaufman’s formula is basically this:
Go positive and go first.
Then be constant.

Simple beats genius. Because you can actually do it.

3) Mental Model: First Principles + Cross-Discipline “Latticework”

Here’s a mind-bending truth: many legal problems are not legal problems. They are incentives problems. Or communication problems. Or systems problems.

A multidisciplinary thinker doesn’t ask:
“What clause fixes this?”

They ask:
“What’s really going on here?”

Try this in your next tough internal conflict:

• What is the incentive?

• What is the fear?

• What is the hidden trade-off?

• What “simple” rule would solve this repeatedly?

When you start thinking like this, Legal stops being “support.”
It becomes strategy.

4) AI Booster of the Week: Limitless

Rewind is AI that remembers and recalls everything you’ve said and seen (so you don’t have to).
Perfect for:

• “What did we agree in that board meeting?”

• “What was the exact wording?”

• “What did the CEO actually say last week?”

Your brain should be used for judgment, not for searching your memory like it’s a messy Dropbox folder.

5) Quote to Reflect

“No road is long with good company.”
Turkish proverb (used by Kaufman)

In other words: the compounding isn’t only financial.
It’s human.

P.S. A practical way to “go first” without burning your team

Sometimes the best way to stay positive and constant is to stop forcing your internal team to absorb every specialised fire.

ambar can help with a very specific solution: a “bag of hours” of fractional counsel on demand

Use it for niche litigation and claims work such as:

• consumer law disputes

• construction claims

• supplier claims

• administration claims in concession agreements and tender processes

• tax proceedings and challenges against authorities

The idea is simple: your team stays focused on strategic value, while experienced specialists handle the heavy, specialised trench work.

If you want to explore how Ambar could fit your team like a glove, click here and we’ll set it up.

See you next week,
Dr. No