Or, you take the opposite approach, and fearlessly put it all out there. And own everything you say and do, and uncompromisingly attack forward with your vision, and let God sort the casualties out.
https://twitter.com/quintuscurtius/status/1548079395092328448?s=21&t=K5Tp3sIlk2w03zPdbcdk7g
Posted in reply to a cautious tweet suggesting a timid approach to life.
I decided where I’m going. The path is revealing itself: I’m working backwards from the destination.
I’m doing this by writing. And doing a shitty job at it, with happiness. Two prompts, and write two answers. That’s where I’m going and what I will be doing when I get there.
The two prompts: who are the customers? What am I doing for them? Right customer, right service. Everything follows from that.
The path won’t appear until you decide to be at the end of it.
Scott Adams.
Decide.
I’m done.
Done with reading insightful tweet threads. Blog posts. Newsletters.
Done with reading insightful books. Mindset this. Thinking Fast and Slow that. Enough.
Writing insightful (to the best of my ability) stuff.
Meditations, a pen, paper. That’s all I need. The Kingdom of God is within. And human help is all around me.
Let’s go win.
Who am I? Really. What is my edge? What are my limits? Observe. How do I behave? That tells me.
What do I want? Really. I already have the answer. It’s inside. Let it out, unashamedly.
Don’t make the map better with more insight. Go get after it, with the map I already have.
I just got bonked on the head with a reframe.
I have been viewing my business life as “providing value.” This is not a bad frame, and it is a common one. Price vs value. People buy value, pay price. Etc.
The reframe is to ask whether I am being useful to others. This moves me from the subjective universe (basing decisions on someone else’s subjective experience) to a more objective universe (basing decisions on whether there is a demonstrable utility to my action).
The person I am helping will still have a subjective experience. That’s out of my control and it is idiosyncratic to the particular person. Better: I can make my decisions based on being objectively useful to people and let the subjective chips fall where they may.
This will banish angst and uncertainty. My results and happiness in business (and life) are not dependent on someone else’s subjective experience. I just strive to be useful in whatever way I can.
How do you keep momentum?
“Strike while the iron is hot.”
But how do you keep the iron hot?
The first rule of life is don’t die.
The best way to not die is to list the largest causes of death and then build systems to avoid them.
How do you not die at tennis? Avoid unforced errors.
Same in life. Systems that keep you from making unforced errors.
Just happened. I’m traveling and tested positive for Covid. I’m at my AirBNB, sitting. I don’t have the brainpower to do anything else except get a cup of water from time to time.
God did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. Sit a while. Do nothing. As Ed said, “when you are sick, your job is to get well.” First things first.
you can’t follow the rules. They aren’t designed to be followed. They’re designed to be arbitrarily enforced.
What you are is what you will get.
Is the ultimate rebellion.