Weekly Mix #192 - Speed, Spikiness, The Dip, Fewer Choices & Unique Messengers

Weekly Mix #191 - Speed, Spikiness, The Dip, Fewer Choices & Unique Messengers

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Happy Monday!

I hope you had a great weekend.

I played 9 holes of golf Friday night, and then I spent all day Saturday at the golf course. I played two rounds of 18 holes, and went to the driving range in between. I probably hit 300 balls.

And I played my worst rounds of the year.

I had a lesson earlier in the week, and of course there were changes I made as a result of those lessons. When that happens on the golf course, it usually ends badly.​

Golf, like surfing—and many sports, in fact—is great for metaphors.

I was reminded of this graphic last week, when I wrote about Plateaus.

Image from Ben Nadel's blog​

Whenever we learn something new (or get back to learning something), we experience a brief period of progress, followed by a dip or regression, and then, if we stick with it long enough, a reward at the end.

What's so painful is that we don't know how long The Dip will last, or what the rewards will be like at the end.

When it comes to golf, the potential outcomes are pretty well-known. At some point my score will improve, but realistically that's probably only 10-20 strokes per round.

In life, it's much harder to predict. We don't know what the rewards are at the end, we don't know when they'll happen, and we don't even know if they will happen!

So what can we do?

A few things:

Expect the dip: If we expect it, it's easier to endure.

Find ways to enjoy the process: Even when my round sucks, I can always find a positive. A particularly good shot, or the time I spent with friends or family, or the break from work for some sunshine. Find a way to enjoy the little things.

Work on things where the journey is the reward: Starting a YouTube channel may not bring you money and subscribers. But you're guaranteed to get better at speaking and to improve your confidence in front of a camera. Work on things where you can't lose.

Have a wonderful week!

Graham

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Links

📖 Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems - James Somers - This post is going into my list of favourites. The key concept: when you get used to working fast, you lower the "activation energy" required to do it. Which means you start without thinking, and get a lot more done.

📖 Spiky point of view - Wes Kao - A piece on how your personal points of view, and strong convictions, is what makes you stand out. I've been thinking a lot about this; "there are no unique messages, only unique messengers." (see below)

📖 The Untold story of How Jeff Bezos Beat the Tabloids - Bloomberg - While it may seem like a strange topic for this newsletter, I think this story illustrates the mindset of some of the world's top performers: aggressive, contrarian, and willing to look hard things in the face. Reminds me of Conspiracy, the story of how Peter Thiel took down Gawker.

📖 The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm - A great reminder: make decisions fast when they're inconsequential, and make rules so you don't have to think about things.

10 Tweets

​​​​​Julian Shapiro on the behaviours of successful founders​​​

​Calvin Rosser on how to think of your work as paying "5 salaries"​

​Alex Garcia with a list of 50 marketing threads​

​Lenny Rachitsky on the 8 ways to make money​

​How Cathryn Lavery went from architect to multi-million dollar ecommerce founder​

Ali Abdaal: there's no such thing as unique messages, only unique messengers

Ali Abdaal

@AliAbdaal

There's no such thing as a unique message, only unique messengers 🏹 pic.twitter.com/xs3lgu8wKO

February 4th 2021

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