Weekly Mix #259 - Exceptional Lives, Disagreeing, Product Visions, Beautiful Cabins & Price's Law

Exceptional Lives, Disagreeing, Product Visions, Beautiful Cabins & Price's Law

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Happy Monday!

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn supposedly came up with the cliché "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

It's been proven true in various cases, from your exercise habits to your outlook on life.

I've been thinking about it lately in the context of those who live exceptional lives.

Reading Sea Stories, Admiral William H. McRaven's book highlighting significant events in his life, what struck me was that the man himself seemed normal. Hardworking, tough, and talented, no doubt.

But what separates his life from others is that from a young age, he was surrounded by exceptional people. From a childhood surrounded by impressive military families, to becoming a Navy SEAL himself.

Things that are extreme become normal when you're surrounded by others who consider those things normal.

Those who run marathons may seem superhuman to those that don't run, but when you join a group of runners who run them regularly, it's normal.

The converse is true as well; surround yourself with people with lower standards, and you'll soon see those standards as acceptable yourself.

In short, you ARE the average of the people around you.

If you want to live an exceptional life, surround yourself with exceptional people.

Have a great week!

Graham

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Links

📖 How to Disagree - Paul Graham - Written in 2008, the web has evolved a lot since this post was published. But the principles remain the same, and I wish there was more education around intelligent conversation and how to debate and disagree.

"...the greatest benefit of disagreeing well is not just that it will make conversations better, but that it will make the people who have them happier."

"You don't have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don't want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way."

📖 Examples of simple-yet-powerful product vision statements - Lisa Zane - I love stumbling on a new article, only to realize it's been published by someone you know. Lisa and I became friends during our time at Techstars Boston, and she's the founder of Conscious Product Development.

A clear, concise product vision can go a long way to clarifying things for a startup, and this article goes through some great examples.

The more startups I see, the more I realize that success is as much about avoiding distraction as they build on their initial insight than they are about innovation.

🏠 Den Outdoors - Consistently my favourite producer of beautiful cabin and home plans, Den is always a reminder of how spaces can be beautiful, and how we can live comfortably with less. I also think they're an excellent business, and a great example of how to take something traditional (residential home architecture) and turn it into a scalable internet business.

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10 Tweets

As I spend more time on my own website, I hope to emulate what some of those in the list here have done: created something "different" that fits their personality.

Shaan Puri-->

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@ShaanVP

I love "clever designers"

People who build sites that stand out via personality & simplicity.

they aren't super polished or professional designers.

Personality > Pixels.

People like: @levelsio @nealagarwal @jackbutcher @harrydry

Who else fits this description?

February 6th 2023

7

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Ever wonder why productivity doesn't seem to scale linearly with head count? Why a larger team doesn't seem to accomplish as much as a smaller one? This thread is a good explainer.

Thomas Ince-->

@thomasince

1. First off, what is Price's Law?

It states that 1/2 of the output of any domain is attributed to the square root of the participants.

If you have heard of the Pareto Principle, this is a derivation of that. You can isolate the 50% of the 80%. pic.twitter.com/txX7HR1TMo

Thomas Ince

@thomasince

Whether you are buying a business or growing a business, you need to know what to focus on.

A tool I use is called "Price's Law" & it helps me know what to focus on. It has helped me go on to buy many businesses & scale a company I founded.

Here are 12 examples on it 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/1upFg3ANOD

February 5th 2023

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