☕ saturday mornings - April 30, 2022
being yourself, tribe of mentors & searching
Ciao from Florence!
Happy Saturday. I hope you’re having an excellent start to your weekend.
What I’ve been up to:
Spent three days in Rome, hitting most of the classic tourist attractions.
Took a train North to Florence, where I'll spend three days. Florentine vibes are immaculate. I enjoyed Porto more than Lisbon in Portugal, and Florence more than Rome in Italy.
Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of the coolest things I’ve been pondering and exploring this week.
No drawings this week. Apologies for any broken hearts.
Thanks for being here. It means a lot. 🙂
✍️ Quote I’m pondering:
“A genius is the one most like himself.”
— Thelonius Monk
📕 Book passage I loved:
On my travels, I've had time to revisit a few of my favourite books.
Here are four excerpts that resonated with me from Tribe of Mentors, a collection of interviews with elite performers across various disciplines.
Let me know if any hit home for you.
Tim Ferriss on courage and becoming exceptional:
On my coffee table at home, I have a piece of driftwood. Its sole purpose is to display a quote by Anaïs Nin, which I see every day: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
It's a short reminder that success can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations we are willing to have, and by the number of uncomfortable actions we are willing to take.
The most fulfilled and effective people I know- world-famous creatives, billionaires, thought leaders, and more - look at their life's journey as perhaps 25 percent finding themselves and 75 percent creating themselves.
Note from Tommy: A common theme I've noticed from studying top performers is that they view their lives as the process of building themselves, brick by brick, to become exceptional. Through reflective thought and intentional work, akin to building a house.
Terry Crews on courage and fear:
“God will not have his work made manifest by cowards" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I love this quote because it is all about defeating fear. Every great and extraordinary accomplishment in this world was done through courage.
The more you run from your fears, the bigger they get, but the more you go into them, the more they tend to vanish like a mirage.
Steven Pressfield on starting life:
Get out of the hypercompetitive "life hack" frame of mind. I'm 74. Believe me, you've got all the time in the world. You’ve got ten lifetimes ahead of you.
Don't worry about your friends "beating" you or "getting somewhere" ahead of you. Get out into the real dirt world and start failing.
Why do I say that? Because the goal is to connect with your own self, your own soul.
Adversity. Everybody spends their life trying to avoid it. But the best things that ever happened to me came during the times when the shit hit the fan and I had nothing and nobody to help me.
Who are you really? What do you really want? Get out there and fail and find out.
Debbie Millman on being too busy:
"Busy is a decision."
Here's why: Of the many excuses people use to rationalize why they can't do something, the excuse "I am too busy" is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest.
I don't believe in "too busy." We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for "not important enough."
Simply put: You don’t find the time to do something; you make the time to do things. If you want to do something, you can’t let being busy stand in the way, even if you are busy. Make the time to do the things you want to do and then do them.
💡 Idea I’m exploring: Searching vs. Doing
We live in a world that fetishes immediacy.
We're all in a hurry to get going, get ahead, get rich, get happy. Especially when we feel everyone around us had it "figured out", the pull to go 100 miles an hour is like a riptide.
Yet, impatience corrupts our ability to live a full and meaningful life. We should prioritize searching instead of doing.
We prioritize any action, as long as we feel like we’re moving - we’re going somewhere. In the words of John Wooden, “one must distinguish between motion and progress."
In Naval Ravikant's words, people spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing. Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most and who and what you need the most.
"Everyone I’ve ever met," Sam Altman writes "would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. It is much more important to work on the right thing than it is to work many hours."
Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.
The Ladders of Life
Sometimes I picture myself at the bottom of a wall.
The top of the wall stretches to the sky, past my vision. There are several ladders leaning up against the wall.
Only one ladder reaches the top of the wall. A few are clearly too short. But several ladders are tall enough to touch the clouds and are lost from sight.
I think of different life paths as each ladder. If I choose to climb the wrong ladder, two things can happen. I either have to climb down the ladder and begin the climb up the right ladder, which takes much longer. Or I stay stuck on the wrong ladder and never reach the top of the wall.
Doesn't it make sense to take your time and choose the right ladder?
Search for the tallest ladder, your ladder, rather than picking the closest one and start to scrambling up.
The Search
"If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out. You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on."
― Naval Ravikant
But how do you know what the right path is?
“The hardest thing is not doing what you want" Naval notes "it’s knowing what you want.” The search is the hardest part of the journey. Once you're on the right path, it becomes easier because it's your authentic path.
You find your path by searching.
“We have forgotten that life holds a unique story for us all" Boyd Varty writes. "A thread made up of faint signs that lead to the manifestation of something unique. Something that only you can give to the world... Don’t try to be someone, rather find the thing that is so engaging that it makes you forget yourself."
It is tempting to live a life that impresses others. But it's the wrong path.
You want to search for what lights you up. What feels like play. What aligns with your authentic self and your unique strengths.
Follow your curiosity, wherever you can find it, rather than what is “hot” right now.
Find your game. No one can compete with you on being you.
It's not easy. Finding your path requires courage, patience, and persistence. But the reward is constructing a more meaningful life.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,” Steve Jobs notes “and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Just keep looking, it'll feel right.
The search is worth it.
That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.
If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you.
I may be wrong. I frequently am. If you see something differently, I’d be interested to read your thoughts.
Reply to this email, leave a comment, or find me on Twitter @tommy_dixon_
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Have a fantastic weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Tommy