☕ saturday mornings - June 4, 2022
walking naked, long-term horizons & filtering information
Good morning all!
Happy Saturday. I hope you’re having an excellent start to your weekend.
What I’ve been up to:
My goal after taking Write of Passage was to build a consistent writing habit and dedicate time to writing longer-form essays. I've been waking up at 5 am to write for 90 minutes every morning. (Now that I've told you, I guess I have to keep it up.)
I started a work term for a holding company with multiple portfolio companies. Learning directly from the (stellar) executive team on how to build, manage, operate, and grow a business. I'm hoping to develop more of an entrepreneurial toolkit.
Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of the coolest things I’ve been pondering and exploring this week.
Thanks for being here. I appreciate your time.
✍️ Quote I’m pondering:
“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself...That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.”
— Neil Gaiman
💡 Idea from me: Long Time Horizons
How long we think something should take (time), is a function of our expectations of an outcome.
In theory, if you extend your time horizon to infinity, you eliminate your expectations.
Without expectations, you produce better work.
With a long time horizon, you're patient with yourself. You give yourself the time you need to grow and learn. You aim to create value instead of playing short-term games.
Buffett reminds us that a long-term outlook narrows your emotional volatility.
"The longer your time horizon, the calmer life becomes," David Perell writes. "Zoom out far enough and once-gargantuan hurdles turn into tiny speed bumps on the road of life."
The mindset I want to adopt: Determine whether projects are successful on a 5- or 10-year time horizon.
(Side Note: I often find my expectations for how long something should take are completely arbitrary. By extension, if I get upset I'm not getting a positive outcome in the time I expect, by definition, I'm choosing to upset myself.)
💡 Idea from me: How I Filter Information
Recently, I've been overwhelmed with the amount of content there is to consume. And I'm not talking about funny cat videos (although those are great).
I wanted to share some ideas that have helped me rediscover how I want to consume content and find a sense of calm in the information storm we live in.
Information Overload
We live in an age of information abundance. Finding information has never been easier, but filtering information is harder than ever. Choosing what to ignore is every bit as important as choosing what to pay attention to.
But, even for the conscious consumer, that avoids mindless content, the struggle isn't to choose between high-quality and low-quality information. The struggle is to choose between multiple sources of high-quality information.
It's not “what's important and what's unimportant?” It's “how do I choose among the important things?”
We face an onslaught of noise. On any social platform, there are thousands of people sharing endless ‘shiny’ ideas paraded as essential for success and happiness. Even the best content creators put pressure on people to consume everything they produce. People hand out book recommendations like candy on Halloween.
Calm in the Storm
There are hundreds of exceptional articles I'd like to read. Great speeches I've meant to get around to. Podcasts collecting cobwebs on my Spotify playlist. And never mind my constantly expanding book list.
But, the reality is I’ll never learn everything I want to. There will always be a list.
I realized that I'm filling my head with "should's".
Naval Ravikant advises us to get rid of the voice that says “you should do X”.
A lot of what goes on today is what many of you are doing right now - beating yourself up and scribbling notes and saying, "I need to do this, and I need to do that, and I need to do..." No, you don't need to do anything.
All you should do is what you want to do. If you stop trying to figure out how to do things the way other people want you to do them, you get to listen to the little voice inside your head that wants to do things a certain way. Then, you get to be you.
My new filter for information: the little voice in my head.
Not what "should" I consume? But, what am I excited about? Excitement is the true barometer where you know you're being authentic to your real self.
Ignore societal pressure, and double down on measured consumption of high-quality information. Chart your own path.
You’re unique, your interests are unique, and the information you consume should follow.
🤔 Question for reflection:
You are 99 years old, you are on your deathbed, and you have a chance to come back to right now: what would you do?
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That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.
If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you.
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Have a fantastic weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Tommy