☕ saturday mornings - December 24, 2022

great conversation, life metrics & the best life advice

Happy Saturday!

I hope you’re having a great start to your weekend and a lovely holiday season 🎄

What I’ve been up to:

• I flew back to Canada, to spend the holidays in Toronto with my family. After 4 months abroad, it feels good to be home!

• I went to my first Toronto Maple Leafs NHL hockey game in almost 3 years.

Here's a recap of the most interesting ideas I've explored this week.

Thank you for your time 🙂

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✍️ Quote I’m pondering:

John O’Donohue, Irish poet, on great conversation:

“When is the last time you had a great conversation?

A conversation that wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture?

But when you last had a great conversation, in which you overheard yourself saying things you never knew you knew, that you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you thought you had lost, and a sense of an event of a conversation that brought the two of you onto a different plane, and then, fourthly, a conversation that continued to sing afterwards for weeks in your mind?

And I’ve had some of them recently, and it’s just absolutely amazing.

As we would say at home, they are food and drink for the soul.”

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📚 Book passage I loved:

I came to understand that while many of us might default to measuring our lives by summary statistics, such as number of people presided over, number of awards, or dollars accumulated in a bank, and so on, the only metrics that will truly matter to my life are the individuals whom I have been able to help, one by one, to become better people.

When I have my interview with God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage—a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had.

These are the metrics that matter in measuring my life.

― How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen

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💡 Idea from me: 22 Pieces of Life Advice

I turned 22 last week.

I've thought about what I've learned about life in that time.

Here are the best 22 pieces of life advice I've received during my 22 years on earth:

1. Wake up early.

Block off 90 minutes every morning to work on the hardest, most important thing. First.

Your entire life can change with 1 year of daily focused effort.

Don’t compromise.

2. Eliminate distractions.

Notifications destroy productivity.

While working, put your phone out of sight and out of reach.

Peak performance demands obsessively eliminating distractions.

3. Avoid 99% of content produced in the last 24 hours and 90% produced in the last year.

Use time as your filter for ideas. Not catchy headlines.

Favour old books, old ideas and old writers. 

Time reveals truth.

4. The number of books you’ve read is a vanity metric.

Prioritize depth, not breadth.

One idea, thoroughly understood & taken seriously, can change your life.

Read great books twice and your favorite every year.

5. No one pulls brilliance out of the void.

Study the influences of any creator. You realize 90% of their ideas are borrowed and repackaged.

Original thought is the other 10%.

6. Finance is simple. We choose to make it complicated.

Spend less than you earn. Save the difference.

Avoid fads, crazes, and get-rich-quick schemes.

Buy a diverse, low-cost portfolio.

Be patient.

7. Invest in skills.

Skills offer stratospherically higher returns than any stock or bond.

Never think twice about investments in yourself.

8. Most nutrition advice is nonsense. Often, the best guide is common sense.

Eat whole foods, drink a lot of water, sleep well.

Exercise daily.

Laugh more. Stress less.

9. Do one uncomfortable thing every day.

A hard workout. A cold shower. A solo walk.

Writing. Deep work. Meditation.

Take the stairs.

10. Travelling constantly makes for a great Instagram feed but a terrible lifestyle.

Slow travel is far more rewarding. Being home is underrated.

11. We underestimate how much time exceptional people have put in to get where they are. Both daily hours and number of years.

All great achievements require time. Be patient.

Great people have great outcomes.

12. Making friends on the internet is underrated.

The internet is the greatest matching tool ever invented.

Leverage it.

You’ll meet people so similar to you, it’ll surprise you they exist.

13. You’re never too old to give your mom a hug.

14. Tell the truth.

The truth brings about what is best. Even if it’s not obvious in the moment.

It will be painful in the short term.

But you will be rewarded in the long term.

15. Confront your fears & the things making you anxious—before they grow bigger.

When it comes to facing fears, the right time is right now.

It's going to suck. Just do it.

16. Tolerate uncertainty.

When we fear uncertainty, we settle.

Many forces push you towards following the tracks of others, rather than charting your own course.

Make sure the things you pursue are the weird things you want to pursue.

Make sure your desires are your own.

17. If you want something that doesn't exist, create it.

18. Work hard.

If you work 80 hours a week, you gain a decade of experience in 5 years.

Hard work compounds. With that extra time, you learn more about your craft. You learn how to be more efficient.

You get ahead.

Helpful mindset: I don't have to do the work, I get to do it.

19. Work smart.

Productivity is not about how hard you work. Productivity is what you choose to work on.

Most people waste time on things that don’t matter.

Do hard things. Even when you don't feel like doing them.

Avoid the path of least resistance.

20. Raise your ambitions. Lower your expectations.

Act boldly, but don't let your expectations make you miserable.

21. Be prepared to grind.

If you want to do anything great, it's going to be hard.

You're going to feel like quitting.

But what you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days.

Ernst Shackleton's family motto: By Endurance We Conquer.

22. Your character becomes your fate.

People eventually get what they deserve.

If you lead your life the right way, karma will take care of itself.

Your dreams will come to you.

Hit 'Reply' and let me know your favorite piece of advice!

I'll send you the 8 pieces that just didn't make the cut. (I started with +100).

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Share your saturday mornings with a friend! 🙂

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❓ Question for You:

What's the best gift you've ever received?

I often ask this question to friends, as it evokes memorable responses.

You learn what material things have been truly worth the money, but also what intangible acts of kindness and generosity have been more valuable than anything money can buy.

Time erodes almost all memory. But, acts of kindness remain.

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📸 Photo of the week:

Reminder most people aren't all good or all evil. They're human.

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Much love to you and yours,

Tommy