Atul Gawande on Not Settling for Average

“Except, of course, there is. Somehow, what troubles people isn’t so much being average as settling for it. Everyone knows that averageness is, for most of us, our fate. And in certain matters—looks, money, tennis—we would do well to accept this. But in your surgeon, your child’s pediatrician, your police department, your local high school? When the stakes are our lives and the lives of our children, we expect averageness to be resisted. And so I push to make myself the best. If I’m not the best already, I believe wholeheartedly that I will be. And you expect that of me, too. Whatever the next round of numbers may say.”

Atul Gawande

It’s a long read, and you won’t know what it’s about till about 75% through, but there are a number of juicy things to think about in here.

One that sticks with me is the story of the doctor who, with all the same research and tactics, does much better than his peers in treating Cystic Fibrosis. The difference was his tenacity, all-in-ness, dedication to seeing the improvement… even if it’s the difference between 99.95% and 99.5%.

Thx @genuinechris for the recommendation.

Louis C.K. on Farts & Being Snobbish

“Farts are — I just refuse to be snobbish about certain shit with comedy. You know, farts come out of your ass and they make a fucking trumpet sound. That shit smelling gas comes out of your ass and it makes a toot sound. What the fuck is not funny about that? It’s perfect, it’s a perfect joke. It has all the elements.”

Louis C.K.

James Altucher on How to be an Entrepreneur

“Some people can say, ‘well, I’m just not an entrepreneur.’

This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An ‘entre-ployee.’ Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to anybody, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a career.”

James Altucher

James Altucher on Goals vs. Themes

Make the list right now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author. I want to reduce my material needs. I want to have freedom from many of the worries that I have succumbed to all my life. I want to be healthy. I want to help all of the people around me or the people who come into my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help to people. I want to only be around people I love, people who love me. I want to have time for myself.

THESE ARE NOT GOALS. These are themes. Every day, what do I need to do to practice those themes?”

James Altucher

Making the list of goals is hard. Or maybe it’s too easy and my mind immediately goes to all this unhelpful shit like directing a movie or being an NYT bestseller or whatever.

I love the way James turns that in this quote. “You want to direct a movie? Every day, what do you need to do to get closer to that?”

I can make that list. I can start that habit.

Of particular color and value here are the thoughts of Merlin on resolutions which you can find in this fabulous podcast episode. (Fast forward to about 41 min).

Write the list, then throw it away and start the tiny habit.

You can’t make money without

You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make something real without […] imagination […]. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.”

James Altucher

In the blog world (where many of my clients and friends live) it’s easy to setup a site and dole out advice on things like life, success, happiness, etc. There’s no required certification. For better or worse.

The blog world is inundated with these kinds of properties. It can be greasy, but my experiences with these kinds of bloggers has typically been positive.

My other world, the tech & startup world, is much different. It’s not a simple thing to get into (or at least it feels that way). When there’s real money, real stakes, there needs to be real value, real worth.

Recently I’m seeing these two worlds combine. Bloggers thinking more about real value, startuppers thinking more about lifestyle and happiness.

These two worlds are much more alike than I used to think. Though blogging is easy to start, creating true value (a question the typical blogger starts thinking about a year or more after starting) is hard. And that’s hard everywhere — be it a blog, an app, an HVAC company, or anything else.

And maybe I should rephrase that. It’s not that it’s hard to create real value, it’s that creating real value is the real work.

My two worlds are discovering they share the same ecosystem: creating value, making things someone wants.

Hemingway on Being Alive

“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

Hemingway

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