Curious Baby (10/2/20)

Oct 04, 2020

Hey Friends,

Welcome back to Sunday School.

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Life is made up of moments. Some of us have a moment so significant that it changes the entire course of life.

This week I watched the ESPN documentary The Life and Trials of Oscar Pistorius. If you’re familiar with Pistorius’ story, you know his life is filled with enough significant moments for the lives of 100 people.

In 2013 one moment that’s as large as it gets happened when Pistorius took the life of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Whether this was an accident or a premeditated murder is up for debate, but let’s use the court’s ruling: it was an accident and Pistorius meant to shoot a burglar, not his girlfriend.

I’m struck at how completely his life changed at that moment in time. Not that it did, but how it did with no warning. Now, until the end of his life, this will be the prevailing thought in his mind. It’s something that so completely changed him and it all happened in a few moments of confusion.

Obviously, it’s unlikely that something like this would happen to someone you know, but it’s a stark reminder that at any moment life can completely change, for the good and for the bad.

We’re here to live it as positively as possible, to control the things we can, and to make the most out of the things we can’t.

Alright, let’s get to the lessons for this week.

Homeroom

My Essay: Minimum Viable Creativity

This week I’m re-sharing an essay I wrote in June called Minimum Viable Creativity.

It’s easily been my most read essay, gathering over 1,500 reads, with 1,400 of those coming in September. This is largely because it was shared by one of my favorite writers, Anthony Pompliano.

Pomp 🌪 @APompliano

This idea of Minimum Viable Creativity makes a lot of sense to me.

ryansmulholland.comMinimum Viable Creativity — Ryan MulhollandIt’s tough to be a creator. It’s even tougher to do it consistently. The hurdles to creation are many and the way around is usually the hardest route. The sight of others’ success in public weighs heavy like an anchor keeping us from going anywhere. If there’s an anchor weighing us down, the mass

Pomp is one of the most-read writers on Wall Street and has a huge following for his newsletter and podcast. If you’re into finance at all, especially Bitcoin, I’d recommend checking out everything Pomp does.

My favorite lesson in all of this is the power of putting your thoughts online. The upside is unlimited, and there’s no downside at all. If you’ve ever considered creating something, check out this essay and my framework for how to think about getting started.

I’m hoping to have my first essay of October ready within the next two weeks, excited to share it!

Curious Baby

Video: Tim Urban @ HubSpot Inbound 2016

I know I just said Pomp was my favorite writer online, but I lied, it’s actually Tim Urban. Urban is a master writer and uses playful imagery and characters to drive home poignant thoughts on a smattering of subjects.

To continue with my theme of Minimum Viable Creativity, I’m sharing this video of Urban speaking at a conference in 2016. In this talk, he explains how he thinks about creating content and writing articles, and his metaphor is more relevant today than it was then.

Urban writes essays for someone like himself: a curious baby. He wants something fully explained to him and he wants it explained like he’s five years old. He needs to have fun while he’s doing it, he needs it to be delighting, and he doesn’t want to read a boring, adult thing. He aims to create something his readers are obsessed with:

Attention is the most valuable currency on the market today, and we’re all curious babies. Very few of us have the patience to dig through the weeds of content that’s informative, but boring. We need to be entertained in everything, including our learning.

This is one of the struggles in education, especially in a year where most of it is happening virtually. Students expect entertainment and engagement. They despise the status quo lecture that doesn’t hold their interest. Professors and teachers can brush this off as a young generation that’s over-stimulated, but that’s wrong. It's more of a reflection of our economy than it is a reflection of this generation of students.

Admit it; you’re a curious baby too.

Theory of Constraints

Link: Theory of Constraints 101 - Tiago Forte

This week I’ve been reading about the Theory of Constraints after a friend of mine (if you’re looking for another good newsletter I recommend his) recommended this as required reading for anyone in business. I think it’s required reading for anyone. Ever.

I highly recommend clicking that link 👆and reading each short article linked for the full details, but here’s my 1-minute summary of why it’s so powerful.

The Theory of Constraints (ToC) is based on three statements:

Every system has one bottleneck that is tighter than all others
The performance of the system as a whole is limited by the output of the tightest bottleneck or most limiting constraint
The only way to improve the overall performance of a system is to improve the output at the bottleneck (or the performance of the constraint)

Most people think that a system or a business can be improved by improving each individual part or department. ToC says that it doesn’t matter what all those other parts do, nothing will get better unless the part with the lowest output is improved. Here’s an image to help visualize it:

So what does this mean?

It means that if you’re focused on top-notch output you have to raise the output of the weakest part of your system to see real improvement.

Perseverance & Grit

Link: Bailing Water - Nick Fogle

This was the absolute best thing I read during the month of September. This is a story big Nick Fogle, the co-founder of Waave, about his journey from graduating during the ‘08 recession, through law school, through failure to find a job, through switching careers, through $250,000 of debt, and finally finding what he was meant to do.

Nick’s powerful conclusion is a great lesson for anyone:

Seven years ago I had a realization. No one was coming to my rescue. Not family, not government, not the newest wave of politicians promising student loan forgiveness. I was tired of being a victim to my circumstances: bad job market, predatory student loans, dysfunctional family, etc... If I wanted freedom, I would have to pull myself out of this mess.
The experience was often lonely. For my twenties and early thirties I worked almost every night and weekend. I missed out on beach days, trips with friends, weddings, alumni events, put a home purchase on hold and delayed having children much longer than we wanted.
That said, I'm so grateful for having been through it. After pulling myself up and overcoming so much adversity, I'm confident that I can turn any situation around. If I found myself back where I started 10 years ago, I think I could do it again in 3-4 years instead of 8.

I highly recommend this story, especially if you’re someone with student loan debt, a job you feel committed to because of that debt, or any hopeless feeling about your career.

Digital Art Class

Artist: Pascal Campion

I’ve noticed that I’ve really taken to digital artists recently and Pascal Campion might just be my favorite yet. His illustrations have a common vibe using dark tones to create a comfy, familiar vibe. Here are a few of my favorites: