Notes from AlexNotes.org

When is it time to quit?

2024-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

When you keep doing something that isn’t working, at which point do you say, “fuck it, I’ve had enough!” and move on to the next thing?

At which point do you decide to stop wasting energy, time, and effort trying to get this thing off the ground and try something else?

I know in the beginning, nothing happens and no one notices and you need to persist, but you get sick of it after a point.

Sick of the lack of progress. Sick of not getting results.

It’s a lonely, uphill battle.

How do you know when to stop trying?

Tim Ferriss promised himself he’d do five podcast episodes as a trial. His podcast is now one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than 900 million downloads.

Why five and not three? What if he had promised he’d only do three? He probably wouldn’t have stuck with it long enough to see traction. His podcast wouldn’t have become one of the most famous podcasts in the world.

Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, made the strategic decision to shift the company’s focus from DVD rentals to streaming services. Had he not pivoted, there would be no Netflix today.

Jeff Bezos quit his job in finance to found Amazon in July 1994. What if he had waited a few more years before making this move? What if he had “saved six to twelve months’ of expenses” before quitting? Probably there would be no Amazon today.

Timing and luck matter a lot more than we give credit. Because it’s not in our control, we opt to ignore it. But it matters a lot more than we think. Topic to expand for another day…

I am curious what YOU think.

When is it time to quit?
At which point the process isn’t worth doing anymore?

Please email me your ideas or thoughts.

(This equation will improve your life) Satisfaction

2024-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.
— The Rolling Stones

I have a weird relationship with wristwatches. Since I was little, I always used to wear a wristwatch. With my first pocket money, I bought a plastic digital wristwatch. It had a teal button at the bottom of the dial. If pressed, it would light up the screen so you could read the time in the dark. I loved that watch.

I grew up, and unfortunately, my relationship hasn’t improved. I have eight or nine wristwatches, most donated by my grandfathers. I sometimes enter these dark mind-storms, as I call them, of wanting. I obsess for weeks over this one watch I want. I read, watch, and study everything about it. Anything else going on in my life takes the back seat. My life satisfaction plummets and my anxiety grows. I use all my willpower not to pull the trigger and buy it. It takes a toll on me.

During those dark periods, I remind myself of this equation:

Life satisfaction = Haves / Wants

What a powerful equation!

It demonstrates that no matter how much you have if your “wants” are bigger than your “haves”, you’ll never be satisfied.

Athletes like Mike Tyson going bankrupt.
Watch-collectors have more watches than they can wear.
People go into debt to purchase depreciating assets like cars.

Their wants keep growing, so their life satisfaction drops.

The perpetual cycle

People enter this perpetual cycle of:

Wanting something and life satisfaction drops.
Obtaining it and life satisfaction normalises.
Then after some time, wanting a new shiny thing and life satisfaction drops again.

Can we do anything to escape this cycle?

Shift your focus

We should focus less on possessions. It’s hard because our capitalist society doesn’t gain from this. But it’s a battle we have to fight every day.

You should focus more on:

Understanding and knowing yourself.
Improving your mood. Do you know how?
Accomplishing your goals. Do you have any?
Making better decisions. Study how.
Recognising faulty logic. We’re the easiest to fool. Learn about Confirmation bias and the Barnum effect.
Understanding the world. Study psychology. Few things change, mostly repeat.
Improving relationships. We are social creatures, learn how to have a conversation.

Delve into the concept of life satisfaction as a journey toward fulfilment rather than the relentless pursuit of desires.

A small neat trick

I managed to tame my watch obsession with this small trick. Whenever I feel the itch to buy another wristwatch, I do this:

I indulge in the process. I find out more about the watch, I watch videos, and I do my research. I close my eyes and I vividly imagine I possess the watch. I spend time exploring how it feels in my hands and how it looks on my wrist.
Then, I imagine that I scratched my watch. Ugh, how annoying. I don’t enjoy wearing the watch anymore because I see the scratches. I imagine seeing everyone on the street wearing the same watch.
I get bummed. I don’t want the watch anymore. Thanks but no, keep the watch and I’ll keep my money.

This technique has worked flawlessly for me (so far). It can also be practiced with other material possessions besides watches.

Remind yourself:

Every time you want something, life satisfaction drops.

Train yourself to not want it.

You’ll be happier and richer.

The self-improvement trap we fall in

2024-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

I have a confession to make.

I am an addict.

I am addicted to self-improvement.

I used to read, watch, and listen to everything related to self-improvement. Any form of unproductive entertainment used to be considered time wasted. Whatever information I came in contact with had to be educational. If the title didn’t contain the keywords “how to”, I’d skip it.

It felt like I was living solely to quench my thirst for knowledge. All this information overload, in many instances, overwhelmed me. Instead of enlightening and inspiring me, it proved how useless, stupid, and poor I was.

Compared to a fourteen-year-old prodigy, I was the biggest failure.

Such a waste

All these wasted hours, the squandered energy, and the useless negative emotions…

Of the information consumed, I remember maybe like two per cent. And even less than that, maybe one per cent, I have applied in my life.

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There must be a better way. A more efficient way (here comes my self-improvement side, again.)

The alternative

If I were to start again,

I’d learn about the Forgetfulness curve.
I’d learn how to increase my rate of retention through spaced repetition.
I would treat self-improvement like medicine, not like a non-stop supermarket you can visit anytime you feel bored.
I would put a limit on my consumption and force myself to create. To create more and consume less.
Any new information I learned, I had to rewrite it using my own words.

What’s their motive?

I would be more wary of the intention of these self-improvement experts.

A full-time YouTuber’s intention isn’t to teach you how to do X. It’s to publish videos often on topic X for the algorithm and to keep you watching until the end.
A full-time writer intends to make money from words. They do it by offering paid courses, paywalled articles, or books.
A full-time podcaster intends to keep you listening and receive five-star reviews from you to get more paid sponsors.

It doesn’t mean these experts don’t offer good information. But always keep the intention of the messenger in the back of your mind.

Why I do it

I intend to give as much free good advice to my younger self.

Why? I wrote about it here.

I don’t make money from my writing. I don’t have sponsors. My work isn’t influenced by my need to make money. Not yet, anyway.

But the most important reason is this:

The best way to learn is to teach!

I write so I can teach.
I teach so I can learn.
I learn so I can remember.
I remember so I can apply.
I apply so I can live it.

If you want to learn something, to remember new information, teach it to someone else.

Success is the tip of the iceberg

2024-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

Success is the tip of the iceberg.
Failure is the keel of the iceberg, invisible.

We don’t see the countless:

bland or burnt meals,
deleted sentences,
recorded outtakes,
trashed photos,
wrong decisions,
tries.

It’s useful to become aware of the invisible.

To see successful people not as a one-hit wonder.
To realise it takes many re-tries and restarts to do something worthwhile.

We don’t do it because it’s pretty—we do it because we must!

A more accurate picture

It’s admirable when successful people admit they’re not special.

When they acknowledge it took countless gruel-some hours to get where they are.
When they recognise it took them longer than you think.
When they’ve failed more times you can imagine.

We need more people like Thomas Edison to say to us, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”

Or like Michael Jordan to tell us, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot… and I missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I’ve been successful.”

Why?

Because we believe “they” got lucky, and we’re unlucky.
Because “they” are of a different race, gender, or background than us.
Because we think “they” have an unfair advantage and we’re at a disadvantage.

But it’s not true—and this mindset isn’t helpful.

The only way to shatter this myth is for successful people to share their struggles.

Fail often

Johannes Haushofer, a Princeton professor, did something admirable:

He created a CV of failures. In this CV, he mentions every failure he’s encountered from trying things.

If your list of failures isn’t long, you’re not trying enough.

You need to accumulate a lengthy list of tries. Try even if things might not work out—you never know. I would recommend you keep a list of failures and study it often.

Why?

So you can train your mind to not be afraid of failing.
To make failure part of your daily routine.
To minimise the effect of failure.
To get over it faster.

Openly discuss the struggles and setbacks you encountered in your path towards success.

One day, you’ll look back at this journal and smile.

In the beginning, nothing happens and no one notices

2024-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

MrBeast, one of the most famous YouTubers, after uploading for three years 265 videos, received little recognition. His channel would receive only ~10K views per month and ~50 new subscribers per month ¹. Now, he receives over 500K views per hour, per video, and over seven million subscribers each month.

The first Harry Potter book only had a print run of 500 copies ²; 200 were sold and 300 were distributed, to libraries. Author J.K. Rowling, who was on welfare, had received only a $4K advance (~$8K in 2024.) The Harry Potter series has now sold over 600 million copies worldwide.

James Dyson made 5,127 vacuum prototypes that failed before creating a successful model.

Steve Jobs’ and Steve Wozniak’s first product, the “Apple I”, sold 175 units.

Elon Musk and SpaceX failed the first three rocket launch attempts. Twenty years later, they pulled off 96 successful missions in a year.

Rovio produced 51 games with little financial success. On the verge of bankruptcy, their 52nd attempt was Angry Birds. To this day, Angry Birds has been downloaded over 3 billion times, making it the most downloaded freemium game series of all time.

Elvis Presley’s first recordings received little radio airplay. He then went on to become the best-selling solo music artist of all time.

Stephen King’s first horror novel, Carrie, was rejected thirty times before being published and launching King into fame.

U2 were initially poor and unrecognised. Their debut album received modest success. After seven years, their fifth album “The Joshua Tree” was released and catapulted the band to global fame. They won multiple Grammys and sold over 180 million records.

The Huffington Post struggled to gain a readership, during its first year. Critics dubbed the site as “unprofessional.” Huffington and her team didn’t give up. Just six years after being deemed a failure, the website was acquired by AOL for $315 million.

Humble beginnings

You publish your first, best article.
No one reads it.

You record your first, best song.
No listens.

You upload your first, best video.
No views.

Disappointment sets.

You think about quitting.
You believe you’re not good at it.
Maybe you should try something else.

Expectations

Why did you expect a different result?
This is normal.

It’s supposed to suck.
It’s supposed to be difficult.
How else would you identify those who want it?

Society has filled our hearts with expectations.

So much pressure, from all angles.
Success should come easy.
Failure isn’t an option.

Survivorship bias

It’s hard to keep at it without getting results.
Success is all around us.
Why are failing?

It’s our survivorship bias.

We focus on the successful ones.
We fail to see the ones who didn’t make it.
We don’t notice all the re-tries, mishaps, failures, and rejections.

Success, virality, and fame are not that frequent.

Only 0.01% of five billion people might become successful.
The rest 99.99% will not.

We should stop comparing ourselves with the 0.01%.

Detach effort from outcome

Your task is to hone your craft.
To ignore the outcome.
To keep practicing.

To worry about the outcome is not a creator’s job.

A creator’s job is to create and release.
Keep creating.
Keep releasing.

Initial obstacle = failure

Initial setbacks and low traction do not necessarily spell failure.
Another failed prototype does not mean ruin.
Low sales aren’t an indicator of quality.

But successful people got lucky, didn’t they?
In reality, they tried, failed, and failed again until they got lucky!

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”
— Stephen McCranie

Progress comes only after reaching failure.

Failure is data.
Failure is an indicator to try again.
Use failure to improve your next iteration.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150509193343/http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/mrbeast6000↩︎
https://wordsrated.com/harry-potter-stats/↩︎

Avoid these five pitfalls of a “hellish” existence

2024-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

Today at the mall, I leaned over the ledge and gazed at people passing below. I observed a security guard at a store. Belly sticking out. Oily and unkempt beard. Balding and thinning hair. Sloppily dressed. A haunting, lifeless gaze of emptiness.

I wondered what it took to become him.

What are the beliefs, habits, emotions, choices, and experiences he internalised leading him to this path?

A “hellish” existence consists of five pitfalls: fear, limiting beliefs, negative emotions, no skills, and bad habits.

1. Fear

He was afraid of failure.

Afraid of embarrassment. Afraid of change. Afraid of trying. Afraid of pain. Afraid to risk his cosy and easy lifestyle. Afraid of committing. Afraid of letting go.

Fear is the dream killer. Empowering beliefs, positive emotions, many skills, and good habits won’t matter if you’re still afraid.

2. Limiting beliefs

He believed he was not good enough.

He’s lucky to even have this job. He’s missed his chance. He’s too old to change now. It’s the best he could do. His family and teachers were right when they said he’d end up a nobody.

Beliefs have deep roots and are hard to change. Positive emotions, many skills, and good habits won’t matter if your mindset is limited.

3. Negative emotions

He was overwhelmed by his existential problems.

He was depressed and barely functioning. He was anxious about the future. He was stressed about money and about getting fired. He was lonely and craved human intimacy. He self-deprecated and felt sorry for himself. He was helpless.

Emotions direct your focus. Having skills and good habits won’t help you progress if you live in a lousy emotional state.

4. No skills

He didn’t know where to start.

How to change his life. How to change his emotional state. How to shift his mindset. How to motivate himself. How to learn. How to focus. How to earn with his mind, not with his time. How to create his compelling future. How to live.

Your skills act like a safety net you fall back on. Good habits won’t make a difference if you possess no skills.

Learn how to manage yourself first.
Become proficient in multiplying skills:
- Speaking, writing, psychology, sales, design, persuasion, programming.

5. Bad habits

He binge-ate processed food.

He watched too much TV to escape. He played games to gain some virtual sense of accomplishment. He avoided exercise because his muscles hurt. He took pills to help him sleep and silence his overthinking. He watched too much porn trying to feel something. He doom-scrolled social media, looking for his next dopamine hit. He drifted through life, jumping from one pleasure to another. He lacked a clear mission and purpose.

Habits are the necessary tools to craft your life. Good habits can make your future. Bad habits can ruin it.

What you do, not your feelings or your past will determine your future.

So now it’s clear.

To not end up like him, I have to avoid the five pitfalls:

Fear.
Limiting beliefs.
Negative emotions.
No skills.
Bad habits.

A painter, a violinist, a writer, and a metal band

2024-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Van Gogh produced over two thousand artworks but sold only a few during his lifetime. He struggled his entire life and relied on financial support from his brother. After he died, his paintings became one of the most valuable artworks in the world.

Joshua Bell, one of the world’s greatest violinists in 2007, tried a social experiment. He went busking in the subway, playing his multi-million dollar Stradivarius violin. Very few stopped to listen to him ¹.

The Harry Potter series was rejected twelve times. J.K. Rowling didn’t quit—her persistence convinced a small London publisher to give it a chance. The series went on to sell over six hundred million copies.

Anvil, a heavy metal band formed in 1978, slipped into decades of obscurity but didn’t quit. In 2008, after being the subject of a documentary movie, they became famous and got the recognition they deserved.

Same as ever

Was the music of Anvil bad and after fame arrived, it turned amazing? No! Their music remained unchanged.

Was the Harry Potter manuscript worthless thrash before it became a best-seller? No, it was the same material.

Was Joshua Bell playing his Stradivarius badly? No, he played as beautifully as ever, but nobody noticed him.

Were Van Gogh’s paintings worthless and his death skyrocketed the price of a painting to hundreds of millions of dollars? No, Van Gogh’s paintings were always valuable, but the market didn’t see it.

How to make hits

Any released product inherently has a “hit” potential. But the potential might not materialise for reasons outside our control.

We also overestimate our abilities and our talent.

We underestimate the long hours, the retries, the rejections, and the many prerequisites to rise to fame.

One-hit wonders are like lightning. Everything has to align, and the timing needs to be perfect, which rarely is.

Leave it to the pros

Surely the pros know how to create hits, no?

Most professionals are no better than us at identifying the “diamonds.”

Editors reject multimillion-dollar manuscripts.
Record labels pass signing unproven musicians who have award-winning talent.
All of the 2,132 actively managed stock or bond funds lost to the S&P 500 index fund over the last five years ².

There is no recipe to follow and predict if “it” will become a hit.

There are too many parameters, and some are impossible to calculate (like luck or opportunity.)

Also, as a collective, we don’t know what we like. Someone has to show us (hello, marketing!)

A word of advice

Surely a professional’s advice carries more weight than a friend’s opinion right?

Well, not really.

Did you know that Nobel laureates are 22 times more likely to be amateur dancers, magicians, actors, or performers than professional scientists? ³

A professional might be quick to shoot down an idea. They’ve seen many similar ones. But no matter if the idea is bad or common, its success lies in execution.

Professionals have been honing their craft for years, and they’re efficient. But their experience makes them oblivious to new angles, creative mashups, or anticipating landscape shifts.

A friend’s uninformed opinion might inspire you to keep trying.

Staying in the game long enough increases your odds of winning.

Ignore expertise or gravitas.

Be objective and only listen to advice if it’s helpful to you. Even if the advice is true but unhelpful, discard it and keep going.

Try again, maybe?

We assume we’re always wrong, and “they” know better.

But in reality, most of the time, others strike gold only because they take more shots. Because they get up, dust off, and retry.

History has shown persistence is as important as luck or skill.

So yes, try and try again.

Be “out there” searching for your lightning.

There are no guarantees you’ll find it.

But if you quit, you surely won’t make it. That’s a guarantee.

Quantity → Quality

2024-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

A teacher split a class of pottery students into two groups:

Group A: the students would be evaluated by their one best pot (quality)
Group B: the students would be evaluated by the weight of their total work (quantity)

At the end of the semester, their pots were evaluated.

The highest-quality pots, were produced by the students in the quantity group.

Crafting many pots and not worrying about quality, the students created better pots.

Quality is hard-wired

We appreciate quality stuff:

Well-written books
Well-composed songs
Tasty meals
Reliable tools
Bug-free code
Good service

Quality is the unit through which we evaluate if the creator has spent the time and poured their soul into “it”.

It’s an indicator that “it” will enrich us, and not harm us.

We want to experience quality in our lives.

How the experts do it

When Gordon Ramsey started cooking, was he awarded a Michelin star?
No, after many burnt steaks, he figured out how to cook better meals.

When Pablo Picasso started painting, did he knock out masterpieces?
No, after countless sketches and paintings—in total about 50,000—he found (and reinvented) his style.

When Billie Eilish records a song, does she nail it on the first try?
No, after many takes, she completes a song and releases it.

I once met a famous photographer and I asked if I could shadow him during his latest assignment.
He said no. I later found out his process:

Take forty to fifty thousand photographs of a subject.
Pick the best five photos. The 0.01%.

That’s how experts do it.

Problem: Quantity is invisible

What we often fail to see is the quantity behind the quality.

The hidden part of the iceberg.

The countless:

bland or burnt meals,
deleted sentences,
recorded outtakes,
trashed photos,
wrong decisions,
tries.

We forget this especially when we’re in the Creator’s seat.

We put absurd pressure on us to nail it on the first try.
To get it in one perfect take.
To finish quickly without too much effort.
To be the noun without doing the verb.

It’s impossible.

It’s like waiting for a tree to grow without planting it first.

Quantity is the seed which births quality.

How to create Quality:

Do many versions.
Start again.
Don’t quit.

Write a lot. Sing a lot. Cook a lot. Edit a lot. Practice a lot.

Only after Quantity comes Quality.

Remember this the next time you start something new.

Craft many pots.

How to take action

2024-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Does the flower bloom because it has willpower?
Is it because of habit?
Did it skip one day because it didn’t feel like it?
No, it just acts and blooms.

Does the Earth rotate because it’s motivated to do so?
Did it think it through before it started rotating?
No, it just acts and rotates around its axis.

What about superior beings like you?

Can you motivate yourself to not hear sounds?
Did you think before you came into this life?
Did you wake up today because you have willpower?
No, you just act, either consciously or subconsciously.

Action teaches you what works and what doesn’t.
Even if it won’t work, you will know it instead of reading about it.
This is ten times better.

You know how to take action.
You know what you have to do.
Stop making excuses.

When you’re looking for ways on how to take action,
how to hype yourself,
you’re too comfortable.

Get up and start doing.

You’re not responsible for the world,
you’re only responsible for your work.

You don’t need guidance from me or anyone else.
You don’t need to read another article or watch another video.
You don’t need motivation, inspiration, meaning, habits, discipline, passion.

You know how to take action.

It’s in your nature.

Remember the flower blooming.

How to start, continue, and finish

To start losing weight, walk for ten minutes. The next day walk five minutes more. Keep it up for a month. Then introduce short sprints in your walks. Stick to the basics. Think about what you can remove. Eliminate sugar and processed junk. Eat only what rots. Stop eating after 7 pm. Eat less frequently with intermittent fasting.

To start any creative pursuit like writing, drawing, or music, start with the most basic task which if removed, you’d remain with nothing. Do this elementary task for a month before adding more advanced techniques. Limit your information input (less research) to avoid overwhelming yourself. Focus on quantity not on quality at the beginning.

To continue something, remind yourself of when you started. You already have the power in you to continue doing it. Don’t look at the finish line. Ignore the outcome. Focus only on the process. Break down the task into its atomic components and continue executing them, daily.

To finish something, you have to share it. Share the photo. Sell the product. Release the song. Publish your notes after reading a book. Share your creation with the world.

Deadlines are cheat codes. Use them to force yourself to finish something and release it. Have an accountability partner or use Beeminder.

If you are a perfectionist, remember nothing anyone ever did or will do is perfect. Discard this limiting but convenient belief that it needs to be perfect from the first try. Share before it’s ready. Remember that it’s not finished until you share it first. It’s never going to be perfect, so get it done.

Remember done is better than perfect.

How and why to live below your means

2024-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
— Robert Quillen

We live in a world of overconsumption.

Everyone wants to sell us something.

We’re like a walking dollar sign to them.

The definition of advertising is:

Persuade people to believe they want something they don’t need.

We measure our worth with the things we own.

The things we own end up owning us.

The lose-lose equation

We are manipulated to want things + We have to work for money

We are taught to measure our worth in the things we have.
We feel incomplete if we don’t buy stuff.
Immediately after a purchase, we feel better, but the craving to buy more comes back. We feel incomplete once again.
We exchange our lives and our time (a finite resource) for money.
We’re preoccupied with how to make more money and how to monetise everything.
Jobs kill us slowly by eating our time and stressing us.

The endless capitalist hamster-wheel:

→ We want things which cost money.
→ We have to work to make money.
→ We buy things with money.

We enter an endless race.

Money is the modern way of enslavement.

But only if you let it.

Why live below your means

You have more money. This gives you the freedom to:
- Say no to things you don’t want to do.
- Change careers and unfulfilling jobs fast.
The less you own, the less you’re affected by disaster.
You sleep better, and you are less stressed.
You avoid stupid status games.
Money in the bank enables you to seize opportunities when they appear.
You don’t make compromises. You keep your integrity and artistic freedom.

How to live below your means

Keep you day job. Don’t quit yet.
Track your monthly expenses.
Spend less money than your salary.
Save twelve months of expenses. This is for your peace of mind. Don’t touch this money.

How to spend less money

1. Optimise your housing. Move in with friends, colleagues, parents. Find cheaper rent in the city outskirts or move to a cheaper country.

2. Limit big purchases like cars, TVs, laptops, phones, and watches. Is it necessary? Can you borrow it? If its value depreciates, it’s a liability, not an asset.

3. If you have any debt, pay it off ASAP.

4. Learn how to cook. Home-made food tastes better. The same goes for cocktails.

5. Buy only the things you need. Before purchasing, wait twenty-four hours and after, decide if you still need the item. Buy unbranded clothes or go thrift shopping. Buy items in bulk. Buy produce from the farmer’s market.

6. If you use it daily, buy the best. For everything else, buy the second cheapest.

7. Mind your friends. There’s no keeping up with the Joneses if there are no Joneses. Who are you comparing yourself with? Online, you compare yourself with four billion people. Our brains can handle only about one hundred fifty people ¹.

More tips

Shop for groceries only after you’ve eaten.
Install ad-blockers. Less ads = less manipulation.
Go into debt only for a house. Instead of borrowing, save up for other purchases.
Prevent hedonic adaptation ². To not get used to it, stop doing it for some time.
Use points and loyalty schemes.
Install a carbon filter on your tap so you don’t have to buy and carry potable water.
Measure your worth by what you create, not by what you buy.
Occasionally splurge. Buy yourself something nice—you’re not a robot!
The most difficult: work on yourself to want less stuff. Read stoic philosophy. Think about losing the things you already have.

Pitfalls to avoid

Timing is important. Living like a bum to save money in your twenties is fine. In your fifties, it’s weird.
More money = More freedom up to a point when money begins owning you.
Avoid being penny wise and dollar foolish. Big or frequent purchases can devour your penny savings.
What you do repeatedly adds up. Starbucks twice daily? Save money by brewing coffee at home. Are you going out a lot? Save money by ordering soda water with lime. Are you addicted to buying watches, bikes, and guitars? Make a rule to sell your gear before you buy another.
Remember it’s a two-sided coin: Reduce consumption + Increase production (money in). The best way to earn is with your mind, not with your time.

You need much less than you think to be happy.
Don’t buy into their bullshit.
Reduce your consumption—it makes you Antifragile.

“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”
— Lao Tzu

Live below your means.

In a nutshell (TL;DR)

Escape modern enslavement by living below your means. You’ll have more money, more freedom, won’t be affected by disaster, and less stress. How?

Track your expenses.
Spend less than you bring in.
Save twelve months’ expenses.

Dunbar’s number suggests people can keep a maximum of one-hundred-fifty stable social relationships.↩︎
Hedonic adaptation is a tendency of people to quickly return to their previous level of happiness (set point), despite major positive or negative events.↩︎

Create more, consume less

2024-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

You are one year old:
You eat your first apple.
It tastes amazing!

You are four years old:
You watch your first movie.
You eat your thousandth apple.

You are thirty years old:
You read your two-hundredth book
You watch your thousandth movie
You eat your ten-thousandth apple.

You are sixty years old:
You listen to your millionth song
You read your thousandth book
You watch your ten-thousandth movie
You eat your millionth apple.

You are on your deathbed:
How do you measure your life?

By the number of apples you’ve eaten?
Movies you’ve watched?
Books you’ve read?
Songs you’ve listened to?

How did you make your life count?

Problem: Overconsumption culture

The problem isn’t the fact we consume.

The problem is we consume too much.

We glorify overconsumption.

Always on.
Unlimited skips.
All-you-can-eat.
One-click anything.
Watch without interruptions.

More people die from too much food than too little ¹.

The more “developed” we are, the more we consume.

Food. Energy. Clothes. Land. Books. Music. Videos. Money. Time.

Overconsumption of…

Food pollutes our ecosystem and damages our health.
Information reduces our attention and our ability to think.
Media overstimulates our brains and makes us depressed.
Social networks diminish our sense of worth and esteem.
Money decreases our options and sense of security.

Create VS. Consume

When you create, your options and opportunities grow.
When you consume, your options shrink.

Life flourishes when you create.
Life withers when you consume.

Luck awakens when you create (and multiply your efforts.)
Luck vanishes when you consume.

Creating moves you closer towards your ideal life.
Consuming moves you further away.

The solution: Create more, consume less

Ask yourself daily:

“How did I make my life count today? What did I create?”

About 117547% more people die from diseases related to overconsumption of food than hunger. Famine kills ~25,500 people per year. Heart disease kills ~17.9 million / year. Hypertension = 7.6 ~million. Obesity = ~2.8 million. Diabetes = ~1.6 million. Sources: WHO and PubMed.↩︎

The road to success is paved with many rejections

2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

J.K. Rowling got twelve rejections from publishers when trying to publish the Harry Potter series.

The Beatles initially were rejected by four record labels. Decca Records famously turned them down, stating, “Guitar groups are on the way out.”

Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for “Rocky” but faced over 1500 rejections by studios, because he insisted on starring himself.

Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected twenty-seven times by publishers.

Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first television job as a news anchor before hosting “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Albert Einstein despite his exceptional aptitude for physics and mathematics, was initially rejected from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Stephen King was rejected by thirty publishers.

Elvis Presley was told by a talent manager he should go back to driving trucks because he’d never make it as a singer.

Bill Gates before co-founding Microsoft, faced rejection for his first business venture.

Steven Spielberg was rejected three times from film school.

Vincent Van Gogh struggled and only sold a few paintings during his lifetime. After his death, he is now considered one of the most influential figures in Western art.

Gregor Mendel who laid the foundation for the modern science of genetics, did not receive much recognition during his lifetime.

Emily Dickinson lived a reclusive life and published only a few poems, anonymously. Her complete works were discovered after her death, and she is now regarded as one of the most important poets in American literature.

You

You are special.
You are worth it.
You can achieve anything.

Then, life hits you with rejection.

You get scared.
Fear sets in.
You quit.

What if…

…J.K. Rowling had burned her manuscript after the eleventh rejection?

…The Beatles had moved on after the fourth rejection?

…Stallone had accepted the 1499th sign from the universe and quit his dream?

…Dr. Seuss had stopped trying to get published after the twenty-sixth rejection?

Why not you?

Nobody strikes harder and faster than life.

When life knocks you down, you need a solid foundation to get back on.

You need a solid foundation of self-awareness, discipline, competence, adaptability, and persistence.

Because life only rewards those who persist.
Those who don’t take “no” for an answer.
Those who face rejection and try again.

You have what it takes to join the Hall of Fame.
You just have to want it enough.

So try again.

Get back up.

Don’t quit!

You lack mission and purpose. Do this to become obsessed

2024-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

Individuals obsessed with their craft go down in history. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant (mamba mentality), Thomas Edison, Vincent van Gogh, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Shigeru Miyamoto, Akira Kurosawa, Vivian Maier, and many more.

Become obsessed

Obsession is the ball you shoot at greatness.

Doing the work is not enough.
Daily showing up is the entry fee.
Silencing “the Resistance” is the bare minimum.

You have to be living and breathing your craft. To be immersed in it. To be thinking about it all the time. To fall asleep planning your next steps and waking up trying things and experimenting.

It needs to become part of you, a part of your identity.

It’s pointless to plan your day if you don’t have a plan for your life.

Do you have an obsession?

If you know what you should be doing, double down. Do more of it, specialise, and set more ambitious goals. Risk more. Experiment more. Don’t settle. You have been blessed with this gift! Don’t squander it.

If you haven’t found “it” yet, there’s still time, but remember this:

You don’t find an obsession—you cultivate one.

Passion doesn’t bestow upon you.

You become passionate about your craft through practice. By practising, you become obsessed.

Don’t wait for passion to strike you before you start.

How to find your obsession

The best way I know is:

Write a list of the top five activities you’d see yourself doing.
Next to each activity, write the reason why.
Ask, “Do I see myself doing this activity daily for the rest of my life?”

For #2 (the why), your reasons shouldn’t include fame, money, family, or perks which come with the job. The reason should be because you simply enjoy the process.

For #3, if the answer is “no”, then find a different activity. Or do a sub-analysis why not. What aspects of the activity don’t you like? Could you swap those?

If you don’t enjoy tinkering with small gears or watch hands, watchmaking isn’t suited for you.
If the process of sitting long hours alone with your thoughts and beating yourself up trying to write coherent sentences doesn’t sound like fun, writing isn’t for you.
If working with clay and getting dirty repulses you, skip pottery.
If you don’t like when your muscles ache, becoming an athlete is not for you.

Analyse the process of the activity. Can you enjoy it?

You will progress much faster if you enjoy it.

How do you know if you’ll enjoy the process?

You don’t know until you try.

You have to try it first. Treat it as an experiment.

Give yourself a deadline.

Try the activity for one month, three months, or six months. At the end of the deadline, evaluate the process.

You won’t find the perfect practice. There are aspects of the activity which will be annoying to you. But overall, you should enjoy most parts of the process.

Keep telling yourself:

“It’s the process that counts, not the outcomes.”

In the beginning, there will be little momentum, nothing will happen, and you’ll get rejections.

Remind yourself it’s about the process, and carry on.

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
— Zen Proverb

You have one life.

You’re destined to do more with your life than pay the bills, pay taxes, and then die.

Try things. Find your why. Cultivate your obsession.

We need more people obsessed with their craft.

Your shallow substandard future is here. Do this before it’s too late

2024-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Waiting in line, I noticed a man browsing a website on his phone. On his cluttered screen, at the top there was a fixed ad banner, in the middle a cookie consent popup, and at the bottom another ad banner. He was trying to read a news article through a tiny window of only about two rows of text, sniper-scrolling his way down to the conclusion. “Welcome to the future,” I thought.

Have you noticed how everything is becoming less nutritious, less reliable, less entertaining, and less durable?

Present-day knock-offs are more expensive than the real thing of the past.

We act rich!

Rich in information, poor in knowledge.
Rich in data, poor in understanding.
Rich in calories, poor in nutrients.
Rich in theory, poor in execution.
Rich in ads, poor in substance.

Welcome to your future

We “progress” by making things efficient, cheaper, faster, and loaded with tech. We regress by failing to make them durable, repairable, functional, and long-lasting.

Nobody wants to buy used electric cars ¹. Their battery replacement program is non-existent ². If EVs require fewer parts and less maintenance, why are they more expensive than the combustion models?

TikTok and Instagram, the world’s most popular apps, don’t offer nutritious entertainment ³. You need another “hit” every five minutes. It’s addicting and unnatural to be bombarded with so much varied content in seconds.

Fast food quality worsened. McDonald’s in the past used to deep-fry french fries in beef tallow fat ⁴—now they use canola oil which is cheaper. Fries are less tasty, and canola oil has a lot of Omega-6, which skews the ratio of Omega-3 / Omega-6 in our body.

You can’t find anything to watch on Netflix ⁵. Tens of thousands of movies and shows are one-click away. Why is it so hard to find a good movie?

Furniture made out of cheap MDF is sold by IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer. MDF furniture needs to be replaced more frequently and is more brittle. In the meantime, my grandma’s solid wood furniture looks pristine even after eighty years of no maintenance.

Streaming music is convenient but lacks “romance” and pays artists crap ⁶. Spotify is the McDonald’s of music consumption.

Fast fashion has tricked us ⁷. We buy trendy cheap clothing only to replace it after a few wears. Good for business, bad for everyone else, including the planet.

We have the fastest Internet speeds, but browsing websites feels slow. The modern web is full of bloat. Large unoptimised image assets. Useless scripts injected by modern web frameworks. Analytics scripts to track every user’s move. Full of popups and annoying ads.

The battery of the newest MacBook Pro laptops degrades faster ⁸. My twenty-five-year-old Gateway laptop still turns on and works fine. Will my latest MacBook still turn on in ten years?

Modern food is high in calories but low in essential nutrients ⁹. Processed foods contribute to the obesity epidemic and increase in chronic diseases.

The future grows our appetite but leaves us unsatiated.

What to do?

Use time as a filter for quality. Use the tools, read the books, wear the clothes, and buy from brands which have withstood the passage of time. Do activities which have been proven to bring happiness, meaning, and joy in life.

Be mindful of what you consume. Eat single-ingredient foods. Don’t drink calories. Limit your consumption of information. Verify data—don’t trust blindly.

Be a late-adopter. Don’t use the newest gear, don’t adopt the latest trend. Experimentation is fun, but remember that it’s transient. You’re engaging with temporary matter and don’t be surprised or disappointed when it doesn’t last.

Fight recency bias. Watch movies from a different era, listen to “old” songs, and read stuff released a decade ago. If we all consume the same content, then we all start to think and act the same. If you have to read the news, read last year’s news (pointless?)

Find like-minded friends who also reject modernity. It’s difficult and lonely trying to resist this neck-breaking progress, filled with cheap knock-offs.

A longer (non-exhaustive) laundry list of suggestions

Buy less stuff but of higher quality. Opt for quality brands that have been around for a long time. Browse /r/buyitforlife
If you must buy a car, make sure it’s a reliable one, not a flashy one. Maybe look at brands used by car mechanics, taxi or delivery drivers (most mechanics hate fixing German cars and find them unreliable.)
Use your brain more and don’t rely so much on technology. Think before Googling, even for one minute. Use your memory. Do calculations in your head, try to estimate and correct yourself after with a calculator.
Improve your focus. When working: enable “do not disturb,” silent mode, notifications off, disable WiFi, don’t multitask, and keep your phone away.
Swap consumption of news, with reading books. Buy Lindy books and avoid books that were released in the past two years. Go to the source material. Read the first book that introduced the idea, and skip the regurgitated simplified modern adaptations.
Watch older movies. Avoid new movies and series until they’ve proven themselves to be watch-worthy.
Swap doom-scrolling social media with bookmarks. Curate your own playlist/bookmarks of online creators you like, and read/watch their content (use RSS readers — I like NewNewsWire.)
Listen to entire albums. Rely less on playlists, and don’t skip songs.
File over app.
Create your library of photos and videos you enjoy and store it offline (print).
Commit to a few. Fewer hobbies, fewer relationships, fewer hustles. Invest more time and energy in a few. Constantly starting or adding, is spinning your wheels but going nowhere. The grass is greener where you water it.
Spend less and invest more. Not worrying about money tomorrow is worth more than what you buy today.
Use open-source software.

Your future will certainly only get shallower, inferior, and devoid of substance. Fight this regression.

On Suffering. Why we do it and how to stop

2024-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

In life, pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.

In my notes, a word I frequently come across is “suffering”.

I find suffering difficult to comprehend.

Pain is useful.
Grief is cathartic.
But suffering is a useless emotion.

I wouldn’t even categorise it as an emotion. It’s a sticky by-product of faulty thinking.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality. We conjure up hypothetical scenarios and absurd “what ifs” that stop us from taking action. We do this to feel something familiar: inadequate and shame. Oh the comfort!

We create the poison and then we drink it. Are we masochists? In a perverted way, we suffer because we have self-induced our suffering.
(maybe because our life is too easy and we crave adversity and hardship?)

Why we suffer

Suffering is the result of how we perceive facts. How we perceive events happening to us, revolves around our beliefs. What we believe, besides external influences like family or media, is based on what we focus on. What we focus on, depends on the emotional state we’re in.

Like sunglasses, low emotional states dim our judgement and cloud our reality.

State

State in a nutshell is the quality of the emotions you have daily.

Ask yourself:

Are you living mostly in a lousy or in a beautiful state?
Is your life a gift or a struggle?
Do bad things always happen to you? ALWAYS? (Really?)

How to improve your state

Most-to-least effective for me:

Get physical. Do jumping jacks, go for a walk, squeeze hard something like a plushie. If you can, do exercise which elevates your heart rate.
Meditate (I like Waking Up.)
Do breath work (box breathing or try Wim Hof breathing.)
Let it out. Healthy discharging feels good. Shout in a pillow as loud as you can. Punch your mattress. Cry. Expose your body to a warm or a cold shower.
Take a break. Take the day off. Responsibilities can wait, put yourself first.
Adopt the opposing view. Could the reverse of what I believe be true?
Watch a comedy (if you like them.)
Talk to someone.

In a beautiful state, you can start the (long) process of working on yourself. Grow out of your old worldview, your past self-judgements, and your self-imposed limitations.

You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you respond.

How to stop suffering

Decide you’re not going to suffer. Time yourself within one minute, get angry and let it out. Then transition by finding something to be grateful for.
- Some things to be grateful for: the smell of coffee, your ability to breathe, your vision, your hearing, your fingers, your teeth, the clothes you wear, access to electricity water and the internet, your family, your friends, your childhood, nature, the sun.
Divert focus away from yourself towards something outside yourself: your partner, a child, a pet, a stranger, your mission, music, or nature.
Change your state (see above how.)
Give your suffering meaning. Why are you suffering? What’s your life’s story and why should you endure? (Read: “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl.)

“Today, most people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
— Viktor Frankl

Suffering is a signal you have to grow. To toughen up. To evolve.

Answer the challenge, raise to the expectation, and next time avoid falling in the pit of suffering.

Does this fit with your experience?
What other tips would you add?

Hello, world!

2024-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

There is magic in daily practice.

When I want to improve, I practice it daily, even for five minutes.

Recently, I adopted a few practices:

Daily getting 10K steps improved my health—my joints hurt less.
Daily weighing myself in the morning made me aware of the crap I was eating, so I lost weight.
Daily meditation calmed my overthinking mind.
Daily doodling levelled up my drawing skills.
Daily brushing my teeth with peroxide toothpaste, whitened my teeth.

If I had done these practices infrequently, I wouldn’t have made much progress.

Famous examples

Seth Godin attributes his best business decision to daily writing and posting on his blog (and he’s been doing it for the past twenty years.)
MrBeast started on YouTube by uploading videos daily, and despite his fame, he still thinks non-stop about YouTube daily.
Casey Neistat became famous on YouTube after he started daily vlogging.
Steve Vai (and most musicians) would practice playing the guitar for more than ten hours daily.
Kobe Bryant would shoot four hundred up to a thousand shots daily after every basketball practice.

Infrequent doesn’t work

When you do it infrequently, whenever you feel like it, you’re wasting time. Better to not have even started—it won’t make a dent.

You won’t get shredded, lifting weights once per week.
You won’t become a musician, playing the guitar one hour per month.
You won’t avoid the dentist, brushing your teeth once per week.
You won’t become a millionaire, only working four-hour workweeks.
You won’t become a writer, only writing when inspiration hits.

Daily

Do it daily, and you start seeing progress. You identify patterns. You come up with more ideas. You cultivate an obsession—all successful people are obsessed with their craft. You feel more confident. You become more disciplined and organised, improving other parts of your life. You start to get good at it. You cultivate a work ethic.

Daily gives you permission to screw up. It frees you from saving your best shot for last. Shoot now! You have another shot tomorrow.

It’s liberating. It lowers your expectations. You stop hiding behind perfection. The stakes aren’t sky-high. You won’t crash and burn. You can restart tomorrow.

Don’t underestimate the power of daily.

P.S. I’m starting the practice of daily writing. Follow my journey.