An awesome podcast I listened to
Jim Collins is the renowned author of Good to Great and he was recently on Tim Ferriss’ podcast. (Because he’s pushing his new book.) But I want to talk to you about the podcast, a specific part of it.
Jim and Tim talked about luck, how and why luck happens to different people. It turns out luck occurs to everyone equally – like, it’s been analyzed and studied. Luck is random and there’s good luck events and bad luck events that occur to people at random. And the unmistakable and tragically bad luck events, like a cancer diagnosis, those happen across the board; they arrive with or without any preparation at all.
But an interesting aspect of luck is Collin’s concept of “surface area of luck” (around 01:46:00), or creating more opportunities in your for good luck to occur. If you became a successful founder, and you owed it all to that one relationship you built at a conference you attended, well it’s a good thing you didn’t just stay at home and watch Netflix instead. By opening doors of opportunity, you prepare yourself to receive the good fortune when it comes. That’s expanding the surface area of luck.
I highly recommend a listen.
Burn ships not bridges
Burning bridges rarely makes sense. There’s just too much certain downside compared to any possible upside, by intentionally wrecking a relationship, an opportunity, or even just a routine or activity. There are too many times in life when you feel different about a thing at a different point in time. Your mind might just be in a state. You might feel differently later, and burning that bridge means there’s no going back.
Burning the ships on the other hand is a commitment. A unquestioned resolve for a mission. Burning the ships is for when you are done with something so bad that there’s no way to go but forward. It’s taking away your backup option. It’s standing at the edge, leaping with both feet, arms stretched, fully committed. No going back.
I truly believe this is the only way to make profound change in your life. Jump in with both feet. Burn the boats.
An epic movie I watched
Sisu is a movie named after an untranslatable Finnish word. The word describes the white-knuckled, go-for-broke, all-in, nothing-to-lose war path when someone has lost it all and pushed up against a wall. They fight back in a way that no one with something to lose will ever fight like.
Although it’s a tad unrealistic at a couple points, it’s awesome. Killing Nazis, girls driving tanks and the love between a man and his dog. It’s got everything you could hope for in a WWII movie.
Show and Tell
Are you smarter than a kindergartner? My son is in Pre-K and has to take something from home to school each week and show it to the class. Each item must fit into a gallon-sized bag, and before revealing it, he gives three clues to the class to try and guess what it is.
- It slithers.
- It’s found all over the world.
- It lives in trees and underground.