Invest in Something
Edition #061
Hey friends,
Greetings from Manchester - I hope you've had a great week!
I was busy moving city most of this week so no new pieces from me but there's plenty I want to share in this email.
If anyone is in Manchester and wants to grab coffee hit me up.
One Lesson
We all have that one friend who has the next greatest business idea every week, the guy who will convince you that 'this is the one' but never follow through on their talk.
They jump from business to business, relationship to relationship trying to find the perfect match, but you know what...
The perfect business, job, or life partner doesn't exist.
People waste their time trying to find something perfect instead of finding something good enough that they can improve on.
We're all addicted to optionality but keeping our options open sucks, it leads to shallow connections, lack of mental clarity and an inability to build anything meaningful.
Society will tell you that more is always better, more money, more stuff, more options but all these things will only make you shallow happy.
Wanna know what will make you deeply happy?
Investing in something.
The English word to “decide” comes from Latin “to cut off”. When you cut off other options you're laser-focused.
You no longer jump from one thing to the next as soon as there is a problem, instead you take each challenge in your stride.
You no longer spend your time treading water trying to do a bunch of things at once, instead you're reaping the rewards of compound interest
Don't half-ass a bunch of things when you can whole-ass one thing.
Invest in something that pays compound interest:
- The business that you work on for 3 years is better than having dozens of unfinished side projects.
- The relationship that you improve everyday is better than jumping from relationship to relationship
- The skill that you commit to mastering is better than being okay at a bunch of things
Invest in something.
Two Ideas
I.
So much time is wasted by half-assing things.
Instead of putting 75% effort into 10 cold pitches
Put 110% effort into 3 pitches.
The Internet disproportionately rewards those who put in the effort to stand out.
II.
Optimise for autonomy over income.
Three Favourite Finds
What If We Just Stopped Being So Available?: Email, slack, calls and messages all feel like a waste of time. But it's so tricky to actually get away from them. This article shares some interesting ideas on being less available and not feeling bad about it.
This is a good first step when you're not able to completely stop taking calls or become unreachable.
Gary Provost on Writing: This is a magnificent piece of writing on making your writing flow.
Ryan Holiday on My First Million: Ryan Holiday is one of my favourite writers. The thing I respect most is his ability to know what he wants and optimise his life around it.
It's obvious throughout this conversation that he's not trying to prove anything or play status games, he has built a diverse portfolio of businesses and now optimises around writing every day.
End note
If you enjoyed this edition of the Sunday Filter then I’d love it if you could share it with a few friends. You can send them over here to sign up or share it on Twitter.
Have a great week!
- Stephen