Hey Early Adopter!
If you’re getting this in your inbox you’re super early, because this is my first newsletter post! Congratulations! 🥳 I’m honored to have you subscribe.
If you want something done, you have to do it today
I’ve had the idea of creating a newsletter for a while, but I was triggered to action after a call with my friend Caroline Luu (great writer on Medium) this past Friday. She mentioned that she’s been thinking of creating a newsletter in 2021, and I urged her to start doing something.
I believe what’s stopping most people from achieving great things is that they plan to do things someday. You’re more likely to get something done if you do something today. Doesn’t matter how small - you just need to get the ball rolling. So as I was telling her all of this I stopped and thought “Well, why the hell am I not doing anything?”. And now we’re here.
Applying the Agile/Lean mindset to life
I’ve started to conduct experiments in my life - similar to the mindset in Agile and Lean - so I can make incremental improvements towards my goal and learn along the way. For example, if I have a goal of creating an email list with 1,000 subscribers, there are loads of uncertainty:
What should I write about?
How should the newsletter be structured?
Can I write weekly?
Do I enjoy having a newsletter?
Do people want to read a newsletter by me?
The fastest way to clear this up is to start with something small - like writing one newsletter post. Maybe I’ll discover that I don’t enjoy it - well, then I know and I can remove this from my goals. That’s a success!
You find the best way by doing
We’re taught early that we only have one shot at doing something, and it better be perfect - just think about all the tests in school structured this way. No wonder people are afraid of failing. No wonder people don’t do what they want. And it’s not even true! You CAN’T know the best way to do something before you do it - there are too many uncertainties. It’s like driving on an unfamiliar road in the dark. It would be great if you knew what the path forward looked like before you start, but you can’t see that far. The best way is to move forward and discover along the way.
My favorite things this week
Video - Yesterday, I went on a date. We had fun, but we both felt we weren’t a good match as romantic partners, so we decided to continue as friends. I didn’t understand why we felt this way until I watched this video by Jay Shetty sent to me by my friend Chris Rodriguez.
Book - This week, I went through my highlights of The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth as preparation for a new Medium article and it’s filled with so many golden nuggets that are relevant to my life right now. If you want to grow as a person, I recommend you read it!
Game - “Fun” little game where you get to relive 2020.
Quotes of the week
What separates people who thrive from those who merely survive? I believe it’s how they face their problems.
Expecting the world to treat you fairly just because you’re a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to charge you because you’re a vegetarian.
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John C. Maxwell.
Article of the week
I wrote this article based on my notes on High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard.