Week #6

You’re going to need to find your natural voice

Hi!

By the way, I very rarely check the news, and I don’t even own a television. Yet, I’ve inevitably heard of what’s happening, just like I had inevitably heard about the virus 2 years ago, so maybe there’s no need to watch the news every day to get informed about what’s going on in the world…

Anyway, if you, like me up to yesterday, have no absolute idea what’s going on, Jhonny Harris made a great explanatory video:

• The REAL Reason Putin is Invading Ukraine (<25 minutes 📽).

War is pain. My words are useless. I send my love, it’s all I have.— Lex Fridman2

🌊 Art

• Life's too short to waste a second. (<10 minutes 📽)

  Some things sound specific to the art of cinema, but, if you dive deeper, they apply to every kind of art.

  Interesting snippets:

  • Just pick up a camera and start shooting something, don’t wait until they ask, because nobody is going to ask you, and don’t wait for the perfect conditions because they’ll never be perfect.3
  • You don’t have to know how to make a movie. If you truly love cinema with all your heart, and with enough passion, you can’t help but make a good movie.4
  • At some point, you’re going to need to find your natural voice, find a way to give voice to who you are. And who you are, by the way, is original! You’re not your best friend, and you’re not your teacher. You are you.
  • Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.5

🎧 Songs I had on repeat this week

(no music videos this week, just put your headphones on and close your eyes)

• Day ‘n’ Nite - Coldplay cover

🧘 Life

• How to stop screwing yourself over | Mel Robbins | TEDxSF (<25 minutes 📽)

  Interesting snippets:

  • What do you want? “Being healthy” won’t get your ass on a treadmill. “Losing your manboobs, so that you can hook up with somebody,” now that’s motivation. So, what do you want?
  • Getting what you want is simple (but not easy). We live in the most amazing moment in time. So that, the thing you want to do, whatever it may be, guess what? You can walk into a book store right now and buy at least 10 books written by credentialed experts on how the hell you do it. You could Google it, and you could probably find at least a thousand blogs documenting the step, by step, by step transformation that somebody else is already doing.
  • So why don’t you have what you want when you have all the information that you need? “How are you doing?” “Oh, I’m fine.” Oh, really? You are? I don’t think so. If you’re fine, you don’t have to do anything about it. The bigger issue with “fine” is that you say it to yourself. That thing that you want, I guarantee you, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re fine not having it. That’s why you’re not pushing yourself.
  • All-day-long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel, and what do you do with them? Nothing!
  • What’s the first decision you made this morning? I bet it was to go back to bed. And I get it! Your bed is comfortable! It’s cosy, it’s warm! If you’re lucky, you’ve got somebody that you love next to you. In any area of your life that you want to change, there’s one fact that you need to know. Just one. You’re never going to feel like it. Tomorrow morning, set your alarm for thirty minutes earlier. And then when it goes off, take those sheets, throw them off, stand up, and start your day. No snooze, no delay Do it. And the reason is so you will come face to face with the physical force that’s required to change your behaviour.
  • When you become 18, nobody tells you that it’s now going to be your job to parent yourself. And by “parent yourself,” I mean it’s your job to make yourself do the crap you don’t want to do, so you can be everything that you’re supposed to be. And you’re so damn busy waiting to feel like it. And you’re never going to! You have to force yourself. Anything that’s a break from your routine is going to require force. We spend so much time trying to push our life into some sort of stable routine and then we grow bored of it! It’s the routine that's killing you.
  • Your body is wired to send you signals. If you need food, what do you feel? If you need water, what do you feel? If you need sex, what do you feel? When you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it’s a signal. And it’s not a signal that your life is broken. It’s a signal that one of your most basic needs are not being met. Your need for exploration. And the only way you’ll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable.

⏭ Playback Speed and Quality over Quantity

Quality matters more than quantity in the long run. @illacertus is aiming at less than 100 solid books. He says anything beyond that is madness. He is after educated execution, not recreational consumption. It only takes one great book to change your life, not hundreds. Why strive to be a human library, when you don't apply anything you've read.6 Naval would rather read the best 100 books over and over again until he absorbs them rather than read all the books.7

🦉 Quotes of the week

If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe.— Joe Rogan

If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going.— Winston Churchill

There should be a course in the first grade on love. There should be courses on beauty and love and sex. With love as the biggest course. And they should show the kids, I always think, how to make love and tell and show them once and for all how nothing it is.— Andy Warhol

I will teach you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.— Warren Buffet