Weeks #17 to #20

Anything that just costs money is cheap

Hey there!

⚙️ Thoughts, Actions, and Effectiveness

There were a number of Japanese soldiers in World War II, they got stranded on random islands in the Pacific and nobody told them the war was over. So, they continued to fight the war into the 1950s, 60s, and even 70s, shooting at people, killing people, and hiding in the jungle for 27 years. It doesn't matter how disciplined you are, it doesn't matter how motivated you are, it doesn't matter how strong you are, how intelligent you are, how much support you have, if you have the wrong goal, you're fucked. If you have the wrong value, then all of that other stuff, it's just gonna hurt you.1

🚶 The Beatles, Robert Kiyosaki, Art, and Marketing

John Lennon: “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can.”
Also John Lennon: “Now, let's write a swimming pool.” 😂

It's true that before being able to sell, you need to really love the art, because “the only way to do a good job is to love what you do” (Steve Jobs said that), but, probably, most artists who both did great art and sold a lot, had money and marketing in their mind at some point. Many artists make truly great art, don't have money in their minds at all, and so they don't sell anything even if they'd deserve it more than other artists.

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the bestseller “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, always says “I’m a best-selling author, not a best-writing author.”

Naval says “If you create it for yourself, it's art. If you create it for others, it's business.”

But remember art is anything done for its own sake. Artists feel the need to do what they do for the sake of doing it because if they didn’t, they would go crazy2. Only afterward, eventually but not necessarily, do they sell.

⏳ Life’s short

🧘 Career, The Greatest Pleasures, Unhappy Millionaires, and Games

During your moments of greatest pleasure—whether you’re doing a drug, having an orgasm, finding your edge kite-surfing, laughing with a friend, or looking at an incredible sunset—your mind goes quiet. It calms down, and that voice in your head goes silent. You achieve a sense of awe, beauty, bliss, or joy.4 You feel alive.

But when that ends, you notice something: fun without meaning is empty, just as meaning without fun is boring5. So we start asking ourselves big questions, we try to understand the complicated reality we live in, we become ambitious, we want to be successful, whatever that may mean, we become competitive, and that also makes us high-strung, high-stress, and unhappy sometimes, leaving a trail of emotional wreckage with us and our loved ones.6 Many millionaires are unhappy because of their competitiveness and selfishness: the wealthier they get, the less they value social connectedness — and that eats into their overall sense of well-being.7 You still want to achieve those goals, but you want to get there calmly, quietly, and without struggle. People are not happy because they achieved their goals, people achieve their goals because they’re happy.

Don’t take yourself so seriously. Most things we consider serious, are just games. You still really want to win and be the no.1 at whatever game you’re playing, but remember we play games to have fun, not to win. Without a burning desire to win, we wouldn’t play at all, or we wouldn’t have as much fun. And maybe you’ll lose, and maybe you won’t find the answers to the big questions, but, just call your loved ones, go to the beach, wait for the sunset, and you won’t feel the need to understand anything, answer any question, or win any game.

🦉 Quotes of the week

Anything that just costs money is cheap.— John Steinbeck

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.— James Clear