All Or Somethin: On Ironman prep, Bourdain, and leaving places better than you found them
I find myself more frustrated and introspective this week. The people I talk to and the situations I find myself in aren't positive. They're draining. Monotonous. Discouraging. I’m talking about work of course.
I want to be inspired. I want to be around people who love what they do and who they do it with. Who aren't constantly on the defense. Some of this comes with the vocation I've chosen. Usually I handle it pretty well. But sometimes I let it get to me. I'm human after all and I drift just like anyone else. Stress mounts and I either address it or it consumes me.
To address this I'm reminding myself this week that I chose this. I can walk away at any time. And if I'm going to be here I might as well put my best foot forward. The best decision I can make each day is to be in a good mood. To not mirror the energy I'm getting from the world but to deflect it and give people an alternative. Ultimately, to leave this place better than I found it.
[WATCH] The Tactic That Makes You Win Every Time — Nick Bare
Nick Bare runs a supplement company, is deep in Ironman training, and has an all-day conference room meeting on the calendar coming up. 9am to 4pm. Perfect excuse to blow up the routine.
He doesn't though.
- He wakes up earlier than normal to get his run in before his family is up, so his wife can still get her workout in and the kids still get fed on schedule.
- He preps his meals the night before, lays them out in his office, and maps his bathroom breaks around when he needs to eat and refill water.
- When the meeting ends at 4pm, his bike is already set up in the gym down the hall. He walks out and clips in.
Halfway through the day, a coworker catches him mid-lap between the bathroom and the conference room. They stop him and say:
"I have no excuses. I know you're in this meeting all day. I know you're in Ironman prep. I see you walking from the bathroom to fill up your water to grabbing your meal to going back into the conference room and sitting in a meeting and eating your meals that you prepped and planned for. I have no excuses not to hit my nutrition on any given day."
Forward thinking, backwards planning. The meeting was on the calendar for weeks and he did the work to make sure it didn't interrupt his flow. This is how I want to run my life.
[READ] I Didn't Post About Your Cause — Adam Grant, Granted
Adam Grant posted a poem. Didn't see that coming.
The whole thing is a quiet refusal. My platform, my choices, my causes. Don't @ me.
Two words came out of the thread that I hadn't put together before: slacktivism and compassion fatigue. The first is what happens when posting replaces doing. The second is what happens when you try to care about everything and eventually care about nothing.
There are real causes worth your time, energy, and money. But there are only so many hours in a day and so much bandwidth in a person. If you spread yourself across every cause that lands in your feed, you're not helping any of them. You're just busy. I'd rather go deep on one or two things that actually matter to me than be everywhere and it mean nothing.
➡️ READ IT HERE
[READ] Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? — Tim Ferriss
Tim Ferriss pulled his own BookScan numbers across five books, all former #1 bestsellers, and laid out what's happened since ChatGPT launched.
A slow bleed for two years, then the floor drops out. His theory: if your book is basically a lookup table (how do I lose fat, how do I fix my sleep), a chatbot is now a faster interface to the same answer. The "how-to" book is becoming raw material that people never touch directly.
I've got three manuscripts sitting on my hard drive, and reading this stung a little. That format I've suspected was dying for a while. This just put numbers to it.
But where Ferriss lands is the part I keep coming back to. He'd rather write for 10,000 people who are actually changed than perform for 10 million who forget by Tuesday. 1,000 true fans, real relationship, over vanity metrics.
He ends the piece admitting the math doesn't fully work in his favor. Algorithms, clickbait, AI-personalized everything, all of it pulling people away from long-form. He says he's tying himself to the mast anyway, "high on my own supply," and that we'll know soon enough whether that was wisdom or delusion.
Yet I'm in the same boat, tied to the same mast.
➡️ READ IT HERE
[WATCH] Our Last Full Interview — Anthony Bourdain, Fast Company
June 8th marks eight years since we lost him. I still consume his work regularly. I built a Spotify playlist of his favorite songs that somehow has 51,000 saves. The man still has pull.
This interview is worth your full attention. On what it means to not be afraid:
"Most of the people I've met who've been in the television industry for a long time, their greatest fear is that they will not be in the television industry next year. I don't have that fear. I admit I wouldn't particularly enjoy going back to cooking short order. I know I can if I have to."
That's it. That's the whole thing. The willingness to go backwards is what gave him the freedom to go anywhere. There's something in that for anyone building something on the side while holding down a day job. The fear of losing what you have will make you small. Bourdain refused to be small.
Question I'm Pondering This Week:
Every time I ask a colleague or an old friend how they're doing, the answer is always the same. Busy. SO BUSY. Followed by a list of everything on their plate.
People used to have conversations. You'd share something real. An excitement, a frustration, something you were chewing on.
I get it. I deliberately make myself busy. Hell this newsletter is all about being more prolific. Being better. Getting shit done. But busy isn't an answer to how are you doing.
How are you, really?
I read and reply to every email so if you feel like actually answering that I'll be sure to respond :)