Do you really want it or do you just think you do?
While reading and brainstorming ideas for this week's newsletter, I stumbled on the above X post from James Clear.
It really got me thinking.
Over the years I’ve pursued many business ideas and followed up on many potential ventures.
I’ve had business idea after business idea, periods of immense motivation as the potential of the idea took a hold of me, full of motivation and enthusiasm.
Yet, as the reality of the workload and the time investment that would be required set in, reality would hit and I knew I didn’t have the interest in pursuing what I was doing for the long term.
I was more interested in the end result, what I thought I would be getting down the line - mainly time and financial freedom as well as the flexibility that comes along with that.
These are things I am still in pursuit of as I value them very highly.
The problem was always the means.
I’d never be able to compete with others that truly love what they do.
There is no doubt in my mind that I am not alone in this way of thinking.
I stopped pursuing things for the sake of it and focused more on my full time job and other aspects of my life.
I wasn’t waiting for something but when given the space, something began to form.
“The things that we love tell us what we are.” - Thomas Aquinas
Since I was a child, something within me always felt pulled to reading and writing.
No matter what I’ve done or pursued there has always been this invisible wire pulling me back towards it.
I wasn’t listening to my intuition for years and it led me in the wrong direction, time and again.
Then I started doing so a few years back and I began to write. I had never truly abandoned reading but writing had taken a backseat.
I’ve righted that wrong since then and I’m feeling better for it. It’s what led me to start this newsletter.
It’s given me something to pursue, something I get immense pleasure from but also something that needs consistent time, effort and brainpower.
You see, even in the pursuit of those things that matter to you, consistency is still difficult and it takes a lot of work.
Yes, it’s much easier to push through that difficulty when you are doing so in service of something that you are passionate about but nothing worth doing is ever easy.
So what I’m trying to tell you is this:
Learn to listen to yourself more and see where your intuition takes you because it somehow seems to know what's best for you.
Life's too short to spend so much of your time doing things you don’t enjoy.
Things I’ve learned…
Jeff Bezos' Regret Minimization Framework
This is something I posted about recently on X and I thought it warranted a mention here too.
When he was trying to decide whether he should leave his high-paying job on Wall Street in order to start his own company, Jeff Bezos created what he called his Regret Minimization Framework.
The name implies that there is much more to it than there actually was. The idea is simple:
Imagine yourself as an 80 year old.
Now, look back on your life and imagine two potential scenarios.
In the first scenario, you took a chance and quit your job, started that company, wrote that book, called that person, etc.
The second scenario in which you didn't and remained in that job, didn’t write the book, didn’t make that call, etc.
Which of the two scenarios do you think is the more likely to lead to your regret?
I think as long as we can be honest with ourselves that we all know the answer.
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Ben Meer’s, “Growing In Reverse [Inversion]” Newsletter
Something I recently read in Ben Meer’s newsletter: System Sunday.
It relates to the idea of inversion which is to look at a problem from the opposite point of view as you usually would.
"Invert, always invert", Charlie Munger would always say, referencing the quote from Carl Gustav Jacobi the 19th-century German mathematician.
In his newsletter, Ben uses a story to highlight the effect of looking at a problem from a different angle.
He tells of how during World War 2 while trying to ensure their planes were sufficiently armoured for the combat they would be facing, the allies military analysts noticed that the planes returning had holes in their wings, tails and fuselage (I had to google what this is, it's the main body of the plane).
The prevailing notion was simple, add more armour to those areas.
However, It was a U.S. statistician, Abraham Wald who made a key observation that many others missed.
These were the planes that had returned, the ones that had not had likely been struck in other sections of the plane.
Wald viewed the situation from another point of view as his peers. He looked at the question from a different direction - what part of the plane must have been struck to prevent the others from coming back?
It made all the difference and as a result, time and energy was spent on armouring the areas of the planes that would be critical to its survival; the engines, the fuel storage, the cockpit.
The idea of inversion is about deciding on what you want or your end goal and working back from there.
When making tough decisions, it can help to look at things backwards.
If you don’t know exactly what you want in a given scenario or situation, simply invert, what is it that you definitely don’t want?
Ben’s newsletter offers a systemised approach on how to incorporate this way of thinking and viewing problems into your daily life and is well worth a read.
Food for thought…
"The philosopher's body also must be well prepared for work because often virtues use it as a necessary tool for the activities of life." — Musonius Fufus
(Via the Daily Stoic on X)
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A substack read that I've really enjoyed this week is from The Active Mind by Brock Covington and it's called the Silent Cost of Inaction.
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“If you buy something that costs $1.25 when you can get it for $1.00, you’re paying 25% for someone else’s inefficiency.”
- Sam Walton
Book Recommendation…
The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King
The story of Samuel Zemurray or Sam the banana man is one that every entrepreneur should read. It tells the tale of how a Russian Jew who came to America as a child began a fruit company and then eventually became the King of the banana trade and one of America’s wealthiest men.