Get smarter as you get older

It’s a foregone conclusion that as you get older, your body begins to break down. You can’t run as fast, or as long, and you can’t jump as high. Everything becomes a little more difficult.

Your brain, however, doesn’t get worse as you get older; unless you let it. The connections that fire back and forth through your brain’s synapses are almost like little sparks that jump from neurotransmitter to neurotransmitter and these little highways of information can fall into disrepair. If you don’t use them and exercise them, that is.

If you exercise them and do cognitively challenging things, you can actually improve your brain’s function as you get older. Treasure your mind and do challenging things and reap the rewards as you grow older.

We’re better than we think

We overestimate how good other people are, but underestimate how valuable we are. The funny thing is, we think we’re great when there are no stakes. We think we’re cool, or worthy of respect, or deserve that vacation, etc…

But when it comes to acting worthy of things that matter, we suddenly humble ourselves to a far greater degree. Asking for more money, taking on that scary project, or having the guts to step up and share what you’ve learned with others all are difficult.

So what would happen if we humbled ourselves in our personal life, but believed that we are more valuable in our professional life? (Hint: people will probably like you much more and you’ll make more money.)

You are not your brain

Your brain is a tool inside of your physical body. The question is, will you run your brain, or will your brain run you?

Is your brain something that you can use? Or is your brain something that determines how you are and what you’ll ever amount to?

The truly great should inspire us to be great

 
“I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who from the womb, remembered the soul’s history.
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.
What is precious is never to forget
The delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth;
Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light,
Nor its grave evening demand for love;
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest field
See how those names are feted by the wavering grass,
And by the streamers of white cloud,
And whispers of wind in the listening sky;
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while toward the sun.
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.”
— Sir Stephen Spender
 

Catching up is the hardest part

The hardest part is getting back on track after a setback because of how bad you can feel about the setback.

When you are in a groove and moving well, it’s pretty easy to maintain momentum.

But, when you lose momentum, it’s very hard to get up to speed again.

Work to develop systems in your life that make it much less likely that you will fall behind. Because catching up is the hardest part.

If it takes less than five minutes…

Do it right away. There is no sense in planning micro-tasks. They appear and they get squashed right away.

My only exception to this rule is when I’m engaged in a block of deep work with all distractions shut down. Then I jot a quick note on my pad and ensure I never leave my state of “deep” thinking/working.

Why are we so scared and lazy?

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of comfort and complacency. We start to believe our own hype or we begin to think everything will always be as good as it is today. We tell ourselves, “I’ll always be taken care of!”

Our success is the combined result of courage, hard work, and persistence in both of those things.

It’s not “luck” or “chance.” It’s what you put into it and how consistent you are putting in that effort.

This is why the end result is not important. The effort is important. When you consistently put forth the effort, the results will come.

Costly distractions

An hour scrolling social media in the morning doesn’t cost you only one hour of time. It starts your day by rewarding you for no work done on your part. This sets the table for your entire day to be slow and dragging. You’ll be far less motivated to get your stuff done and have a productive day.

That hour scrolling social media costs you 4-5x in lost hours of effort throughout your day.

Wake up, stay away from screens, get the morning routine done, and get to work.

Creative confidence and overcoming the unknown

One of the biggest steps of growth any creative professional can see is great self-confidence that the ideas will come and the skills you’ve acquired will be there to craft something when needed.

It’s humble self-confidence, not arrogance. It’s there, but you’re still on edge while the creativity seems to flow from your fingertips. It’s a magical experience.

I just finished a photography project that was full of unknowns and not much could be done to plan for what would happen. Yet I stepped back earlier today from the project and looked at what we made. It’s really good stuff.

Yet I don’t derive satisfaction from the good finished product. I feel satisfied because I did the work. I trusted in my skills and walked into a situation that was scary and delivered great work because I trusted my work and put in the time.

Modern celebrity

Do you ever wonder why our biggest celebrities are actors, singers, or athletes? Why aren’t geniuses, great scientists, literary masters, courageous generals, or wise philosophers our celebrities? Is this some kind of mark on our generation?

Don’t think too much

While it is important to “work smarter, not harder,” it interesting to note that people who do things, just go and do them. Dreamers and procrastinators sit around and make plans and talk about the best way of doing them.

Plans and optimization are important, but periods of decline in your work are probably characterized by overthinking and becoming too much of an intellectual about the things you do.

It makes me wonder if my productivity woes have been made worse by the books about productivity that I’ve read. Do the work and don’t think about it too much.

Being dedicated to discussion and debate (even if only within yourself) seems to destroy the power of action.

We need something to get up for

The power of getting up and doing the work is that when you taste that success and accomplishment, you want more. But if you never get started, you can never understand the depth of this motivation. All you need is one taste and you’ll always demand more of it. We would probably all have better health if we spent less time in bed, but we need something to get up for.

Fearless initiative

Great empires in history and great companies have one thing in common. They rise from small beginnings by way of fearless initiative. In fact, the fearlessness that they exhibit goes beyond just rising to power or greatness.

There is fearlessness these visionaries exhibit in all endeavors. But as companies (or empires) grow, there is a gradual shift from a fearless pressing forward to a purely defensive mindset. “Protect our market share at all costs!” When they should be seeking ways to expand and fearlessly venture into new territory.

Look at Apple’s great pivot in the early 2000s toward the iPod when they had been a middling computer and software company. They dared to venture and they became great. How can we be more fearless in our ventures? How can we take action, rather than theory, as our solution?

The systems are all around you

Throughout our life, there are methods we use to get things done. The little routine to put your clothes on, brushing your teeth, the way you walk through the grocery store, and the preparation of pulling out your wallet (or purse) before the cashier gives you a total are all systems in your life that you use to get things done.

These are more unconscious to us and they are things we take for granted. However, imagine if you think about every system in your life and work that could be optimized and tweaked and made better. How much more free time might you have? How much less stress would there be when you know how things are getting done?

These 1-2-3 systems are all around us and it’s up to you and me to build them in our lives and businesses.

Consuming makes you weaker

I constantly fight the battle of consuming more than I create. The more you create, the more power and leverage you have. (You also feel much better about yourself.)

However, the more you consume, the more power you give to others. You become the vessel of their effort and they gain while you fall behind.

Creating requires effort and gives you a future. Consuming is the short-term pleasure fulfillment with a long-term debt that crushes you later.

Thoughts about children and parents

If you raise your children, you can spoil your grandchildren. But if you spoil your children, you’ll have to raise your grandchildren. Children without the guidance, restraint, and critique of parents are left rudderless. Thus begins an inter-generational impact felt for decades.

No shortcuts

There has never been a dearth of productivity in my life more than when I fell into the “four-hour work week” trap about ten years ago. I think I still suffer from some of the aftershocks of that earthquake.

The experts don’t have shortcuts, work isn’t easy for 99% of people, and the four-hour work week only becomes feasible after you’ve built and established a valuable company.

Life gets harder as you try to make things easier. Exercising might be hard, but never moving makes life harder. Uncomfortable conversations are hard, but avoiding every conflict is harder. Mastering your craft is hard, but having no skills is harder. Easy has a cost.

Humans thrive in the lack of abundance. Having everything you could ever want only causes you to thirst for more and yet be satisfied less by each thing you get.

Don’t look for the shortcut and don’t worry about working hard vs. working smart. Just work and refine a little bit at a time and everything will be OK.

Closest friends and harshest critics

If your closest friends are your harshest critics, what happens when you push them away? Is a freedom from the criticism of caring people a good thing? Well, you first have to convince yourself that they’re not caring people, then it becomes possible to walk away.

Personal decisions vs. business decisions

In personal decisions, we’re concerned about how things feel right now so we make radical changes without deep consideration of how things will be in five or ten years. Running off to start a new life is fun for the first 18 months, miserable for the next half-decade, and simple suffering thereafter. The concern was only about the feelings at the moment, and not where you will be in ten years. A fatal flaw.

With business decisions, we often have the exact opposite approach. We let great opportunities slip by because we're afraid of the future. What if the company revenue is bad in the next five years? Should I still sign that new lease? Should I approve that new budget?

Business decisions should be made with a focus on the now with only a slight peek at the future. Things good for business now, are typically good long-term. However, personal decisions should be looking primarily at the future, with only a slight look at this exact moment. Suffer or do uncomfortable work now for peace and stability later.

Interestingly, they both follow the general axiom of suffering now for a reward later. (Short-term pleasure always comes at a cost. Always.) Business requires hard work, focus, and commitment now. Personal decisions require personal sacrifice now for ease later.

Funny how we make decisions.