3-2-1: On Leveraging Your Weaknesses, the Value of Slow Progress, and Why Competition Is for Losers
Wisdom Wednesday #15
Hey fam,
It's time for your weekly dose of wisdom.
Before we start, quick house keeping update:
I have launched actualizationhub.com and will be moving all past and future "Big Idea" posts here, released once a month.
My goal with this change is to give you much more depth on big ideas without overwhelming your inbox every week.
For Wisdom Wednesdays, “1 Big Idea” will be replaced with “1 Question For You”.
I aim to make this section just as thought provoking as you’re used to but with 1% of the character count ;).
If you love Big Ideas: don't worry! You’ll get an email notification with a link to new posts once they are published.
With all that out of the way, let's dive in to this week!
3 Ideas From Me:
I.
The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.
The only way to avoid mistakes is to not try anything new. And it's impossible to get somewhere new without trying anything new.
So don't aim to avoid mistakes.
Instead, aim to catch your mistakes as quickly as possible and then mitigate their damage, learn from them, and leverage them to catapult you forward moving faster.
II.
The higher you wish to build, the longer you must spend in the dirt, digging the foundation.
When you're working on something revolutionary, it can be discouraging to see others "pass" you.
But remember: most people are only building houses; their progress will be quick at first, but then taper off to only maintenance.
Truly big things progress very slowly at first, and then all at once.
Patience.
Keep digging.
III.
A weakness is just a strength you haven't found a way to leverage yet.
Weaknesses and strengths are two sides of the same coin; which side you see dependent only on the frame of reference.
The things that makes an F1 car phenomenal on the track make it horrible for a road trip.
While the things that make a minivan amazing for a road trip, make it horrible on the track.
Don't try to turn your F1 car in to a minivan.
Try to find a track.
2 Quotes From Others:
I.
Tim Ferris on our fear of uncertainty:
"To do or not to do? To try or not to try? Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not. Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty."
Source: The 4-Hour Work Week
II.
Peter Thiel on the value of uniqueness, or "why competition is for losers". This mental model not only applies to business, but to just about anything you want that there may be competition for (a raise, a partner, friends, even a purchase):
"If you're a founder or entrepeneur, what you want to aim for is monopoly. You want to aim to build a company that is so far differentiated from the competition that it's not even competing... If you want to compete like crazy, you should just open a restaurant in Chicago."
Source: Peter Thiel: Going From Zero to One
1 Question For You:
And finally, here's you first question to mentally munch on this week:
If you had a 100% chance of success, and knew the universe/God/destiny/your friends/family/etc would support you every step of the way, what would you build?
That's all for today!
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Catch you next time,
Matt