Career

Lightning in a bottle

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Dolly Parton wrote ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ in one Day in 1972. Brilliance and genius is not a function of hours behind a desk, it’s about catching lightening in a bottle when it strikes.

Find a job or career, where you don’t have to pretend to be busy. On some days you might have to crank the whole day, and other days might be filled with a lot of space and nothingness.

Space and downtime is good because you get to think, listen and commune.

p.s. Dolly Parton is not an overnight success. Writing those songs in one day is a byproduct of hard work, persistence, patience and raw talent. There are no free lunches 🙂

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Moving fast doesn’t have to come at the expense of quality or long term progress

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Moving fast doesn’t have to come at the expense of quality or long term progress.

Make small moves and correct mistakes quickly.
Avoid irreversible decisions, so when you change your mind, you don’t have to start from scratch.

The quicker you learn and adapt to reality, the better.

Check your ego and listen to feedback. But you only get that feedback if you put yourself out there. Thinking about doing something while you are in the shower is different from being out there in the dirt.

When you are starting out, act as a field mouse foraging for food while the owl is hunting. Stay alert, be nimble, and use your size and speed to your advantage. Stack up the small wins and then take cover. Repeat and build momentum over time: the more forward momentum you have, the more significant the outcomes.

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It’s a choice

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You will live a long and happy life if you get joy out of other people’s success.

Jealousy and envious remarks when someone else wins is the path to the dark side.

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Safety Blankets

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“Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ”

James Baldwin

What is your safety blanket?

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Imagination factories

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None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Break free from your indoctrination and step into your imagination.


Here are a couple of indoctrination factories that seduce you, recruit you, shape you, and end up using you:

  • Any schools (except Montessori)
  • Universities with prescriptive degrees
  • Corporate jobs like accounting firms, law firms, and banking jobs
  • Organised religion

Here are some of the imagination factories you should seek out:

  • Travel
  • High-velocity start-ups
  • Cities like San Francisco, New York, LA
  • Montessori schools
  • Festivals and gatherings with like-minded people who will challenge you
  • Twitter and Reddit
  • Books shops
  • Book clubs and writing groups

I learned more at university, sitting with my friends at night trying to figure out life than I did in any lecture hall.

In a post-pandemic society, I hope fewer people attend university, and instead, they get busy working and learning. Now that “top tier” universities charge tuition and fees of over $60,000 per year, can you stomach paying that much money to watch classes via Zoom and YouTube? Instead, start a business or learn in the field.

As tertiary education demand drops, I also hope there are less grooming and rote learning type educations at schools where the sole aim of an “education” is to get a child admitted to a university for further indoctrination.

Getting a gold star in the school of imagination is not about the right answers; it’s about asking the right questions.

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Decision making using the cardinal virtues

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Use the four cardinal virtues as building blocks for making decisions.

Prudence is the base, followed by justice, fortitude, and temperance. The order is important.

1. Prudence: Do your due diligence, run the numbers, ask questions and build scenarios. Do the work and make sure the unit economics make sense.

2. Justice: So economics work, but is your idea or action just? The test is whether your concept or activities deny someone else’s rights. If they do, then it’s not just. That test includes yourself. Are you doing yourself justice? Your plan might benefit everyone else but be punitive to you. An example is the 2018 immigration debate in the USA. A well-secured border is prudent, but separating babies from their immigrant mothers at the border is not just.

3. Fortitude: Okay so you’ve ticked the two boxes. The idea is prudent and just, but do you have the fortitude or courage to follow through on your decision. None of the first two virtues matter if you can’t follow through with the idea.

4. Temperance: Don’t get carried away by your emotions because it’ll cloud your judgment. If you allow your feelings to hijack your decision once you’ve committed, then you’ll buckle or second guess yourself at the first sign of resistance.

Virtues never go out of style or reach their shelf life. The same principles that applied centuries ago are relevant today.

Ball machines are predictable

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It’s easier to criticize or dole out advice than it is to do. If people don’t have skin in the game or consequences of a decision or actions, then their opinion doesn’t mean much. 

It’s the same as getting advice from a highly paid consultant who has never run a company day to day. Everything always looks simple and obvious when the outcomes are academic. Academic recommendations don’t factor in real-world dynamics that are unpredictable and filled with unknowns.

Getting academic advice on how to implement something in the real world is like practicing tennis on an indoor court with a ball machine. At the end of an intensive tennis training camp with the ball machine, I’m sure the error rate will be low, and the person will have a stable backhand. Now take that same person and put them on a tennis court in the middle of a sunny day with a breeze. See how their tennis game deteriorates when they are serving with the sun in their eyes and their opponent charges the net after returning serve. Ball machines are consistent and predictable. Real-life is the antithesis of predictable.  

Instead of asking for advice, ask for shared experiences and draw your conclusions. If a person doesn’t have any shared experiences with the task at hand, then press mute and move on.

The paths to the well

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“The knowledge I have is not my own. I just know the way to the well.” –@KapilGuptaMD

All our stories and ideas are connected. Nothing is original.

There are different paths to the well. Some trails are well trodden and wide open, some are narrow, hidden and hardly used. The source of the knowledge is the same, we all just get there on a different track.

We end up saying the same thing in a different way.

Choices and Luck

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Success is a combination of luck and good choices.

Hard work and long hours don’t automatically result in success. A lot of people work hard. I’ve gotten off a train in Delhi, and seen taxi drivers sleeping in their cars at 5 am waiting for a fare. After I have knocked on their car window and woken them up, they wiped their face with a damp cloth and started the car. The back seat was still warm from where they were sleeping. People around the world work freaking hard. The Americans and the Chinese think they have a monopoly on long hours, my advice to them would be to travel a little and see the world. Travel will humble anyone.

I’ve seen people born on third base blow everything away including money, friends, and reputation because of poor choices. They had the luck of being born to the right parents but screwed up anyway. Being born lucky with a security blanket makes it way less likely thst someone will blow up their life, but a few bad choices will get the ball rolling. That’s why the mega-wealthy people set up trust funds with rules and conditions. The wealthy have learned to build safety valves that protect their offspring from dumb and ego driven decisions.

But it’s not just about luck. Opportunity favors the prepared mind. We are faced with choices every day. Where do you spend your time? Who do you associate with? When someone takes a chance on you, do you accept or do you demure? Who do you marry? Do you marry?

Saying it’s all about luck is a story we tell ourselves to justify our own situation. It’s hard to admit that the right decisions at the right time were involved as well. The trick is to acknowledge the luck, stay humble and choose wisely when they the big decisions are on deck.

Wastin’ time

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The older you get, the more you value time. How much would you pay to buy back a couple of years when you are in your sixties? Time has less currency to a 25-year-old than a 60-year-old.

The wealthier you become, the more you value simplicity and flexibility. Real wealth isn’t about accumulating stuff, it’s about controlling your time. The freedom to decide how to spend your time each day is priceless. When you are young, you think you are invincible and have all the time in the world. Older, wiser souls value every day and cherish them because they know that buying back time isn’t an option.

As Bill Clinton likes to say, we all get to the point where we have more yesterdays than tomorrows.

I think Otis Redding tapped into this with (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the ‘Frisco bay
Cause I’ve had nothing to live for
And look like nothin’s gonna come my way

So I’m just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

Look like nothing’s gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same, yes

Sittin’ here resting my bones
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
It’s two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I’m just gonna sit at the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

Written by Steve Cropper, Otis Redding • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group