I’ve been thinking a lot about how we set up our own mental traps.
Our brains evolved over millions of years to keep us alive in a world that was genuinely trying to kill us.
Back then our ancestors had real immediate problems.
Avoid the saber-toothed tiger.
Find clean water.
Don’t freeze in the cave.
If you didn’t solve those problems you died.
It was simple math.
But we don’t live in caves anymore.
We live in comfortable houses with running water soft beds and grocery stores down the street.
Yet our threat-aware monkey mind still needs something to worry about.
So we make up problems.
We play “the floor is lava” as grown-ups.
We turn minor annoyances into catastrophic threats.
We stew over the idiot driver who cut us off in traffic.
We get outraged by the latest political theater playing on the television.
We focus on the noise and soon enough
the floor really does feel like it’s burning.
But you don’t experience life. You experience the life you focus on.
If you spend all your time staring at a scrolling never-ending to-do list you get vapor locked.
The planning
the listing and the deciding
becomes a comfortable cage with nice lighting.
It feels like work but busy is the enemy of productive.
Routine by its very nature is just doing the same thing over
and over which is a slow downhill slide to mediocrity.
When you feel stuck in that rut
remember the law of momentum:
Speed beats gravity.
When you move fast
you can defy the laws of nature.
You can’t wait for the perfect moment to launch your dream
because that perfect time is a ghost.
You have to reduce the friction between your idea and your execution.
Have the idea make the thing and throw it out into the world.
If people respond do more of it.
If they don’t drop it and move to the next project.
That is the beauty of rapid experimentation.
I watch #10 step up to the plate at his baseball games.
The other team’s pitcher is throwing heat
the crowd is screaming
and the pressure is on.
I tell him to ignore the boos
and the cheers.
Just look for a pitch you love
and swing.
Every at-bat is a chance to make something happen.
In life you get an at-bat every single day.
And even if you strike out
you don’t pack up and go home forever.
You get another shot in the next inning.
The only real failure is refusing to take the swing
because you’re afraid of the crowd’s opinion.
This is sometimes my curse
People love to be critics from the sidelines.
But opinions aren’t gravity.
Stop waiting for permission from gatekeepers who want to control the access.
Find your one percent today.
Build your blue duck
the remarkable thing that people can’t help but talk about.
Take the oars and start rowing.
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