Logs

Oct 18, 2023

A collection of shorter posts and half-formed ideas. Extracts from my daily writing. Somewhere between diary entry and ‘publishable’ essay.

26 September 2024

15:56 —

14:18 — on writing consistently.

Publishing every day or week works for some people. But I’ve jumped off that wagon long ago.

I think it’s cool if people want to send out a newsletter every day or week.

Especially if it makes them happy and helps their writing process.

I think I just got over having some arbitrary rule hanging over my head. “Keep the streak” or “You need to publish to hit your goal”. Better to write every day (or as regularly as possible) and then publish (refine and edit a particular piece of writing) when I have something good to share.

The writing is for me - it helps me get ideas down (good and bad) and helps me sharpen my thinking. The publishing has to pass some higher bar — has to be useful to others.

On writing something useful — this is not always that obvious.

I don’t write about a certain niche. I like exploring topics. I hold myself to a high standard when I share something. I’m looking to improve. I would never write about the same topic twice. I’m looking to grow.

Some will say this ‘perfectionism’ is also stifling. I agree it’s a worse outcome to never publish because you never think your work is good enough. I do however believe you need some inner drive to improve and this sometimes means that pieces you would’ve published last year don’t meet your standards this year.

But what is a good strategy then?

Publishing regularly is ruled out. Not improving your craft is ruled out. What then?

I think it could be cool to start writing a book.

Bit of a jump, but let me explain.

We only have 24 precious hours in our day. We are constantly making trade-offs between different activities. I have a limited amount of time to fit in exercise, work, meals and relaxation.

To get the most value from my “me-time”, I try to focus on things that have a highly predictable level of usefulness/quality. This means I’m all in on books and the odd podcast or YouTube video. I hardly read newsletters anymore.

Newsletters introduce randomness.

They rank low on ‘guaranteed-applicability’ and ‘guaranteed-quality’. Between seeing a newsletter pop into my inbox and deciding to read it there is a moment of uncertainty. It requires a leap of faith on my part. Sure, if the title is hooky and I like this writer, I’m more likely to follow through, but there is still a chance that whatever she wrote that day does not apply to my life and is therefore a distraction (or suboptimal use of my time).

Books are different. They have high ‘guaranteed-applicability’ and high ‘guaranteed-quality’. You can apply a filtering process upfront. You can decide to read a book that’s genuinely interesting to you and then you make a 10-hour commitment to go on a journey together. You can also get off early if the book is less interesting than you expected.

But at least there is some implicit promise. ”If you read me, I can guarantee with 95% certainty that it will be worth your while.” Newsletter are more 50-50.

So what does this mean for my writing? The solution could be to back-solve.

What book do I want to write? Can I use my newsletter to write chapters for the book?

This is an interesting challenge.

I don’t have the answers yet, but I’ll let my subconscious do its thing.

24 September 2024

17:30 — Orwell on why he writes:

“He writes, he says, for four basic reasons. First, sheer egoism. The desire to seem clever and to get talked about. Second, aesthetic enthusiasm. The pleasure he gets from playing with sentences and words. But Orwell is nothing if not honest. And he has to admit that there are higher motives as well. Third, then, is the “historic impulse,” the desire for understanding. The desire to see things as they are and find out true facts. Fourth, his political purpose. The desire to push the world in a certain direction, and to alter people’s ideas of what sort of society they should strive for.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

I can relate with points 1, 3 and 4. I suppose number 2 would also be nice, but Orwell was a genuinely talented wordsmith.

#1 is obvious. Writing is an act of ego. Look at me, look at my ideas, I’m worth more than my little office job.

#3 is good. I also write to understand. Mostly myself, but also others.

#4 is important. This is the point. To make the world better or at least shape it positively by imparting your learning and theories.

08:59 — book recommendations from The Great CEO Within:

Individual Productivity:

Getting Things Done Summary David Allen 10h (the # of hours required to read the book)

Personal productivity; describes using pen/paper, simply translate that to Evernote or another electronic tool. Using this system will make you sleep better. It takes several days to fully implement the system, but is very much worth that investment.

Organizational Productivity:

One Minute Manager Summary Ken Blanchard .5h

Simple reporting structure that works. Simple enough that you can have all your team members read it. I recommend that you do. (Some of it is obviously dated. Ignore those parts.)

High Output Management Summary Andy Grove 10h

The classic tech management book. A lot more detail than 1-Minute Manager, but essentially the same structure.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things Summary Ben Horowitz 6h

Says how great High Output Management is, and then talks about what to do in some very specific and ugly situations that no other books discuss.

Sales & Marketing:

Disciplined Entrepreneurship Summary Bill Aulet 12h

Painful, but very necessary step-by-step guide to determining who your real customer is, what solution they want, and how to market and sell to them. If you only read and apply one of these books, make it this one.

Never Split the Difference Summary Chris Voss 6h

Ostensibly about negotiation, but really about how to create deep connection and trust quickly, which is the key to an excellent relationship with your three key constituents: customers (sales), employees (management) and investors (fundraising). This is the best book on sales that I have found.

Recruiting:

Who Geoff Smart 6h

Excellent recruiting process that maximizes the likelihood of hiring A players only, and then ensuring their success at the company.

Culture: Summary

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership Diana Chapman 10h

Companies can become good using the hard skills outlined in the books above. To become great, a company must become curious and open to learning. This books shows how to do that.

08:53 — on giving feedback. Like this template from Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

Ask permission. Do you have a moment to talk now?
State the facts. Don’t add judgments or interpretations. When you are late for meetings vs. when you disrespect.
State how it makes you feel (anger, sadness, fear). When you are late for meetings I feel frustrated because… or I feel scared because…
State the story. The thoughts, opinions and judgments you have around the situation. It makes me feel disrespected.
State the behaviour you would like to see. Make it positive, not negative. E.g. Do X vs. don’t do Y.
Ask the person if they accept the feedback. If yes, hold them accountable to doing it.

23 September 2024

17:49 — on doing things from the right place.

'“Habitually contemplate whether your thoughts stem from love or from fear. If your thoughts originate in love, then follow them. But if they originate from a place of fear, then dig deep to find the root of your fear. Only then will you be able to finally let go of it so that fear no longer limits your possibilities.” — Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp

This is the easiest ‘razor’ you can use to cut through the bullshit.

When people say or do mean things, ask them whether they did it out of fear or out of love. 100% of the time, if they’re honest, it will be the former.

17:46 — on how chasing your dreams can scare other people.

“I do miss telling people about my impressive achievements and watching their eyes light up with instant respect. It was so simple and the lack of that kind of reaction is still clearly noticeable on my current path. Now, instead of igniting admiration, I often trigger people’s deepest fears.” — Paul Millerd, Good Work

I’ve also seen this.

Often when you go for a crazy goal it rocks the boat. You’re not going with the stream. This often challenges other people. They get angry that you are questioning the status quo and the comfort zone and are forcing them to reflect.

17:45 — on writing honestly.

Sage advice from Jason Zweig’s father:

I also like this quote from George Saunders.

“One of the dangers of writing a book about writing is that it might be perceived to be of the how-to variety. This book is not that. A lifetime of writing has left me with one thing: the knowledge of how I do it. Or, to be completely honest, a knowledge of how I have done it. (How I will soon do it has to remain a continual mystery.) God save us from manifestos, even mine. (“An explanation does not go up to the hilt,” said Tolstoy.) The closest thing to a method I have to offer is this: go forth and do what you please.” — George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

There is a lot of nuance in life.

There are no absolute truths. Some things will work for some people, others will work for other people.

There is no right or wrong as McKenna says. Everything just is.

To act like there is one solution for everything is dishonest. But lots of writers of the “self-help” variety do exactly that.

They also make a living from it because people want easy, quick fixes.

Writing with nuance, saying “it depends” or “mileage will vary” introduces uncertainty. It introduces mental work. You immediately lose the quick-fix audience.

17:39 — why we read.

“Their passion for literature (evident in their questions from the floor, our talks at the signing table, the conversations I’ve had with book clubs) has convinced me that there’s a vast underground network for goodness at work in the world—a web of people who’ve put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more expansive, generous people and makes their lives more interesting.” — George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

16:59 — on playing non-zero-sum games:

“There are two kinds of people in this world. The first looks at others who have accomplished things and thinks: Why them? Why not me? The other looks at those same people and thinks: If they can do it, why can’t I? One is zero-sum and jealous (if you win, I lose). The other is non-zero-sum (there’s plenty to go around) and sees the success of others as an inspiration. Which attitude will propel you onward and upward? Which will drive you to bitterness and despair? Who will you be?” — Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

Better to have a growth mindset.

If they can do it, why can’t I?

I might not know how to do it, but I’ll find out.

16:55 — I enjoy employing this tactic myself. Just asking questions.

“Franklin honed the Socratic method he found so useful for winning arguments without antagonizing opponents. He would ask Keimer questions that seemed innocent and tangential but eventually exposed his logical fallacies.” Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin

16:43 — on being part of a larger collective. One of the better arguments against letting your ego dictate your life.

Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) says it’s futile to be guided by the ego. We are part of a bigger collective of humanity. What’s good for everyone, is good for the species. There’s no point trying to get ahead for yourself (ego driven) when everyone else suffers.

Gregory David Roberts makes the same point in Shantaram (or was it The Dark Mountain?). Every act that contributes to the health of the bigger collective and the world is a good act. Anything that breaks it down is a bad act. Simple.

16:40 — like this. Not so much for the actual quote but for the imagery:

“The best advice I’ve heard for people in search of a vocation is to say yes to everything. Say yes to every opportunity that comes along, because you never know what will lead to what. Have a bias toward action. Think of yourself as a fish that is hoping to get caught. Go out there among the fishhooks.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

16:36 — Dostoyevsky on being distracted (not having direction):

“It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing.” — Crime and Punishment

16:26 — David Brooks on vampire problems.

“Life is filled with vampire problems. Marriage turns you into a different person. Having kids changes who you are and what you want. So does emigrating to a new country, converting to a different religion, going to med school, joining the Marines, changing careers, and deciding on where to live. Every time you make a commitment to something big, you are making a transformational choice.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

Some choices are one-way streets. They are so big, that once made, there’s (almost) no turning back. Like turning into a vampire. Once you become one, you stay one. For eternity.

Funny to note that Jed McKenna also uses a vampire analogy, but in a different context.

He compares going from being unenlightened to being enlightened to going from being a human to a vampire. You can’t turn back. You have different way of seeing things. Different needs. Almost no way of relation to your previous self and those still in the old mode.

21 September 2024

I like playing sports I’m good at.

I like working on teams that are small where I can stand out and make an impact.

Call me a confidence-player. A big fish in a small pond. Just think it works better for me.

Non-fiction essays are just too dry and on the nose.

Looking for something more moving, meaningful, different, interesting.

I also realized why I struggle with “show, don’t tell”.

My schooling and degree was focused on explaining everything. You only get full marks for showing your workings. For explaining why you made certain conclusions. This line proves this line which proves this line, which proves the next one. QED.

18 September 2024

16:53 — on finding higher forms of communication.

you are tapping into a common human weakness - something I recognize in myself - being manipulative because that's the only way we know how to communicate. If people had access to (knew) other ways of communicating they would no longer use the 'stone age' tool of manipulation.

16:49 — on building a meaningful career.

I’ve made no secret about it, I like flexibility in my career. I’ve built a life around being able to work from anywhere at any time.

Question is — can you build a company or becoming a senior leader at a business while being fully remote and fully asynchronous? Does that work? Or do people need face time? Do you need to be part of the system with regular check-ins and meet ups to lead a team successfully?

Not sure. But I would like to have both. The flexibility and the big, meaningful career, which I believe I’m capable of achieving.

16:41 — Bukowski on writing.

“Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer.” — Factotum

Hint of sarcasm? I also believed this when I started. Now realize there are levels. Some really talented writers out there. They can write well and write a lot and write consistently. Like playing tennis against a pro - you just can’t get the ball back over the net. There is a gulf in class.

08:29 — on doing Good Work.

Paul Millerd released a new book this week called Good Work.

I’m a big fan of Paul. He embodies a lot of the values I cherish in people. He got out of a career he didn’t enjoy. He took a chance on himself, walked away from a huge salary and went all in on creative projects.

His previous book, The Pathless Path, was really inspirational, and to a small or large degree influenced my decision to quit my job and go self-employed too.

What I didn’t know was how difficult freelancing would be. I had to hustle to get work. I went through a dip. I’m sure some people experience more hardship and/or can deal with it better, but still, it wasn’t fun being so exposed to not having an income and stability.

I got through it, but it was a big wake-up call. A book is a book. Life is life. Take things with a gain of salt.

So while I value his message, I don’t know if it applies to everyone. I’m not sure everyone is built for the ups and downs of freelancing.

Overall, he is right. You should do work you enjoy. You should get out of a shitty job if it isn’t serving you. The ‘pathless path’ will challenge you. You will lose status. You will lose money. You will learn more about yourself and what’s important to you. This is good. Rather live the examined life than coasting along in a comfort zone.

What’s tripping me up is that I quit my old job in corporate, but I’m still doing similar work in a consulting capacity. It’s still the same work to some degree.

Am I being a fake?

I don’t think so.

08:19 — on backing people up.

Sometimes you just need to reply to a group email to back someone up.

They need the validation. They want to hear they aren’t speaking into the void.

The CEO of the company I’m consulting to sends a bunch of emails to his leadership team. “Look at what our competitors are doing. Have we considered doing Y for marketing?”, “Look at this latest think piece. Where are we on project X?” etc.

For a while, I read these emails, took the message to heart and did the work, but didn’t reply to the email, because it felt obvious - like “yes, I agree, let’s do it.”

But that was in my mind. He didn’t know it. He thought his email landed on deaf ears.

One of the other guys on the email trail (a senior member of the team) would always reply with a short one-liner e.g. “Yes, great opportunity, let’s do it.”

Nothing major, but it gave the CEO the feedback he was looking for. He was onto something, people agreed with him. Or disagreed with him, which is also valid feedback.

So yeah - the bottomline is be more responsive. No such thing as too much communication.

17 September 2024

11:19 — on doing some experiments.

When I reflect on what I did over the last year, I like having tangible results to point back to. The year during which I was job hunting sucked. I could point to being employed, but so what, I had mentally checked out, I was not motivated anymore, I couldn’t point back to work I was proud of. I just had a long list of rejections and no results.

The same thing for the first 9 months of my freelancing career. I was actively looking for clients. I reached out to a lot of companies and promoted my work, but in the end, I got one client through an old colleague who did me a solid (a warm lead) and other clients through my newsletter (backdoor into the consulting market). So while I was “looking for clients” during those 9 months, I don’t have results to point to.

Reflecting on this, I think it could be interesting to try some different careers and courses.

I am tied to a client for work from Monday-Wednesday.

It could be interesting to do something on Thursdays and Fridays. Sure, I’ve been working on my writing. But this is a commitment to myself, which I often break. I’ve written a few newsletters this year which I can point to. But maybe there’s something more tangible?

A qualification, another gig? Could be fun to try things.

Coding course
coaching course
Modeling? This sounds funny, but I’ve heard this from a few independent sources now. I’m older now, but I’m sure there’s a market for this type of thing.

11:11 — On doing the work I enjoy.

I attended a wedding this weekend. It was a good party. There was a lady there who was part of the C-level team at a large multi-national insurance company. My wife offered to introduce me to her. Super kind of her to offer this; I am an actuarial consultant after all. I ‘should’ be networking and looking for new business leads for my fledgling consulting business.

But I just couldn’t get myself to go chat to Mrs. Big Company. I couldn’t think of anything worse. Consulting to a large, bureaucratic insurance firm represents something close to my worst nightmare (that and falling off a cliff).

I went through the wedding happily ignoring this potential business lead.

There is feedback in that. There is signal there. Although it’s not what I’m “supposed to” be doing, I now know one more thing about myself. Consutling to big companies probably isn’t for me. Consulting on pure insurance matters probably isn’t for me.

But what is for me? Well, I really like the working I’m doing for my main client this year (most of the time).

Writing. This is by far the best way to clear my mind and sharpen my thinking. Such an underrated skill. Can’t believe I started so late (age 30).
Building things - missing skillset here. Coding.
Coaching / leadership. Like working with people. See this as something I’d like to do when I’m older. This could be a very rewarding career.

This MBA option is hanging over my head. But maybe there’s something smaller I can do for a while. Something more cost-effective. And then MBA?

The ideal end state is to have a strong package of skills that I can either sell to one employer (not ideal, but manageable for a company with the right purpose and ambition) or leverage myself (as a freelancer or to start my own thing).

There are good things lying ahead on the horizon. Just need to keep trying things, iterating, learning, and eliminating things I don’t like doing.

What do I know:

I’m not an actuary
I don’t like working for big corporates
I’m more creative
I like autonomy
I like flexibility - both schedule and location

16 September 2024

08:18 — on people’s perceptions of coaching.

As an aside, I spoke to a friend of mine (the guy who I said is a natural coach) about whether he's ever considered working with a coach and it's funny to see some 'misperceptions' of coaching (even though he embodies a lot of the core skills).

He mentions that he used to be cynical about coaching when he was younger ("those who can't do, teach" type of thing), but now that he's older, he's starting to see the value of it.

He used to have a mentor at his previous company, someone older who he could chat to on a weekly basis about career and life things. It's been three years since he's moved on and he's realizing how amazing that relationship actually was. He now sees there is a big 'accountability hole' in his life.

And he's unsure if there is someone similar out there who would "get him" and all his idiosyncracies. He's also unsure where to even look for someone like this.

Thought this was very interesting.

Like there's a mismatch between demand and supply in the caoching space and there are some common myths around the industry. There are bunch of coaches out there (some better than others) and there are a lot of people who could benefit from coaching (they might not even know it or don't want to admit it).

I wonder if it has something to do with the sensitivity around dealing with feelings and the "non-guaranteed" nature of coaching outcomes. There are a lot of emotions involved and working with feelings/personal goals etc is sensitive so people have a natural flight to safety. Rather not do it and not rock the boat, than expose yourself to becoming unsettled and having to deal with your thoughts, even if there's growth on the other side. The ironic thing (in my view and this ties to your essay) is that you sort of have to let go and fully embrace the coaching experience to get the best outcomes. If you're holding back and playing cat-and-mouse, you'll inevitably not get the results you're looking for.

Not sure if this is valuable for you, sure you deal with this a lot, but could be interesting for an essay or promoting your course or just something to reflect upon. "Busting myths" type of thing.

08:09 — on considering working with a coach again.

I’m thinking of working with a coach again for a couple of months.

It feels like I’ve been slacking on my writing and career ambitions. Sure, there is a lot on the go, I’ve got work commitments, I just got married, we’ve traveling a lot, but I don’t know many times I can still use the “I’m too busy” excuse when I postpone reflection and working on my goals.

Voel asof ek slack op my skryfwerk en loopbaan ambisies. Obviously baie on the go (baie op toer jirre). Maar dink mens kan net soveel keer die “besig wees” verskoning gebruik. Voel bietjie distracted, minder gerig op n ‘north star’.

Being honest, I think I'm still carrying 'baggage' from our previous time working together. I was going through a tough time because I wasn't getting any client work and I still view everything I did during that time with a negative lens. My relationships and mental health also suffered.

I'm not sure I could totally 'let go' / 'open up' with her. Or at least it took a few sessions to get there - which perhaps speaks to sticking with her and not going through the process again with someone new.

I also felt like I could see the 'game' she was playing or I could predict the questions in a way, but again, after a while, I let my guard down. Probably has something to do with understanding coaching techniques now (to a basic degree) and playing cat and mouse. Again, not her fault, and more to do with me not being a willing participant always.

So yeah, on reflection, maybe it's a flawed perception on my end that I need someone new.

11 September 2024

11:10 — on being grateful and helping others.

My LinkedIn profile says I’m a director at an actuarial consulting firm. While this may sound impressive, it’s not as big as people think. I am a self-employed consultant. There are so many people looking for

Creating a network for people to match them careers. People looking for jobs.

Working with a coach for a year.

Write a book with a businessman.

There are a bunch of projects I want to take on. What’s holding me back? Things take time. Easier sometimes to do the things that are straightforward, repeatable. Difficult to build new things. Can be more disciplines - I say this a lot.

Projects:

daily planner idea
book idea - different essays
write a book about Arthur
there were others? look for two ideas - Rik

10 September 2024

09:05 — on speaking my truth.

Writing isn’t about playing it safe. Take a view on things. Speak your truth.

Two reasons:

You can be proud of yourself. You are being brave and showing your true self. You are not hiding away behind some easy essays that anyone could write.
People follow you and connect with the real you. Not some watered-down, low-fat version of you. By sharing your real opinions you will push some people away while attracting others to your work. A few true fans are better than a bunch of luke-warm fans.

I haven’t written an essay in a while.

I’ve done a bunch of curations this year.

05 September 2024

08:28 — on putting myself first.

I’ve been writing before work for the last two days. Hope I can keep it going.

The idea is to put my goals first. The work will always be there.

It’s easy to simply jump back into the next task because it’s defined and it earns money.

It’s harder to stare at the blank page and capture what’s on my mind.

The hardest part is just sitting down. After that things flow.

Writing something is better than nothing.

Publishing something is better than just writing. That’s journaling.

Let’s keep it going. Onwards.

04 September 2024

09:16 — on making jokes during meetings.

I sometimes go into Zoom calls a little bit uneasy, a little edgy.

Not sure why it is. Maybe a desire to prove myself. To show that I can contribute. To make a good presentation.

The best way to break this tense state is to crack a joke or show some vulnerability.

Helps me. People laugh.

I want to believe it helps others as well. The tension is released.

E.g. One of my colleagues likes to ask team members to give a quick impromptu update on the projects they’re working on. Often without prior warning, he’ll call you up. I like this, but some of my other colleagues like to be more prepared. I quipped that he must be a big fan of cricket - while fielding the motto is “to always expect the ball”.

09:01 — on natural vs. trained coaches.

Having a basic grasp of coaching skills can elevate your value to other people (friends, colleagues, partners) tenfold.

By listening, creating space, repeating statements and asking reflective questions, you can help your conversation partner work through just about any issue they’re facing.

Some people are naturals, while others need to actively work on these skills.

I fall into the second bucket. I’ve always had strong opinions and I’ve been happy to give advice to others. This ignores their agency and the fact that they often know the answers themselves. They often just need someone to listen and act as a mirror so they can work through their thoughts.

Fortunately, I work closely with a coach. I review his writing every week. Through exposure to his work, I’ve gotten better, if not perfect, at being a good conversation partner.

I have a friend who falls in the first bucket — a coach without any formal training — someone I turn to for advice often.

I could never (or never tried to) articulate why he was so good at giving advice. I just liked his style.

After another one of our calls last week, it finally clicked.

He was living coaching habits.

Instead of giving his opinion and saying what he would've done in my situation, he was asking questions and letting me figure what I would do in my situation.

It’s funny to only make this connection now, but in hindsight, it's clear that he's living coaching values without formal training. Whether it’s blind luck or his upbringing or whether it’s self-taught, it works.

Nice friend to have around.

The good news is you can learn these skills. Especially if you have a growth mindset. You’ll make mistakes initially, but if you set your intentions and keep learning, you’ll get there.

08:29 — on being kind to your younger self.

It’s part of the human experience to grow, to seek to improve, to learn from our mistakes. This is natural and healthy. It would be weird to keep making the errors. It would be sad to believe we are fixed entities incapable of change and growth.

What often happens is that we look back at our younger selves and we hardly recognize that person. I often get a little feeling of disgust.

“What, I did what?”

“I can’t believe I got blackout drunk at that party.”

“Why was I so scared of conflict.”

These are all valid thoughts and they show how much I’ve grown.

There’s also a great quote on this by Alain de Botton, saying something like ‘if you’re growing fast enough, you won’t recognise the person you were a week ago.’

BUT… and there’s a big ‘but’ here.

I would also encourage myself and others to be kind to our younger selves.

We were doing the best we could with the information we had available at the time. We were navigating life and all its complexity with the tools we had at that moment. Sure, we made mistakes, but at our core, we still had good intentions.

I write a lot of reflective pieces and I’ve sometimes fallen into the trap of putting my former self up on a cross to be chastised. This is effective because it shows I’ve grown and learned something new. I am no longer that person and that person doesn’t exist anymore so it’s an easy target.

But that indicates a break in the continuity. Surely there was some good (a lot of good) to that person.

Maybe I don’t tell as many white lies as I used to, but I used that as my tool to avoid conflict when I was younger.

Maybe I don’t drink as much as I used to, but drinking was fun and alcohol was very normalised in my circles. It was (still is) a social lubricant that helped me fit it and chat to people.

Maybe I

03 September 2024

17:01 — some highlights from my wedding speech.

Jess and I got married last week.

I really enjoyed writing my wedding speech. Want to capture some parts here.

There was a small amount of anxiety — I believe a wedding speech is one of the most important speeches you’ll make in your life. The stakes are high. Luckily my inner excitement and the feeling of love were so strong that, despite the nerves, I was completely calm and present in the moment.

16:56 — thoughts on getting married and feeling ‘this is it’.

Jess and I got married last week.

Really fulfilled. Really good space.

To my surprise, the ‘small’ civil wedding where we only invited 20 people (family and close friends) turned out to be big (emotionally, spiritually and mentally).

I knew signing the documents was the real deal, we were officially getting married, but I was more excited about the ‘bigger’ (official) wedding in January, where we’ve invited 100 people.

Last week’s ceremony was so perfect and so fitting (exceeding my wildest expectations) that I’m questioning whether we need the second celebration wedding anymore.

I’m sure we’ll go through with the second one. There’s something about making the declaration of love in front of our wider group of friends and family. We’ve also started planning and people have made arrangements. We have a commitment towards them. It will be wholesome and good and exciting, but the first smaller one would have been ‘enough’ (more than enough).

Just another reminder that my strongly held opinions are often more bendable than I think. I was a firm believer in big, ‘proper’ weddings, but now I see the merit in a smaller ceremony as well.

Stay open-minded. Stay flexible. Keep our identity small as Paul Graham says.

16:55 — pattern recognition:

“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.” — Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

22 August 2024

19:23 — don’t look at the rejections, look at the W’s.

During this time I learned the most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.” — Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

I didn’t love this book (perhaps I read it when I was too young - I wasn’t ready for the lessons), but this is a good quote.

Applies to life as well.

I went through the ringer when I was job hunting in 2022. I started taking the rejections too persoanlly. The same thing hapened last year when I was looking for clients for my actuarial consulting business. Every “no” hurt a lot. I ended up signing clients and everything worked out. That’s all that matters. The one out of thirty who says “yes”.

16:57 — Scott Adams is a big fan of affirmations.

This is from God’s Debris:

“People who do affirmations will have the sensation that they are causing the environment to conform to their will. This is an immensely enjoyable feeling because the illusion of control is one of the best illusions you can have.”

He also mentions it a lot in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.

It sounds a bit woo-woo and out there, but there’s also zero downside in trying it. Accept maybe telling others about it and feeling embarrassed, but so what.

I’ve given it a go periodically. I’m not sure if I’ve ‘manifested’ anything by writing down affirmations, but it feels good saying I’ll be a great writer or I’ll run a sub 90min half marathon. Maybe there’s something that works at the subconscious level where you start believing it and expectations meet reality.

16:45 — different writers and their different views on free will.

Cormac McCarthy is clearly in the “determinism” (i.e. free will is an illusion) camp. Most of his writing is about life being hard and people having no choices about their circusmtances and what happens to them.

“I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.”
― No Country for Old Men

John Steinbeck had a different view. In East of Eden he finishes the book with the story of Cain and Abel. He refers to the word ‘Timshel’, which means thou mayest.

“The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—'Thou mayest'—that gives a choice.” — East of Eden

“Thou mayest conquer sin” expresses the very choice and free will that lies in the matter rather than "thou shalt conquer sin".

Steinbeck’s philosophy—as expressed through the novel—champions the idea that individuals have the power to choose their actions and, by extension, their moral destiny.

On his deathbed, Adam Trask, forgives his son Cal for his role in his brother, Aron’s, death. He utters the word "timshel."

Under Steinbeck’s interpretation, "timshel" becomes a message of redemption and possibility. It suggests that Cal, despite his mistakes and his mom’s dark heritage, has the capacity to choose a better path going forward. He is not doomed to repeat the sins of the past, and his life is not predetermined by the dark aspects of his nature.

08:50 — appealing against the over-hyped nature of cohort-based course marketing.

“You, yes you, the person who has never written before, can also get 100,000 followers and earn a living from writing.”

I don’t want to say this is false advertising. But it is over-optimistic.

Sure, there are a handful of writers who do go on to become successful online wrtiers and creators. They nail a niche, they get discovered, they go ‘viral’.

But using them as the poster boys and girls to sell your course feels a little bit insincere.

It’s not always about “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Some people are quite talented at writing. They also have a niche skillset they can market and sell to an online audience.

I don’t want to sound negative, I believe in people’s ability to grow and improve and achieve things, but if I were advertising a course I would rather promise them something tangible, achievable and real.

Not “you’ll become the next Packy McCormick or the next Cultural Tutor.” Those are the top 0.0001%.

Maybe I’m sour. I also believed this for a while. I gave it a good go. I posted newsletters regulary, I tweeted often (never loved it), I tried all the growth strategies. And I grew, but I grew modestly. I never went viral, I never got to point where I could earn a living from writing.

The writing made me happy personally. And that’s good. That’s already a big win. But I also got disillusioned with the “everyone can become a star” narrative, because (so far) that hasn’t been the case for me and I’m three years in.

21 August 2024

08:44 — What’s the best mgmt. style?

I like regular meetings with regular deliverables.

The meeting is the deadline.

This works well for me — when I’m the one completing the task.

I get many tasks assigned to me. I write them all up in my to-do list. The list grows and grows but there’s no real push to complete them without a deadline, without the requirement to present what I’ve done.

Setting up a meeting kicks me into action. I don’t want to look like a fool in front of other people. I want to show them a good piece of work.

Pros:

the work gets done
clear timelines and deliverables

Cons:

don’t want to micro-manage. Solution: don’t schedule too many of these updates.
more meetings. Again: schedule one or two updates per week.

17 August 2024

16:16 — planning a series of book reviews to close out the year.

Reviewed the following books so far this year (January - June):

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (1948)
Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis (1989)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace (1880) — one of my all-time favourites now
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957)
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (2023)
The Anthology of Balaji: A Guide to Technology, Truth, and Building the Future by Eric Jorgenson (2023)
Angela’s Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt (1996)

August:

Lying
Spiritual Enlightenment
All The Pretty Horses

September:

Demon Copperhead
The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta)
Non-Violent Communication

October:

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Crossing

November:

The Duel
Eiger Dreams: Adventures Among Men and Mountains
The Splendid and the Vile

December:

The 48 Laws of Power
The Great CEO Within (wasn’t riveting)
…

12 August 2024

08:46 — your biggest contribution is pitching up each day and putting in the work.

“Work is the way we make ourselves useful to our fellows. “There may be no better way to love your neighbor,” Tim Keller put it, “whether you are writing parking tickets or software or books, than to simply do your work. But only skillful, competent work will do.”” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

08:44 — dig this. Something free and easy to implement. Control the controllables.

“Pessimism is often a failure of imagination. If you can imagine the future being brighter, it lifts your energy and gooses the chemistry in your body that produces a sensation of happiness. If you can’t even imagine an improved future, you won’t be happy no matter how well your life is going right now.” — Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

09 August 2024

16:43 — inputs over outputs:

“And, of course, you must derive satisfaction and gratification from winning without letting it define your self-worth, just as you cannot allow defeat to define you as a person. There has to be a balance. You can’t put yourself in a smaller and smaller box where there’s only the infliction or avoidance of pain—a personal torture chamber.” — Bill Walsh, The Score Takes Care of Itself

It’s about what you sow. What you reap will follow. It doesn’t define you.

14:34 — the gift that keeps on giving:

“He knew that our enemies by contrast seem always with us. The greater our hatred the more persistent the memory of them so that a truly terrible enemy becomes deathless. So that the man who has done you great injury or injustice makes himself a guest in your house forever. Perhaps only forgiveness can dislodge him.” — Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy

By not forgiving someone you don’t remove the poisoned arrow from your flesh.

You can’t move on.

11:55 — another great quote on marriage:

"What greater thing is there for two human souls," George Eliot wrote in Adam Bede, "than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting?" — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

11:48 — I’m getting married in two weeks (exciting, yet scary at the same time, feeling confident):

"At the heart of every marriage, there dawns an elemental shock of realization, that we have made vows to a stranger whom we must get to know; both in ourselves and in the other. Marriage is where we learn self-knowledge; where we realize that parts of our own makeup are stranger even than the stranger we have married and equally difficult for another person to live with. Marriage is where we realize how much effort we put into preserving our own sense of space and our own sense of self. Marriage is where we realize how much we want to be right and seen to be right.
Marriage is where all of these difficult revelations can consign us to a sense of imprisonment or help us become larger, kinder, more generous, more amusing, more animated participants in the human drama." — David Whyte

Going into this with eyes wide open.

Looking forward to growing together and growing as a person.

10:59 — things I’m working on:

Making writing a daily practice. The best strategy might be to make it the first thing I do every morning after sport. Write before work. It’s easy to fall into the “work trumps everything else” trap because it actually earns money. But if I only do things for money, I’ll never write. I think the writing complements my work, it slows me down, it helps me reflect, even if it isn’t immediately obvious that it earns money, it supports the activities that do. Like doing meditation or staying fit. Idea: combine logs with going through my Readwise. Save my favourite quotes every morning and capture a few thoughts (like I’m doing now).
Becoming less of a people pleaser. I care about what others think of me. Something my coach said last year - it seems like you don’t want to disappoint others, but you end up disappointing yourself. That stung. A big correction I’ve made this year is that I’m not lying (telling white lies) anymore. I’m trying to be as honest and forthright as I possibly can. This has been a big correction. It’s made my life so much simpler. I always thought I was protecting other’s feelings by telling half-truths, but I ended up complicating things further. This is going well and I’m happy about it.
Creating more video content. It’s something I’ve put off for long. But I won’t get down on myself for postponing things. It’s an aspirational goal, the time will come. Idea: create a few shorter posts. Capture a thought. Share it on social. Build confidence. C’mon, it can’t be that difficult.

10:48 — another banger quote from this book:

“Gregory Boyle ministers to gang members in Los Angeles and captures the difference between a life lived for self and one lived for others: “Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship.” It’s one of the inescapable truisms of life: You have to lose yourself to find yourself, give yourself away to get everything back.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

10:46 — Young & naive:

“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.” — Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

I’ve definitely been there.

A sense of entitlement. Maybe it’s how my generation was raised - you can do anything, you can achieve anything. Reality has been far different from expectations. This advice missed one key part: you still need to put in the work.

09:01 — I like this approach to dinner with kids.

“Cellphones are banned ("Be in the now," Kathy says). About a third of the way through the meal, we go around the table and each person says something they are grateful for, something nobody knows about them, or some other piece of information about their life at that moment.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

Practices two things:

Gratitude
Honesty/vulnerability

08 August 2024

16:17 — two strong quotes about writing in here:

“Writing it was my attempt to kick myself in my own rear, part of my continual effort to write my way to a better life. "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us," Kafka wrote. It should wake us up and hammer at our skull. Writing this book has served that purpose for me. I've also written it, I hope, for you. When it comes to what we writers do, I like to apply an observation by D. T. Niles: We are like beggars who try to show other beggars where we found bread.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. So true. Writing helps me deal with what’s going on inside me. When I don’t write, I feel more guarded, less in touch with my feelings and with the feelings in others. It’s good to cut through and chop away at the ice.

We are like beggars who try to show other beggars where we found bread. Again, exactly what I’m trying to achieve. If it can inspire one person, it’s worth doing. It’s easier to learn from the person two steps ahead of you than the one 20 steps ahead. Sharing what I’m going through could help others going through similar challenges.

07 August 2024

17:35 — Reigniting my passion for Twitter/X.

After taking a long break from the platform, I’m dipping my toes again.

It used to be a place where I could get a good overview of news, politics and interesting topics - philosophy, books, life lessons etc.

I was happy with my feed. A perfect curation of interesting topics, things I cared about.

I levelled up along the way - making the switch from consumer to creator. I always took notes privately so it was fun to start sharing some of my thoughts in public. I did this freely without expecting too much growth, likes or comments.

But then things changed.

When I started writing, I became more tactical. I wanted to grow my newsletter audience. I fell into the “get your first 1,000 followers” trap. I started following other writers to “support” them, but there was an implicit agreement - we would follow each other and “grow” together. I didn’t necessarily vibe with their writing, I was just out there trying to grow my audience.

But why did I want a bigger audience? What would happen if my Twitter followers increased? More newsletter subs? More people buying my products?

I didn’t really have a lot of products.

I was putting in a lot of work and having no fun tweeting. I made a tweet every day for 180 days to satisfy the algorithm. My growth was minimal.

I wasn’t doing the work for the joy of the work, I was doing it hoping for some result. A lesson as old as time. If you enjoy the inputs, the outputs will follow.

Needless to say, I fell out of love with the platform. My feed was filled with self-help, writing, coaching vibes.

Not terrible, but not what I signed up for initially.

I’ve taken a 9-month break and I’m finally dipping my toes again.

First step, unfollow everyone who doesn’t match my vibe.

Second step, start tweeting authentically again. Share what I genuinely find interesting, without caring what others think of me.

17:19 — related to the previous log.

I think some people avoid being direct/honest with others to preserve friendships. They would rather suffer through it than telling the other person they are obnoxious.

This indicates something about the person not speaking their truth.

Are they afraid that they can’t make other friends so they hold onto the 9/10 friends?

Would be cool if people had more confidence. If they rejected people/things that were not a good fit, knowing that the good ones were out there.

Am I guilty of this? I guess so.

But I’m getting better. “Not Lying” is the blade that cuts through the grass.

17:13 — on being “nice” vs. being “kind”.

From Radical Candor. If someone has bad body odour, being nice would be not to mention something (or worse - lie and say, no you smell fine if they ask).

Being kind would require taking them aside to tell them they need to buy some deodorant. This would be uncomfortable in the moment, but it saves them from future embarrassment. Momentary pain for long-term gain.

This ties in very nicely with Sam Harris’ book called “Lying”, but it could also have been called “Not Lying”.

The truth will set you free.

06 August 2024

17:01 — conversation with Rik.

Discounted cashflow models can also be creative.

You can also get fired up about it.

I was all messed up last weekend. Someone made an observation about my life. You looked a little bit down when you were working, that means you don’t like your work, you’d like to do soemthing ekse. It was sort of correct, but not really. I agreed with her in the moment. But then I felt sad. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I then became angry with her for being presumptious. Not cool to make judgments about others if you don’t know them. But also - if the shoe fits. I can control my reaction.

So why was I upset? I think because I let myself down. I wasn’t being truthful to myself. I actually enjoyed the work. Sure, not all of it, but there were parts where I could really express myself. There were challenging parts, the modeling, the back-of-the-envelope calcs.

So the observation wasn’t completely accurate and I should have stood up for myself more in the moment.

xxxxx

16:25 — New experiment I’m quite excited about.

Writing fiction. Sharing my lessons from the perspective of a made-up character.

It’s less direct, more nuanced, less in the face.

I recently read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway and I was impressed by how candid and ordinary the characters were. There was nothing special or amazing about them. They liked to party, they drank too much, they slept around, they went to watch the running of the bulls. But there was something beautiful about how simple it was. It was honest. It wasn’t hyped up. He told it as it is. Brett was a tease, she liked the attention, she liked taking lovers.

Because the characters were so real he could easily share his observations from their perspective. Each character could be a different side of his personality.

He could easily express when they were hurting or when they were happy. It was like a front-row seat to their minds and feelings.

Example 1:

“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?"
"Yes, every once in a while."
"Do you know that in abou thirty- five more years we'll be dead?"
"What the hell, Robert," I said. "What the hell."
"I'm serious."
"It's one thig I don't worry about," I said.
"You ought to."
"I've had plenty to worry about one time or other. I'm through worrying."
"Well, I want to go to South America."
"Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that."
"But you've never been to South America."
"South America hell! If you went there the way you feel now it would be exactly the same. This is a good town. Why don't you start living your life in Paris?”

This is great - Hemingway expresses a few things in a simple dialogue:

Life is short. And people like thinking about that.
Happiness is internal. If you’re happy, you’ll be happy anywhere. Moving away won’t improve your mood, the same problems will follow you.

Example 2:

“This was Brett that I had felt like crying about. Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing.”

This is great.

In one paragraph, Hemingway makes an honest, human, vulnerable observation. You can act like a tough guy as much as you want but when you’re alone at night, you can’t escape your thoughts. You can’t keep up the act.

That’s true. It’s simple, but it’s true. Everyone has felt that in some way or another. Whether about a disappointment in love or at work.

But anyway… to get back to my original point.

I want to give fiction writing a go.

I’ll call my main character Jake. Like Hemingway’s Jake in The Sun Also Rises.

I also like Atticus.

Maybe I can have multiple characters.

Example:

Jake was angry at her. Not because of what she said. But how she got under his defenses.

XXXXXXXX

31 July 2024

17:05 — I’m not going to publish my monthly newsletter today.

I will continue to write. I’m not scared. I’m not mad.

I’m disappointed, yes. I neglected my writing habit this month. I broke a promise to myself.

I also know I will be back.

I’m no longer into the self-flagellation thing. I have already forgiven myself.

Next month will be better.

July was one of my most successful consulting months, I earned more money than I’ve ever done in a month. In a way I am proud of this. At the same time I know there are more important things than money. I am also cautious not to let money define my success.

I don’t want to overthink this. I will write again. I will publish again. My focus was elsewhere this month.

Life happens. We move on.

10:04 — so many connections between McCarthy and McKenna’s writing.

“So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.” — Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy

Nothing is wrong or right.

Everything is as it should be.

30 July 2024

14:59 — you will sometimes have the most pleasant conversations with the most unexpected people if you take things slower.

Stop rushing through life. Give people some time to speak to you. You’ll be surprised by what you learn.

I’ve had the most interesting conversations with the gardener at our AirBnB in Cape Town and an older man I met while walking my dog.

“When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.” — Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

On the flip side, I’ve also listened to a lady share her crazy idea about how Muslims want to take over the world and impose Shari’ah law on everyone.

I guess people just want to be heard.

It’s not about what they’re saying, but that they want to be heard. They want a connection. They want someone to care.

Back to Towles’s quote… it’s about those connections, it’s about how you make people feel more than what what you do (Maya Angelou).

14:57 — leave no stone unturned, don’t deceive yourself.

“Oscar Wilde wrote, "All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of." What he might have meant is that falseness exists only in shadow. Illumination by intellect "destroys" the untrue by revealing that there was never anything there to begin with. Just as light banishes shadow, scrutiny banishes illusion.” — Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment

30 July 2024

09:50 — this is good writing.

“The world has no name, he said. The names of the cerros and the sierras and the deserts exist only on maps. We name them that we do not lose our way. Yet it was because the way was lost to us already that we have made those names. The world cannot be lost. We are the ones.” — Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy

I try to explain why I prefer fiction over non-fiction, but I usually fail.

For me, a story is told at two levels:

The events, the context, the scenery. This is merely the stage. The characters need to exist to convey a message. Frodo and Bilbo could’ve been Umpa Lumpas for all I care. The fact that they were Hobbits just created some structure for Tolkein to convey his message.
The deeper meaning or message. The philosophy, the lesson, the meaning the writer wanted to share. It was important that Frodo completed his quest. It was about the conquest of good over evil. About doing things for the common good instead of doing things for power or for selfish gains.

Non-fiction only has the second facet.

And because it doesn’t have the first component, it has to be more direct. Telling instead of showing. Leaving no room for interpretation. Leaving less space for the reader to draw their own conclusions.

29 July 2024

10:31 — I attended my fiance’s MBA graduation a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say, I’m very proud of her. She made a lot of sacrifices and ended up being one of the top performers in her class.

The keynote speaker, María Garaña, the Global CEO of ClarkeModet, made a good speech. She mentioned three key things every graduate should take with them.

I can’t remember the other two, but the one that stood out to me was that it’s important that people know where they stand with you. Without this, you create uncertainty, which leads to misalignment and poorer performance.

Thinking back to the roles I’ve had in my career and the times when I’ve performed best, they’ve always come from a place of certainty and a clear map of how I could progress within the organization.

Now that I’m managing others, I can see how I’ve sometimes fallen short of this standard. Something to work on.

10:25 — Bingo. I’ve been there. Happy I got out. Nothing worse than not living an authentic life.

“There was a lot of commentary in those days about the soul-sucking perils of conformity, of being nothing more than an organization man, the man in the gray flannel suit, a numb status seeker. There was a sense that the group had crushed the individual, and that people, reduced to a number, had no sense of an authentic self.” — David Brooks, The Second Mountain

Realizing more and more that “actuary” is a bad fit for my talents/passions/desires. I did it. But I will be something more. I will achieve more. I will not be confined by a company or a label or cubicle job. I can give the world so much more.

26 July 2024

15:55 - it’s important to figure out what you like to do vs. not.

Like an audit of what gives you energy and what sucks you dry.

Marshalle Rosenberg calls this what brings forth your “life force”. You want to do things that increase your life force, not things that diminish it.

Not:

Actuarial audits. I’m not good at it. Quite slow. Think it’s something you must (1) enjoy doing and (2) gain experience doing while you’re still young. I started late and I do these projects half-heartedly.

Hot:

building stuff
product ideas
Writing. I like writing, makes me feel good. I also like reviewing essays. Less so than writing my own, but I can make genuine improvements to pieces.

XXXXXXXX

12:20 — Hot vs. Not book review.

Maybe this goes over multiple editions.

Hot (some of my favourite books this year):

Spiritual Enlightenment by Jed McKenna
Lying by Sam Harris
The Border Trilogy
Ben Hur
Doctor Zhivago
Non Violent Communication A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg (1999).

Not:

Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. 1/5. Reviewed on 2 February 2024.
A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney. 2/5. Reviewed on 2 February 2024.
What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban. 3/5. Reviewed on 17 May 2024.

XXXXXXXX

12:11 — Reading update 2024:

I summarized my first 12 reads of the year on 4 April 2024.

I then summarized the next nine books on 17 May 2024.

I’ve read six more books since then (the pace slowing down a bit, but I’ve also increased my “currently reading” shelf from 4 to 9 so maybe there will be a glut of books that come through soon).

Books 22-27:

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022). This was sad as hell (I even sound like him now). A book about the oxycontin crisis that raged in America in the 1990s. A poor kid dealt a bad hand early in life (drug-addict mom, growing up in a trailer park). He got one chance to make things right, adopted into a good family, but he got hooked on Oxy after suffering a knee injury in football. Told with humour and love. It gives you a new perspective on how normal people like you and me can become addicts.
All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (Border Trilogy #1) (1992). My favourite book out of the trilogy. 4.5/5. A story of a young cowboy, John Grady Cole (16 years old), who’s family loses their farm. He sets out to Mexico with one of his friends to make a new life. On their way, another rider joins them. He’s only 13. In an unfortunate turn of events, they lose their horses and try to get them back, but get hunted down and their young comrade gets killed. Grady and his friend end up working on a cattle farm. Grady works their horses (he’s so good with horses) and falls in love with the farmer’s daughter. It’s a forbidden love that gets him into even more trouble, almost costing him his life. Grady’s charachter represents everything that’s good with the world. He’s fair, he’s kind, he believes in doing what’s right. The world keeps throwing challenges his way but he remains steadfast. He has his own sense of justice and it nearly breaks him, but he perseveres. Quote:
“There's a way to train a horse where when you get done you've got the horse. On his own ground. A good horse will figure things out on his own. You can see what's in his heart. He wont do one thing while you're watching him and another when you aint. He's all of a piece. When you've got a horse to that place you cant hardly get him to do somethin he knows is wrong. He'll fight you over it. And if you mistreat him it just about kills him. A good horse has justice in his heart.”
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (Border Trilogy #2) (1994). Another stunning novel. McCarthy has become one of my favourite authors. I used to be a big Ishiguro fan and I guess I still am, but McCarthy’s writing is more honest, brutal, real, masculine. Like a dense philosophy lesson presented as a novel. A young kid, Billy Parham, is tasked with trapping a wolf on his dad’s farm. After months of trying, he catches the wolf, but he can’t bring himself to kill her. Instead of going home, he leads her to Mexico. This is where things take a tragic turn. Mexico is unkind to Billy and his wolf. He has to kill her out of mercy. This made me stop reading. Few books have this power. He returns to America and teams up with his brother and they cross the border again, this time to find their dead dad’s horses (they had been robbed and the parents had been killed). They find the horses, but Billy’s brother almost loses his life. The structure is interesting, Billy goes through one tragic event, then listens to a story, moves on, another event, story, movement, repeat.
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy (Border Trilogy #2) (1998). The third book in the trilogy. Grady and Parham’s lives intersect. They work together on a ranch outside El Paso. They go over the border to Juarez to party. Grady falls in love with a prostitute, which has a tragic end. A fitting ending to the series. All three books were epic. The Crossing and Cities of the Plain were slightly more intricate and philosophical and complicated at stages. All The Pretty Horses appealed to me because of its frankness. Would recommend reading all three and enjoying McCarthy’s genius.
Lying by Sam Harris (2011). Definitely one of the books that has challenged my standard operating procedure the most in recent history. Spiritual Enlightenment by Jed McKenna was also an internal-narrative-challenging book, but in a different way. That challenged my closely-held beliefs and my grip on the world. It was like unclenching my brain, relaxing my constant search for control and meaning, where in fact, there is none to start with. This book was more of a moral correction, something that centred me and unmuddied the waters. Like adding chlorine to a pool. His argument is simple - there is very little point in lying. Even white lies carry no benefit.
The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) by Ernst Hemingway (1926). A true Hemingway classic. I was impressed by how candid and ordinary the characters and narrative were. There was nothing special or amazing about them. They liked to party, they drank too much, they slept around, they went to watch the running of the bulls. But there was something beautiful about how simple it was. It was honest. It wasn’t hyped up. Because the characters were so real he could easily share their observations. He could easily express when they were hurting or when they were happy. It was like a front-row seat to their minds and feelings. Great writing.

Currently reading:

The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building by Matt Mochary (2019). It’s good. Solid overview of the basics you need to know as a founder. Leading with empathy, working with coaches, how to track processes in your company, how to think about hiring.
The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks (2019). A very fine read. Lots of great quotes. You can see that Brooks is an established writer and he is well educated and well read. I like the premise, that you are initially driven by your ego and achievements, and then go through a valley in life, re-assess things, and approach life from a selfless perspective after this. The book goes into some weird twists and turns, but overall it stays on track. Very much in line with something I would write if I ever wrote a book.
What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy (1897). Paused for now. Need to pick it up again. Not sure how I feel about Tolstoy the non-fiction writer. He expressed himself better in his novels. Points to the fact that it might sometimes be easier to convey a message or philosophy in fictional rather non-fiction form.
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle (1997). Not sure I like the question & answer format. Not grabbing me as much as A New Earth. Maybe you only need to read one of them. Not to take anything away from Tolle, A New Earth was brilliant.
Non Violent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg (1999). Super impressed by this. One of those a-ha books. Can I say life changing? Definitely making me more hopeful about life. Can see this improving all my relationships. With my family, with my partner, with my colleagues, with myself. Up there with “Lying” (Sam Harris) and Spiritual Enlightenment (Jed McKenna) in my top non-fiction books of the year.
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha (2010). So-so so far. While I’d be very interested in a relevant, science-based book that backs up why polyamorous/polygamous relationships work (happy to be challenged), this was not it. They made their point early on, now it’s a drag. Filled with rhetorical, strawman arguments. Everything that goes against their point is written down as uptightness and religious conformity, while their view is the only conceivable solution. 2/5.
The Three Sisters by Anton Checkhov (1901). I read Chekhov’s book “The Duel” earlier this year and enjoyed this lesser-known, but still great, Russain author’s views on life — finding meaning even when it seems there is no meaning. The Three Sisters is a little bit more absurd. It was written for theatre, so it doesn’t read that smoothly, but I’m about 80% in and I still don’t get the point. Maybe I’m missing something.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967). 10% in. Very promising so far. Shades of McCarthy.

11:56 — logical fallacy / Stoic correction.

It seems obvious to me not to fall into this trap, but other people still go there.

When you’ve made an irreversible decision there’s no point thinking about anymore. It’s done. The show’s over. It’s time to move on.

For example, if you’ve sold shares at a certain price, there’s no point going back the next day to see if the share price increased or decreased. Deep down you want to check if you sold at the right time. If the stock went up, then you could have made more money had you sold a day later. This will sadden you. If the stock went down, you would have exited at the right time. You will feel happy because your decision id vindicated.

But this is a logical flaw. You are putting your emotions/mental calmness through unnecessary stress. You sold the stock, you took the view that it was the right time to get out. What it does after that should have no impact on you because you can’t reverse that decision. You can only control what you can control, so why allow this (arbitrary) thing to make you sad or happy.

Another example - say you’ve been looking for a new apartment for a while. You finally found the right apartment at the right price in the best neighbourhood close to all the amenities (restaurants, gyms, parks etc.). You lock in a 12-month contract. You’re in. You’re going to live there.

Now you go on the property finder website the next day to check if you made the right decision. Maybe there’s a new spot at a cheaper price that pops up - oh no. Or there are still only more expensive/smaller apartments left - you are vindicated.

Not realizing that you can never step into these parallel realities. You have locked into this decision - you are in this universe where you have a 12-month lease. Whether there are other better/worse properties out there has no bearing on where you will live. It can only affect your mood/happiness. Is this something you want to gamble with? Like putting a dime in the slot machine? Isn’t it better to focus on more important things? Like meaningful work or getting the movers to pick up your stuff.

Maybe this speaks to a larger thing about commitment issues. Like dating apps always offering you a plethora of better-looking partners. Difficult to commit to the current “lease” if there are better options out there.

I just think more people can benefit from Stoic values to sidestep these traps.

25 July 2024

12:07 — new app.

I like the following system.

RH column: list all my to-dos. Some of them are fixed i.e. they need to happen at a specific time e.g. meetings. Others are variable. They can be slotted in among the fixed items e.g. going for a run. Number them from 1-10 max (I did 13 here - naughty). Important: assign an ‘expected time to complete’ to each item.

LH column: next split the day into timeslots. First assign the fixed items to the times when they will take place e.g. meeting from 14:00-14:30. Next plug the gaps with the variable items according to their expected time to complete. Outdoor spots might be better in the morning or evening if it’s too hot during the day. Work items might fit in well in the middle of the day between meetings.

Feels like a good system.

Benefits:

Each to-do has an expected duration. So it’s not just a random note without context. With an assigned time it’s easier to plan when to do the task.
There are a maximum of 10 to-dos. 10 items per day is a good goal. Oliver Burkeman’s slow productivity philosophy - we’re not superheroes.
You can see when you’re overreaching. I like to write down all my to do’s on a sheet of paper with the false hope that I can do them all if the conditions were perfect and I had superhuman focusing strength. But with this method, when your pigeon holes are full, your pigeon holes are full. You’ve hit your limit.
This encourages prioritization. Not everything can be important. Some things are more important than others. You need to be discerning.

Wonder if I can build this.

Similar to the Logs app idea.

12 July 2024

Wes - empathy and compartmentalize

Wes - engagement. fighting for it.

XXXXXXXX

11 July 2024

11:04 — cool reframe on doing hard things.

Don’t be put off when you’re doing something difficult (e.g. training for a marathon) or building something that’s first of its kind (launching a new product).

It’s supposed to be difficult.

Embrace that. Don’t expect things to be easy.

Advantages of this reframe:

You approach things with more excitement. Challenges are fun.
You don’t quit so easily. It’s supposed to be hard, so when hit a speedbump you’ll work through it. If you expect it to be easy, you’ll toss in the towel when it gets tough.

11:01 — how to salvage a meeting when you’re caught off guard.

A company I’m consulting for had a meeting with one of their partners (or counterparties) earlier this week. I was leading the call from my client’s side — representing their interests in a difficult negotiation about the product they’d like to launch as part of the partnership.

They want to make it more attractive to customers; the counterparty wants to take on less risk.

Ok, so the scene is set. We’ve stated our wishes, the counterparty had time to review them but didn’t send any feedback before the meeting.

As soon as the meeting started, they came out firing, requesting a lof of changes to the initial proposal.

This caught me off guard.

I tried to handle things as best I could, but I wasn’t 100% happy with my performance or the support received from the team. We came across as divided and we didn’t back ourselves, we just took the counterparty’s lead.

I wonder how I can handle things better in future? Options:

Delay. Offer to take their points under review and come back with an answer after we’ve discussed internally. This isn’t ideal, but it helps to buy some time.
Think faster on your feet. This would be ideal. Handle all the info quickly.

07 July 2024

11:37 — slow Sunday.

“I’m big on analogies. In fact, here’s an analogy about why I like analogies: If you’re trying to explain fire to someone who’s never seen it or felt it, then you’re pretty much stuck with comparing it to things they’re already familiar with. Of course, it’s no substitute for the direct experience of fire; it’s just the best you can do under the circumstances. It serves the additional purpose that when they come across real fire, they’ll know what they’re looking at.” — Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment

04 July 2024

09:33 — Sometimes see it in people that they think the world owes them something.

They’re smart, got good grades, did all the right things, studied the right degree, but somehow are left unfulfilled.

They can’t be happy for others. They don’t understand how other people can be doing better than them when other people didn’t follow the path that was clearly stipulated.

But the path they followed wasn’t for them, it was just a guideline. They got into a role they’re not passionate about and hence don’t perform well at. ‘Less smart’ people are better because they find the work fun and interesting. How could this nightmare be happening?

I know, because I was like that.

Maybe I still am.

I think there can only be freedom from finding your own path. Not comparing yourself to others.

09:30 — I like it when people have a go at expressing how they feel about things.

A former colleague of mine wrote a post on LinkedIn the other day expressing his discomfort with studying to become an actuary and how he never felt like it was a good fit for his talents and inner nature.

He realized that he was cut out for something else, while also acknowledging that his studies shaped him into the person he is today.

It’s cool to reframe your journey like that. Everything up to this point made you who you are. Don’t write it off, even if you didn’t enjoy most/part of it. Maybe you picked up skills, discipline and other intangibles while you were not on the perfect path.

09:27 — on doing the work for the work itself and not for the results.

“Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.” — Thomas Merton

Reminded me of this passage by the Bhagavad Gita:

“Work hard in the world, Arjuna.
You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only.
You have no right to the fruits of work.
Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working.
Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender.
Seek refuge in the knowledge of Brahma.
They who work selfishly for results are miserable.”

02 July 2024

17:31 — book review.

I just finished Sam Harris’s 2011 book — Lying.

Definitely one of the books that has challenged my standard operating procedure the most in recent history.

Spiritual Enlightenment by Jed McKenna was also an internal-narrative-challenging book, but in a different way. That challenged my closely-held beliefs and my grip on the world. It was like unclenching my brain, relaxing my constant search for control and meaning, where in fact, there is none to start with.

This book was more of a moral correction, something that centred me and unmuddied the waters. Like adding chlorine to a pool.

His argument is simple - there is very little point in lying. Even white lies carry no benefit.

Now obviously most people know this and practice this. honesty is the best policy. But in certain circumstances, people (I for one), employ deception to get what we want or not hurt people’s feelings.

In his view, the truth, while uncomfortable sometimes, leads to the best outcomes eventually.

By lying, you are either giving people false hope (I did this a lot back when I was dating). Or you’re giving them false confidence (“sure, you’re a great singer”). Or you’re trying to comfort a sick relative (“you’ll be better in no time”).

Even though these lies might provide momentary comfort, you are taking quite a patronizing view. You are deciding for them that they can’t handle the truth. You are stealing the opportunity for them to get critical feedback and improve.

Why would you do this to the people love and care for?

So what now?

I’d like to be more honest and forthright going forward. I usually strive for honesty because it requires less effort (don’t have to remember your web of lies). But I do sometimes tell white lies or deflect certain tough questions. But my white might be someone else’s black.

Even if this involves more conflict and uncomfortable talks. I agree with Harris’s sentiment. There seem to be edge cases (cheating and then stopping, being in an intolerant society, surprises), which I don’t like.

01 July 2024

18:02 — reflecting on the 75 Soft Challenge.

My fiancé and I started a fitness challenge in May.

It was based on the 75 Hard Challenge, with a few tweaks.

Instead of doing the full challenge which requires 2 x 45min exercise sessions per day, no alcohol, a strict diet, drinking 3.7L of water, taking a progress photo and reading 10 pages per day, the toned-down challenge requires 1 x 45min exercise per day, no alcohol except on social occasions, and the rest of the challenge stays the same.

It was quite fun and motivating initially. My partner and I ate clean and we reduced our alcohol intake while increasing water consumption. The reading and selfie parts were easy. Things were going well for the first month.

Eventually, I could feel that my performance on runs and in the gym was getting progressively worse. I was never fully recovered. I couldn’t get my pace up, I couldn’t increase the weights in the gym. My body needed rest.

The final straw came last week when I got a vaccination against tick-bite fever. The doctor warned me that I’d have some side effects and shouldn’t exercise. Luckily I had already gone to the gym earlier that day so my next training was only the next day.

24 hours later I set out for a full track session and completely crashed and burned. After three 667m intervals at goal pace (3:30min/km), I could hardly hit 5min pace on the next lap. Something was wrong. I decided to step out and join the coach on the sidelines. It was the first time I quit in the middle of training.

38 days into the challenge my body was telling me to take a break.

I tried to gym the next day and it was also a sufferfest (way too much sweat and fatigue for a relatively easy session).

I decided to take the rest of the week off. 4 days doing nothing. Giving up my streak.

I’m fully recovered and back to normal performance again.

I guess the moral of the story is:

Listen to your doctor. They know what they’re talking about. Rest after vaccinations.
Take fitness challenges with a grain of salt. I was trying to protect my training streak at all costs without listening to my body (which I always used to guide me previously). I consciously ignored the signals of fatigue and tiredness and pushed through the training every day, overriding my inner instincts in favour of some arbitrary challenge.

Thoughts on the challenge:

It’s a fun way to exercise and eat clean together.
I’m not sure exercising every day (even when sick) is healthy. There’s room for rest and active recovery. If you already have a decent fitness routine and you know your body, I don’t know if you need a challenge. If you’d like to make drastic changes, this could help to instill some of those lasting good habits.

Verdict: 5/10. I can neither encourage nor discourage you from doing the 75 Hard/Soft Challenge. Do it for the right reasons (to build a habit), but listen to your body first and foremost.

17:57 — why it’s important to actually get shit done. To free up space in your mind.

“A task left undone remains undone in two places—at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience.” — David Allen, Getting Things Done

17:55 — one of my all-time favourite quotes.

“Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur's indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.” Steven Pressfield, Do the Work

17:51 — the school of life.

““Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.” Good times teach only bad lessons: that investing is easy, that you know its secrets, and that you needn’t worry about risk. The most valuable lessons are learned in tough times.” — Howard Marks, The Most Important Thing

17:49 — Kundera on how living as an expat in a foreign country feels.

“Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood.” — Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

17:38 — new quarter.

That’s 9 months of logging — Q4 2023, Q1 2024 and Q2 2024.

I might have found something sustainable. A lifelong practice? Let’s see. I like how the logs help me write plenty of messy first drafts on all topics, which I can then clean up and curate for the newsletters I publish.

Log history

Q2 2024

Q1 2024

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