Everyone's making money. It's so boring, where are the losers?
I'll go first. I'm having a blast by sharing content on Twitter. More losses than wins.
But every small win is very satisfying. My goal isn't to build a $1M ARR business. It is to have fun by taking on small challenges like 0 to 100 followers in 30 days.
This is currently my pinned tweet and I'm tracking that in public. We should encourage more people to take on small challenges rather than aiming for those high-end goals.
It's much more fun and engaging.
Share your current challenge and let me be a part of your journey. Here's mine
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I've had a couple "big wins." But the thing about it is that every big win is in fact made out of a hundred small wins. Those small wins, in turn, are made out of still smaller wins. It's just that, to a mass audience, "big" is sexier than "small."
In any case, most of my challenges are input focused — and usually designed around creating new habits that I can control. My latest challenge is to read 1–2 new books per week. So far so good! Completed these five over the last three weeks:
What'd you think of Behave?
Loved it. Top five all-time science book for me.
I'm going to go back and really deeply analyze it soon.
Haha that's interesting. I felt like I had a hard time coming away with clear conclusions beyond 'all outcomes are the result of multiple factors'. Of course, that might have more to do with a malfunction in my executive functions than with any flaw in the book. What stuck out to you?
To me, Behave is a cross-disciplinary tour of all the different levers of influence that operate on me as an individual. Which empowers me to systematically reverse engineer these influences and make them work more in my favor.
For example, the beginning of the book is all about factors that influence me on an immediate time horizon. Neurotransmitters and the like. (Plus there's an entire "Neuroscience 101" appendix at the back of the book for dummies like me!) This sent me down a fun rabbit hole learning about dopamine and serotonin and a ton of other actionable factors that I'm actually drafting an article about as we speak. "Actionable" because — to take just the example of those two chemicals — I can control my dopamine levels. And I can control my serotonin levels.
As the book advances, Sapolksy zooms further out in time, dealing with hormones [1], childhood factors [2], culture [3], etc. I really put a playbook for positive psychology together based on that book, and I also discovered and bought 10–15 other great books as a result of it.
[1] Useful for appreciating slow-acting yet potent modulators of our moods, like sleeping habits and testosterone management. He also spends a lot of time discussing stress hormones (e.g. "glucocorticoids"), which ultimately prompted me to dive into an older book of his that's devoted entirely to how stress works.
[2] Useful for appreciating ways you can avoid fucking other people up, and for having empathy for other people who might have been traumatized with abuse.
[3] Useful for understanding how to navigate status games without falling prey to really predictable temptations that will undermine your happiness.
Thanks for the extensive reply. I agree with all of your points.
I just went back and leafed through the book... It's staggering how little I remember. Do you have a good memory for what you read? Or do you take extensive notes?
You can control your dopamine levels or you can influence your dopamine levels? Tell me more? We can also move this conversation offline if you want. I've been meaning to give you a call. 😂
Yeah let's take it offline. But some quick answers:
Very good memory for cognitive science, since I'm very interested in it. But yeah I also take notes.
Influence.
That's very true. Input focussed work never disappoints. If I focus too much on the outcome, most like I won't get it. Rather focussing on the process has changed my life.
rather than
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Your latest challenge is something I might steal from you 😉 Those are great recommendations (especially the last one for me)
Thanks for your reply
When it comes to the input vs outcome debate, I've actually found a hybrid approach works best for me. Here's what that looks like:
This way, you strike a pretty good balance between not putting too much pressure on yourself while still being sure to challenge yourself and make measurable progress towards your goals.
Amazing! We need that balance.
Thanks
Still trying to find interested people in exploo.com. So I know what you mean :)
That's a good-looking landing page. Focus on getting this in front of the right people and they'll convert.
Hi 👋🏼,
Thanks. Really appreciate it. 🙏🏼
I thinks that’s the challenge I have at the moment. Do you have any advice on how to find the right people?