What Reality Love Shows Can Teach Us
What Reality Love Shows Can Teach Us
Anthony Bourdain, Thinking in Time, and Married at First Sight
4 Recommendations
“That’s why I’m late,” it’s not going to work. You’re defined by the job you do, not by whatever hideous predilections you may have.
This article has some very interesting parallels of working in a kitchen, what they call the last true meritocracy, to being in the military. At the end of the day, performance is all that matters. Bourdain’s work and influence goes far beyond the kitchen.
Listen at your own risk. This conversation is highly philosophical and sure to inflict brain damage, questioning of your life, and severe headaches.
What you can expect is a conversation about first principles. Naval, a modern day philosopher of sorts, speaks with David Deutch, the author of The Beginning of Infinity, discussing knowledge creation, explanatory creativity, what addiction means, why AI is still far from sentience, and much more.
At least 75% of Naval’s conversations go over my head, but immersion into topics you don’t know about spurs growth. I read one chapter of The Beginning of Infinity six months ago and still feel like I’m processing what was said.
Justin Welsh might be the king of solopreneurship. A deep dive on what he’s built is coming someday, but this tweet’s simplicity is a great reminder of why anybody cares about what you have to say, whether you create content or not.
As of January 17 this year, vets in acute suicidal crisis can visit any VA or non VA health facility for free emergency health care. This is a big win for vets struggling with mental health post service that may not be completely covered.
1 Framework (on Time)
On this week’s episode of Not Investment Advice, the boys talked about the idea of knowing when to quit. Hustle culture and the traditional advice we were fed as kids is to NEVER GIVE UP. What, and more importantly when, is it worth giving up on something?
I have a bit of an addiction to come-up stories and listening to people who “make it” in life, whatever that means. Maybe it’s for inspiration, maybe its hopes that I’ll achieve similar, I’m not sure yet, but the thing each of these stories have in common is some form of the adage “doing what I was destined to do”. That sounds pretty good right? Of course you’re happy and successful if you’re doing that.
Maybe.
I propose that uncommon results are a combination of your skill and an acceptance of how long you’re willing to perform for.
Certainly there are those more apt at certain abilities. Those individuals merely start a few step functions ahead, but the universal truth that overcomes skill is time.
Although I’m far from considering myself an expert, I’ve had a few people approach for advice or input on starting a podcast. My advice would be the same before starting anything:
Are you willing to do it every single week for 2-3 years without any form of monetary or social reward?
I came across a couple of examples unique individuals that coupled their strengths with an extreme dose of patience and willingness to suffer for a long time.
First example - Chris Williamson, host of the Modern Wisdom podcast, shared this photo of his recent podcast downloads. Truly somewhat of an exponential chart, taking him over 2 years to get to 50,000 downloads and then 3 months to double that and so on so forth.
Another great example, an individual we all know, Warren Buffett. While the success of Buffett goes far beyond his personal net worth, especially given his charity and lack of pursuit of world domination (cough Elon Musk), this chart exemplifies the true power of compounding both in skill and wealth. It’s odd to consider that one of the wealthiest people in the world accumulated over 96% of their current net worth after the age of 59.
While important to consider your unique skills, what is more important is what you’re willing to do for long enough to be good at.
Miss this week’s episode? I spoke with Martha Macphee about the world of protocol, the groups of people who ensure top military leaders interactions with leaders from other nations go smoothly. Everything from knowing who you can’t present a knife to because its offensive to knowing how to shake hands and what to eat.
Martha talks about working at President Trump’s inauguration, shares advice on hosting the perfect event, and hosting Rob Riggle at the Military Influencer Conference last year.
1 Personal
At some point in the last two years, I’ve gotten sucked into the world of reality love shows, specifically ones where there’s a twist of unknown baked into relationship sequence. One of these is ‘Married at First Sight’, a show where a pastor and relationship counselor “match” two people who don’t know each other and get married without ever having met each other. It’s honestly the most “so ugly you can’t look away” type shows I’ve ever seen and a complete riot to watch.
While there are MANY takeaways from this show, some good some less so, there was a particular quote that stuck out from the pastor in an episode I watched this week.
He said:
At it’s essence, love is a principle. It’s not a feeling. Love is an intellectual decision we make to fulfill another person’s legitimate needs.
That’s a hard concept to get your arms around - he pitches it almost more as a system of belief or fact rather than something that can be changed. Coming back to the analog with time, it’s the willingness to accept a long term view. While romantic to feel and express an intangible emotion, I think to get to that next level of a relationship, you need to subscribe to this way of thinking.
Not sure that I have unique insights here and I’m not trying to turn this into a love column yet, but thought was an interesting perspective on what love is.
Have a great weekend.
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