August Meditations
Thoughts to ponder and act on this month
1.
Many people think they have a problem with risk-taking, but this is simply not true. What many people aren’t aware of is that they learned obedience before learning to take risks.
Parents, teachers, pastors, and the government taught them to be obedient, and now, they cannot do what others don’t approve of.
They think they are risk averse, but the software simply stopped updating after obedience was installed, and going beyond the confines of the parameters of obedience seems like irrational risk-taking.
2.
When someone upgrades to paid, I send a quick message thanking them for it; I express gratitude because they have chosen my work. Many usually respond with a message that thanks me for writing that is worth their money, and then encourage me to keep going.
Here, you see the nature of gratitude, which buries the transaction. Each emphasizes what they are grateful for, and we are all happy for the fruitful cooperation that we’ve been able to forge.
3.
I have a friend who often complains that she is forgetful, and she recently asked me what I thought or could advise. I told her that she has habits that can only further forgetfulness.
She cannot complete a task before drifting to ten other things; she doesn’t return something to where it belongs after using it (immediately, before she forgets).
There’s a reason why dirty plates shouldn’t be left on the table after eating. There’s a reason why we make the bed immediately after we wake up. There’s a reason you close a door after entering a room.
To some, these are just ordinary and routine things. However, to the observant and organized, there’s what they teach, inculcate, and institutionalize, because they train on order and completion.
I don’t think my friend is forgetful. She just has habits that make it impossible to complete anything. She is what she has been practicing.
Memory, too, needs training, and her routines aren’t teaching hers to remember.
4.
I generally am not a person who ever has regrets, but the few that I have, have to do with attributing seriousness to people who weren’t capable of it. These cost me the thing they cannot repay: time. Always know who should be dismissed early on because nothing worth your time can come from any further engagements with them.
5.
You don’t have to believe anyone’s conclusions, including mine.
The point in embracing first principles thinking is to start at the point of reality and then develop interpretations. There is nothing necessarily wrong with existing explanations and perspectives, but this is not to mean there cannot be other ways of viewing things.
We should practice unique thinking to arrive at the many other ways things can be viewed or seen. This is the way to solutions.
6.
In an organization, leaders rank above managers, and thinkers above operatives. There are many ways to operationalize an idea, but not all ideas are worth implementing. The job of leaders is to determine what’s worth doing, and this necessarily requires good decision-making and judgment.
There is a lot of talk about what AI will do and not do, but here’s what I can tell you: all people capable of making good decisions will never surrender this role to anyone. What is being missed is that we are entering a world where there are only two types of people: leaders, and everyone else.
Here, I’m talking about leadership in the broader sense, not just in the organizational setting—leading oneself; leadership within a household, group dynamics, etc.
7.
Someone doesn’t date you because he is single; a customer doesn’t buy from you just because she has the money. People only engage you when they think you’re worth it. Every problem is a value (perception) problem.
8.
The “go to school, graduate, find a job, get married, raise a family, retire” advice was good, and is still good, because it provided structure. This is good for people who cannot give themselves structure, people who cannot lead themselves. It isn’t, however, for those who can give themselves structure.
9.
Society is stratified. It is the height of incompetence not to know or ignore the hierarchy or food chain in place in the environment in which one operates. The ranks will not be explicitly stated; they might even be denied. This is where you must know when de facto is de jure.
10.
The future isn’t being made by those discussing it; it’s being created by those creating and building. If you aren’t making an impact, you are relegating yourself to living in a world made by others, one where you don’t get to determine what happens, is fair, or is appropriate.
11.
Writing online has taught me that everything is a volume game. You’re never so good at something that you won’t have to do it a lot more than you find necessary.
You love your partner, but you still have to say it. Your product is good, but you still have to promote it. You said something, but you still have to remind them about it.
Everything is a volume game, and no amount of quality can offset this. If it matters, be ready to do it many times, and communicate your doing it even more than you feel comfortable doing.
12.
This August, we look ahead. What’s happened has happened. What we wanted to have happened by now but hasn’t, hasn’t. The past, even the recent one, is now history; it cannot be changed.
A month is long enough for things to happen. Let’s sustain action. You never know; by the next edition of Meditations on September 1st, the most beautiful thing in your life could have happened.
Ahead. Forward. This is the attitude. It’ll always be the attitude, until the day the clock stops for us.
"Always know who should be dismissed early on because nothing worth your time can come from any further engagements with them." Amen. And volume, yes. It's important. Makes me wonder if life is just a numbers game?
#5 and #7 were the ones that stayed with me. I think too many of us accept conclusions without ever questioning the assumptions underneath them. First-principles thinking isn't just about finding better answers; it's about asking better questions.
And #7 is a reminder that outcomes usually follow perceived value. Whether it's readers, customers or opportunities, people engage because they see something worthwhile. That's a mindset worth carrying into every interaction. I look forward to these, my friend, as always.