Codex: An ancient manuscript text in book form.
Audentia: Latin for “audacity”.
This is my codex — a working notebook with my notes, experiments, and rambles in their full glory. It is raw, unpolished and unfiltered.
This is not a blog.
The true quality of our life is measured by the amount of courage we put into our decisions.
I wonder if athletes who win Olympic Gold medals feel surprised about it.
“A Gold medal would be nice, I’ll try my best — but even if I get Bronze, it’s not a bad deal.” Can you win Gold with this mindset?
From what I’ve been told, most people who go on to accomplish anything in their lives, do so because they EXPECTED to. They envisioned it, prepared for it, and took the actions necessary to execute it.
Champions aren’t surprised when they win — they’re shocked when they don’t.
How do people develop this level of certainty with their goals?
Is there a process to it, an art, or a science to it?
That is the question I’ve been pondering on. Is it affirmations or visualization, is it planning, or is it simply taking action?
I feel like there must be a certain point when a person makes a decision that they are going to win the gold. They just unilaterally decide that the gold medal belongs to them. It’s theirs, not yours, not their competitor’s. And that they will do whatever it takes to claim it.
I’ve noticed that a lot of my “failures” so far (in business, and in life) have come from a “that would be nice” mindset.
And on the flip side, every accomplishment I’ve ever made came from a ruthless expectation of winning.
The question is: how do you cultivate this ruthless expectation with practical steps, such that it never wavers?
(Thanks to Dr. AnnMaria De Mars for igniting this idea in me.)
An (incomplete) meditation on my definition of success.
I’m not even very old — but I recently noticed that I’ve already gone through several definitions of “success” in my life, as I was finding my way in this world.
Here are a few things I’ve learned (and I’ll probably keep revising this list forever):
1. Once I accepted my mortality — I’m not “death proof” and the reaper could indeed show up any day (even tomorrow) unannounced — a lot of things I thought of as being successful, were no longer important to me.
2. One huge aspect of success for me now is physical health and movement. We’ve been given a unique human body, and it would be a pity to not explore its full potential (both functional and aesthetic) before we kick the dust.
“Working out” for me is now like a meditation — a practice of exploring my own body, really noticing how my muscles react to different stresses and demands.
I feel like I genuinely learn something new about my body every time I work out, which is awesome. I regret not having done this sooner, but better late than never.
3. Another aspect of success for me now is being able to “live as many lives as I can.” I’m not attached to a single identity or “career” for myself. I would love to keep reinventing myself every few years to experience the full breadth (or at least as much as possible) of the human experience. This category also includes traveling, reading lots of books and history, and meeting lots of people.
4. (Somewhat contradictory to #3) While I love exploring diverse projects and reinventing myself, another big part of success for me is endeavors that demand total obsession.
A big endeavor is an adventure in itself. it shapes your character and helps you further explore who you are as a person. There’s also something really fulfilling and energizing about that obsessed, hyper-focused, high-performance state of living.
As Kobe Bryant used to say to his trainer: life is a series of SPRINTS. I do think now that life is too short for marathons (metaphorically).
Anyway, that’s all for my musings for the day. :)
“Life without endeavor is like entering a jewel mine and coming out with empty hands.”
– (Allegedly) Japanese Proverb
I recently read The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai. The biggest lesson I took away from his book was this:
There’s a difference between “risk” and “uncertainty.”
Risk refers to what you might lose. You are always risking “something” in exchange for the possibility of getting something else. How much does it cost you just to play the game?
Uncertainty refers to the number of possible outcomes. Some are more probable than others.
What I find fascinating is that you can detach the two and see them as completely separate factors while making a decision.
You can have high risk, but low uncertainty. Or low risk, high uncertainty, etc.
Low risk means that even if you don’t win, you don’t lose that much. So if you DO win, you hit it out of the park.
An example of this is being able to buy a business at an extremely discounted price. With that low of an investment to get in the game, you have tremendous upside, even if there’s higher uncertainty.
The second key takeaway from Mohnish (as well as other legendary investors I know of) is that they put a lot more emphasis on keeping their “risk” as low as possible. They look for heavily discounted, troubled assets that they think they can turn around quickly and cheaply.
“You make your money on the buy.” – Manny Khoshbin, real estate tycoon
This advice somewhat flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Humans are drawn towards certainty – whatever seems “sure.”
I see this as a very interesting way to grow wealth and choose which projects to take on.
Choose projects where I can reduce my downside to as low as possible, so that all that remains is a stratospheric upside.
A big part of this is finding other people to help finance your cost of getting into the game. But there’s also another facet of cost: opportunity cost.
Cost is not simply about what you put in, but also where else that time, money, and effort could have gone. THIS is why Warren Buffet often uses the analogy of a bingo card – imagine you can only ever make 20 investments. You would be much more disciplined in how you choose them, right?
This also goes back to what I believe about mortality. You may have only a year left to live, or you may have 70. How do you decide how to spend each year you have left?
Basically, first and foremost, do what floats your boat. If a project doesn’t make you feel alive, it’s simply bringing you closer to death.
Second, I want to do things that can grow geometrically, not linearly. That’s how time becomes your friend. That means domino/network effects and virality.
I’ve traveled to a bunch of places — but interestingly, when I look back on them, I don’t remember all that much. I can’t recollect most of the “things” I saw – the beautiful nature, the wonderous creations of mankind – they’re all somewhat lost in my subconscious.
A great example of this is the Eiffel Tower. When I went to Paris, I was excited to see it. And then I saw it. Then the next day, I climbed up to the top. And then I kept seeing it from time to time as I traveled around the city. But the impression it had made on me at first sight was all I really needed. Afterward, it became boring. It might not have been there at all. When I think of my time in Paris, I don’t really think of the Tower.
I guess some things are meant to be experienced and appreciated for just a brief moment. After that, they dissolve. Ichi-go, ichi-e.
Yes they’re nice to look at, but traveling for “sights” is really overrated if you think about it. What I actually remember are the situations I was in, the people I met who left an imprint on me, and the moments I shared — and how they challenged and shaped me. You don’t cherish the places, but the faces. And the stories.
Or, as Proust said: the joy of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with fresh eyes.
Perhaps all we really seek is a journey to know more about ourselves. The self is an ever-evolving ocean, that we can continue to explore over a lifetime and still have much to see. Travel, friends, lovers, art – they’re all simply a medium, a catalyst, a tool for self-discovery and self-expression.
Here’s another thing I learned about travel, and this was written by a Frenchman I do not remember.
Travel teaches you to hope again. How? Because each day that you wake up and plan your next move, your next destination, your next experience – you are practicing having faith that things will be different tomorrow. Maybe hope and faith, like everything else, are also matters of practice. Hope is a muscle.
I recently had a business failure.
Long story short, here’s the bullet list of lessons learned. If you’re not me, and you’re reading this, just know that I wrote this for myself. It may or may not apply to you.
I never understood the concept of hiring people based on an arbitrary number of how many years they’ve existed in an industry.
Experience is wonderful, but it’s only helpful in very specific types of jobs:
1/ When you need someone who has PRACTICED (to achieve a certain level of skill): some things just have to be polished by deep intentional training and repetition. There’s no way around it.
2/ You need them to have a huge pre-existing NETWORK (which takes time to build): whether you build those connections one by one, or at scale through a large audience or community.
Both of these compound over time, and there are no shortcuts to building them. But the focus should still be on the QUALITY of experience, not the “number of years.” I believe the quality of experience (what they did during that time) can only be seen in examples of their work, so my hiring process was always more focused on online exercises and take-home assignments.
All other reasons for hiring for “experience” are frivolous.
In my controversial opinion, someone looking for a job that they have already done a thousand times is often (though not always) a sign that they’re stagnant and not learning anything new.
The best pros want to challenge, reinvent, and stretch themselves into uncomfortable territory. If it’s not a little scary, it’s boring.
But then, I might be biased.
I live a fairly austere lifestyle.
I don’t drink alcohol.
I don’t drink tea.
I don’t drink coffee.
I eat 99% vegan – almost never consuming meat, fish, chicken, dairy, or eggs.
I don’t eat much sugar.
I like music, but only in the background. I’m not a big fan, and I’m not an early adopter.
I don’t like buying new clothes.
And of course, I don’t smoke.
Never used weed or acid or any recreational drugs.
I don’t go to nightclubs or bars.
And I don’t watch porn.
A lot of people ask me, what do I do?
The truth is, I don’t feel like I’m supposed to consume certain things to increase enjoyment in my life. It’s just how I am.
It’s like I’m creating my own version of The Monk Life.
In recent months, I’ve been struggling with my mortality, as well as the fact that the universe is too big, vast, and ancient – and permanent – for me to make any significant impact.
I live on a tiny speck of dust, floating in an ocean of stars. All our history (and future) is limited to a few thousand years of this little wet particle. Whatever I can build or achieve during my lifetime, is temporary – it will only push this world a tiny bit.
The sad thing is that we are too small, insignificant, and doomed to perish right where we are, without ever being able to see or appreciate the beauty and vastness of this physical universe.
And on top of that, I could die at any time. I have no way to know whether it will be today, in just a few hours, or 70 years later when I’m 100 years old. Life and death are unpredictable.
To make matters even worse, I do not know what will happen when I’ll die or what lies “after” that event. It has nothing to do with whether I choose to believe in God or not – the fact remains that I don’t know. It could be blissful heaven or burning hell, or it could be the END, i.e. eternal darkness and unconsciousness – with all my memories and experiences forgotten and lost forever — or it could even be an afterlife here on Earth (or somewhere else?).
To summarize this gloomy picture,
Our “life” could practically be an illusion altogether, with us being AI characters in a simulation.
1. Life may be short, therefore – chase the fleeting experiences and simple pleasures. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Be playful, don’t take life too seriously, and welcome whatever lands in your plate. Share love and positive energy.
2. However, life may also be long, and afford us enough time to achieve great ends and be all we can be – MAXIMIZE and OUTDO ourselves, polish our craft, and think BIG. Push for societal and technological change.
On both points, we must actively seek risks and double our failure rate.
In summary:
Be playful. We “spawn” into this world as a game character. Have fun.
You might have plenty of time. Take your inner gifts, and polish your crafts. Strive to become a more perfect soul.
Whether you have little time or lots of time, think bigger. Even your wildest possible ambition is a safe, boring choice when placed within the eternity of time. Stop pontificating over trivial things, stop playing small.
Swing for the biggest home runs you could possibly imagine. Make the boldest proposals. Cold call the gods themselves.
Expand your comfort zone with practice. Each week, do at least one thing that could create “home run” progress. Train your identity to be bigger.
Fin.
