Some part of you thinks the work will be better if you suffer.
But the work suffers when you suffer. You can’t compete with someone who’s having fun.
So lean into it.
1. Find the local optimum
I learned the simplex method from Jim Collins. I’ll spare you the heavy math proof, because I’m not sure I understand it.
When solving problems with many inputs, if you just focus on and improve one input at a time to the best of your ability, you will move towards the optimal endpoint. It’s not a handy dandy idea that is useful but untrue, it’s useful and it’s true.
The math, maths. Kaizen has a scientific foundation.
Put another way: making sales calls, writing a Substack publication, improving ROAS, having difficult conversations, all of these activities have like 50+ levers you can pull to affect the outcome.
The simplex method tells you to choose one lever and improve it. Then choose another.
2. Connecting the dots in reverse, making space for serendipity and passion, and listening to your gut.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” - Steve Jobs. Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005.
Polite reminder: You actually have no idea what your future holds. And so often we override our intuition, make predictable repeatable decisions, and shy away from any form of risk. But in a universe governed by power law distributions, not taking any risks might be the riskiest decision of all.
Leave a little space for the weird coincidences to occur.
I think that’s the real magic in having curiosity, courage, and candor.
You might have the urge to do something you can’t explain other than a spark of intuitive action. The most beautiful things in my life were never planned. If I think about all the events that needed to fall into place just so I could meet my fiancée are unfathomable. There aren’t enough numbers to calculate the probability of her falling in love with me. Pure miracle!
Some day in the future it will all make sense.
The parts of my life that don’t make sense are gestational. Lady Fortuna, Divine Intervention, The Chaos of Consciousness, something or someone, is waiting behind the veil of reality for me to take the courageous and curious path.
So allow the possibility for miracles to find you.
Writing this Substack is a connecting-the-dots-in-reverse activity. I write because I am compelled to write. I was nudged to make writing a daily practice by a dear friend. And I believe something good could come from it. What exactly? That’s the miracle part. My job is to give life to it by giving life to it.
3. Nobody can compete with the person having fun. More grit and more likely to take risks.
So far, it might sound like I’m just telling you to 1) focus on the process, and 2) wing it.
The internet is filled with creators living through their framework era. Everything’s already been figured out for you, follow this step by step, plug and play, instruction book. The frameworks are one tool. But if you’re too busy running the play you might miss the signs you’ve made the rules of the game into something you don’t want to play.
Focusing on fun doesn’t mean you have to fly by the seat of your pants. My self appointed mentors are accomplished professionals playing success, driven by the dual desire of self-improvement and productive insight.
The person having fun transcends and includes playing the winnable games, installing playbooks and frameworks where it makes sense to. They’re not playing finite games as the end point, but as a series of means to the end of playing the best infinite game imaginable.
And I think this is what Joe is really speaking to about procrastination.
What you do can feel dramatically different depending on how you do it. And how you do it depends on the size of your puzzle-solving and creativity muscle.
You can’t compete with the person having fun because when the work gets tough, they find ways to put a new spin on old tactics, and keep playing.
Keep playing.