7 weird hobbies that changed my life

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3 Thoughts

I.

An underrated measure of someone's intelligence is their ability to learn from people they disagree with.

II.

Maybe you’re not afraid of failure. Maybe you’re afraid of what you can achieve if you truly put your heart and soul into it.

III.

Extreme results come from extreme preparation.

Years of reading hard books shows in your conversations. Years of a strict diet shows in your energy. Years of consistency shows in your confidence. Years of focus shows in your results.

You can’t wish for a grand outcome and not expect to make grand sacrifices.

The price of the first is the second.

2 Quotes

I.

David Senra on constant learning:

“The reason I say that Jordan’s biography changed my life is this idea of practice. How many people want to get to the NBA? A ton, millions. How many get there? 400 maybe. How many people get to the Dream Team in Barcelona in ‘92 which might be the greatest basketball team of all time? 15 people. A subset of a subset of a subset. Michael’s tired. He’d been playing nonstop, back-to-back. He’s like, “Man, I really want to take some time off. I don’t want to spend my summer for the Olympics, but I’m going to go.” He goes, “I want to see their practice habits. We’re all the best of the best, what am I doing that’s different than what they’re doing?” What happened was he watched the way they practiced compared to the way he practiced. The main theme of Jordan's book, I believe, is “I believe in practice. I would rather miss a game than miss practice.” That's insane. He said something that gives me chills to this day. He goes, "I watched their practice habits. And he goes, "They're deceiving themselves about what the game requires."

Source

II.

Patrick Collison’s advice to his younger self

Go deep on things. Become an expert. Aim to read a lot. To the extent that you enjoy working hard, do. Subject to that constraint, it's not clear that the returns to effort ever diminish substantially. If you're lucky enough to enjoy it a lot, be grateful and take full advantage.

Make friends over the internet with people who are great at the things you are interested in. The internet is one of the greatest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it.

Make things. Operating in a space with a lot of uncertainty is a very different experience to learning something.

Find vivid examples of success in the domains you care about. If you want to become a great scientist, try to find ways to spend time with good (or ideally great) scientists in person. Watch YouTube videos of interviews. Follow some on Twitter.

People who did great things often did so at a very surprisingly young ages. (They were gray-haired when they became famous, not when they did the work). So hurry up, you can do great things.

Source

1 Game-Changing Idea

7 Weird hobbies that have changed my life:

#1: Collecting questions

Since I was 16, I’ve been collecting questions in my mega questions database.

Anytime I come across an interesting question that makes me think… I save it like a chipmunk storing acorns for the winter.

Anywho. One of my favorite ways to engage with these questions is to open up my database before bed, pick one with my eyes closed, then reflect on it right before I go to sleep.

#2: Collecting sentences

Speaking of collecting things, I’ve also been collecting “sexy sentences”. The reason is because as a writer, you want to be building a tool belt of techniques to make your points stick.

Here are a few sentences I’ve saved:

• His eyes are closed, and there is a smile playing on his lips.

• Not bad, eh? But listen to what happened next!

• If there were an Olympics of storytelling, my recent guest Matthew Dicks would have more medals than he could fit around his neck.

• The tallest trees have the deepest roots. The same’s true for the most successful businesses.

• I value your opinion as much as I value a white crayon.

• It feels like I was living in black and white and then I started living in color.

Anything that stops me in my tracks - I save it :D

#3: Cold DMing people and complimenting them

This is a habit I picked up when I first got on social media.

I had no following. No business. And no reason for people to respond to me.

So instead of sending the typical “can I pick your brain?” or “would love to connect synergies” that the LinkedIn gurus tell you to send - I sent compliments.

Aside from it being a great way to spread positivity, its also helped me land some pretty amazing opportunities at a young age.

#4: Reading biographies of dead people

Yep. You read that correctly.

I have one-side conversations with dead people.

But before you judge me, here’s why:

One of the best ways to get what you want is to learn from those who have been on the journey you’re on. And I don’t know about you, but if I can skip a few of the mistakes they’ve made I’d call that a win.

As Otto von Bismark said, “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”

A few of my favorite biographies:

• Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant

• Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder

• Steve Jobs

#5: Tweeting every single day

Contrary to what most people think, X (formerly known as Twitter) isn’t just about sports, politics, and news.

In fact, Twitter is one of the best ways to improve your writing. Why? Because each post is limited to under 280 characters. It’s a forcing function to be concise and clear.

If you want to start, I like to recommend the 3Cs:

• Consume - get on Twitter, follow people who write about your interests, and scroll for 30 minutes a day.

• Collect - any time a tweet captures your attention, save it to a folder for later, then at the end of every week analyze the patterns in the tweets that stood out to you.

• Create - now experiment with articulating your ideas with the proven tweet formats that captured your attention.

#6: Following internet rabbit holes

If you want to think different thoughts, you must consume different pieces of content.

The most insightful pieces aren’t fed to you on your home feed, they’re found through following your curiosity down different internet rabbit holes.

You find a tweet → See a comment under that tweet → It links to a newsletter → You subscribe → It sends you an article recommendation → Which links to another article → Which links to a podcast that changes your life

Pretty cool, right?

#7: Keeping a Lindy library

They say that “No one ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same person.”

Well I think the same applies to books and content.

A Lindy Library is a collection of the BEST things you’ve consumed more than twice and consistently find yourself revisiting.

I try to revisit My Lindy Library at least once a month (although I often fail haha).

And there you have it. 7 weird hobbies that have changed my life.

What’s a weird hobby that’s changed your life? Reply to this email :)

Until next week,
Jay “Be A Weirdo” Yang

Ps. True LOL

Kind words for ‘You Can Just Do Things’

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Pps. In case you missed it, I released some YCJDT merch.

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