I used to think that taking a break was a sign of laziness. That taking a weekend off was a sign that I wasn't serious. That going and spending time with family and friends meant I had to make up for that time by grinding harder afterwards.

I’ve since had two realizations:

1/ Rest, when taken strategically, can often be more productive than continuing to take mediocre action for the sake of consistency.

2/ It's easy to use productivity as a benchmark to determine whether you're living a good life. But remember, not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured.

The person obsessed with reaching the summit as fast as possible will climb faster than those around them - but they also tend to miss the view, the wildflowers, the conversations at camp… all the reasons climbing is worth it in the first place.

Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's worth doing.

You can cut your lawn with scissors, but that doesn't mean you are a morally superior person. Laziness, while often ridiculed, is sometimes wisdom about where to direct your energy.

In fact, most of the super successful people that I know are extremely lazy about most things, but passionately obsessed about the few things they care deeply about.

How you do anything is NOT how you do everything.

How are you measuring success?

A ruler can tell you the exact depth of water in a pot on the stove. But it tells you nothing about temperature… the thing that actually matters.

We do this in life all the time. We measure hours worked instead of impact created. Pounds lost instead of how we feel. Followers gained instead of relationships built.

Just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean it's worth measuring.

Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard on the power of stillness:

“For the thinking person there is no such thing as idleness... By contrast, one might say that the thinking person is at his most active when he is supposedly doing nothing. This is beyond the comprehension of genuinely idle people”

Psychologist Carl Jung on the unlived life:

"The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities.

The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do.

The lover who never risks loving mocks romance.

The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself.

And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live."

This past week I was in San Francisco visiting friends.

I had a lot of time to walk and read and reflect.

Here are a few thoughts:

1/

I went to lunch with someone I met through Twitter. They asked me why I do what I do.

I thought for a moment, then said:

“There’s a lot of different definitions of success. But to me, I believe real success is how many people thank you for theirs.

I’ve been incredibly blessed and fortunate to have solved the majority of my material needs at a pretty young age.

A large part is due to my upbringing and circumstances outside my control.

But I do think I’ve thought deeply and acted on some key ideas that have led to getting me to where I am to today, and I want to share that with others. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. The lens is more like ‘I’m experiencing life, and sharing what I learn as I go.’

And if I can get to the end of my life, and have shared a few useful ideas, inspired a few people, and had a fun time doing it… I’d consider that a success.”

2/

The greatest threat to your potential is the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most important things you could be working on.

I hung out at my friend’s startup office a lot this past week. They’re building a B2B SaaS tool. One of the engineers said I seemed smart and that I should start a startup.

I thanked him but said I was going to focus on writing my next book.

There’s a famous quote in the business world that goes, "More businesses die from indigestion than starvation". And I think the same applies for our personal lives.

We do TOO MUCH instead of too little. We say “yes” to every shiny opportunity. We chase what’s hot instead of what we know we should work on.

I had a mentor tell me once: “A novice is easily spotted because they do too much. Too many ingredients, too many movements, too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention.”

3/

I had dinner with another person I met through Twitter (shoutout twitter, the best “networking” platform out there).

We talked about many things, but eventually the conversation drifted to relationships. She had dated many of the well-known creators and founders in the tech scene yet things never really worked out with them. I asked her why.

She said, “What they said they wanted and what their actions showed didn’t match up.”

Many of them said they wanted a wife, kids, a family. But then they would grind harder on their businesses, ignore her, and never take actions to push the relationship forward.

I found that fascinating. For people so intelligent and competent in one domain, why didn’t it translate to the rest of their life?

“They never made it a priority to do the inner work,” she said. “They thought that self introspection and reflection was how you lose your edge.”

For a long time, I’ve thought the same thing. Why analyze my demons if they’re serving me? Why open Pandora’s box when life is so good for me right now?

But the further I’ve gotten in life, the more I’ve realized that the mindset that works for one chapter of your life won’t necessarily get you to the next one. As author Marshall Goldsmith once wrote, “What got you here won’t get you there.”

I’m not here to cast judgment. But I think a question to reflect on is:

What mindset do I have right now, and is it conducive for the goals I have in this season of my life? And more importantly, do I need to do a mental software update?

4/

Most advice is just other people playing different games with different time horizons projecting their fears and regrets onto you.

One of the coolest part about being public online is the people you get to meet. I had the chance to sit down and chat with software engineers and authors, public speakers and app developers, content creators and chief of staffs.

And while most of their advice to me was well intentioned, for the most part, it wasn’t really relevant to my life and goals.

But at the end of the day, if you listen to everyone’s advice… it all cancels out to zero. You have to decide for yourself what you want.

As the author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."

At the end of the day, you have to decide what is right FOR YOU.

5/

For the most part, I dislike people. I am introverted. I hate crowds. I am more comfortable being alone.

BUT…

Something I’ve learned about myself this past week…

I really enjoy learning about people. I’ve had so many incredible conversations and I love when I get to exercise my curiosity.

If I find someone boring, it's often a sign that I haven't asked the right questions, not that they’re actually uninteresting.

It reminds me of this quote from Brené Brown:

“People are hard to hate close up.”

By the way, here are my favorite questions of all time.

Until next week,

Author of You Can Just Do Things

Ps. Happy Sunday

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