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- What a monk can teach you about moving on
Still playing around with different formats for the newsletter. Let me know what you think!
3 Thoughts
I.
Obsession will take you to places where discipline can’t.
II.
Sometimes happiness looks like going to the gym, staying home, minding your own business, telling people no, and doing you.
III.
How will I feel about this decision 5 minutes, 5 months, 5 years from now?
2 Quotes
I.
"What would make your game most unstoppable or hard to deal with? And now you work backward from there, and you start building in one piece at a time, one move at a time, one counter at a time." — Kobe Bryant
—
II.
“A rose does not answer its enemies with words, but with beauty.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
1 Game-Changing Idea
There’s a parable I came across this week that’s stuck in my head…
Two monks walked in silence, their sandals pressing into the dirt path.
Hours into their journey, they reached a river, swollen from the rains. A woman stood at the edge, staring at the rushing water.
“Would you help me across?” she asked.
The younger monk tensed. Their order had strict rules against touching women.
Before he could say anything, the older monk stepped forward, lifted the woman onto his back, and carried her through the river. He set her down on the other side. She thanked him and walked away.
The two monks continued their journey.
A mile passed. Then another. The younger monk’s jaw was clenched. His steps were stiff.
Finally, he couldn’t hold it in.
“How could you do that?” he blurted. “We took vows not to touch women!”
The older monk didn’t break stride. “I put her down at the river,” he said. “Why are you still carrying her?”
—
We all do this. Not with people, but with moments.
We botch a presentation and replay it for months. We fumble a conversation and let it haunt us for years. We get rejected once and carry it like a wound that never heals.
But here’s the truth: The weight isn’t in what happened. It’s in your refusal to put it down.
A basketball player misses a shot. A second later, the game continues. The great ones don’t dwell. They don’t let one bad shot turn into two.
A founder gets rejected by investors. If they carry that into the next pitch, they’ll flinch. If they let it go, they’ll adjust and try again.
A writer gets torn apart in a critique. If they let it fester, they stop writing. If they move on, they get better.
The game is still going. The road is still ahead of you.
Miss a shot? Next play.
Mess up in a meeting? Next play.
Say something dumb? Next play.
Drop the weight. Keep moving.
Until next week,
Jay “Next Play” Yang
Ps. Llama Llama
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