“What got you here, won’t get you there” is a phrase I think about a lot.
It’s the idea that what got you to where you are may not fit what gets you to the “next level,” whatever that may be.
There are a lot of things I did when I was younger that helped me achieve the success that I’ve enjoyed. One prime example is a lot of fun quirky side hustles. I did them because 1) I liked making extra cash 2) it satisfied an intellectual curiosity.
The challenge is that it’s also quite distracting. This was fine when I was single, working a 9-to-5 job (or when I was in college), and had relatively few responsibilities or constraints. It would no longer serve me to have a dozen side hustles – it would only take my attention away from the handful of things that are important.
This first post for today talks about this in a bit of an adjacent way. The post has quite a long build up but the pay off is important. The concept of enough, and how you change as a person (vs. moving goalposts but you remaining the “same”) is an important idea. The power of the post is that it continues beyond this idea and starts to explain why someone with massive amounts of wealth would risk it all (or more) just to get even more.
The Many Worlds of Enough [Lawrence Yeo] – “One thing I need to clarify here: this view is very different from the traditional idea of goalpost moving. Goalpost moving implies that once you hit a certain goal, you’ll shift it higher because of whatever new desires emerge. So when we advise people to leave the goalpost as is, we do so by reminding them to think back to the past, and how happy they would have been to be where you’re at now.”
OK this next one is kind of funny in a sad way if you’ve worked in a dysfunctional work environment – General Interference with Organizations and Production [OSS’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual, the OSS would become the CIA after World War 2] – “When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.”
This last one is so good!
Bros., Lecce: We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever [The Everywhereist] – “There is something to be said about a truly disastrous meal, a meal forever indelible in your memory because it’s so uniquely bad, it can only be deemed an achievement. The sort of meal where everyone involved was definitely trying to do something; it’s just not entirely clear what.” So much fun to read. And the photos! The citrus foam one is the one that got me. No thank you.
