I read this post by James Clear recently about motion vs. action, and I was compelled by this part. I felt myself physically react to it.

If motion doesn’t lead to results, why do we do it? Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. It doesn’t feel good to fail or to be judged publicly, so we tend to avoid situations where that might happen. And that’s the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure.

-James Clear

I have noticed this about myself recently. That I am so much more present when I am blissfully unaware of what’s happening online or somewhere else in the world. On the surface, it seems as if you’re only spending 2 minutes on Twitter, but if there’s something big that happened, the reality is that you’re probably thinking about it for the next 2 hours. I’d rather just not know and let my attention be present where it is.

Guard your attention as a precious resource.

Prioritize tasks, set boundaries, and allocate specific times for work and leisure.

Protecting your attention ensures that the time you have remains valuable.

— Fedon | Self-Coaching (@myselfcoaching1) January 17, 2024

This quote by Oliver Burkeman (via Blake Burge) is quite a dagger.

The more firmly you believe it ought to be possible to find time for everything, the less pressure you’ll feel to ask whether any given activity is the best use for a portion of your time.

This is quite true and also one of the reasons we get our lives twisted into total knots when it comes to pace and rhythm. It is, I believe, a worthy thing to push back against.

My takeaway from this great post on momentum was not the importance of momentum to your business but rather the importance of sustainability to momentum. Without sustainability, you can’t create momentum, and without momentum, you’re running straight uphill.

The way to get momentum is not to start out with massive action, or the exact direction you should go, but rather the smallest consistent action that’s sustainable for you to do every single day, and in the general direction that you want to go. This is how and why some people burn out: they take too much action, and they do it in a direction that they’re not sure is going to work. Pick a direction that’s large enough for you to play in, but not so large that you don’t know where you’re going.

–Jordan O’Connor

I have done a bad job of collecting recently. Quotes, thoughts, ideas, sentences, words. Hunting and gathering words both helps me learn and fuels my joy. This message board comment (!) I stumbled upon after Michigan’s title game win over Washington is the type of thing I love collecting. Even if it’s just to read it back to myself at some point in the future.

The older that I get, the more I realize it is harder to ‘feel’. Life sucks our passions right out of us. We learn that the joy of committing to something isn’t worth the pain of losing it. At 46, most of my passions seem to have melted into nothingness.

But Michigan football remains. I have to say it’s largely because of MGoBlog. Here it feels okay to care about something, even while we acknowledge that we are rooting for a team, a group of kids that change from year to year, something we have little control of. We acknowledge that we have passions and that it is indeed okay to care, to be human. 

MGoBlog

One of my favorite follows over the last year or so is a founder named Brent Beshore. We are in very different worlds, but he writes, shares and thinks with tremendous consideration, empathy and almost amusement that I am drawn to him, even from afar.

He recently published his firm’s annual letter where he talked about what deals they had invested in over the last year and what the future looked like. It was a more personal section about fear and love that I found to be the most compelling, though.

An under-appreciated offshoot of this mentality – of which I’m all too familiar – is to attempt heroics. Heroes act out of self-interest, not care for the other. They’re splashy and exciting, glory-seeking and unrelatable. Heroes crave praise, not justice, and ultimately control. Heroes take control from the object of their heroics, creating a victim and often more harm. The difference between heroics and meaningful help is a relationship. To truly help someone you have to really know them, including how they want to be helped.

And then every once in a while you come across someone operating from the other worldview — love. 

I can distinctly remember times in my life when I was shocked by someone’s love. It carries with it an aroma so strong it’s impossible to forget. It’s sacrificial and abundant, and unconcerned with the self. It wants the best for you no matter what you offer in return. It comes from a place of relationship, connectivity, and care.

–Brent Beshore

The type of person I want to be.

I’m stealing this from James Clear’s lightly read newsletter. It’s a great reminder when it comes to business.

Nobody does this. So few business try to thrill current customers. So many try to thrill new customers, which is expensive and tiring but also such an easy trap to fall into.

I enjoyed this, which was part of a much longer thread, by Patrick O’Shaughnessy.

There’s nothing like someone immersed in a field they love, no matter what the field.

I have found this to be true both in my own life and in observing the lives of others.

This mini-documentary on Nathan Barry and his journey at ConvertKit is worth all of your time, but this quote in particular stood out.

When you derive your self-worth from what you accomplish, if your ability to accomplish or create things ever goes away, you’ve actually built it all on a really shaky foundation.

Nathan Barry