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The One In The Driver’s Seat
At a friend’s house, the poet David Whyte was filled with the “demon of envy” when he saw his friend’s “little working paradise”—a space filled with bookshelves, lined with first editions, surrounding a desk perfectly positioned before a window overlooking a stunning mountain landscape.
“I gazed upon that meticulously put together and maintained study as a motorsport aficionado might gaze openmouthed upon a racing-green 1959 Jaguar XK 150 roadster,” Whyte writes.
“I wanted to turn the key and drive this study off into my literary future.”
As he imagined how such a space might enhance his creative output, Whyte snapped out it when recalled once sitting on a crowded train across from “a man crouched on the scruffy floor,” scribbling furiously on a notepad.
Nothing could break the man's focus—“not the accidental kick of his pad by passengers getting on or off at the stops, not his falling back onto his bottom when the train halted in the tunnel. He simply picked up his pen again in whatever position he now found himself in and carried on writing energetically.”
As he stood there in his friend’s little working paradise thinking about that man who didn’t need a little working paradise, Whyte realized, “If I look closely at what I need for work, the prized, internal possession of focus is much more important than the external environment that I might lust after in the abstract.” Like the way someone driving a Ford Focus might be happier than the person driving the Jaguar XK 150, Whyte writes, “It is the one in the driver’s seat, setting the destination and the attitude for the journey of work and vocation, who seems to make up our real possibilities for satisfaction over time.
The difficult truth is that our kingdom does not have to be very big at all in order for us to do good work: what is difficult is simply starting the work and carrying on with it day after day.”
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It’s a challenge to find meaning in our struggles, in the bad things that have happened to us.
- That nagging pain in your leg—thank you, it’s making me take things slow.
- That difficult client—thank you, it’s helping me develop better boundaries.
- That damage from the storm—thank you, the damage exposed a more serious problem I’m now solving.
- That mistake you made—thank you, for reminding me to be more careful and teaching me a lesson.
This is what Epictetus meant when he said every situation has two handles.
We can grab onto resentment—or gratitude. We can focus on obstacles—or look closer and see opportunities.
Gratitude shifts our perspective and transforms even the harshest realities into tools for growth.
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Avoiding Survivorship Bias
Abraham Wald had identified a cognitive bias called Survivorship Bias:
The error resulting from systematically focusing on survivors (successes) and ignoring casualties (failures) that causes us to miss the true base rates of survival (the actual probability of success) and arrive at flawed conclusions.
We can see examples of Survivorship Bias all around us:
1. We read books on the common traits of successful people, but fail to consider all of the unsuccessful people who possessed those same traits.
2. We applaud the belief when we hear that an entrepreneur took out a second mortgage and succeeded, but fail to consider all of the entrepreneurs who did the same and went bankrupt.
3. We celebrate the "bet on yourself!" success stories but ignore the causalities of the same mantra.
4. We study the cultural strategies of the most successful companies, but fail to consider all of the companies that followed those same strategies and fell apart.
When we fail to consider the range of outcomes and the hidden evidence, we develop a skewed (and often incorrect) view of reality—particularly of the risks and the true rates of success.
To avoid the trap, when evaluating evidence and making a decision, consider all four quadrants of this simple 2x2 Possibility Grid:
- Q1: Completed Action & Won
- Q2: Completed Action & Lost
- Q3: Did Not Complete Action & Won
- Q4: Did Not Complete Action & Lost
Remember: What is unseen often has just as much value as what is seen.
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To anyone who’s struggling lately,
How are you?
I don’t know if someone already asked you this question. If someone did, what did you answer? Did you say the truth? Did you really mean the words you utter? Or just like what you always do, you pretended to be okay again. You hide your vulnerability by trying so hard to sound alright and too far from being not okay. You probably said, “I’m okay”, with much enthusiasm in your voice, as if you didn’t spend the past nights crying in bucket of tears, wondering why you’re still existing. Or what is your purpose here. I could see in your eyes the sadness you have been covering with your fake laughs and pretentious smiles. I could see how you just shrug off the burden in your heart, or the thoughts lurking around inside your head.
Despite you, not saying what you really feel, I know how hard you’re trying each day. I may not know the things you do just to stay still and stay being sane, yet I know the courage you always have to carry each day, believing how this life is still worth the fight. And another chance. I want to say I commend you, not because I want to sugarcoat your pains, but because I could see how brave you are. Choosing to exist is one brave thing to do. And so staying. I’m not here to make you feel I’m just showering you with toxic positivity, but rather I want to say I believe in you, in your highest and lowest points.
And please know that it’s okay to embrace yourself during your downfalls. It’s okay to recognize yourself when you feel like you’re amidst of falling again. It’s okay to say ‘I’m not okay’ and you shouldn’t apologize for it. You have someone here who’ll accept your vulnerability during your weakest days.
Keep on going, dear.
- Every Wilted Word
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When people are doing their utmost to upset you, it's probably best to just laugh at them.
― Wayne Gerard Trotman
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Sun Tzu on adapting:
“A military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.”
The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It's how well you synthesize.
Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition.
It's not enough to collect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.
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When it’s easy, do more.
When it’s hard, do different.
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Here are 13 truths I wish someone told me about your first 13 months in business:
1. You will make $0 for 9 months.
Maybe even 1 year.
Plan accordingly
2. You have no idea what you're doing.
You think you do, but you don't.
Confidence is the liquor of the fool.
Embrace being an idiot.
3. Nobody cares about your business.
Not your friends. Not your followers. Definitely not strangers.
Nobody even knows you exist.
4. "if you build it, they will come" is a myth
You can only learn this first hand.
Try to learn it in the first 10 days.
5. Everyone you admire spent years failing first.
Nobody gets it right on the first try.
6. You'll put in thousands of hours to make $10.
Your “hourly rate” looks delusional compared to your day job.
Startup dollars are worth 100x your hourly rate.
7. It's lonely af.
While all your friends party on weekends, you'll be stuck in your room…
Talking to yourself.
8. You’re not just a founder.
You’re customer support.
Complaint hotline.
Product manager.
And 100 more "hats.”
Generalists crush it as solopreneurs.
9. You will feel guilty doing ANYTHING besides building.
Gym? Nah.
Dinner? McD’s.
Friends? Who?
10. “No" is 10x more common than "yes."
Ghosts are even more common.
Tweets into the void.
Emails with no responses.
Learn to love it.
11. If your business doesn’t keep you up at night, quit.
You might not be cut out for this (sorry).
You’re better off with a 9-5.
12. You don’t need to be smart.
The most intelligent people I know are not business owners.
Conviction and determination will take you much further.
13. It's the craziest, scariest, most exciting thing you’ll ever do.
Better than drugs.
Better than hitting the lottery.
Better than sex.
If you made it this far, congrats—you’re one of the crazy ones :)
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A question to ask yourself:
What seeds are you planting today for next month? Next year?
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"Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along." - George Herbert
If you wait to feel prepared, you'll never start.
Don't wait, act.
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From: The Velocity of being Letters to a young Reader
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My father does not care.
In the same way my wife’s eyes glaze over on NFL Game Day
He does not care
Like talking stocks with six-year-olds
It’s not that they don’t want to listen,
It’s that they don’t care.
Like a butcher at a vegan farmer’s market,
A sober man at an Irish bar,
Like me at your escape room birthday party.
He does not care.
I called my dad when I got my first record deal,
Full of excitement, emotions, feelings.
I said, “Dad, I made it—and the check is pretty big.”
I said, “Dad, you’re gonna have a successful kid.”
I said, “I’ll buy a house,
And one for you, too,
With a gate and the clickers and big open rooms.”
I said, “Dad, don’t you worry,
This is just the beginning,
The tables are tipping,
We’re finally winning.”
He responded like
My 85-year-old grandma, completely unamused
With an iPhone in her hand, like
What does this even do?
Like an American at a cricket match—confused.
He said, “Son, that’s fantastic,
I’m so happy for you.”
You see, my father does not care about anything but my heart.
He knows that wealth and worth have always been super far apart.
And when I showed him my BMW with the new push start,
He faked enthusiasm terribly, like, “Yeah, great car.”
My father’s eyes light up when I talk about my soul.
He wants details of every kid I sang to at the hospital.
We can talk for hours about anything I’ve done for the homeless,
And when my prayer game is strong and I am centered, he notices.
The thing about sons? We just wanna make our dads proud.
We know the songs they like and sing those extra loud.
And I’m pretty clear about how to get my father’s attention now:
Be of service to myself or to others—that’s how.
Someday, I might be massive with my face in Times Square.
Fly only private, lie flat through the air.
Someday, I might become a bajillionaire.
The best part is—
My father does not care.
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