"Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.” - Anais Nin
The world has an abundance of skills but an extreme scarcity of courage.
It blows my mind how many people believe they can't do something because they lack the skills to do it. It has to be the world's most acceptable excuse.
This reasoning essentially removes accountability and makes you complacent by over-focusing on the lack the skills, mentorship, tools or some kind of secret sauce.
You keep hoarding new courses and information but the goal post keeps shifting further.
If this was true, wouldn't the most skilled people in any industry be the wealthiest?
I'm sure you can think of a few people in your industry who are wildly successful despite not being the brightest.
Now logically your brain will tell you they just got lucky, but what you severely discount is their courage.
A great example are the TikTok creators & podcast bros.
They're universally hated for producing low quality content. But guess what they're still out there and have the courage to receive the hate, whereas the "skilled" guy has an unreleased video that he's still editing.
Almost every single creator who was once cringe in your country, is now doing more distribution than legacy media because as they eventually caught up & improved their content.
You can make up for quality on the way, but being less courageous will rob you of the right timing.
If this has energized you in any way, congrats you now understand what "having the dawg" in you means.
If this was a quantifiable metric was a leaderboard, I'm certain Travis Kalanick would top this list.
I first got exposed to this idea when I learned about the incredible story of Uber. How investors believed in them, how governments and unions were against them and yet somehow they were able to bend reality towards themselves. I'd highly recommend watching the show "Superpumped" to absorb this unfuckwithable energy within you.
For the rest of you, who want to apply this mindset, here are 3 ways you can imbibe this thinking. I'm sure there are more, but these feel timeless.
Seek Forgiveness Not Permission
If you're building anything disruptive, the chances are the world doesn't want to disrupted. Investors don't get your idea, your peers think you're insane. If you keep waiting for their permission; the answer is likely no.
If you wait for permission, your fate is in someone else’s hands.
If you act first, the world has to react to you.
You don't need that approval, certification, permission, recognition.
The only permission you need is your own. If you don't think you deserve the big audacious thing, nobody else will. You can just do things.
What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?
There are 99 reasons why it shouldn't work. If you start from limitations, you're already setting yourself up for failure. That's why you always begin with possibilities and work your way backwards.
I want you to write a dream and here are the terms:
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what would you do if you knew 100% you couldn't fail
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assume you have infinite money + resources
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don't write about the how or any specifics, just dream.
Ship in Prod
Anything worth knowing, happens in the arena.
When you were a kid, you made all your decisions in real time, following your natural curiosity.
Until one day, you grew up and became careful, maybe too careful.
In measuring the consequences of your actions, you forgot the joy of making mistakes and avoid actions in the fear of being wrong.
Shipping in prod means giving yourself the permission to suck at something initially and then improve on it later.
Once it's live, you will feel the real pressure of actually improving it vs making false progress, remember "action produces information" and get the fuck out of localhost.
fin
That's it. I've been shelving this article since many weeks now. But Travis coming back was a great reminder and generally energized me towards writing this. It is rough and messy, I haven't edited this a lot as I just wanted to share this burst of energy with you. It's 2:18 AM in Mumbai rn, probably the worst time to post this. who cares?
I hope your wildest dreams don't come true, because the chances are you're dreaming too small.
later losers.
