🏅 Amateur vs. Profesional

Allergy season has started so I’m writing this with a tissue in my nose and itchy eyes. Bear with me. Also, that’s not a typo, my daughter gave me her teddy bear to make me feel better.

I tend to get hesitant writing this sometimes. I reread it a few times before I hit publish and ask myself “was this better than my last post”. It’s a pretty toxic way of thinking because there will be newsletters that don’t land as well as I’d like and that’s ok. I tend now to look again at how it’s received and evaluate that post for my next one.

✍️ Quote of the week:

Amateurs love the prize, professionals love the process. You have to make the hunt as exciting as the meal.

🎶 Song of the week:

When I'm Gone - Jaychef, Brandyn Burnette

📖 What I’m reading:

Taking a week off of reading. Will pick it back up next week!

🧠 Top 2 learnings:

Solitude - I use to hate being alone with my own thoughts. Mostly because my mind races in a million different directions. I think about the world today and the world tomorrow. I think about ideas for startups and how I to make my next move. I think about my wife and my daughter and if I’m doing enough for them. It’s a bag of cats in my head and it’s exhausting.

As I’m getting older I’m realizing that it’s easier to be alone when I have one simple idea I can think of or simplify. It’s truly my time to reconnect with myself and reflect on my life. Anytime I see my mind wander I pull back to ask myself how can I simplify? That’s helped me solve a lot of my problems. Today it’s so easy to fill up your time with TikToks, Twitter, FB, IG, Snapchat, and Youtube; not to mention, texts, emails, to-do lists.

One thing I challenge you to do this week is to find 15 minutes to disconnect from all alerts, todos, phone calls, scrolling, music, tv and just hear your own thoughts. I do this every morning before I start my day. My goal is not to clear my head but to understand what single idea my mind is trying to focus on. Sometimes that idea can be scary or exciting but those are the best ideas to reflect on.

In a world that's more connected than ever, we need to be even more connected to our surroundings.

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal

The difference between an amateur and a professional.
I've seen a lot of leaders in my days and worked with them closely. Based on a few observations here is what I've gathered what separates an amateur and a professional:

• Amateurs make it look effortful, professionals make it look effortless.
• Amateurs play the table, professionals set the table.
• Amateurs love the prize, professionals love the process.
• Amateurs blame others, professionals are accountable.
• Amateurs fear being wrong, professionals enjoy it.
• Amateurs adapt to their environment, professionals create their own environment.
• Amateurs fear their faults, professionals fill their faults with support.
• Amateurs play with 100 half-ass moves, professionals play with one perfect move.
• Amateurs burn fast then burn out, professionals are consistent day in day out.
• Amateurs are patient with action and impatient with results, professionals are the opposite.
• Amateurs seek recognition, professionals seek legacy.
• Amateurs let the tasks come to them, professionals create their own tasks.

🤑 Crypto

Going to stop talking about price action. The markets move too quickly and are too volatile for it to make sense in such a short-term segment. What this section will evolve into is how crypto will take over web2 as we know it. For those that are new to the space:

web1 = age of information (Wikipedia, Google, yahoo answers, email, News sites)

web2 = age of social networks (Facebook, Insta, Snapchat, Youtube, Twitter)

web 2.2 = e-commerce (Amazon, eBay, Shopify)

web 2.5 = logistics (flights, Airbnb)

web3 = age of money (Crypto, defi, NFTs, Stable coins, smart contracts)

I believe there’s more to crypto than “to the moon”, “where Lambo?”, “expensive jpgs”, and “buying the dip”. There’s a whole new set of cryptos out there with actual real-world utility that I hope to talk about in the next coming weeks. Stay tuned.

🖍 Designer thoughts:

I once worked with a designer that was an artist outside of work. He was telling me one day that he made $375k for a piece of work he created (and no it wasn't an NFT). That’s the kind of money most starving artists dream of ever making. I asked him how he felt knowing he could just continue to make art for that kind of money. He responded with “well I don’t get the entire $375k and it takes months to finish a piece”. He then went on to explain to me the process of what went into every piece of art. Finding the right graffiti artist, explaining to the CG animator how to render it, making sure they are paid and there are contracts in place, and ultimately making it all come together to be displayed in an exhibit which also takes a large cut as the art curator is the marketing the piece.

Great art and design is a collection of many different things. Not one single idea or person. Watching from the sideline it’s easy to get caught up in the prize or the end financial benefit but there’s always so much work behind the scenes that people don’t see. It takes months and years to be an overnight success.

👴 Dad thoughts

One of the coolest parts of being a parent is getting to relive all the things I’ve experienced as a kid with my daughter. As parents, we get caught up in teaching everything we know to our children that we often forget all the things that our child is having us relearn in life. As a 33-year-old adult that has almost seen a lot and done a lot, I’ve learned that these experiences only happen once. As adults, we try to make every great experience repeatable and then get tired of the resulting boredom. Seeing my daughter set her eyes on a mountain for the first time, her first time doing a flip on a trampoline, and watching her overcome her fears is something that I didn’t know I’d be so fulfilled with watching. Her curiosity gives me new ways to enjoy life.

Have a great week!

📬 PS: Please do reply to this email if you have anything to add / any questions. I quite enjoy replying to comments/emails as a source of procrastination from revision.

📬 PPS: Please hit the <reply> button and let me know what you thought of this email if you have a spare few seconds. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what was useful about it and what could be changed. Thanks <3