Hey Friend 👋

Yesterday, It was crisp and cool Saturday morning. The sun barely breaking through the clouds. 52 degrees. I’ve got 7” Nike running shorts on and a light wind breaker. I could feel my breath.

I’m taking a light jog around the park before we line up at 9AM sharp for a 5K race. I signed up with a few friends of mine. I love to run and it was for a good cause. All funds and proceeds go to support getting clean water for third world countries. Love that.

We're at the starting line...

Three.
Two.
One.
Go.

We take off pacing fast out of the gate.

I’m looking at my watch and seeing the mile speed go down and down…

9 minute rolling mile…
8 minute rolling mile…
7 minute rolling mile…

“It’s only three miles. Let’s do it 😄”

I’m booking it with my friends and we’re crushing the game.

Until we hit about a mile in and a couple of my friends are no longer in love with the pace we set ourselves up for.

“You go on ahead man, we’re going walk and take it easy.”

I heard that from behind me.

To be honest, I was moving. And I felt great. I really did think about just boosting off and going for a personal record or something. I mean it’s a freaking race, why not?

But only for a second did that thought stay in my head before it was arrested and replaced with this thought → If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with people.

A great quote that all of my mentors have said to me so many times.

Of course it pops up in my head at that exact moment.

I didn’t bolt off. I hung out with my buddies and raced together. Because in 15 minutes that race would be over, but my friends would still be with me. And those memories together would either be in my memory or not.

We ended up finishing together crushing an incredible time.

There’s very few scenarios in life where it makes more sense to go fast than it does go far.

And I pray that God nudges me every single time that I even wink at potentially sacrificing the opportunity to go far with people just so I can go fast alone.

We deal with this in our:

• Relationships
• Businesses
• Habits

Go far with people instead of fast alone.

Speaking of going far with people, I’ve had the incredible opportunity of building some amazing websites this year for a few close friend’s businesses to help them go far together.

I’ve just wrapped up a project and have space for only one more website build to be done before the end of the year.

If you’re interested in launching a brand new website before January 2024 for a fresh start — use this form to inquire about us potentially working together.

If you hate forms and know me personally, just respond to this email 🙂

Sunday Six ☀️

How to Live by Derek Sivers

This is one of the most interesting approaches I’ve seen anybody take on a book, which is why it makes me love Derek Sivers even more.

Practically every chapter has conflicting yet compelling advice on how to live your life. As confusing as it may sound, what he’s doing as an author is genius.

Instead of prescribing one methodology for how you should live your life, he is presenting all sorts of ideas that contradict each other yet help you the reader identify clearly what actually resonates with you.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes so far:

“You don’t lack direction. You have too many directions.”

“ As you age, you’ll lose muscle and beauty, but you won’t lose your wisdom”

“People don’t fail by choosing the wrong path. They fail by not choosing.”

Link to book → Here

Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

A personal friend of mine said to me a couple month ago:

“You will learn more about life and business by reading the biographies of the greatest and most interesting people to ever live than you will another how-to business book”

I’ve read a lot of how-to business books in my life.

In the few months, I’ve become obsessed with reading biographies on people like:

• Steve Jobs
• Bob Iger
• Phil Knight
• Leonardo Da Vinci

And now Benjamin Franklin.

To confirm, my friend is absolutely right. Not to mention after reading biographies and fiction, how-to non-fiction is becoming harder and harder to finish. It’s so dry and lacks storytelling. Yes, it’s helpful but when you realize that most how-to books could be blogs. And biographies are stories with lessons… it may be a while before I pick up another how-to book.

Link to book → Here

Dan Koe & Dickie Bush Talk About The Creator Economy

I’m about 90 minutes in to a 3.5 hour podcast between two of my favorite creators — Dan Koe and Dickie Bush.

For those who don’t know, these are two incredibly inspiring creators in X (formerly Twitter) who are writers I love.

Here are a few of my favorite takeaways from the podcast so far:

“Avoid putting as many labels on yourself as possible. It reduces your mindset from experimenting with other things. Thus learning and growing.”

“Iterate fast and iterate often. This will teach you what works and what doesn’t.”

“Every single person has a $100,000 idea in their head. You just have to publish enough ideas out there to find it.”

Link to podcast → Here

5 Reasons Why I Am Obsessed with Kanye West

1. He’s so convicted about his art, he doesn’t let other people’s opinions distort his vision.
2. He’s more obsessed with the craft of creating than he is the luxury of money.
3. He is a master of multiple disciplines that he merges to create completely new ideas.
4. He built a community of super artists (Jerry Lorenzo, Virgil Abloh, Don C) to grow together.
5. He zags when culture zigs, therefore changing the landscape of culture.

This is not about Kanye West.

(For reference, I posted this online and it was one of my most viral posts yet)

Think Like An Artist, Not An Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs are on the rise in volume and in burnout. Every single day I hear of a new entrepreneur either launching a business or quitting a business. I’ve collected my thoughts on entrepreneurship and creativity for the last 5 years and have noticed certain patterns.

The leaders who think like artists, not entrepreneurs, are the ones who last the longest.

Here are 3 simple ideas to summarize my thinking in this:

1 — Entrepreneurs love the mountaintop, but artists love the climb.

The person who loves to hike climbs more miles than the person who loves the mountain top.

2 — Entrepreneurs love selling, but artist love storytelling.

And stories sell more than selling.

3 — Entrepreneurs think about themselves, artists think about the culture.

If a business is centered around solving problems for people, how can you solve a problem for a person whom you don’t know?

What 500 Years of Watchmaking Taught Me About Efficiency

Adri, my wife, bought me a beautiful black on black Seiko mechanical watch to celebrate me finally finishing my book.

(It’s in the final formatting phase and releasing next month — yay!)

I love the watch. It’s my first mechanical watch and I’ve got to say, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the idea of mechanical watches.

For those of you who don’t know anything about watches. There are two primary types of watches:

1. Quarts (battery driven)
2. Mechanical (mechanism driven)

Quarts watches are significantly more cost efficient to design, produce, and maintain. If it dies, you can just replace the battery. They are also way more affordable.

And the least sought after between quarts and mechanical.

Mechanical watches, on the other hand, are incredibly intricate to make (with gears, pulleys, and components to make it all work). They work the same as quartz watches (meaning they tell time) and can be 10x or even 100x more expensive than Quarts watches.

Why?

Because the way their made is an art. It’s a craft. There is a romantic affection towards the idea of how watches have been made for the last 500+ years. Mechanically.

Quartz watches are incredibly more efficient. And that’s fine. The mass market buys quartz. But they’re not sought after. They’re not on people’s dream lists. They’re not the watches that make people fork our $10,000+ for a timepiece.

That would go to the mechanical watches.

Efficiency isn’t always best. Anybody can be efficient. And efficiency can sell to the mass market. But then you’re always in a race towards the bottom of who could be the most efficient.

It’s excellence and art that make you stand out.

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