RATLINKS: MASTER AND COMMANDER
BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
An odd thing is happening as we draw closer to the start of #ShotGirlSummer.
We are exiting our hibernation after a year of rarely interacting with people. Emerging with not a want but a need to do new things. Just as long as it is not too novel. Initially craving new experiences that are a reminder of the past.
Shouts of let’s get weird feel weird due to a COVID-19 induced combination of nostalgia, boredom, and low-level social anxiety.
The essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes.
- George Leonard, Mastery
subtle variations on a theme (chaise). summer 2021
Would you rather sit on this lounge chair or put your arm through it? Why not both.
REMEMBER THE TIME
This month, American President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Declaring the end of America’s “Forever War” after two decades.
Two decades is known as a generation that is paradoxically both a long and short amount of time.
Think back two decades ago to May 2001. Acclaimed painter George W. Bush was the President of the United States, Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” was the #1 song on the radio, MP3 file-sharing site Napster allowed you to download Shaggy’s album “Hot Shot” for free and The Mummy returned to theaters.
Depending on your age your weekends included renting a movie at Blockbuster, playing Mortal Kombat, or drinking a gallon of soda out of these red cups.
HISTORY RHYMES
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Napster is long gone and if it wasn’t you likely wouldn't even use it. Who would commit internet piracy in 2021? It is much easier to share a Netflix account with seven other people you hardly know. Free access to content is not without its drawbacks. How many times do you sit down wanting to watch something new, but multiple shared users have messed with the algorithm. Forcing you to spend an hour searching for the perfect thing to watch, only to settle on something you have seen 100 times.
Over the last twenty years, your tastes have changed too. Instead of downing a liter of cola (artificial and sugary), you have likely matured to slugging a magnum of wine (natural and less sugary) out of a red solo cup while watching the new Mortal Kombat movie.
Who can forget the two congressional investigations that lasted three different administrations? Mr. Bombastic's name was finally cleared despite being caught red-handed with clear video evidence. Thus allowing Shaggy to continue to freely proclaim “it wasn’t me.”
THE FUTURE IS EASY TO PREDICT IF YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING IT
Twenty years from now is 2041. A year that feels distant yet oddly within reach.
How old will you be? Knowable, but something you may not want to think about.
What will the world look like? Both knowable and unknowable.
What will become of your life?
To control your future you have to be sensitive to chances others miss. Ideally, you can become the best at what you do. If not refine what you do until this is true. Then opportunity will seek you out and luck becomes your destiny.1
WAX ON | WAX OFF
One path for growth is the practice of Kaizen, a Japanese term meaning "change for the better" or "continuous improvement."
Kaizen can be practiced in two ways:
Using very small steps to improve a habit, a process, or product
Using very small moments to inspire new products and inventions.
Practicing kaizen can eventually lead to mastery, but how?
At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path. Allowing you to perform a task without making a special effort to think of its separate parts.
How do you best move toward mastery?
To put it simply, you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself. Rather than being frustrated while on the plateau, you learn to appreciate and enjoy it just as much as you do the upward surges.
Think of a skill that is second nature, something you have done your entire life. You likely honed that skill when you were young and more willing to try and fail.
When was the last time that you tried to take on something brand new? It has likely been a while because starting something new is not easy.
“It’s simple. To be a learner, you’ve got to be willing to be a fool.”
A life of mastery is full of iterative education, where learning never stops. A process that will redefine not just your life, but could eventually upend the entire workforce.
Randall Stephenson, former CEO of AT&T, once told his employees that those who don’t spend five to ten hours a week learning online “will obsolete themselves with technology.” He warned, “There is a need to retool yourselves, and you should not expect it to stop.”
MASTER OF SOME
A friend once let his coworkers select a different course for him to attend weekly. While it’s fun to learn a little bit of a lot of different things, he did not master anything. Instead, skill switching right as he plateaued.
Don’t do this.
If you want to become a master you have to take pride in both the destination and the journey. Being willing to continue as progress slows in order to break through an acceptable level of proficiency. Roman engineers needed to spend time under a newly finished bridge in order to prove that it was structurally sound.
To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring in your life.
ONE SMALL STEP
Dear Red, if you made it this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further.
Pick a skill you want to master. Set tangible goals and map out what is needed to achieve these goals. Break those achievements into smaller measurable parts. Get a friend to help keep you accountable that way you don’t quit when you plateau.
Not sure where to begin? Here are a few ideas:
Languages
Get started with computer programming and build a program or website.
Learn a foreign language with the goal to have a 5-minute conversation with a local.
Music is the universal language of mankind. Take up an instrument working towards playing your favorite song.
Games
Download a chess app, in no time you will be playing against those guys in the park
“You have to start with gambits, you have to start with open chess...because that’s how you can learn about tactics. Obviously you have to learn about strategy but...you need to do more...aggressive chess while learning.” —Garry Kasparov
Chess, not your thing? Are you secretly an 80-year-old? Maybe bridge is for you?
Take to the sky! Pilot your own airplane or helicopter.
Smack some balls around. Tennis and golf are popular ways to do that.
Self-expression
Write or journal - It’s amazing how even writing once a month can develop into a habit that helps you finally pen that novel. Did you know there are over 40 editions of RatLinks?
Become an Instagram influencer. On the internet, anyone can be famous and get #brands to send free stuff
Show off your artistic side. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and technically anything can be art. The below painting, for example, appears to be a post-expressionist portrait of action star Jason Statham by Fast and The Furious stan George W. Bush
Last month’s Ratlinks touched on how proud the world is that you now know how to make dinner. Step your game up and open a restaurant. Restaurant math is “easy”.
Thirty percent of your monthly take is going to be your food and wine cost. Thirty percent is going to be labor, 20 percent is miscellaneous, including the rent, and 20 percent is your profit. Your rent per month should be your gross take on your slowest day. And thats it. - Joe Bastianich2
GETTING A CREW TOGETHER
To recap, in order to become a master you need to set small measurable goals and work through the eventual plateau. Remember you are doing this for yourself and no one else, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
One for them, one for me - George Clooney3
If you are now inspired to start on a new path of mastery, can you take a second reply to this email? It is entirely possible that you may get so good at your new skill, that you are needed to be a part of something bigger than all of us.
Human Fortune Cookie Naval Ravikant tweetstorms are everything and nothing
Ever eat in a modern Italian restaurant? It was likely influenced by Restaurant Man Joe Bastianich who owns Eataly and Babbo and also claims to have invented the everything bagel
Every big studio film George Clooney makes allows him the money and leverage to make smaller, more personal films. Señor Clooney also makes tequila.