GOAT: Greatest Of All Time
I think in life, it just makes sense to want to be great. Otherwise, what is the point of living? It does add plenty of pressure on me, but I like it. I think this is the right principle for life. Aim for greatness, for when it fails, at least you will be good enough. I know good is good enough, but not in my way.
And to become a GOAT, you learn through:
Experience: mistakes and life experiences (slow, painful, great lessons)
Experts: those who have been there, done it (fast, less painful, might not always be relevant experiences)
Exchange: similar stages in life, but those people who are in different fields (faster, different lessons, can be fun, hard to find)
Strong Foundation
We always want to be quicker, stronger, faster. But this only works after you have built the right foundation. I see myself falling into this trap so quickly. I always want to go fast, but without the right foundation, you’re only waiting for disaster to happen.
That’s why 2 key principles are first principles and risk management. Because I know these are my weakness.
Recently, I’ve been stressed — not because of the market, but the market does catalyse it. I have been back to the learning curve again, and not being able to build strong foundation quickly, strongly and fast is driving me nuts.
Strong foundation compounds at the start. Going to the source, “meta-ness” of the supply chain, it begins with strong first principles.
Things I want to learn:
to stop — it’s always something I need to learn. It’s good to have this obsession to win, the constant improvement, the compounding of baby steps. But it’s also important to stop and review the foundations again, before we continue.
to slow down — if there was 1 word that the surfing guy kept reminding me, it’s S L O W. Slow slow slow, he would repeat. Slow to build the right foundation. Slow to find my balance. Slow to stand up. Slow! Yes, catch the wave, but if you can’t feel the wave, you can’t watch the wave.
to do a postmortem and start from there. I know I have the technical skills, so let’s slow down, review the faults and obstacles, and work on those. It will improve everything.
1.01^365 = 37.78
Remember this.
Breakfast Club
It is now time to start a breakfast club. To work and brainstorm together, and be rewarded with breakfast after. This helps with accountability and new habits/routines. I remember tapping into such routines earlier in 2020, of going downstairs to read before the sun wakes up, meditate and start my day.
The harder I practice, the easier it becomes.
I like that it is hard. It is hard hence no one does it. It means stepping over a larger learning curve, but that is why we do it. It’s just incredibly fun to do the hard thing and win. I like winning. It takes discipline, good habits and right routines to win.
A Learning Lesson
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Every loss is a learning experience. I want to say that I am comfortable with failure within my degree of freedom because within things I can control, I have comfortable risk measures to not waste my time worrying about it. But on things I cannot control or out of my degree of freedom, I do get quite mad. Which is silly, because I can’t control that. Anyway, always be learning from mistakes and failures.
Brain > Body
As much as I will be healthy and maintain a healthy body, body will fall apart with time. One can slow it down, but it will still exist. The brain though, it can be controlled a lot more. The right foundations help to build more knowledge, more resistance, resilience and thus process information faster to move faster, think faster and get that 1% improvement.
A GOAT is where one is fully maximised and a 1% improvement is all that matters. I imagine that happening behind the scenes in Google, where they aim for 1% improvement in optimisation when it comes to clicks and views. But that is what GOATs do. Faster is not in leaps and bounds, but constant 1%.
Quiet Time
One thing I definitely forgot is my need for quiet time. This is strange because pre-covid, I never needed this. Post-covid, I need this. To just be alone and in my own space and time. Sports, meditation, writing tons. I want to find more quiet time activities to find my inner peace.
Track Causation
I’m not here yet, but soon, I want to track everything. To live that 1% improvement, I want to be intentional on improving every aspect. That means tracking all my activities to understand its causal effect on my outcome and thus fix and improve them.
Mental Strength
As lame as it sounds, mental strength is everything. I think I have a pretty strong foundation on my mental strength. I can overcome things in my head and always find a way to overcome it. That being said, that means the 1% improvement will be harder to find, thus becoming more conscious about tracking and improving that 1%.
In a bear market like this, the easiest is to train resilience. And no better place than sports! Let’s be sharper, more defined, faster and more resilient.
I like to set unrealistic expectations because I’m Lisa and I can always get it. It doesn’t matter what people say or think, because no one has greater expectations in me than I have in myself. I like to win, and I have the determination and discipline to achieve those goals.
I remember in 2013, Kenneth said “You’re Lisa. You can do this”. It’s silly, but it is always in my head. What I set, I can deliver. I will find a way within my skillsets and get things done. It’s fun to win. It’s even more fun to win when it is hard and no one can do it. I like that. I fucking love that.
LFG. This is just the start. Can't wait for Lisa+5 years.
Love,
L