šŖLittle and Big Thingsšļø
š„Welcome to volume #00034!š„
IāmĀ Christian Champ. This is āÆļøThe Middle Way NewsletterĀ āÆļø. It is a place where I write, explore, share, and invite you along for the journey.
If you want to receive my readwise favorites from each week,Ā click hereĀ and enter in your email. You will then receive a weekly email of any passages that Iāve added to my favorites.
šŖLittle and Big Thingsšļø
Do you cherish the moment when the fireworks happen, and it all comes together? Do you prefer the daily grind and slowly figuring it out?Ā
Do you relish summiting the mountain or the planning, preparation, and perspiration?Ā
Life gives us flashbulb moments, but most of it is sweat it out moments. Ā
Little things provide the scaffolding for everything that we do. They are the prep, the foundation, and the practice.Ā
Big things are the fireworks. We get the champagne moments when our training and effort come together. . Ā
Like building Legos, the little things shape the final project. The little things keep it moving along. The big thing shows up when it comes together, and it doesn't always come together. When we finish building our Legos, we either put them on display or start over. The big thing is the ending. The little thing is a continuation.Ā
If you win the Super Bowl, it's a fantastic moment for that night, and however long the glory hangs in the air. It's a beautiful accomplishment, but it's a snap of the finger versus all the time spent practicing, preparing, and playing.Ā
The little things make up 99%+ of everything. Ā Ā
We need little things and big things. We need to do the work and celebrate the outcomes. The big things may seem more important, but without the little things, they don't exist.Ā
šArticles to ReadšĀ
Why we all need mentors by Steve Schlafman
Steve breaks down why mentors, how to get mentors and what they mean for us. Get mentors, be a mentor and as he ends his article āpeople propel peopleā.
Here's my point: There are mentors and teachers everywhere. They come from different backgrounds and in different forms. Go beyond a pre-conception of what a mentor means. They can emerge from unexpected places and when you least expect it.
Mentors are not a panacea. You still need to put in the time and the hard work. You still need to make the tough decisions and take the risks. You still need to get a lucky break. However, when you find the right fit, they can be a real multiplier and change the trajectory of your life and career.
I can't even begin to thank the countless mentors and teachers who have believed and invested in me. This list includes far too many people to mention. I have a little bit of them within me. Each one has helped accelerate my life and career in their own way. I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today without their support, belief and counsel.
Eliot Pepper on Stories as Bicycles
Thereās a myth that puts storytellers on pedestals. It says that storytelling is the province of poets, novelists, and screenwriters. It says that there must be a moment of perfect inspiration, that the muse must whisper in your ear. It says that stories are supernatural, the revealed truth of someone of extraordinary talent and insight who has something authentic and original to say.
To anyone espousing this myth, I reply that stories are bicycles.
The characters are the pedals driving everything forward. The stakes are the gears ratcheting up and down. The plot is the wheels that take you where youāre going. The theme is the frame holding everything together. The power comes from you, the rider. You embark in one world and travel to another.
Stories are bicycles: machines that move people.
His lists of wisdom always blow me away and below are a couple of my favorites from his most recent piece. I havenāt read his book yet, but it is probably awesome too.
The person who tells the most compelling story wins. Not the best idea. Just the story that catches peopleās attention and gets them to nod their heads.
Tell people what they want to hear and you can be wrong indefinitely without penalty.
People learn when theyāre surprised. Not when they read the right answer, or are told theyāre doing it wrong, but when their jaw hits the floor.
Most fields have only a few laws. Lots of theories, hunches, observations, ideas, trends, and rules. But laws ā things that are always true, all the time ā are rare.
The only thing worse than thinking everyone who disagrees with you is wrong is the opposite: being persuaded by the advice of those who need or want something you donāt.
It is way easier to spot other peopleās mistakes than your own. We judge others based solely on their actions, but when judging ourselves we have an internal dialogue that justifies our mistakes and bad decisions.
Reputations have momentum in both directions, because people want to associate with winners and avoid losers.
What People Actually Say Before They Die
At the end of life, Keeley says, the majority of interactions will be nonverbal as the body shuts down and the person lacks the physical strength, and often even the lung capacity, for long utterances. āPeople will whisper, and theyāll be brief, single wordsāthatās all they have energy for,ā Keeley said. Medications limit communication. So does dry mouth and lack of dentures. She also noted that family members often take advantage of a patientās comatose state to speak their piece, when the dying person cannot interrupt
Many people die in such silence, particularly if they have advanced dementia or Alzheimerās that robbed them of language years earlier. For those who do speak, it seems their vernacular is often banal. From a doctor I heard that people often say, āOh fuck, oh fuck.ā Often itās the names of wives, husbands, children. āA nurse from the hospice told me that the last words of dying men often resembled each other,ā wrote Hajo Schumacher in a September essay in Der Spiegel. āAlmost everyone is calling for āMommyā or āMamaā with the last breath.ā
šļøĀ Listen / WatchĀ šŗĀ
Rory Sutherland on the Invest Like the Best Podcast (Spotify)
The spreadsheet leaves no room for magic. We want to make things simple but the world is complex. Magic or butterfly effects can happen from small changes.
We should focus on psychological moon shots. Apple did this by asking how you felt how you did it
Dishwasher isnāt about watching ditches but is about a place to put your dirty dishes
Uber is a 10x or really a 35x because it lets you see the arrival or your ride, which increases your happiness
Most money is spent for a psychological spend not an actual need
For huge upside you need to find something that doesnāt make rationale sense (example Zoom which took on Skype and Microsoft and Google) and won
If you asked people in the 1990s if you would buy a $5.00 coffee, everyone would have said you are crazy
5 Guys charges you a ton for the burger (which you care about) and sides, refills and fries are insanely cheap - Hypothecated pricing. You pay for what you want and then get a bunch of throw ins
Marketing needs to be experimental and probabilistics (to increase your odds of being lucky) not an efficient game. Need to exploit and explore!
Costly signaling matters, which is why direct mail has been successful
You need to ask dumb questions to get good answers. Ask dumb whys and ask why again and again. Why donāt people like to stand on trains is one of those questions
Tiny things like kind actions and actions of gratitude tend to give us lots of happiness
šĀ Books to Read or Listen toš
Officer Clemmons (from Mr. Rogersā Neighborhood) by FranƧois S. Clemmons (Goodreads)
TLDR: FranƧois tells the story of moving to Youngstown from the South running from his father after he beat his mother, being a talented gay black singer at a challenging time and finding his way to Mister Rogersā Neighborhood.
āLove isnāt a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like āstruggle.ā To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.ā āFRED ROGERSā
When I look back on that early spiritual awakening, I realize that I was separating myself from any formal dogma or church. In my humility, I still struggled with the fact that I carried a powerful spirituality that had nothing to do with any organized religion. I treated all religions the same but also found no fault with agnostics, atheists, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Mormons, Baha'is, Buddhists, Religious Scientists, Earth Goddess Worshipper, Sikhs, Taoists-all manner of expressions were fine with me. Time and time again, people wanted me to be a judgmental, fundamentalist Christian singer who hated a lot of regular people, and I just couldn't do it. I was not there. It is not who I am. My message is simply one of inclusiveness and love. Period.
One day, I asked him (Fred Rogers) how he was able to look straight into the camera and speak so simply and lovingly to millions of strange children. He told me very earnestly that he considered the space between himself and the camera lens-which was essentially the individual child-to be a sacred It was so sacred to him space.
ā¦analysis about me and my "fathers." I did, after many tries, forgive both of them. It was painful, and I slipped back into hate several times before the forgiveness stuck. Two powerful thoughts stand out from that experience for me. First, I realized that forgiveness for me is an ongoing process. I grew into understanding and loving from hatred and anger. It did not happen all at once, but when I finally got there, I felt such a sense of being purged and cleansed that I can hardly explain it. It was like letting go of some one hundred pounds of organic poison I had been infected with for some forty-five years.
In humble opinion, our society has evolved in such a way my that Fred would hardly recognize it. Fred was simply a man concerned about society, and he left a legacy of care for his fellow men. Everyone had value as far as he was concerned! What people said and how they behaved was important to him; it is important to me too. I will never understand the hurt we inflict on one another because of our differences in religion, sex, skin color, air color, eye color, what games we play, what continents our families came from, how long we've been citizens, our culture, language, ing a good human being.
š£Words of Wisdomš£
Becoming Wise - Krista Tippett
The nuclear family is a recent invention and a death blow to loveāan unprecedented demand on a couple to be everything to each other, the family a tiny echo chamber: history one layer deep. None of the great virtuesāeven thisāis meant to be carried in isolation.
A Joseph Campbell Companion - Joseph Campbell
But you must be ready for it. The goal is to live with godlike composure on the full rush of energy, like Dionysus riding the leopard, without being torn to pieces. Ā A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: Ā āAs you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Ā Jump. Ā It is not as wide as you think.ā
The predominant emotions of play are interest and joy. In school, in contrast, children cannot make their own decisions; their job is to do as they are told. In school, children learn that what matters are test scores. Even outside of school, children spend increasing amounts of their time in settings where they are directed, protected, catered to, ranked, judged, criticized, praised, and rewarded by adults.
I Wear the Black Hat - Chuck Klosterman
Once you realize you canāt control how you feel, itās impossible to believe any of your own opinions.
A Change in Perspective Is Worth 80 IQ Pointsā So said Alan Kay, one of the pioneers of computer graphics. It is, perhaps, the best defence of creativity in ten words or fewer. I suspect, too, that the opposite is also true: that an inability to change perspective is equivalent to a loss of intelligence.
Sometimes the belief systems that are most difficult to overcome arenāt the ghosts in the machine of our childhood. Sometimes the most difficult belief systems fall under the rubric of āconventional wisdom.ā
šThanks for readingš
What little things are you working on? What big things do you want to have happen? How can you level up your daily grind?
Any thoughts or comments, please share!
Namaste,
Christian
I always scroll right down to see your happy faces! ā¤ļø you guys
p.s. best emoji game on the interwebs šš½