The Vs. Studio Blog

“Not inventing, and not adopting new ideas, can itself be both dangerous and immoral.” Matt Ridley, book The Rational Optimist

“Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.” –Nat Friedman

“I’ve realized a new reason why pessimism sounds smart: optimism often requires believing in unknown, unspecified future breakthroughs—which seems fanciful and naive. If you very soberly, wisely, prudently stick to the known and the proven, you will necessarily be pessimistic…No known solutions can solve our hardest problems—that’s why they’re the hardest ones. And by the nature of problem-solving, we are aware of many problems before we are aware of their solutions. So there will always be a frontier of problems we don’t yet know how to solve.” -Jason Crawford, The Roots Of Progress blog

If you want to sound smart and fit in, be a pessimist. You don’t have to risk anything. You probably won’t be criticized. You might even get lots of compliments for your smart, pessimistic views.

If you want to inspire others and change the world (and in some cases, make a lot of money), be an optimist. Just be prepared to be endlessly criticized and told you’re wrong.

Your level of optimism can be measured by the amount of time you allow yourself to be “wrong” before you’re right.

“What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)

“Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge – and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.” -Philippe Petit

“There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)

Don’t strive for perfect balance. It’s almost impossible to achieve and even if you do, it’s fleeting at best.

Instead, strive for balancing. (This assumes process and a constancy of effort.)

If you do, you’ll be much more open to whatever fate or fortune sends your way. You’ll recognize and be okay that sometimes life is a sprint and sometimes it’s a crawl. But whatever it is, you’ll adjust, you’ll iterate, you’ll dance with it all.

“Sua Sponte” is a Latin phrase that means doing something voluntary, or doing it “of its own accord.”

The U.S. Army Rangers (insignia pictured above) are known for the motto “Rangers lead the way.” It stems from the tremendous heroism and courage they displayed at D-Day. When they stormed the beaches at Normandy.

But the Rangers official regimental motto is “Sua Sponte”. It refers to “their ability to accomplish tasks with little to no prompting and to recognize that a Ranger volunteers three times: for the U.S. Army, Airborne School, and service in the 75th Ranger Regiment.”

Much like the Latin phrase, “Ars Gratia Artis” which means “art for arts sake”, if you set out to do something or lead others or make art…do it voluntarily. No prompting. No glory. No reward.

Just do it for its own accord. For the love of the thing itself.

Do it Sua Sponte.

“I didn’t want to be a big star. I wanted to be a really good actor.” -Laurence Fishburne

I love the below note from Laurence Fishburne at the beginning of his play RIFF RAFF. I’ll just let it speak for itself…

P.S. – This 2000 LAT article

“When choosing a new habit many people seem to ask themselves, “What can I do on my best days?”
The trick is to ask, “What can I stick to even on my worst days?” Start small. Master the art of showing up. Scale up when you have the time, energy, and interest.” -James Clear, book Atomic Habits

“Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity…It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.” -James Clear, book Atomic Habits

When you first set out to create a good habit (e.g. working out, eating healthy, reading great literature, meditating, taking a walk, etc.), you can’t imagine doing the thing every single day. The road ahead seems long and arduous.

You’ll know if you’ve succeeded (aka created a “sticky habit”) when you get to the point that you can’t imagine NOT doing the thing every single day.

“There is nothing worth doing that is not scary. There is no one who has achieved greatness without wrestling with their own doubts, anxieties, limitations, and demons.” -book, Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday

“Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid.” -William Faulkner

“When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” -Job 23:10

“If you don’t stand for something, you fall for anything.” -song, Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy

True courage doesn’t mean that you lack fear.

Quite the opposite.

True courage involves feeling tremendous fear and doing the right thing anyway. Sometimes in the face of widespread opposition.

A virtue like courage can only emerge when one is tested.

“We are most productive when we focus on a very small number of projects on which we can devote a large amount of attention.” -Cal Newport

“Attention Residue is the scientific concept that there is a cognitive switching cost to shifting your attention from one task to another. When your attention is shifted, there is a “residue” that remains with the prior task and impairs your cognitive performance on the new task.” -Sahil Bloom

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” -Steve Jobs

“Attention is the most basic form of love.” -Tara Brach

Sahil Bloom recently wrote an excellent article about attention residue and how to not let it derail you. Check it out here.

In it, he provides some great strategies including having a “boot up” sequence when switching between tasks. This may involve taking a walk, doing a quick meditation, listening to classical music, etc…Anything that helps get you back on track and in flow.

Setting this advice aside, the best thing you can do happens at the outset. Which is deciding what projects (have as few as possible) are worth your consistent effort and attention.

In a world that is increasingly vying for your attention, your “No” is just as important, if not more so, than your “Yes.”

“A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, ‘I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.’ Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.” -Alan Rickman

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” -Edmund Hillary

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.” -Samuel Beckett

For any big goal you want to accomplish, like climbing Mt. Everest for example (as pictured above)…

You will spend 99.9999 percent of your time on PROCESS (trying, failing, iterating, trying again)

You will spend (assuming you even reach the top) 0.0001 percent of your time enjoying the view from the summit. (Then you have to get down from the mountain which is its own process.)

Therefore, if you’re gonna attempt to do something really hard, then you…

Must.

Love.

The PROCESS.

P.S. – Speaking of mountain climbing, check out this trailer from my friend John’s hilarious mockumentary “The Hillist.”

“When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you’ll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they’re misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard?” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Assume positive intent.

Almost always, this should be your cognitive bias.

A real-world example…

The next time someone cuts you off in traffic.

Pause.

Think to yourself, “Maybe they’re late to get to the hospital or pick up their frightened child or they just lost their job.”

Take another pause and then wish them well.

Be thankful for the opportunity to practice self control.

Know that even if your assumed bias was wrong, you did a good thing.

It’s a win-win either way.

Yeah, runnin’ down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads
Runnin’ down a dream -song, “Runnin’ Down A Dream” by Tom Petty

“What if my best isn’t good enough?”

That’s a scary question to ask yourself.

And it’s why most people don’t attempt to do hard things.

Because it’s far easier to lie to yourself. You can always blame circumstances or external forces or hide behind the excuse that “If I really wanted to, I could’ve done it or been it.”

And as much as I love a great movie montage, life just doesn’t work that way. It’s not “If I do this, then I get this.” The reality and the big risk is that you could go all out, bust your ass, give it everything you got…and still come up short. In fact the odds say, especially when it comes to commercial success, that’s probably what will happen.

But you know what? At least you tried. You went for it. You chased down a dream. You showed true courage.

And no matter what happens, you’ll always be able to live knowing that.

P.S. – This scene.