I never explained the title of my newsletter, so I’ll do that now.

There’s a personality assessment designed by Meyers Briggs(MBTI) that types people into one of 16 personalities. According to the MBTI I’m an ENTP, which means that I’m extroverted, intuitive, thinking, and prospecting. If you’re curious about your type you can take this test:

So I had the ingenious idea of combining the fact that I am both an entrepreneur and an ENTP into one name; which is how you get this impressively unwieldy monstrosity. While I think the name is clever, it is ugly.

The problem is that while I like the way “entrepreneur” sounds, I hate the way it looks.

Entrepreneur is a nauseatingly French word. 50% of it is vowels, and 50% of those vowels are “e.” This is super-accentuated by my playful capitalization which takes the absurdity of the word to new heights.

I’m still playing with ways to represent the idea of being someone with multiple businesses and multiple interests. Maybe at some point, someone with a better eye for design than me will help me with the branding.

I’m fairly unfamiliar with George Mack’s work. He seems to mostly be present on Twitter and he has a newsletter where he curates ideas that he finds interesting.

Hey, what a great idea.

He was recently a guest on Modern Wisdom, and there were a few ideas that resonated with me; mostly because they were beliefs I already held to some degree but didn’t have a way to word them concisely.

1)Don’t optimize for activity. Optimize for outcomes.

Busyness is the sacred cow of productivity.

We’re all guilty of trying to feel more busy. There are countless tasks that you can assign yourself to fill every waking minute of your life. This can be nice because by doing so, you never have time for the existential dread to settle in.

Yay!

Despite what many people think. Busyness and productivity are inversely correlated. If you try to be more busy(checking emails, making calls, looking at Slack), you’ll be doing less of what matters. You won’t be focusing on tasks with leverage; tasks that move the needle.

If you focus on your outcomes, i.e.

“What’s the most direct route to getting what I want?”

You’ll get what you want but you’ll also do less, not more.

2)There’s no such thing as being overworked, there’s only being underrested.

They make a point in this podcast that this might not always be true but as a pithy aphorism, it’s helpful.

Personally, if I think back on many of the times that I was burnt out, I was never at rest. When we feel overwhelmed, there’s a pressure to double down on our efforts, to let the work spill into our personal time.

Any moment you're not working on the thing, you’re thinking about the thing.

But that’s not all…

The few moments you’re not thinking about the thing, you’re distracting yourself by engaging with the news, scrolling social media, and binging TV. When do you allow yourself to rest, to do things that recharge you?

3) There’s no such thing as “adults.”

George Mack says this best, so I encourage you to click on this time stamp for the relevant section of the podcast is 45:40

I’ve been saying this for years now.

When I was little I remember meeting college-aged kids and thinking,

“Wow, what’s it like to be an adult? They know so much and their lives look so cool!”

Then, when I was in my mid-twenties and teaching these college-aged kids I thought to myself,

“These are the dumbest people on the planet. How are they keeping themselves alive?

Upon closer inspection of any “adult,” you’ll find an old kid; replete with just as many faults, insecurities, and ignorance.

What’s great about this realization is that it gives you more agency. Who’s permission are you waiting for? Why do you ever feel the need to validate what you’re working on?

I’m working on starting a fund. A vehicle so that people can invest in the things that I’m working on(mostly real estate at the moment).

I can’t recommend this book to those who are not in finance, but I’ve found many of the papers/articles here insightful. There’s a paper at the beginning book that I can recommend, however(link below)

It’s an easy read, where Jason Zweig(a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal) uses his upbringing as an appraiser and seller of antiques to explain what it takes to compete in an inefficient market.

The reason, this might apply to you, is that we’re all participating in an inefficient market to some degree. Most jobs boil down to one thing:

You know more than your customers.

Most careers, and fortunes, are based on an arbitrage of information. You can solve a problem that other people can’t solve. Knowing what problem you’re trying to solve and knowing what information you need to solve that problem is the key to being efficient.

We’re gluttons for information. We binge all day long on the thoughts of other people. We’re reading a book. We’re watching the news. We’re scrolling on Instagram. We’re listening to a podcast. We’re watching TV. We’re gossiping with a friend. We’re getting the download on our partner’s day.

If information was food we’d all be 300lbs, hooked to an insulin drip, carted away in a 10-yard dumpster when we die.

When I had a weight problem years ago I took to fasting. It makes sense.

If your problem is that you’ve eaten too much, then you can strategically decide to not eat.

When do we take a break from the constant barrage of noise? How do we fast instead of constantly consuming junk information?

Solitude

Anytime I’m hiking in the woods, or walking the city streets by myself there’s an unfamiliar relief that I experience. No one’s talking to me. I get to listen to myself, to experience my own thoughts.

It’s not enough to be alone. That’s not solitude. If we’re alone and we’re listening to a podcast or watching TV you’re still simulating company. Those still aren’t your thoughts.

We need space to digest the information we’ve learned. How are we supposed to internalize new things when we’re still full from our last binge? If you don’t take time to assimilate what you’ve learned or to weigh the information against what you already know, you run the risk of regurgitating facts instead of filtering them through your point of view.

When I’m taking time to quietly reflect, I often feel like I’m wasting time but what could be more effective than making room for more learning, for more growth?

Use this as an excuse to stare out the window for an hour, or to go on a long walk. Do nothing for a while.

You might just find that doing nothing is everything.