Life - Emily Yaskowitz

Being isn’t as real as doing

Creativity, Life, Philosophy / Emily / January 26, 2023

Ralph Waldo Emerson said personal energy “resides in the moment of transition from the past to a new state.” It resides in the creative process. The finished product, he said, is dead in its completion. But the process of creating? That’s ripe with growth and opportunity.

There’s a word for something done solely for the end result: chore. This theme has come up again and again in recent books I’ve read, and I want to share two of my favorite takeaways.

How to Reduce Intrinsic Interest
There’s a classic psychology experiment involving children who liked to draw. They were given pens and paper and split into two groups. The children in the first group were given a reward for their drawings, which they were told about beforehand. The children in the second group received no rewards nor mention of them. After a few weeks, the children in the first group (those rewarded for their drawings) were less interested in drawing than those in the second group. The first group’s drawings were also judged to be of lower quality. The second group not only produced better work, but showed continued enjoyment in the activity. “The hypothesis,” says Matthew B. Crawford, “is that the child begins to attribute his interest, which previously needed no justification, to the external reward, and this has the effect of reducing his intrinsic interest in it.”

Being Isn’t as Real as Doing
In How to Write One Song, Jeff Tweedy says the question is not, Who do I want to be? It’s, What do I want to do? “Do you want to be a “star”? Don’t bother. You’re going to lose,” he says. “Even if you make it, you’ll lose. Because you’re never going to be exactly what you’re picturing.” Let’s say you want to be a rockstar. If by rockstar you mean you want to play music in front of people, you can do that. You can probably gradually play to larger groups of people too. You can experiment with new musical forms. You can dye your hair and create your own persona. Basically, you can do nearly everything “rockstars” do. Rockstar is a title. It’s not real. Doing something is real. Creating is real. You can be someone or you can do something.

Just That You Do the Right Thing
Stoicism is built around doing. Its goal is not to make you sound smart or help you debate abstract theories. It aims to solve problems in the real world. It doesn’t matter that you know Seneca’s letters by heart if you’re still worried about things you don’t control.

Epictetus said don’t talk about your philosophy, embody it. “If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.” And anything that is beautiful, said Marcus Aurelius, is beautiful by itself; beauty needs no title or recognition. “Does an emerald lose its quality if it is not praised?”

Doing the right thing—that’s what matters. That someone notices? Not your concern. That you’re given a reward because of it? Yawn. “Just that you do the right thing,” Marcus said, “the rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying…or busy with other assignments. . . . There as well: ‘To do what needs doing’.”

(If you want to learn more about Stoic philosophy, these are the best books to start with: The Daily Stoic, Meditations, Letters From a Stoic, Discourses, Enchiridion, On the Shortness of Life.)

Books Read This Month

I needed a distraction this month, and John Grisham’s The Reckoning did the trick. Jake Brown’s Rick Rubin: In the Studio was a fascinating look at the why behind Rubin’s creative decisions, and how these decisions created and revolutionized multiple music genres. (I’m eager to read his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being.) I’m also slowly making my way through Gary Provost’s 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing, which is short but rich. And I’ve just started reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker which I’m really enjoying so far. He uses real-life crime stories (which read like thrillers) to explain the psychology of human violence, and how to recognize the warning signs that can keep you safe.

The best of 2022

Life, Philosophy / Emily / December 16, 2022

This year I tried to be extra mindful of how I spent my time. The Stoics said if you don’t want to waste your time, don’t focus on things that aren’t in your control. So I stopped looking at crypto updates. I stopped (or was at least mindful of stopping once I started) trying to figure people out. I stopped paying attention to the news. And I stopped being so tight-fisted with services that save me time (I had groceries delivered, hired professionals instead of doing it myself, etc.)

The result was that I got a lot done and had tons of free time. I spent every evening this year with my wife, saw my parents nearly every week, ran ~550 miles, read tons of great books, and started a newsletter.

The ideas I learned and used this year helped me so much, so I put together a list of the best ones. Below are the 22 ideas that helped me most in 2022. Enjoy.

1. The first rule for everything: don’t stress.

2. Focus on insignificant things, get insignificant results. Instead of tracking how many days you made your bed, track how many hours you spent reading a good book. Instead of a house-cleaning schedule, make an exercise one.

3. Habits are only habits if they’re done daily. Habits done once a week are obligations.

4. John Steinbeck said overwork is the falsest of economies. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done.

5. Clear the mental and physical clutter. I taped this quote from Discipline is Destiny to my computer: “A person who doesn’t eliminate noise will miss the message from the muses.”

6. Be ruthless about what you give your attention to. If an email is not addressed to you specifically, or if it starts with “Please Read…”, you probably don’t even need to open it. Open a book or a journal for a few minutes instead.

7. It’s better to read books that will enrich your life, rather than your career.

8. In order to have 1 good idea, you need to consume 10.

9. If someone tells you a book has changed their life, read it.

10. Everyone is doing their best with what they’ve been given. Socrates said that no one does wrong on purpose. The logic, of course, is that people who do wrong are harming themselves, and since people don’t harm themselves on purpose, they don’t do wrong on purpose. I really liked how Ryan Holiday wrote about it: People are doing the best they can with what they’ve been given. They weren’t given your brain, your experiences, your circumstances, your influences. The friend who repeatedly makes destructive choices, the sister who just can’t seem to get it together—surely they wouldn’t act this way if they knew the harm they were causing themselves. They wouldn’t act this way if they could help it. They’re doing their best, as we all are. If they’re open to advice, give it. If they’re not, let them be. Focus on the good in them. There are things that they’re better at than you. Learn from them. Most of all, love them. And be grateful with all your heart for the opportunity to share this beautiful, brief existence with them.

11. The higher tempo wins. If everything feels under control, you’re not going fast enough.

12. No two people can read the same book, see the same sunrise, or watch the same movie and get the same thing from it. Basically, nothing has been explored until it has been explored by you. Only you can find the treasures that will help you with your magnificent task or weird little thing.

13. There are fools and there are seekers of wisdom. Everyone else suffers. As Sadhguru put it in Inner Engineering, “An idiot is incapable of drawing conclusions. A [wise person] is unwilling to draw conclusions. The rest have glorified their conclusions as knowledge. The fool just enjoys whatever little he knows and [the wise person] enjoys it absolutely. The rest are the ones who constantly struggle and suffer.”

14. Only by being present can we live life to the fullest. As Oliver Burkeman put it in Four Thousand Weeks, a great experience “can still end up feeling fairly meaningless if you’re incapable of directing some of your attention as you’d like. After all, to have any meaningful experience, you must be able to focus on it, at least a bit. Otherwise, are you really having it at all? Can you have an experience you don’t experience? The finest meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant might as well be a plate of instant noodles if your mind is elsewhere; and a friendship to which you never actually give a moment’s thought is a friendship in name only.”

15. Let it float on by. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about discarding thoughts: if a toxic thought pops into my head, I can immediately discard it. When I told my wife about this, she pointed out that in order to discard something, I first had to possess it. It’s better, she said, to watch the thought from a distance, and let it float on by.

16. Don’t let anyone tell you reading isn’t work. I schedule a half hour each day to read (instead of just reading when I have time) and try not to miss it. Reading is hard work. And it’s some of the most important work you can do.

17. Reflective thoughts are truer than everyday thoughts. As we go about our day, thoughts pop into our heads seemingly out of nowhere. These thoughts can be irrational or impulsive, which can lead to feelings that are irrational or impulsive, which can lead to actions that are irrational or impulsive. That’s why reflection is so important. It’s why journaling or meditating or taking 5 minutes to ourselves is so important. So we can slow down. So we can be present. So we can take our brains off autopilot and hear the whispers of our hearts. So we can stay in touch with ourselves. As Anne Morrow Lindbergh said in her beautiful book Gift from the Sea, “If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.”

18. Only fools constantly regret their actions.

19. Seneca said if we’re not grateful right now, we will never be grateful, even if we’re given the whole world.

20. Love is a way of being.

21. Slow productivity. Do fewer things, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality. And if you’re a creator, focus on what does not yet exist.

22. Many mickles make a muckle. Keep going, even if it doesn’t seem like you’re making progress. You are. It’s slowly adding up. The interest is compounding. Keep going.

You have no competition

Creativity, Life, Philosophy / Emily / December 9, 2022

We feel lousy when we think other people are doing better than us. We feel superior when we think we are doing better than other people. Basically, as Ryan Holiday put it, there are only two ways that comparing yourself to others can make you feel: crappy or egotistical.

Comparing ourselves to others is the gateway to competing with them. And if we’re not careful, we end up competing for the sake of competing. Instead of a means to an end, it becomes an end in itself. We end up playing a game we don’t actually care about—and dulling our shine to stay in it.

Lamborghini’s Refusal To Compete

Before becoming one of the world’s best carmakers, mechanic Ferruccio Lamborghini built tractors. He also drove and modified Ferraris. Souping up his red Ferrari 250 GTE Pinin Farina Coupe, he would speed past the best drivers in the world—Ferrari test drivers—and leave them in disbelief. But, as Luke Burgis writes in Wanting, Lamborghini had been having mechanical problems with his Ferrari. One of those problems was the clutch. It didn’t feel right. Upon inspection, he realized the clutch in his $87,000 luxury car was the same clutch he used in his $650 tractors. When he brought this to the attention of Ferrari founder, Enzo Ferrari, he would hear nothing of it. So, Lamborghini decided he would make his own luxury car.

He founded Automobili Lamborghini in 1963 and made his first car in 1964. Four years later, in 1968, he released the Miura P400s—an iconic car that both Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis bought. With the success of the Miura, Lamborghini’s engineers pleaded with him to make a car that could hold its own in a race against a Ferrari. But Lamborghini refused. While he knew that, to a point, competition could be good (after all, Lamborghini used Ferrari’s inadequate clutch as fuel to start his own company), he also knew the dangers of rivalries and how quickly competition could devolve into one. So he didn’t give in. (Future leaders of Automobili Lamborghini were eventually lured into the race car business, but not while Lamborghini was still alive and running things.) Rivalries, he knew, had no end. Lamborghini invested his energy into opportunities and craftsmanship. The result was that he built not only a successful business but also, on his property, a barn that he filled with his favorite models of Lamborghini automobiles. And he was able to spend the last twenty years of his life in peace, giving fun tours of his favorite cars to visitors.

How To Have a Good Shot at Building the Best

Builder of the world’s best racing shells for crew teams, George Pocock was “all but born with an oar in his hand.” Both his paternal and maternal grandfathers were competitive boatbuilders. His father built competitive racing shells for Eton College. George followed in his family’s footsteps by combining his boat knowledge with his peerless love of craftsmanship. At the height of his career, he was building and supplying racing shells to almost every top crew university in the country (including Washington University, whose crew team won a stunning victory at the 1936 Berlin Olympics). His racing shells were superior to others. Each shell was built with care and patience—possibly because of the advice his father had given him when he was younger: “No one will ask you how long it took to build; they will only ask who built it.”

Pocock, like Lamborghini, would not compromise his craftsmanship for competition. When a crew coach all but demanded Pocock reduce his $1,150 per-shell price, arguing that other racing shells weren’t nearly as expensive, Pocock wouldn’t budge. He flatly refused to lower his price to compete with other suppliers. “I cannot build all of them,” he said, “but I can still have a good shot at building the best.”

False Desires are Limitless

Seneca said that natural desires are limited, but false ones are limitless. Vanity, pleasure-seeking, rivalries—all these are limitless. How, then, are nature’s desires satisfied? By sticking to your own reasoned principles. “When you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point,” Seneca said. “If you find, after having traveled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature.”

Just that you help others with your weird little thing

Life, Philosophy / Emily / December 2, 2022

One of my favorite reads this year has been Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks. And I’ve thought a lot about this passage:

“The only definitive measure of what it means to have used your weeks well: Not how many people you helped, or how much you got done; but that working within the limits of your moment in history, and your finite time and talents, you actually got to doing—and made life more luminous for the rest of us by doing—whatever magnificent task or weird little thing it was that you came here for.”

Isn’t that beautiful? For some reason, it reminded me of a couple of stories in Shoe Dog, another book I love.

Jeff Johnson’s Thing

Before Nike founder Phil Knight hired Jeff Johnson as Nike’s first full-time employee, Johnson worked as a social worker for Los Angeles County. On the weekends he sold Tigers—the Japanese running shoe made by Onitsuka. Johnson loved running and had a romantic view of it. It was almost like a religion to him. He believed that, done right, runners could run themselves into a spiritual, meditative state. One day in April 1965, his supervisor said that he didn’t think Johnson cared about his job as a county social worker. Johnson realized he was right—he didn’t care. So he quit. That day he realized his destiny—and it wasn’t social work. His destiny was to help runners reach their nirvana. “He wasn’t put here on this earth to fix people’s problems,” said Knight. “He preferred to focus on their feet.”

Belief

Before founding Nike, Knight was a salesman—a terrible one. Selling encyclopedias door to door had been a bust. He was only slightly more successful selling mutual funds. He resigned himself to the idea that he just wasn’t a salesman. But when Knight, a lifelong runner, received his first big delivery of Tigers (he had worked out a deal with Onitsuka who was seeking expansion in America), things changed. With a trunk full of Tigers, he drove around to different track events and showed them off to players, coaches, and spectators. He couldn’t write orders fast enough.

He wondered why he was able to sell shoes but not encyclopedias. Was the difference in his selling ability really a matter of product? Then he realized: it wasn’t a matter of selling at all. It was a matter of belief. He believed in running. He believed the world would be a better place if people ran a few miles every day, and he believed that the shoes he was selling were better to run in. “People, sensing my belief, wanted some belief for themselves,” he said. “Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible.”

Stay the Course

Seneca used the Greek word euthymia for “believing in yourself and trusting you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction.” He said we should make this a constant reminder—to stay the course and not give in to distraction. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself to stay focused on doing his duty. “Concentrate every minute like a Roman . . . . on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.” With justice. With what’s fair, what’s right, and what’s useful for the common good.

Just that we do our duty, our magnificent task or weird little thing, and that we do it with justice, to make life more luminous for others.

These are two metrics that can guide us each day, and always.

15 short strategies for getting the right things done

Life / Emily / September 23, 2022

A few years ago, this quote from Marcus Aurelius gave me a kick in the ass: “Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”

Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for ways to build my days around getting the right things done while enjoying life in the process.

Below are some of the best strategies I’ve found and used.

Plan, Plan, Plan

If we want to get things done, it’s good advice to start by jumping in. But if we want to get the right things done, it’s good advice to start by planning.

Brian Tracey said, “Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1000 percent Return on Energy!”

Robert Greene’s 29th Law of Power is “Plan All the Way To the End”.

Stephen Covey’s 2nd Habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is “Begin With the End in Mind.”

There are variations, but the message is the same: Planning saves time. Planning creates success.

Be Humble

It’s arrogant to think we can put things off until retirement. Who’s to say we’ll make it there? Who knows if we’ll still have the ability?

Our lifespan is insultingly short. We quite literally don’t have time to put things off. We have to start now.

Eliminate Ego

Speaking of humility, The Office actor and producer B.J Novak said anytime he found himself in a career just for the money, he knew it was time to get out.

In my own life, only once I stopped letting my ego run the show (chasing bigger checks, sucking up to my boss), was I able to get anything of value accomplished.

Don’t Stress

If thinking about an activity causes you stress, stop yourself. There’s no need to stress. Just make the smallest amount of progress and call it a day. The next day, do the same. Then the day after that, and so on. It all adds up.

Tackle the Hardest Thing First

It’s been said that an hour in the morning is worth two.

Get up at a decent time each day and do the hardest thing first. Not only does this give you a better chance of getting that thing done, it also makes the rest of the day seem like a breeze.

Forget About the Outcome

Steven Pressfield said it best: “The amateur and the addict focus exclusively on the product and the payoff.”

If It’s Not a Clear Yes, It’s a Clear No

For decades, the furniture company Vitsoe has made the 606 Universal Shelving System—and nothing else. Why? Because the 606 Universal Shelving System was the only product that met their high standards.

Eliminate the inessential.

Use Strategic Procrastination

Ever notice how once you complete your to-do list it fills right back up?

This is a law of life: we can’t get it all done. When we accept our limits, we free ourselves to pursue what’s most important to us.

It’s not how much but what you get done that matters.

Take One Step Today

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,” Marcus Aurelius told himself. “Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer.”

Do The Thing, Or Nothing

Prolific writer Raymond Chandler credited his production to “two very simple rules: a. You don’t have to write. b. You can’t do anything else.”

He would write by making himself too bored not to.

Give 100%, 10% of the Time

Every morning at 6 am, James Patterson would lock his office door at the J. Walter Thompson ad agency and write for two hours. At 8 am, he would open his door and carry on with his role as creative director.

Even while juggling other responsibilities, we can be 100% committed.

Don’t Plan It

Here’s how I used the opposite approach to my first strategy by not planning:

I used to make plans to exercise, penciling cardio and strength training into my calendar. It looked good on paper, but I never got around to actually doing any of it. It wasn’t laziness—I just couldn’t find the time for it.

So I decided to take a different approach. I thought of the things I did each day that didn’t require planning. Things so natural and automatic that it would never occur to me not to do them. Things I’ve yet to go a day without doing. Things like eating, or sleeping, or brushing my teeth. These are the activities that all the other activities have to work around.

I mentally categorized exercise as an essential activity (which it is) and stopped planning it. It would just be part of my after-work routine, and that was that. And this strategy seems to be working. I’ve maintained the same routine since starting it in December of last year.

Set a Stop Time

When his editor joked that he should increase his daily word rate, John Steinbeck wasn’t amused. “I like to hold the word rate down because if I don’t, it will get hurried and I will get too tired one day and not work the next. The slow, controlled method is best.” He would not “permit himself the indiscipline of overwork. This is the falsest of economies.”

Let the Effort Be Enough

Perhaps the advice that’s helped me most to get my writing done is from Steven Pressfield. Detailing his daily writing routine, he answers the hypothetical, post-writing session questions:

“How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.”

All that counts is that he did his best.

Lean Into What You’re Putting Off

Generally, the greater the urge to procrastinate, the more important the task. That’s why when it comes to taking a shower, we don’t procrastinate.

If you find yourself procrastinating to do something, good. You’ve found something worth doing.