Greatness.
- a beginner, who knows shit
- continuous self-improvement
- masterpieces, one after the other
Greatness
Greatness.
What do you need to achieve it?
- a beginner, who knows shit
- continuous self-improvement
- masterpieces, one after the other
In other words:
- You
- Self-improvement
- Your work
… and because greatness is coming from the creation, self-improvement is greatness itself.
What is greatness?
Greatness = You + Your work.
Improvement while you work on your masterpieces — self-improvement until you are the best.
It’s that simple.
Again, you can find the latter here.
Now the former.
It goes like this, until at some point, you’ll reach the “Nature vs. Nurture” debate:
We are not complete, but we are not a blank canvas either.
In other words, some things are changeable in you, some are not.
Some researchers say that these can be changed:
- Relationships (e.g., family, friends, marriage)
- Well-being (e.g., acceptance, panic, optimism)
- Achievement (e.g., success, purpose, mastery)
While these are not:
- An introvert to become extrovert
- A homosexual to become heterosexual
- A “high IQ & low EQ” to become “low IQ & high EQ”
You were born with something — your toolbox. You can use it to work on what you can change.
Can you see it now?
It’s the 3 parts of “You”:
- Thoughts — how to change what you can change
- Emotions — how you accept what you can’t change
- Behavior
In order to improve your work, you need to improve yourself.
And voila, we have reached self-improvement.
Self-improvement
Self-improvement (also called self-help or self-development) is the addressing of one’s weakness, building on strengths, or bettering the whole character — by one’s own effort.
Therefore, it can be:
- sprint
- marathon
It’s a process from “A” to “Z” — where “Z” is your goal, and you move from “A” to “B” to “C”, in order to reach “Z”.
The “Z” can be anything.
Getting into better shape. Building a successful business. Relaxing more, worrying less. More friends and family time. Reading every day. Learning a new language. Waking up early. Finding a new hobby. Taking a new course. Overcoming your fears. Leveling up your skills. Quitting a bad habit. Avoid negative people. Getting a mentor. Starting a blog, vlog or journal. Limiting your screen time. Learning chess. Meditating. Eating healthy. Getting more sunlight. Practice kindness. Letting go of the past. Saying “no”. Becoming the #1 in your field.
Literally anything.
… but not everything.
It’s fucking important!
Think the life-purpose essay — Elon Musk and the three buckets of life.
- Success — electric cars, reusable rockets, richest man in the world
- Relationships — three divorces, his kid changed her name to no longer be related to her father
- Health — “I’d rather eat tasty food and live a shorter life”
That’s the price of being extremely successful — unhealthy, unhappy life.
“You don’t want to be me… I’m not sure I want to be me”
— Elon Musk
You have limited resources.
And the problem is… most people can’t even succeed in one area, even though it’s not rocket science.
New year.
… and Google searches for “fitness”.
It’s worse than it seems, because if you get to a point where you start and then give up, you’ll feel even worse.
That’s why self-improvement has such a bad rap.
An entire industry has developed to provide you with the various tricks that have the effect of:
- makes you feel even more miserable than before
- or you feel like a godlike, but you’re not making any progress
But in the distance, there’s an image that looms vaguely before you: it’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who has constantly improved himself to become a better footballer — and he became one of the best in the world, even though he was much less talented than Messi.
Or Steve Jobs, who wasn’t a natural-born genius.
Or Ed Sheeran, who sang like a castrated chicken.
… and now, they’re all legends.
The power of self-improvement.
Okay, so what does self-improvement (that reaaally works) look like?
Self-development… that works
Well, you know now that your self is:
- Your thoughts
- Your feelings
- Your behavior
The interesting thing is that self-improvement has a completely different impact on these three.
Your thinking revolves around goals, mental models, success. Get more respect, money, or fame… change the world.
But emotionally, you want to self-improve to become somebody who doesn’t need these. Somebody who thinks respect, money or fame is silly.
One half of you wants to max out life — the other half wants to live it.
Which one should you listen to?
Well, the answer is: neither.
Do you want to be positive, peaceful, fulfilled… and other nice things you’ve heard in your recent podcast but don’t know what the fuck they means?
Then stop chasing them.
Min-maxing life is not the best strategy — it’s not even good. It’s harmful. If you want to squeeze out every drop of benefits what you consume, the people that you meet, the things that you do… you’ll be miserable at the emotion level.
… and guess what: even at the thinking level!
If your emotions and thinking is miserable, your behavior will be, too.
If your thinking, emotions and behavior is miserable, You will be, too.
… and if You are miserable, Your Work will be, too.
All the successful people I know — all of them — fucking loves what they do. And the paradox is that they improve much better than the min-maxers.
So if you push everything that you think you need but not enjoy, you’ll be both miserable and underperformer.
The great battle of Usefulness vs. Entertainment.
You don’t need one or the other. You need both.
When you buy your new recipe book full of paleo foods, planning your new daily routine, bookmarking the gym’s website, you do the easy part — the fun part.
The problem is, you won’t lose weight, because that’s the hard part — the useful part.
No effort, no failure? Bullshit. It’s a failure.
But giving up is not the greatest failure — not-starting is.
So, in order to self-improve, you need to connect the fun part with the useful part.
You have to enjoy the journey.
Do things that are useful… and make them fun! Or do things that are fun… and make them useful!
If they aren’t, figure out how to make them so.
I’ll show you how.