The Bi-Monthly #3
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of having no Plan B - going all-in on whatever matters most to me at this moment. The difficulty is not knowing if my efforts will produce any worthwhile results.. if I’ll “succeed.” The human brain is designed to despise uncertainty, so naturally a lack of Plan B is quite uncomfortable. But what scares me most is a life of perfectly executed Plan B’s. Settling because I’m too scared to try something is a perfectly good recipe to die sad.
Anyway, here is what I’ve been reading so far this month. Some bits from James Dyson’s Invention and Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. I also have been reading LovingKindness by Sharon Salzberg and Ready, Fire, Aim. Enjoy!
In 1983, after four years of building and testing 5,127 handmade prototypes of my cyclonic vacuum, I finally cracked it.
Stamina and determination, with creativity, are needed to overcome seemingly impossible difficulties.
Learning by failure is a remarkably good way of gaining knowledge. Failure is to be welcomed rather than avoided or feared. It is part of learning.
At Dyson, we don’t particularly value experience. Experience tells you what you ought to do… We are much more interested in how things shouldn’t be done. If you want to pioneer and invent new technology you need to step into the unknown and, in that realm, experience can be a hindrance.
And yet, what could be less honorable and grubbier than making nothing other than making money, and especially when this demands as little effort as possible though all but guaranteeing social esteem?
Products do not walk off shelves and into people’s homes. The art of selling is needed to explain it. What it is. How it works. Why you might need and want it.
The inventive mind knows instinctively that there are always further questions to be asked and new discoveries to be made.
Invention by James Dyson
To relinquish the futile effort to control change is on of the strengthening forces of true detachment, and thus true love.
Forgiveness allows us to recapture some part of ourselves that we left behind in bondage to a past event.
LovingKindness by Sharon Salzberg
Perfect decisions only exist in hindsight.
Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.
Those who fail to constantly fail are destined to be the eternal followers.
“Value” does not exist. It’s a perception we reach with expectations we meet.
When the human mind excludes all other possibilities and fixates on a single path, that path draws in every available ounce of your passion, perseverance and power, leaving no room for hesitation or deviation.
Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett
