Solid day Sunday, got through weekly review and newsletter as well as recording a couple of podcasts and editing / publishing them. I seem to be on pace for introducing the new TLDR model of the podcast in September, with July and August being a continuation of my SaiOS series. So that gives me more clarity on when I want to start recording episodes for that new style, as well as starting to book guests.
Was supposed to have a video chat with ____ yesterday but she had to call a raincheck because she got dinner with her roommate instead. I was looking forward to it AND when she sent the text I was also happy that I would create time to do viz med and more podcast related work. But I have it tonight so let's see how that goes. Also meeting up tomorrow with ____ to get drinks so it'll be another opportunity to gauge how I feel having conversations and experiences with people who have probably had vastly different mindsets and experiences in life so far. Let's see how they go.
Working hard vs working smart. Age-old debate. I think both are required, but first, if we're limited to these 2 phrases, then working smart should be prioritized. I can be working super hard on something but if it's not the right thing to be working on, then I'm not making an impact or providing value for myself or others. So working smart, in my eyes, essentially just means working with alignment. To align though, you need to set the high level mission / goals for what you want to achieve. You can't align with anything if that top level is not there in the first place. Once that vision is set, everything else can follow suit and you won't need to think if it's the right way to allocate your time and energy. After that direction is set, you can work hard within that alignment because you know it's going to move the needle on your larger goals. What does working hard mean though? It doesn't mean burning yourself out by working super long hours. To me, it means having a laser focus on the task at hand. No multitasking, only unitasking. If I have that sense of focus for an hour - 2 hours, I can accomplish more than someone who was checking their phone, checking email, etc. in 3-4 hours. And if that person wasn't aligned on what they were doing as it related to their larger purpose / goals, then that just exacerbates that gap. What does focus mean though? It doesn't mean serious or stressed or tense. It means a relaxed alertness. Relaxed not only mentally, but physically, emotionally, spiritually. When the best NBA players are shooting a free throw, they're not serious or stressed or tense. They're relaxed, breathing intentionally, and singularly focused on the task at hand: making a bucket. The issue in society is that we equate focus with seriousness. And by being so serious, we equate working hard to something that takes a toll on our body, mind and spirit. And then we try to compensate for that by "working hard and playing hard." LMAO. Bruh, work should be play! The reason we think those are 2 different things is because there isn't alignment between 2 things: 1) what we want to do and what we're actually doing and 2) who we want to be and who we actually are. With no alignment or misalignment, whatever level of focus (and hard work) isn't going to help you become who you want to be. An example of this just this past week /weekend was my garage sale arbitrage project. I did intentionally look and build out this project during Q2 planning but didn't realize the amount of energy it would suck for a very minimal return. I bought all those items when I didn't have any alignment. And now I just wanted to get rid of those items because it was taking away energy from other things that are aligned with my purpose and mission now. Things that when I work on them, they actually create energy, not drain it.
[5 min Google search]
In physics, the work-energy theorem states that the work done by the sum of all forces acting on a particle equals the change in kinetic energy. W = (Delta)🔼KE. The issue is that there are competing forces pulling on this particle (us) in life. So the net force is actually very minimal. There is a lot of friction on the surface that doesn't allow us to take advantage of the force we're exerting on our life. Aka working hard but with no alignment. We're not taking advantage of the rate of change of the momentum (rewriting Newton's 2nd law) because there are forces being exerted down and against the way we want the particle / block / us to move: forward. This also means that the more work we do, we actually create more energy. AND the more energy we create, we're able to do more work.
As a metaphor, we are born as a block. As we continue to work through our layers and grow, we become more well-rounded figuratively and literally in this example. We become closer and closer to a sphere. In that state, this sphere, this ball is way more easily able to generate not only unidirectional, but bidirectional and rotational momentum to reach its goal. If we imagine a cone with the point at the bottom and a road outlining and descending along the edge, it circles around and around and converges to the cone's singular point. We are starting from the top trying to push this block down our entire life. But there's so much friction from the road and we have to exert so much force to barely do any work on it; such minimal movement. Not much actual energy created. Now what if we spent time carving, shaping, making more lean this block into a ball. Very smooth, no rough edges, frictionless. With just one gentle push, it gathers momentum, starts creating kinetic energy. At the top, it has all this potential energy ready to be converted to kinetic energy. It continues down the same road that the person was pushing the block on. But since it's a perfect sphere, it's able to traverse down this road with such ease, grace, speed, momentum, power. If there are any bumps in the road, it's able to simply flow right through them because it's built up so much momentum and energy that nothing can, not get in the way but, substantially impact the momentum with which it is reaching its end goal. Let's be this well-rounded sphere that goes through its journey with ease.
So work hard or work smart? Let's reimagine it as being aligned and being focused!
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