I wish I didn't give any f*cks #47
Hey all, it’s been a while.
I paused this for the Christmas period and now it’s the start of March next week. The last 2 months have passed so quickly.
Anyway, it’s back, I’m back.
This week we’ll touch on a couple of things…
The rule of 100
The role of 100 hours
Creativity
Not giving a f*ck
Rule of 100
The rule of 100 is simple, do something 100 times to get good at it. Do something 100 times before you quit. When you start something new - commit to do that thing 100 time.
It’s a thought that enters and exits my head repeatedly over time. Unfortunately it stays in my head for less time than it should.
And doing something 100 times is hard. I started this newsletter on 16th December 2022 and this is my 47th one. It’s been over a year and I’m not even half way there.
Mr Beast even talks about the rule of 100, he said - people come to me asking for advice and they’ve only made a few videos. The advice I give to them is - make 100 videos, and get 1% better every time.
And I think ultimately this is where we need to be heading - if we really want to do something then we should be committing to doing that thing 100’s.
And the rule of 100 hours
Trying to find stuff to support my claims about the rule of 100, I came across the rule of 100 hours.
It’s similar to the rule of 100, but it is the idea that - if we spend 100 hours learning something, then we’ll be better than 95% of everyone else (at that thing).
It makes sense right? I could do judo 2 hrs per night, twice per week for 6 months - I’d be better than 95% of the population.
Daily? that’s 18 mins per day doing something
As a rough guide, the average person spends 2hrs and 24 mins on social media - so did you accidentally become an expert on other peoples lives?
So what can you do 100 times? or spend 100 hours doing?
Creativity
A question hit me deeply this week, why don’t many people post on social media?
It turns out the answer is very complex and ranges from people are worried about looking silly, worries about privacy, not having anything relevant to say and even people not really liking social media at all, even though, through habit they lurk there.
So I turned the question around, why do people post on social media? Some people believe it’s a vitally important skill and thing to do, some build personas online just to sell stuff, while others do it for the creative outlet.
I think I’m like the later.
Years ago I made websites, then I made computer games, that satisfied my creative need. I enjoyed data science because while its all math and numbers, it’s actually a creative process. Now I write newsletters and post random thoughts on social media, usually LinkedIn. I think it’s my creative outlet.
For me, being creative is important - but it’s not important for others - and that was interesting to realise this week.
Is creativity important to you? How do you express it?
Not giving a f*ck
Just seeing these words written down hurts.
I think it’s because I do in fact give a f*ck.
In fact, I give lots of f*cks, about many things.
Mark Manson wrote the popular book called ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’, so popular that Netflix made it into a show. Both the book and the show are pretty cool, but what was really cool was a YouTube video he did (dressed as a chicken for part of it) where he took a stranger through progressively more awkward situations. (I can’t find that video anymore)
In one challenge they set the guy up on speed dates with models, but he was given very awkward questions to ask.
The final challenge was for this stranger to start break dancing in a bar, while no-one else was dancing.
The whole point was to show the stranger that actually - no one cares (read about the spotlight effect), and secondly - not giving a f*ck is actually liberating and makes your life more fun.
For me, giving too many f*cks hurts. In fact, the many years of giving lots of f*cks has taken its toll, and I’m not the same person I was many years ago - and I assume many people can relate to that.
The random event
Last night I was out at the beach and I remembered about this technique I saw - you can do a panoramic photo on your phone and if you get it right you can appear in the photo more than once.
That random idea popped into my head and I tried it.
We failed a whole bunch of times.
Then people started to pass by, but for some reason I didn’t give a f*ck because I wanted to get that photo.
Plus by this point I was committed and they had already seen me doing this.
Then a couple got close, looking like they wanted to walk our way, but instead they stopped. So we continued to try to get the photo.
I was laughing, my wife was laughing and my daughter was laughing.
I was clearly in the spotlight.
The couple behind? They didn’t even look my way once. If anything, they wanted to look any other way. And as we finished and walked away, that couple walked over to the same spot and took their own Instagram styled photos. Which I normally wouldn’t have normally noticed, expect I was self conscious and aware of my surroundings (still not giving a f*ck).
In that brief moment I realised what I knew all along, what Mark Manson was telling us all - stop giving a f*ck, and life can be more fun.
Testing ideas
And the final section of my newsletter.
I’ve been trying to get some of my ideas out of my head and into the world, rather than saving them all to myself.
And I’ve adopted a very simple process of…
building the most minimal version of an idea
setting up measuring systems
then rapidly launching to test the idea
The process is simple - share your idea and test to see if you can find your audience before building anything. If not, quit and move on.
Have a look at some of those ideas I’m testing right now…
I can totally relate John!
Great to see you back writing!