Postcard 23: When It Rains It Pours
Hello from New York.
A crazy week full of Ups and Downs, just like the rest life for everyone right now.
We had big storm damage over here in Westchester, New York, as the hurricane passed through. I spent most of this week dealing with that damage at my home by ripping out sheetrock, insulation, and floors with some general contractors.
I know people down south in Louisiana, and other parts had it worse, and so I feel fortunate that no one was hurt and that we had flood insurance.
When we bought the home, the insurance disclosures said that a bad flood could happen once every 26 years; we closed on the home a few months ago.
Some good lessons for me from this: always have insurance, and the worst can happen at any time, not 26 years from now.
One of the Ups from this week is that a new cohort of Write of Passage just started, and last night the excitement on the zoom was electric. I am proud to be a mentor this time around, and the truth is I am just figuring it out as I go, and I was in the same place as many of these people just six months ago. But this proves that there is value in even being one step ahead and looking back and teaching others.
Let's get into the best stuff I read and found this week:
A few articles from the week:
I loved this tiny little article from Seth. I am a big believer in great stuff coming from iterations, Seth says:
Do enough bad writing and some good writing is bound to show up.
An article from me on asking the existential question of, what am I doing with my life? This year writing forced me to think, consume better content, and question everything about what I've been doing. I highly recommend writing as a way to a more meaningful future.
An amazing article by Balaji, he rips apart our current government when stacked against those that founded it; this stood out to me on the importance of those first principle founder skills:
"After all, most folks who assume political office in the modern US do not have the skills to organize anything like the Federal Reserve or the US Military from scratch, unlike George Washington or Alexander Hamilton. Their primary skill is getting elected, which is more like becoming popular on Twitter than creating Twitter."
A Tweet that kept me thinking this week:
I love this Tweet from PG because it's the same exact advice Sahil Lavingia gave us in the Minimalist Entrepreneur. When technical people went to Sahil and said, "I can code, but I can't sell," he told them, "So go learn to sell!" Or when people told him, "I want to get users, but I don't have a large Twitter audience," he told them, "so go grow a Twitter audience."
It's like it never occurs to us that we should just go learn and do that stuff we need. We should do it even if we cant do it well in the beginning and even if it might take a while. The real problem is some people just want a shortcut.
Here are some pictures from the flood, my neighbor took this earlier in the night, it got worse. That's my house on the left and yes those are things floating out of my neighbors garage, and it got worse. Mother nature is no joke.
Here is another picture from the inside, yes that paint peeling is the water line from how much water was inside.
As always, I love sending these out and sharing my learnings and growth and I appreciate you being apart of it
My inbox is open; feel free to reply to this email if I can help in any way. Stay safe out there.
Have a great week,
Louie