#13: A Sum More Than Its Parts
Combining different beliefs, taking to the stage, and defining one's aims
Hey there! Thanks for opening this up.
The months of October and November have been so busy that I’m only publishing this now, during my two-week vacation to Asia… but nonetheless, it is done.
However, there’s always more to do, this time in fixing my website after migrating hosts. Hence having to post my full essay in the body of this newsletter…
Anyways, this past month and a half have been the busiest I’ve ever been - both full of a myriad of learning experiences in “adulting”, and the familiar feeling of being pushed, just as when I was interviewing everywhere for a full-time job during my last semester of college while balancing classes and extracurriculars. Now time to rejuvenate to come back in December and end the year strong.
Photo: Upstate NY taken from hiking Breakneck Ridge.
Essay
Combining Mindfulness with Intensity
VC-investor turned startup CEO coach Jerry Colonna once wrote: “one of the hallmarks of mental health is the ability to hold conflicting feelings”.
After listening to Jerry’s Reboot podcast episode interviewing Khe Hy, the ex-financier who left to build a brand with a message around introspection, further themes around being present came about from their discussion on a poem titled “Lead” by Mary Oliver on appreciating fleeting moments.
Now, the concept of mindfulness is not a new anymore. Yoga studios, meditation retreats, and the school of self-care all preach the message; however, few look at it in terms of combining mindfulness with intensity: viewed individually, these words spark very different associations - the former alludes to peacefulness and tranquility while the latter hints at tension and severity. Employed together, they allow for specific actions to ultimately enable the accomplishment of whatever one sets his or mind to. Essentially, the epitome of optimization.
Although no manual exists on exactly how to do this, one area I’ve been experimenting in fostering the practice is via commitment: consistently focusing on specific areas, making compounding progress by building off previous efforts, persisting over an extended period of time. Basically, it’s thinking about and working on something, sticking to it for a long enough period of time and having the efforts somehow come together. Picking something and going with it despite what struggles may come, putting in the work even when growth may not seem linear, and putting the blinders on to focus attention on the initiative at hand without pondering over whatever temptations other options provide.
I strive to employ such commitment to content creation. Specifically, I operate with a continually iterative process that enables new information to be captured and utilized, plan so that I have dedicated time for these activities, and employ a series of habits to keep me going.
Pipeline: in with the new
The stages of my content creation process consist of ideating, drafting, editing, posting, and analyzing. More below:
Ideating – taking notes and turning them into an outline for a new piece
Drafting – writing the rough draft based on the notes and outline
Editing – reviewing, tweaking, and finalizing the rough draft to create a final draft
Posting – publishing the piece and the other associated content such as the articles in my newsletter
Analyzing – tracking post performance and feedback
While it’s true that the majority of new information comes into play in the first stage of capturing information to form ideas and arguments, the rest of the stages could also be improved. This is where perception comes in, seeing what information is out there and adding it to my existing store of knowledge. It’s about being open to the world, letting my thoughts be challenged and tweaking them based on the feedback.
I capture new information using a combination of Notion and Google Drive, taking all notes on a general notepad within Notion and then transferring them onto Google Drive to their specific categories. This enables the quick capture of information followed by a chance to process everything before moving to longer-term storage.
Scheduling: dedicating time
It’s one thing to slot something into a set schedule with a predictable routine, like with my previous job. It’s a completely different story when things unexpectedly change on a frequent basis.
My current situation falls into the latter, with events happening all of the time be it from work, my own work, or just whatever ride the rollercoaster of life in NYC decides to takes me on.
Rather than stress out too much when things don’t go as planned, I’ve gotten into the act of what Frank Ostaseski says on having a plan and holding it lightly (see Radreads podcast). My interpretation of this is to have a general direction, which I set during my weekly 15-minute planning session every Sunday evening. As the week progresses, I make small adjustments while keeping in mind the most important tasks, to move things around while still fitting in what I want to get done. This fluid form of planning enables room for serendipity when unexpected positive events occur, resiliency when the opposite happens, and flexibility for both.
Habits: thoughts and actions
I’ve previously written about both of these self-coined parts of habits, but here I’m combining the two: the lens of how we view the world, or frameworks, affect our thoughts and influence our choices; the execution of these decisions, our actual actions, turn these ideas into reality. Hence the combination of mindfulness, using the perceptiveness of one’s situation to determine the path, and intensity, the following through to get there.
People often associate tunnel vision with negative connotations, but that is not always the case. Expanding one’s awareness enables one to see new opportunities. Committing to seize such an opportunity enhances the likelihood of achieving results - in other words, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Side note: This essay came about from a period of extreme busyness, where I found myself in meeting after meeting unable to focus on what was in front of me due to everything that was going on – not realizing my full potential in the situations I was in. It was only after making a conscious effort to prioritize was I able to redirect my focus to what mattered most and start to make progress in this new environment (more to come on this in another essay).
Strategy
What, Exactly, is Business Development? (Episode 5)
I host an episode of the Firneo podcast focused on guests’ journeys into the world of business development and strategic partnerships.
The guest of the episode, Julia Rudlin, is currently the Director of Growth at Terminal and went through several transitions, going from a generalist role at Gilt group and picking up experience in growth at Vine, transitioning to a platform role at FirstMark Capital before landing her current role at Terminal.
This was the first time I hosted a podcast episode, and got to see what it’s like from the other side (now when will I get the full picture as a guest?) - anyways, my learnings from this experience involve the importance of not just asking the pertinent questions, but also sharing more of my own in relation to the topic of discussion, to bounce ideas via conversation.
What You’ll Wish You’d Known
After being rescinded from speaking at a high school, Paul Graham writes a speech that he would have given to high schoolers about worldview on topics such as curiousity, ambition, and ideation.
"What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do."
"If you'd asked me in high school what the difference was between high school kids and adults, I'd have said it was that adults had to earn a living. Wrong. It's that adults take responsibility for themselves."
"Working at something as a day job doesn't mean doing it badly. It means not being defined by it."
"Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations."
Innovation
The uncertain future of your neighborhood dry cleaner
A story of the modern, soulless startups undercutting the traditional neighborhood-servicing laundry shops, a huge chunk owned by Koreans.
"The Korean-American Dry Cleaners’ Association of New York estimated that there were 3,000 dry cleaners statewide in 2016, with 80 percent of them Korean-owned."
Local dry cleaners are having difficulty competing with venture-funded startups, which pose challenges given their use wholesalers to clean in bulk, dedicated budgets for customer acquisition, and depersonalization. This is really about the depersonalization of mass production, both in terms of service and community.
Thoughts
Young People Are Going to Save Us All From Office Life
An outline of survey results capturing the sentiment of the younger generations reveals their new way of viewing work-life balance: flexibility.
“That’s how millennials and Gen Z-ers are playing the game — it’s not about jumping up titles, but moving into better work environments”
Work as an action and not a place provides this flexible work environment, be it the location, hours, or tasks done during the day. We will hopefully see these arrangements become even more prevalent, further aided by technology and the active championing of these requests by young employees.
David Whyte on Vulnerability, Presence, and How We Enlarge Ourselves by Surrendering to the Uncontrollable
A selection of works by poet and philosopher David Whyte on vulnerability, presenting it in three different forms via a logical argument, poem, and personal recollection from experience.
"If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall; this is the physics of vulnerability.” - Rising Strong by Bene Brown
This piece ties together the concepts of vulnerability, presence, and embracing the unknown.
Talk to me about startups!
I’m looking to get exposure to as many business ideas as possible and give feedback from a venture capital perspective - if you or anyone you know are working on something and would like to talk, please get in touch.
Find Me
That’s it for this issue!
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-Leo