The Pomp Letter

To investors,

I hosted a conference this weekend at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The event featured guests from across industries and I sat on stage for nearly 9 hours to interview as many interesting people as possible. Given that many of you were unable to make the Miami-based event, I wanted to share a few of the lessons that I took away from LYCEUM Miami.

First, Cathie Wood of ARK Invest kicked off the day with a fireside chat on innovation, venture capital, and exponential growth in disruptive technologies. She continues to pioneer fund structures within the asset management industry — first with her active management strategy in an ETF wrapper and now with a publicly-traded venture capital fund.

One of the main lessons that Cathie shared was the importance of transparency for her team. They publish almost all of their research. They publish an increasing amount of their financial models for various investments. And they even invite anyone to join their idea brainstorms once-a-week. This level of transparency allows for an open-sourcing of ideas, along with a more efficient path to gather critiques. Cathie mentioned that the team has made changes to models or research based on feedback, and they continue to realize the power of the crowd.

Another key lesson that Cathie shared was her focus on the adult and gaming industries. She explained that many disruptive technologies are first used in those two sectors, so she always wants to understand what the early adopters are using to stay ahead of the game. These are the tools, techniques, and products that will be used by the mainstream in 5-10 years.

The next guest was Chris Williamson, who shared 10 principles for thriving in a chaotic world. One that stuck with me was “in life we must choose our regrets.” The idea is that people inaccurately believe they could live their life with zero regrets, but that is impossible. Instead, you should make decisions with your eyes wide open on what your regrets will be. You can’t do everything, be everywhere, and accomplish it all. Make decisions with a regret minimization framework and you’ll end up happier.

Chris’ second idea is “the key to confidence starts with action.” There is something empowering about taking the first step. You won’t always get things right. You will probably be really, really bad at some new activity. But, by acting, you start to gain confidence as you improve. You begin to feel more comfortable. You’ve been here before. You’ve done this thing before. Confidence comes from action.

Another guest was Mike Solana, the founder of Pirate Wires. Mike elaborated on why sanity and truth is so difficult to come by in an insane world. It feels like social media continues to pull our society apart, but Mike is using those same digital tools to show people that common sense can win. It takes one person to stand up for what they believe in and then many others will follow. This could be related to specific topics, or it could be relevant to an individual’s opinion on a topic. Either way, citizen journalists have even the playing field with powerful institutions by simply having an internet connection.

Next, we were joined by Vivek Ramaswamy, who previously built a multi-billion dollar biotech company and is now running for president in 2024. His message was simple — we need to bring back the national identity. People should be proud to say they are American. This concept is understood by immigrants and their children, but it needs to be shared publicly by leaders to ensure that a large majority of Americans also feel the same way. It is possible to be proud to be American, while still having critiques of the country or our society. But don’t be afraid. America is the best country in the world. There are millions of people trying relentlessly to become American citizens. A strong national identity is a sign of a strong nation.

Codie Sanchez joined us after Vivek. She shared the idea of Financial Fridays. Codie sits down every Friday and goes over each of the 24 businesses that she owns. This includes a high-level “on-track,” “slightly behind,” or “in trouble” categorization, but it can become as specific as evaluating line-item after line-item in a financial model. You can’t move the metrics you don’t measure. You can’t address problems you are unaware of. Codie told the story of a mentor who once asked her what her net worth was — when she said she didn’t know, he told her that she would never be rich because she wasn’t measuring the metrics. Interesting to think about.

Next, we had a panel of four of the highest-earning adult film stars in history. Each of these individuals have built companies or investment portfolios that would be the envy of financial market participants. We discussed how creativity was an essential component of any business, along with the desire to have faster feedback loops across their various businesses so they could iterate their products to better serve customers. I was blown away by the intelligence and success of each of these individuals and many people told me after the conference that this was their favorite session of the day.

Varda co-founder and Founders Fund investor Delian Asparouhov joined us next. He said one thing that really stuck out to me — most companies have their destiny determined once they hire the first 10 employees. The logic is that the team you build is the company you build. Team culture is set in stone once you have the first 10 hires. Additionally, you will have a hard time increasing the bar of excellence and the quality of the team once you hit the first 10 people inside the organization. If you’re building a company, take your time and make sure you hire the absolute best people or you may be setting yourself up for failure.

Hidden Genius author Polina Marinova Pompliano (and my wife!) joined me on stage for a few minutes to talk about a number of insights from her new book. One of the most interesting takeaways is the use of alter-egos by successful people. David Goggins claims “Goggins” accomplished everything, not David. Kobe Bryant became “Black Mamba” when he stepped onto the court. If you can separate yourself from your work, it allows you weather criticism and do things you think are impossible.

Pulte Capital’s Bill Pulte was next and he shared the idea of “if you can’t beat them, join them.” Bill was specifically referring to Elon Musk and Tesla potentially building a home heating device. Bill owns a number of companies in the HVAC/home services sector, so he thinks that Tesla product could be a big threat to his business. Rather than complain though, Bill shared his plan to simply buy more Tesla stock if it happens. If you can’t beat them, join them. Simple idea but very hard to execute in the heat of the moment.

Lastly, we had a panel of business leaders in the Miami area to close out the day. Chris Adamo/Melissa Medina/Steven Galanis/David Blumberg all explained why they had moved to Miami or what they thought of the recent explosion of tech companies and founders. Steven shared that none of his founder friends have moved back to the city they came from and Chris mentioned the importance of Ken Griffin moving to Miami. We have to remember that Ken is not moving by himself, but he is going to move thousands of his high-earning employees as well. There was consensus, albeit from bias Miami residents, that Miami’s best days are ahead of it.

It is hard to summarize the entire day into a few paragraphs, but this was a ton of fun. We will definitely do more conferences in the future. Anytime that I can get smart, interesting people into a room to talk to me, it is a good day. All of the talks will be posted on our YouTube channel or podcast feed in the next couple of days. Make sure you are subscribed to each to be notified when they go live.

If you want to be notified of the next conference we do, click here:

Hope each of you has a great day. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

-Pomp

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building by Matt Mochary. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

Matt Mochary is one of the best executive coaches in the world. After repeating the same advice to his various clients, Matt decided to write everything down in this book. It is a practical guide on how to run a startup, including hiring/firing, internal operations, fundraising, and building company culture. The book is relatively short but full of insight.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Companies are intended to solve customer problems. This can be easily forgotten by founders, so it is important to remember why companies exist — and especially why great companies thrive. Matt writes:

“There are many reasons to create a company, but only one good one: to deeply understand real customers (living humans!) and their problem, and then solve that problem.”

The company is not a sterile organization though. It is made up of people.

“Great companies are made up of great individual performers who work well together as a team.”

A great way to increase the performance of your individual team members is to increase the odds they are having fun. Show them appreciation to make them feel good about themselves. Matt writes:

“It turns out that we perform our best when we are having fun and feeling good about ourselves.”

💡 Idea #2 — You have to conduct an energy audit. If you are spending time on things that steal your energy, rather than add to it, you are setting yourself up for disaster. Matt explains the importance of this idea:

“It is important to maximize your energy. You perform best when you are doing things that energize you. Your goal should be to spend most of your time (75-80 percent) doing things that energize you. If you do, magic will occur.”

He suggests you conduct the energy audit by doing the following:

“Print out the last week of your calendar when you were working. Go through each workday hour by hour and ask yourself, “Did that activity give me energy or drain my energy?” Highlight in green those that gave you energy, and highlight in red those that drained your energy. There are no neutrals; every hour must be marked one color or the other.”

This can be incredibly powerful for the whole organization to constantly conduct as well.

“Energy audits are the single most powerful tool I know for creating joy and engagement in the workplace.”

💡 Idea #3 — Clear your inbox so you can be as productive as possible. Matt is very focused on achieving inbox zero. He explains the importance:

“Think of your combined inboxes as a single triage room at a hospital. Some cases that come in are urgent, others not so much. It is critical to notice the urgent cases immediately and get them in to see a doctor now. To do so, you must keep the triage room clear.”

“This means addressing all the urgent cases right away and maintaining Inbox Zero every day.”

“If you check your email incessantly, multiple times an hour, you are wasting hours of productivity. Instead, batch your time and clean out your entire inbox at those times.”

Productivity can also be gained by being on time and fully present in meetings. Matt suggests:

“In addition to being on time, you must also be present.”

“I recommend scheduling 25 and 50 minute meetings only.  This will give you 5 minutes each half hour and 10 minutes each hour to maintain yourself.”

“During every meeting, leave your phone in your pocket or facedown.”

💡 Idea #4 — You can not build a great company by yourself, so you must create a well-run organization. This relies on a set of systems that increases efficiency and productivity of the group. Matt writes:

“No matter how original and innovative your ideas might be, and no matter how efficient and productive your own habits might be, you won’t be able to build a truly exceptional organization alone. Your company’s success depends on how well its members work together. Just as individuals develop habits, so do groups. And just as with individuals, it’s much easier to start off with good group habits rather than have to change bad group habits down the line.”

A great way to make decisions within an organization is known as the RAPID decision-making process.

* RAPID Decision-making: Someone identifies an issue or decision that needs to be made. They prepare a write-up with the following details:

* The issue

* The proposed solution

* The list of people needed to make and implement the decision:

* R (Recommend): The one who first proposed the issue and solution

* A (Agree): Those people whose input must be incorporated in the decision

* P (Perform): Those people who will have to enact any decision and therefore should be heard

* I (Input): Senior people within the company whose departments and processes will be affected by the decision and therefore should be heard

* D (Decide): The one who will make the decision

* Reversible decision is made by someone other than CEO, irreversible decision is made by CEO

You can also incorporate impeccable agreements into your organization. This can have a profound impact because it creates cohesion on tasks and actions.

“A very common cause of inefficiency in startups is sloppy agreements. People don’t show up to meetings on time, and they don’t complete the goals that they declare. The result is a spreading virus of unproductiveness and decreased morale.” 

“The antidote for this is simple: impeccable agreements. These are (a) precisely defined and (b) fully agreed to by all relevant people (which almost always means written).”

“An impeccable agreement should be written down in a location that is easily accessible by all participants.”

💡 Idea #5 — Do good in the world once you have the financial resources to do so. Matt ends the book with the following paragraph:

“This book is intended to give you the roadmap to turn your company into a massive financial success. If it does, treat yourself: Go have fun, and lots of it. Until you don’t want to have fun anymore. And when that moment arrives, I ask that you take one more step: do good in the world. By this, I don’t mean write checks to pleasant-sounding charities. I mean get your hands dirty. You already know how to do this. When you first started your company, you discovered your customers’ pains and then figured out the least costly and most scalable solutions to those pain points. Now do it again, but this time with the least noticed people in your community (likely the poorest and most marginalized). There will be no financial payoff if you do. You likely will get no praise or thanks. But you will have made a truly positive contribution to the world. And you will know it. When you do, you will experience the rarest and most exquisite of feelings: the satisfaction of a life well lived. That is the true gift that I want to give you!”

Memorable quotes:

* The greatest risk of a startup is not that they moved too slowly in dominating the entire marketplace, but rather that they spread their scarce resources too thin and ended up securing few or no customers at all.

* “Aaron Ross’s most important insight is this: Most executives think that the way to grow revenue is by adding salespeople. However, most often the main obstacle to growth is not growing the team but generating more leads. Only once you achieve predictable revenue can you achieve true scale.” – Misha Talavera

* Selling happens throughout the recruiting process.

* Without an effective meeting lead, meetings quickly become inefficient and people come to resent them.

* It is critical that the voice of the customer remain strong within the company.

* When product-market fit is achieved, it is time to scale rapidly. 

* It is critical to objectively measure the performance of the company. You can only manage what you can measure.

* A well-run company has no single point of failure. 

* Company culture is important because it affects how team members interact with one another and with customers.

* Remember that you are not making a product — you are solving a customer problem.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This is the most practical book that I have read on running a startup. I try to read it once or twice a year to keep the ideas top of mind. It is less than 200 pages so you can read it in a day or two.

My first big takeaway is how many problems in startups can be solved by simply understanding the basics of operational efficiency. Matt says “learning how to run a company while running a company is extremely hard.” This is definitely true, but you can eliminate a lot of pain and inefficiency by implementing the various rules and guidelines (ex: how to run meetings, how to structure an organization, etc) contained in the book.

My second big takeaway is how important the quality of the people in an organization is. Vinod Khosla is famous for saying “the team you build is the company you build.” This increases the importance on your organization’s ability to find, recruit, and retain high-quality talent. A+ players want to work with other A+ players. They also want to work in demanding environments that have high standards and a common mission. Create those conditions and you have a chance of attracting the right people.

My third big takeaway is how easy it is to forget that a company’s purpose is to solve customer problems. There are plenty of shiny things that can distract founders and teams from this simple concept. If you are not solving a real, painful problem for your customers, you are likely to be out of business eventually. The popular “product-market fit” framework can be restated as “actually solving a customer’s real problem.” Do that and you will find that many other aspects of building a business becomes easier.

My final big takeaway comes from an appendix section of the book. Matt describes his answer to the age-old question of whether you should take your company public or keep it private. He ends his commentary with the following:

“Instead of giving in to all the voices around you (particularly from your institutional venture investors) who want you to go public, consider staying private. Capital is abundant in this world. Operational freedom, once lost, is very difficult to regain.”

As the economic environment changes, the narrative around staying private or going public will change. You have to truly ask yourself what you are optimizing for. There is no right answer, but too few people take the time to really think about how important operational freedom is to them. Don’t make that mistake.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building by Matt Mochary. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee by Shannon Lee. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

Bruce Lee was an international icon who used martial arts to teach the world how to be better human beings. Although he died at age 32, Lee wrote an immense of his lessons down in his journal before his death. This book is written by his daughter, Shannon, who interprets her father’s writing for the modern world. It covers everything from aspirational improvement to dealing with crisis to how to relentlessly pursue greatness.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Bruce Lee’s most famous lesson to the world was “Be water, my friend.” He realized that water was a natural phenomenon that humans could emulate for a better life. The origination of the idea came when Lee was angry while sitting in a boat in the South China Sea and he reached over to punch the ocean out of frustration. He later wrote in his journal:

“Had not this water just now illustrated to me the principles of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again, I struck it with all my might—yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.”

Shannon Lee expands on this idea of being water:

“Water, an element that is soft yet strong, natural yet able to be directed, detached yet powerful, and above all, essential to life.”

“At its essence, water flows. It finds its way around (or even through) obstacles. My father would call this having “no limitations.””

“This is the basic way of water. It is unstoppable. And though the word water is reflected nowhere in my father’s core tenet above, the phrase represents perfectly one of the preeminent water basics that I want us to begin to sit with—that water is undeterred.”

“Let’s think of water as unstoppable, similar to how many people think of Bruce Lee as unstoppable.”

This idea of being unstoppable is tied closely to your personal decision to keep going, regardless of the obstacles you face.

“We get to choose whether to stop at the first obstacle or keep going, unlike water, which always chooses to keep going if given the opportunity.”

“If we want to fulfill our human potential, then we can’t let ourselves be complacent or stopped either—we have to find our way forward and keep being replenished again and again. And in order to find our way, we need to be paying attention. We need to be aware of what is happening all around us.”

💡 Idea #2 — It takes incredible focus, persistence, and effort to become phenomenal at something. Bruce Lee was fanatical about this. Phenomenal is a word that is used by many people who knew him. Shannon Lee writes:

“My father was a truly phenomenal specimen of a human being in many ways—intelligent, creative, learned, skilled, driven. He worked really hard to cultivate every aspect of himself. At one point he said, “Some may not believe it, but I spent hours perfecting whatever I did.” He worked not only at sculpting his body but at shaping his mind, educating himself, evolving his practices, developing his potential. He also worked at the little things, like having beautiful handwriting, writing and speaking grammatically well, developing a colloquial understanding of English through joke-telling, learning how to direct a film—the list goes on and on. And as a result, he created a legacy that continues to be relevant forty-seven years after his death.”

Shannon goes on to explain that her dad knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish, but then put in the work to successfully achieve those outcomes.

“Bruce Lee was phenomenal because he worked relentlessly to be phenomenal.”

“I have heard story after story about how my father was always training, stretching, writing, reading, teaching, working, so I had to ask my mom if he ever just did nothing. And she said, “No.” Even when he was reading a book or watching a boxing match on TV, he was also stretching or doing something active. He would take the stairs instead of the elevator, and if he had to wait for an elevator, he would drop and do push-ups while he waited. Yep—that’s my dad!”

This doesn’t mean that everything was easy. In fact, Bruce Lee dealt with many obstacles, but he learned how to use them to his advantage. He saw opportunity. Shannon writes:

“Worry doesn’t solve a problem; it makes a problem out of the problem. Pessimism doesn’t solve a problem; it makes a problem harder by implying it is impossible to solve. Fear doesn’t solve a problem; it stops us from attacking the problem because we are afraid of failing or making the problem worse. Doubt doesn’t solve a problem; it gives you an excuse not to solve the problem. And apathy doesn’t solve a problem; it leaves you uncaring about anything at all. All this negativity just blunts the tools you have at your disposal to overcome an obstacle. It creates obstacles in front of obstacles.”

💡 Idea #3 — Be yourself. It takes immense confidence and a lack of fear to successfully do this. It can be difficult, but it is worth doing. Shannon Lee writes:

“Bruce Lee was so quintessentially himself that no one else will ever come close to truly imitating him. The way he moved, the sounds he made, the way he spoke, his handwriting, his musculature, it was all artisanal—crafted by his own hand and through his own effort. He didn’t seek to create himself in anyone else’s image. He sought only to be himself. And that he did magnificently. I think this is the thing we sense in him when we see him—that he is somehow this heightened version of what is possible in a human being, and it feels extraordinary and exciting.”

Bruce Lee understood the importance of originality. It is not worth merely imitating others.

“When I look around, I always learn something and that is to be always yourself, and to express yourself, to have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. Start from the very root of your being, which is ‘how can I be me?” — Bruce Lee

Being yourself is the ultimate freedom. Shannon writes:

“Being wholly ourselves is freedom—not being under the control or power of anyone else mentally, emotionally, spiritually, but rather, personally permitted to act on behalf of ourselves.”

💡 Idea #4 — The human experience lacks enjoyment and meaning if you aren’t actively looking to help others. Regardless of what the media tells us, human beings are all on the same team. Bruce Lee wrote:

“If every man would help his neighbor, no man would be without help. I’m not one of those guys that can brush people off. Besides, I feel that if I can just take a second to make someone happy, why not do it?” — Bruce Lee

Many people may not realize that Bruce Lee was one of a few global superstars to actively speak out against racism during the 1960s and 1970s. He wrote:

“I, Bruce Lee, am a man who never follows the formulas of these fear-mongers. So no matter if your color is black or white, red or blue, I can still make friends with you without any barrier. In saying that “everyone under the sun is a member of a universal family,” you may think that I am idealistic. But if anyone still believes in things like racial differences, I think they are too narrow. Perhaps they still do not understand love.”

Shannon Lee explains that this view of humanity and the world allows us to take negative actions or thoughts and turn them into opportunities for learning.

“Intolerance can teach tolerance. Judgment can teach acceptance. War can teach peace. Fear can teach love. Shadow can teach light. Open your mind. Rebalance the scale. Look where you’ve not looked before.”

💡 Idea #5 — Death is not something to fear. Bruce Lee lived an incredible life, but it was cut short. Normally we wouldn’t have the benefit of knowing how a young person thought of the ultimate end. Shannon Lee explains the public’s general thoughts on her dad:

“A quote that is often attributed to my dad, but which is in fact not his quote is, “The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.””

Thankfully, Bruce Lee happened to have written about death in his personal journal though. We don’t have to guess what he said. His thoughts are as powerful as you would expect:

“I don’t know what is the meaning of death, but I am not afraid to die. And I go on, non-stop, going forward, even though I, Bruce Lee, may die some day without fulfilling all of my ambitions, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do and what I’ve done, I’ve done with sincerity and to the best of my ability. You can’t expect much more from life.” — Bruce Lee

Memorable quotes:

* “If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed.” — Bruce Lee

* “Be a practical dreamer backed by action.” — Bruce Lee

* “The enemy of development is pain phobia—the unwillingness to do a tiny bit of suffering.” — Bruce Lee

* Fighting hate with hate only increases the amount of hate in the world.

* When we train to know ourselves, then we gain assuredness and confidence.

* Taking responsibility is empowering. 

* That feeling of insecurity is a powerful driver to do whatever we can to make it go away. 

* When we are enthusiastic, we are inspired by life.

* Our obstacles are among some of our greatest teachers.

* “Use the ego as a tool rather than a possession. Inwardly, psychologically, be a nobody.” — Bruce Lee

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This book was gifted to me by Jon Finkel. It was just as powerful as it was enjoyable to read. Definitely a book I will be re-visiting in the future.

The first big takeaway I had was how important Bruce Lee thought practice was. His famous quote of fearing a man who practices one kick ten thousand times should give us a hint, but his daughter mentions the power of practice multiple times as well. This is a theme that is consistent across almost any book I read about someone prolific or successful.

The second big takeaway was Bruce Lee’s obsession with learning. He was widely thought to be one of the best martial artists in the world, but he considered himself “to be the eternal student — always open to new ideas, new possibilities, new directions, and new growth.” It takes immense humility to do this when at the top of your game. That humility was rooted in an idea that Bruce wrote about called “being a nobody.” His daughter explains that “It means check your ego at the door and don’t let your definition of self-importance or self-protection get in the way of your progress around obstacles.” Even the best people have more room to grow.

The third big takeaway was how action-oriented Bruce Lee was. Whenever an idea would strike him, he would immediately try to execute on it. If he couldn’t execute on it, he would write it down. He didn’t want to be a dreamer. He didn’t want to be a thinker. He wanted to be a man of action. Bruce Lee prided himself on getting things done and constantly pursuing greatness. This is something that everyone in the modern world suffers with, so we can all learn a lesson here — act now. Get things done. Don’t wait. Be a person of action.

The fourth big takeaway was Bruce Lee’s desire to avoid the easy life. He despised anything easy. He wanted to take the difficult path because he understood that is where he would grow and learn. Shannon Lee wrote “the desire for “easy” often brings out complacency in us. “Easy” can make us lean toward ignorance, laziness, habit, and fear because we don’t want life to be too hard and unpredictable and because we fear the discomfort of the unknown and the potential challenging feelings that might arise out of our dark places.” Don’t take the easy path. Seek out hard things. Pursue the work that will force you to improve and learn.

My fifth and final takeaway was Bruce Lee’s willingness to throw away life-changing wealth opportunities if they would lead to mediocre work. There is a famous story of a movie being filmed in Hong Kong. Bruce thought the script was mediocre, so he personally re-wrote it. The studio didn’t want to use the re-written version. Bruce said no problem and refused to film the original script. Literally just sat in his house until the studio finally gave in. The studio tried to tell the world that Bruce Lee was scared of the big stage, but ultimately Shannon Lee explains that “Bruce Lee was not afraid of this opportunity. In fact, he was the only person who recognized the full nature of the opportunity and what it could be, and he would have rather blown it up than wasted it by doing something half-assed.”

Be phenomenal. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Be water, my friend.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee by Shannon Lee. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

Rick Rubin was crowned the most important music producer of the last 20 years by MTV, so he knows a thing or two about the creative process. Rubin explains that creativity is not solely reserved for music artists though — in fact, every single human is an artist.

Throughout this book, he defines creativity and details how you can leverage it and what to do if you get stuck at any point. Rubin walks us through his Experimentation, Crafting, and Completion phases, while sharing tactical advice on how to improve whatever art you pursue.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Everyone is an artist. We all create things in our life. Embrace the act of creating and you will start enjoying life in a new way.

“Regardless of whether or not we’re formally making art, we are all living as artists.”

“To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention.”

You must take the time to practice. You will improve with more reps.

“Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, “ I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not.”

The more time we invest in our ability to recognize greatness, the better we will become at allocating our time and attention.

“If you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year, rather than reading the news, by the end of that time period you’ll have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media. This applies to every choice we make. Not just with art, but with friends we choose, the conversations we have, even the thoughts we reflect on. All of these aspects affect our ability to distinguish good from very good, very good from great. They help us determine what’s worthy of our time and attention.”

💡 Idea #2 — An idea will come into existence when its time has come. The person who brings the idea to life is not nearly as important as the idea turning into reality.

“If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This ain’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come.”

When an idea’s time has come, it will always be a combination of old ideas in a new way. Nothing is new. Everything is made up of the past.

“There’s a time for certain ideas to arrive, and they find a way to express themselves through us.”

“Art is a circulation of energetic ideas. What makes them appear new is that they’re combining differently each time they come back.”

💡 Idea #3 — You have to follow your intuition. There will be many people in your life who will try to dissuade you from doing what you want. Hear them out, but be willing to ignore them.

“It’s not always easy to follow the subtle energetic information the universe broadcasts, especially when your friends, family, coworkers, or those with a business interest in your creativity are offering seemingly rational advice that challenges your intuitive knowing. To the best of my ability, I’ve followed my intuition to make career turns, and been recommended against doing so every time. It helps to realize that it’s better to follow the universe than those around you.”

Start with a beginner’s mind.

“Beginner’s mind is starting from a pure childlike place of not knowing. Living in the moment with as few fixed beliefs as possible. Seeing things for what they are as presented. Tuning in to what enlivens us in the moment instead of what we think will work. And making our decisions accordingly. Any preconceived ideas and accepted conventions limit what’s possible.”

You will doubt yourself along the creative process. That is normal. Realize it is happening and keep going.

“Self-doubt lives in all of us. And while we may wish it gone, it is there to serve us.” 

“By accepting self-doubt, rather than trying to eliminate or repress it, we lessen its energy and interference.”

“We’re all different and we’re all imperfect, and the imperfections are what makes each of us and our work interesting. We create pieces reflective of who we are, and if insecurity is part of who we are, then our work will have a greater degree of truth in it as a result.”

You can stop pursuing the creative path if you don’t want to do it anymore. You are always in control.

“We are not obligated to follow this calling because we have a talent or skill. It’s worth remembering that we are blessed to get to create. It’s a privilege. We’re choosing it. We’re not being ordered to do this. If we’d rather not do it, let’s not do it.”

💡 Idea #4 — Competition is for losers. That is not how you create greatness.

“Art is about the maker. Its aim: to be an expression of who we are. This makes competition absurd.”

“Wanting to outperform another artist or make a work better than theirs rarely results in true greatness.”

What others see as competition is actually collaboration. You are working with other people and other ideas. Embrace it. Collaboration, not competition.

“Being made happy by someone else’s best work, and then letting it inspire you to rise to the occasion, is not competition. It’s collaboration.”

“Nothing begins with us. The more we pay attention, the more we begin to realize that all the work we ever do is a collaboration. It’s a collaboration with the art that’s come before you and the art that will come after. It’s also a collaboration with the world you’re living in. With the experiences you’ve had. With the tools you use. With the audience. And with who you are today.”

💡 Idea #5 — Rules are limiting. You should not only be comfortable breaking rules, but you should look for opportunities to do it often. Don’t let arbitrary rules kill your creativity.

“Rules, by their nature, are limitations.”

“The rules artists learn are different. They are assumptions, not absolutes. They describe a goal or method for short-term or long-term results. They are there to be tested. And they are only of value as long as they are helpful. They are not laws of nature.”

Rules can create average, sub-optimal work. Don’t aspire to be average.

“Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we’re aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to. The goal is not to fit in. If anything, it’s to amplify the differences, what doesn’t fit, the special characteristics unique to how you see the world. Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it. Cherish it.”

The best artists break the rules and operate in their own realities.

“The artists who define each generation are generally the ones who live outside of these boundaries. Not the artists who embody the beliefs and conventions of their time, but the ones who transcend them.”

The great artists emulate children. They are childlike in many things they do.

“These childlike superpowers include being in the moment, valuing play above all else, having no regard for consequences, being radically honest without consideration, and having the ability to freely move from one emotion to the next without holding on to story.”

“The great artists throughout history are the ones able to maintain this childlike enthusiasm and exuberance naturally.”

Memorable quotes:

* We can quiet our inside so we can perceive more on the outside, or quiet the outside so we can notice more of what’s happening inside.

* The energy around you can be harnessed to elevate your work. 

* Of all the great works that we can experience, nature is the most absolute and enduring. 

* The person who makes something today isn’t the same person who returns to the work tomorrow.

* There is no wrong way. There is only your way.

* Ultimately, your desire to create must be greater than your fear of it. 

* Not all projects take time, but they do take a lifetime. 

* While the eyes and the mouth can be sealed, an ear has no lid, nothing to close. It takes in what surrounds it. It receives but can’t transmit. The ear is simply present to the world.

* Innovation through ignorance. 

* To vary your inspiration, consider varying your inputs. 

* To dismiss an idea because it doesn’t work in your mind is to do a disservice to the art. The only way to truly know if any idea works is to test it. And if you’re looking for the best idea, test everything.

* There are countless examples of imitation turning into legitimate innovation.

* Remember that commercial success is completely out of your control. 

* Volume does not equal value.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This book is full of new, refreshing ideas. Rick Rubin has a unique approach to creating art, so it is fascinating to read how he thinks about implementing this process to other areas of life.

My first big takeaway was Rubin’s refusal to accept social norms. For example, he rejects the idea of being yourself. He writes, “Defining one’s true self is not so simple. It may be impossible…The suggestion to be yourself may be too general to be of much use. There’s being yourself as an artist, being yourself with your family, being yourself at work, being yourself with friends, being yourself in times of crisis or in times of peace, and being yourself for yourself, when by yourself.” If you refuse to be put in a box, it naturally positions you with more flexibility to create things you find valuable. Don’t accept the norm. Reframe the game. Do things your way.

My second big takeaway was Rubin’s fascination with open-mindedness, curiosity, and the beginner’s mind. He talks about these concepts throughout the book. Sometimes he relates them, other times they appear independently. I took his fascination to be a strong signal that creativity is nearly impossible without curiosity. Don’t have a rigid mind. Ask questions. Work diligently to understand something new. Be humble enough to say “I don’t know. Can you explain?” A beginner’s mind is actually a sign of maturity and intelligence.

My third big takeaway was the importance of tuning out distractions. Traditional artists don’t only have to deal with the average distractions of social media and television, but they must also avoid succumbing to the pressures of the commercial side of art. If you are a true artist, you create for the love of art. There is a comparable situation for each of us in our daily lives. Don’t do things solely for money. Do them because you enjoy what you’re doing. Commercial success will eventually come.

Lastly, Rick Rubin explains that “a loyal audience can begin to feel like a prison.” This one hit me hard. I’ve been fortunate to create very large audiences on the internet, but there are times where the audience doesn’t like the same content that I’m interested in. Getting comfortable with the idea of losing part of your audience as you pursue something new is an idea I had to get comfortable with. Ultimately, pursuing your interests is the best way to remain authentic to yourself, and if I have learned one thing over the years, being authentic is the secret differentiator on the internet.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor and a Stoic philosopher. Although he had absolute power, Aurelius ruled with ethics and virtue. This book is a compilation of his personal notes to himself. They were never meant for publication or distribution, but thankfully they have been made available thousands of years later. It is fascinating to read the personal notes of one of history’s most powerful men.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Humans need to have a purpose. Wandering aimlessly through life is not only unproductive, but it also leads to a life that lacks virtue. Marcus writes:

“People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.”

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” 

“Even the smallest things ought to be directed toward a goal.”

You can use this clear purpose to inspire your daily actions.

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?””

You can become distracted if you lack purpose. Combat the distractions with intense focus.

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.”

A big part of remaining focused is to learn to refrain from worrying what other people think, do, or say.

“Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.”

💡 Idea #2 — Don’t waste your time doing things in pursuit of praise or posthumous fame. You won’t be remembered. It is a waste of time and energy. Marcus writes:

“Or is your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space—and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are.” 

Chasing praise will ultimately make you susceptible to doing whatever other people want you to do. Your pursuit becomes a weakness. Eventually they own you.

“Anything at all: the applause of the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence. All of them might seem to be compatible with it—for a while. But suddenly they control us and sweep us away.”

Many of the people you are chasing for praise and fame are not able to live up to the artificial standards they have created. They will all eventually die too.

“He cares nothing for their praise—men who can’t even meet their own standards.”

“People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too.”

“People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now. And just as mortal. What does it matter to you if they say x about you, or think y?”

💡 Idea #3 — We all die. Life is short. We must remember it is important to enjoy life while you are here and don’t worry about small things. Marcus writes:

“The age of Vespasian, for example. People doing the exact same things: marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business, farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting, plotting, hoping others will die, complaining about their own lives, falling in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power. And that life they led is nowhere to be found.”

The sooner you accept your mortality, the faster you can start living your life. We all meet the same fate so don’t be arrogant enough to think you will get out alive.

“Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.” 

“In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.”

Regardless of your achievements and status, you will meet the ultimate fate.

“Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. They were absorbed alike into the life force of the world, or dissolved alike into atoms.”

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”

💡 Idea #4 — You should aspire to live a virtuous life. Be a good person. There are many ways you can do this. Marcus writes:

“When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.”

Pursuing a virtuous life is the only thing Marcus believes is not a waste of time.

“The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.”

You must ensure that you are good, regardless of the circumstances.

“No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.”

“It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that.”

“It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.”

Nature demands you to be a good person. Don’t disappoint nature.

“The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you’ll be no one, nowhere—like Hadrian, like Augustus. The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”

💡 Idea #5 — Never forget that you control your mind. It is your most powerful weapon. Don’t let it become dull. Use it as a tool and a place of safety. Marcus writes:

“People find pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear.”

“Give yourself a gift: the present moment.”

“The mind without passions is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever.”

Once you master your mind, you will rid yourself of wasted actions and thoughts.

“No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity.”

This disciplined mental state can create immense happiness.

“If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment. If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy. No one can prevent that.”

Memorable quotes:

* Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.

* Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect.

* How to act: No surplus words or unnecessary actions.

* It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you—inside or out.

* The best revenge is to not be like that.

* The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.

* Look at the past—empire succeeding empire—and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events.

* Don’t pay attention to other people’s minds.

* To stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.

* Everything was born to die.

* Someone despises me. That’s their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem.

* How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them.

* That kindness is invincible, provided it’s sincere—not ironic or an act.

* It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.

* If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This is one of the timeless books of history. Marcus Aurelius was probably the most powerful man in the world, yet he used his notes to constantly remind himself to rule with patience, kindness, and virtue. If he needs the reminders, the rest of us are probably in the same situation.

My first big takeaway from the book is how little the world has changed over a few thousand years. Marcus writes about problems with personal relationships, power dynamics, patience & anger, and other struggles that are still present today. Humanity has evolved and technology has thrust us forward, but human nature is more similar than ever before.

My second big takeaway was how repetitive the various learnings are across Marcus’ notes. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how powerful you become, or what level of wealth you obtain — we need constant reminders to stay the course. Even if you make mistakes or drift away from the person that you want to be, simply start today being the good, virtuous person that you aspire to be.

My third big takeaway was how warriors of different cultures all learn the same lessons. Use Jocko Willink and Marcus as an example — there is a story that Jocko’s platoon always describes where Jocko would respond with “Good” regardless of what happened. If it was a positive development, “Good.” If it was a negative development, “Good.” Seemingly bad developments were merely opportunities. Why is that interesting? Because Marcus wrote thousands of years ago: “Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.” Pretty cool.

My fourth big takeaway was how mentally tough the leaders of a civilization used to be. Marcus writes “Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable…then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.” Stop complaining. Those two words could be repeated over and over again daily to both political parties in the United States, and many others around the world. Stop complaining. Be tough. Get your job done. But stop complaining.

My last big takeaway was how Marcus drew inspiration and learning from those who came before him. Not only does he reference many historical figures in his writing, but he has an entire section of Meditations that is dedicated to analyzing what Marcus found so admirable about people close to him. For example, he explains the following about his adopted father (who trained him to become the emperor of Rome):

“My adopted father: the way he handled the material comforts that fortune had supplied him in such abundance—without arrogance and without apology. If they were there, he took advantage of them. If not, he didn’t miss them.

My adopted father: he never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively, and with no loose ends.”

It doesn’t matter how successful you are, you can always learn from other people. It takes a special individual to have all the power in the world, yet be thoughtful enough to analyze the admirable qualities of family and friends. Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself and never thought they would be published. Little did he know — we would be reading them thousands of years later and consider his work to be timeless.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

FREE TICKETS: https://www.lyceummiami.com/

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

There is a trend online where individuals try to name “zero interest rate phenomenon.” Some of the popular answers include the Island Boys popularity, frustration with an inability to purchase a mansion, working more than one remote technology job, starting a podcast, or NFTs and meme stocks. These examples were all ridiculous and unsustainable in hindsight. They don’t get at the root cause of the problem though.

Zero interest rates created a mind virus that infiltrated the brains of an entire generation and made them soft.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but let me explain. Lower interest rates turned life on “easy mode” for a lot of people. There was extra money sloshing around the system. People felt like they were getting richer and richer every day.

The government was handing out stimulus checks to tens of millions of Americans. Student loan payments were paused. PPP loans were being forgiven with almost no diligence. Every media company was highlighting the stories of kids in their basement short-squeezing Wall Street hedge funds.

Investors were handing out investment dollars to anyone with an idea and a powerpoint deck. These venture dollars were empowering founders to pay employees whatever it took to grow. Grow. Grow. Grow. No matter the cost — you must grow.

This tricked employees into thinking that “easy mode” was the default.

If you are in your mid-20s or younger, you think money falls from the sky. Customers are banging down your door to buy whatever product you create. Investors have money dropping out of the pockets as they walk down the street. Easy mode is….easy.

Of course, this was only a dream though.

For three years, the world was operating in easy mode, but now we are back to reality. The dial is being turned back to “hard mode.” The easy money is gone. The companies have the upper hand in employment relationships. Meme stocks are down a gazillion percent. The government is broke and begging the American people to let it take on more debt.

Venture investors are sitting on their hands. The media is taking victory laps of “we told you this was unsustainable!” It is mass chaos for the people who thought easy mode was the default. And the people who thrive in hard times are salivating.

This is a story as old as time.

Markets are fun on the way up, yet they punish people on the way down. Tourists show up to “build companies and change the world” during the former and the real entrepreneurs stick around to eat glass when everything becomes unsexy.

How do I know this?

Because I am watching it happen all over the market. Young founders are giving up and quitting. Literally just walking away from companies and teams. Numerous micro-VC funds have quietly shut down. Employees are confused why their companies are getting rid of certain benefits and perks. Layoffs are ripping through various industries.

Hard mode has arrived.

The good news is that hard mode is a great filter. It shows who are the pretenders and who are the real players. It exposes who has true persistence, rather than cute slogans and posters on the wall. Hard mode punches you in the face over and over again. It takes a breath, and then punches you again and again. It wants to punish you. It wants you to quit.

It wants to make you dream of wasting the rest of your life away as a middle manager in a cubicle in the middle of nowhere at a corporation that your parents could be proud of. The allure of the “easy life” inside a big company is too powerful for many to resist.

But don’t be soft. Don’t let the zero interest rate mind virus infect you. Resist the easy path.

Building companies, investing money, and creating things people use is hard work. There would be no value to it if it wasn’t hard. You have to be resilient.

You will watch friends and colleagues succumb to the pressure. The more people around you are affected, the more resistant you must become. Hard mode is trying to chew you up and spit you out. Don’t let it.

Don’t become a statistic. Don’t be soft.

The things most worth doing will be the hardest. We are in the depths of hard mode. If you can survive for a few more months, things will get better. The Fed will eventually have to pivot. They will return to loose monetary policy.

And when they do, we’ll see who had the strength to stick around. Make sure it is you.

-Pomp

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

FREE TICKETS: https://www.lyceummiami.com/

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

You have approximately four thousand weeks to live if you reach the age of 80 years old. Rather than focus on productivity, efficiency, and life hacks, we should optimize our life for enjoying the short, precious time we get. Modern society has prioritized getting more done, working harder, and spending more time on what other people think is important, but that may not be the best way to spend your four thousand weeks.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Our lives are much shorter than we realize. Measuring this time in weeks has a powerful way of hammering the point home. Burkeman writes:

The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.

Assuming you live to be eighty, you’ll have had about four thousand weeks.

Expressing the matter in such startling terms makes it easy to see why philosophers from ancient Greece to the present day have taken the brevity of life to be the defining problem of human existence: we’ve been granted the mental capacities to make almost infinitely ambitious plans, yet practically no time at all to put them into action.

Some people respond to this shortness of time with a desire to pack as much action into the weeks and years as possible.

Busyness has been rebranded as “hustle”—relentless work not as a burden to be endured but as an exhilarating lifestyle choice, worth boasting about on social media.

It’s hard to imagine a crueler arrangement: not only are our four thousand weeks constantly running out, but the fewer of them we have left, the faster we seem to lose them.

Society has evolved over time and modern citizens are born into a world of ever-increasing demands.

The real problem isn’t our limited time. The real problem—or so I hope to convince you—is that we’ve unwittingly inherited, and feel pressured to live by, a troublesome set of ideas about how to use our limited time, all of which are pretty much guaranteed to make things worse.

💡 Idea #2 — The goal throughout history was for individuals to accumulate enough wealth to enjoy their remaining days. This changed at some point. Everyone is chasing productivity today, but that may not be ideal. Burkeman writes:

For almost the whole of history, the entire point of being rich was not having to work so much.

Productivity is a trap.

In a weird twist, this pursuit of more work has become a virtue signalers dream.

Busyness has been rebranded as “hustle”—relentless work not as a burden to be endured but as an exhilarating lifestyle choice, worth boasting about on social media.

It is natural to think you can work your way out of the backlog of work, but that is unlikely. Parkinson’s Law applies.

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,” the English humorist and historian C. Northcote Parkinson wrote in 1955. [This is known as “Parkinson’s Law]

The process of “getting through your email” actually generates more email. The general principle in operation is one you might call the “efficiency trap.”

Rending yourself more efficient—either by implementing various productivity techniques or by driving yourself harder—won’t generally result in the feeling of having “enough time,” because, all else being equal, the demands will increase to offset any benefits.

💡 Idea #3 — Planning for the future may not be as valuable as you have been taught by society. Burkeman explains:

We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, thrown from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But all a plan is — all it could ever possibly be — is a present-moment statement of intent.

Planning is a luxury of those who believe they have time on their side.

When we claim that we have time, what we really mean is that we expect it. Any number of factors could confound your expectations, robbing you of the three hours you thought you “had” in which to complete an important work project: your boss could interrupt with an urgent request; the subway could break down; you could die.

Our entire society is built on the goal of doing things today that will benefit us in the future.

One way of understanding capitalism, in fact, is a giant machine for instrumentalizing everything it encounters—the earth’s resources, your time and abilities (or “human resources”)—in the service of future profit.

But in focusing so hard on instrumentalizing their time, they end up treating their lives in the present moment as nothing but a vehicle in which to travel toward a future state of happiness. And so their days are sapped of meaning, even as their bank balances increase.

Our obsession with extracting the greatest future value out of our time blinds us to the reality that, in fact, the moment of truth is always now—that life is nothing but a succession of present moments, culminating in death, and that you’ll probably never get to a point where you feel you have things in perfect working order. And that therefore you had better stop postponing the “real meaning” of your existence into the future, and throw yourself into life now.

💡 Idea #4 — Digital addiction is real, but not for the reason you may think. Critics will point to use of smartphones and social media as a big problem in society. They yell and scream at the technology companies. They say we should cure the addiction. But what if people are simply trying to escape the difficulty of having to listen to humans face-to-face & do the hard work of having a real conversation? Burkeman writes:

The reason it’s hard to focus on a conversation with your spouse isn’t that you’re surreptitiously checking your phone beneath the dinner table. On the contrary, “surreptitiously checking your phone beneath the dinner table” is what you do because it’s hard to focus on the conversation—because listening takes effort and patience and a spirit of surrender, and because what you hear might upset you, so checking your phone is naturally more pleasant.

It is important that we learn to embrace boredom, rather than fight it.

When you try to focus on something you deem important, you’re forced to face your limits, an experience that feels especially uncomfortable precisely because the task at hand is one you value so much. 

This is why boredom can feel so surprisingly, aggressively, unpleasant: we tend to think of it merely as a matter of not being particularly interested in whatever it is we’re doing, but in fact it’s an intense reaction to the deeply uncomfortable experience of confronting your limited control.

💡 Idea #5 — Everyone can benefit from Cosmic Insignificance Therapy. We like to think our work is important, but for the majority of us, it won’t matter in the end. Burkeman writes:

A blunt but unexpectedly liberating truth: that what you do with your life doesn’t matter all that much—and when it comes to how you’re using your finite time, the universe absolutely could not care less. 

No wonder it comes as a relief to be reminded of your insignificance: it’s the feeling of realizing that you’d been holding yourself, all this time, to standards you couldn't reasonably be expected to meet. And this realization isn’t merely calming but liberating, because once you’re no longer burdened by such an unrealistic definition of a “life well spent,” you’re freed to consider the possibility that a far wider variety of things might qualify as meaningful ways to use your finite time. 

Once you realize that your contribution won’t matter once you are dead, you become freed. You can work on the things that you want to do. You can invest your four thousand weeks under the pursuit of happiness and enjoyment, rather than productivity and efficiency.

The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. But that isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief. You get to give up on something that was always impossible—the quest to become the optimized, infinitely capable, emotionally invincible, fully independent person you’re officially supposed to be. Then you get to roll up your sleeves and start work on what’s gloriously possible instead.

Memorable quotes:

* We fill our minds with busyness and distraction to numb ourselves emotionally. 

* The trouble with attempting to master your time, it turns out, is that time ends up mastering you.

* “You teach best what you most need to learn.” — Richard Bach

* Principle number one is to pay yourself first when it comes to time.

* What you pay attention to will define, for you, what reality is. 

* By trying too hard to make the most of his time, he misses his life.

* “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child.” – Alexander Herzen

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This book was unique in the way that is presented an old idea — our time is our most valuable resource. By measuring our life in the number of weeks, it feels long enough to pursue our goals, but short enough to have a sober view of what is truly important.

My first big takeaway was the efficiency trap. Burkeman talks about Parkinson’s Law and the likelihood that getting through your email will just create more email. It reminds me of the Wall Street lesson that market selection is usually more important than asset or security selection. Same thing in life. Are you working on the right things? Or are you optimizing to win the wrong game?

My second big takeaway was a quote from cartoonist Scott Adams that Burkeman shares — “a person with a flexible schedule and average resources will be happier than a rich person who has everything except a flexible schedule.” So many of us, myself included, use our calendars as gospel. If an event, meeting, or call is not on the calendar, it may as well not be happening. But this rigid approach to our time leaves very little room for flexibility and serendipity. This reminded me of Paul Graham’s 2009 blog post on Maker and Manager schedules.

My third big takeaway was our busyness and digital addictions may be coverups for our distaste in the lives we are living. Are you pulling your phone out to check your email for the 2,845th time today because you really want to see who messaged you or are you trying to avoid an uncomfortable, silent elevator ride? Humans are social creatures, but phones have made it simple for us to hide from each other. Maybe we would be better off trying to put the phone down and engage with one another.

My last big takeaway was the finality of life. As many of you know, I deployed overseas in the Army and there was a situation early on in the trip that left a solider dead. I’ve always said that my life changed that day because I realized that we were all going to die. This is a major point that Burkeman hammers home throughout the book. He starts and ends with “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” He also discusses Cosmic Insignificance Therapy. Both of these are shared to remind us that we have a final deadline — make sure you enjoy the time you are allotted while you are here.

Before I let you go, Burkeman lists five questions at the end of the book to ask yourself. I thought some of you who will not have time to read the entire book would like to go through the exercise. Here are the questions:

* Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort?

* Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?

* In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?

* In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing?

* How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?

Have a great day!

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

FREE TICKETS: https://www.lyceummiami.com/

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was Never Finished by David Goggins. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

David Goggins is a former Navy SEAL who has a personal goal to become the hardest motherf***er in the world. That may seem like an ambitious, nearly unattainable, goal, but Goggins is a special human being. From 200 mile runs to setting the pull up world record, Goggins is a man on a mission. This book stitches together his personal experience and various insights, along with an entertaining style, that gives you something to apply to your daily life. The book is part motivation, part self-reflection, and part reality check.

There is graphic language used throughout so consider this fair warning.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Your mind is a powerful force. You may have heard that you need to believe in yourself, but Goggins believes that you need to truly do the work to be able to put that idea to work. He writes:

Belief is a gritty, potent, primordial force.

There are two levels to belief. There’s the surface level, which our coaches, teachers, therapists, and parents love to preach. “Believe in yourself,” they all say, as if the thought alone can keep us afloat when the odds are against us in the battle of our lives. But once exhaustion sets in, doubt and insecurity tend to penetrate and dissipate that flimsy brand of belief.

There’s the belief born in resilience. It comes from working your way through layers of pain, fatigue, and reason, and ignoring the ever-present temptation to quit until you strike a source of fuel you didn’t even know existed. One that eliminates all doubt, makes you certain of your strength and the fact that eventually, you will prevail, so long as you keep moving forward. That is the level of belief that can defy the expectations of scientists and change everything. It’s not an emotion to be shared or an intellectual concept, and nobody else can give it to you. It must bubble up from within. 

Goggins is quick to call out that his potential was only obvious after years of hard work. That is an idea that successful people usually realize later in life, but those who are merely dreaming fail to understand.

Many people get it twisted and think my accomplishments directly correlate to my potential. My accomplishments do not equate to my potential. The little bit I had was buried so deep, most people would never have found it. Not only did I find it, I learned to maximize it. 

💡 Idea #2 — Born losers is a phrase that Goggins uses to highlight how many people are born with the deck stacked against them. You can’t change your starting point, but you have the power to change your direction and trajectory. He writes:

Sure, I’m a winner now, but I was born a loser.

I was a shell of a man at that point, with no self-esteem or self-respect. I was still haunted by the same old demons that had tailed me from birth, and the harsh reality was that I lacked everything I needed to become the man I wanted to be. 

When you’re born a loser, your goal is to survive, not thrive. 

Goggins likes to think of himself as a cockroach — an animal that won’t give up and is hard to kill. He uses that mentality to constantly seek improvement, regardless of his circumstances.

Born losers are the ultimate cockroaches. We do what we have to, and that attitude often enables some pretty severe character defects.

Roger that. It ain’t your f*****g fault that you were dealt a bad hand, but…it is your responsibility. How long will you allow your past to hold you back before you finally take control of your future?

💡 Idea #3 — You can achieve your goals once you become comfortable knowing that it is okay to be different, or it is the right move to change what you’re doing on a daily basis. Many of your friends or family will try to hold you back — don’t let them. Goggins writes:

You cannot be afraid to disappoint people. You have to live the life you want to live. Sometimes, that means being the motherfucker who can put a middle finger up to everyone in the room and be totally comfortable with that.

Remember that no one will care about your problems as much as you.

Your problems and your past aren’t on anybody else’s agenda. Not really. You may have a few people in your inner circle who care about what you’re going through, but for the most part, no one gives a s**t because they’re dealing with their own issues and focused on their own lives.

Know who is in your foxhole and be sure that you want them there. They can be a great help…or cause incredible pain. Goggins writes:

In military speak, the foxhole is a fighting position. In life, it’s your inner circle. These are the people you surround yourself with. They know your history and are aware of your future goals and past limitations. But because it’s a fighting position, a foxhole can just as easily become your grave. Therefore, it is crucial that you be careful about who you invite in. Whether you are at war, competing in a game, or striving in life, you never want someone in your foxhole who lacks faith or will try to steer you away from your full potential by giving you permission to pack it in or wave the white flag when s**t looks bleak. 

I learned that when you change, not everyone in your life will be on board.

💡 Idea #4 — David Goggins thinks of himself as a savage and uses the term to bestow praise on people he thinks deserve it. This can be counter-intuitive to people, so it is important to realize that becoming a savage is a badge of honor in Goggins’ circle. He explains:

Some people might be put off by the term, but to me, calling someone a “savage” is the highest compliment. A savage is an individual who defies odds, who has a will that cannot be tamed, and who, when knocked down, will always get back up!

You can become a savage by intentionally changing your mindset. Use a Mental Lab to make the changes before your physical actions start to express the change. The use of alter-ego, whether in public or private, can be a helpful framework to turn the savage on or off.

Through all my countless trials, tumbles, and failures, I cultivated an alter-ego—a savage who refused to quit under almost any circumstance. 

Recreate yourself in your own Mental Lab.

In my mind, David Goggins wasn’t the savage motherfucker who accomplished all the hard s**t. It was Goggins who did that.

Goggins was powered by the dark side of my soul that refused to be denied, and he had one goal: to become the hardest motherfucker to ever live!

I was the unconditional competitor, a full-time savage.

When you are a full-time savage, it’s a lifestyle.

💡 Idea #5 — There is an intensity that is needed to be great at something. This level of obsession will make many people uncomfortable and it is unnecessary for most things…unless you want to be great at what you do. Then, and usually only then, the intensity is necessary. Goggins writes:

We all have that ferocity—that dog—inside us. 

If you want to maximize minimal potential and become great in any field, you must embrace your savage side and become imbalanced, at least for a period of time.

There are no days off, and there is no downtime when you are obsessed with being great. That is what it takes to be the baddest motherfucker ever at what you do.

The true savage doesn’t let praise distract them from their goal. They also understand that society must have savages focused on being great at their craft, but we also need many other roles that do not require the savage’s focus, intensity, or obsession.

But praise—whether it comes from your supervisors, your family, or anyone else—has a downside. It can soothe the inner savage and keep you from feeling the need to grind.

The world needs doctors, lawyers, and teachers, but we also need savages to prove that we are all capable of so much more.

If you choose the savage life, you will become an inspiration to others. Goggins writes:

There has got to be someone willing to be an outlier. A savage who sees those walls and barriers that are constantly trying to close us off and divide us up and then breaks them down again by showing everyone what is possible. There’s got to be someone who demonstrates greatness and makes everyone around them think differently.

The smooth road to success is of no use to savages like me. That may sound ideal, but it won’t test us. It doesn’t demand belief, so it will never make us great.

Memorable quotes:

* Belief is a gritty, potent, primordial force.

* Sure, I’m a winner now, but I was born a loser.

* Denial is self-protecting, but it’s also self-limiting.

* My root problems were not and never had been physical. They were all mental.

* You don’t need six-pack abs when your mind is steel-plated.

* When you are a full-time savage, it’s a lifestyle.

* Mental toughness and resilience fade if they aren’t used consistently.

* Many dreams die while suffering.

* Never quit when your pain and insecurity are at their peak.

* We all have that ferocity—that dog—inside us.

* Destruction always breeds creation.

* Life is not G-rated. We must prepare kids for the world as it is.

* Discipline is the great equalizer.

* Small minds and weak people kill big dreams.

* The only thing more infectious than a good attitude is a bad one.

* Self-leaders rarely rest.

* There are no prerequisites to becoming great.

* The valiant motherfucker is the person who faces long odds yet continues to try.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

David Goggins is a special individual. If you have ever heard him on a podcast, read his first book, or seen social media clips of him running, you already know this. For those that have never encountered Goggins, you’ll just have to trust me that he is the real deal.

My first big takeaway from the book was how open and honest it was. Goggins talks at length about his horrible childhood, including breaking down the pros and cons of his mother, father, grandparents, and siblings. This level of authenticity can only come from someone who is very comfortable being themselves. It also serves as a good reminder that your problems could always be worse.

My second big takeaway was how frequently Goggins would subject himself to physical pain in the form of ultra-marathons, long bike rides, or other ridiculous tasks, but with an express purpose of hardening his mind. Our society has become complacent with a lack of mental toughness. It is hard to train that level of resilience and fortitude. Physical pain through competition is one time-tested path that continues to work today.

My third big takeaway was the idea of David Goggins’ alter-ego. He highlights the difference between David Goggins and Goggins. Similarly, Kobe Bryant used to talk about his alter-ego Black Mamba. This mental trick can help someone transform their actions by making them comfortable with attempting things that may otherwise scare them, or seem insane.

My fourth big takeaway was “they don’t make many of them like Goggins anymore.” I consider myself a fairly tough guy who has been through different difficulties in life. But I, like so many of you, find comfort in the easy life from time-to-time. A simple comparison from my life would be 21-year-old me deployed in Iraq vs 34-year-old me who spends most his time behind a computer. You don’t have to seek out the most difficult life every day, all day long, but this book is a great reminder that we could all benefit from doing hard things every once in awhile.

My final takeaway is that David Goggins is not attempting the impossible and documenting it on social media because it makes him feel good or he needs the likes. Instead, he is using the documentation process to inspire others to become the best versions of themselves. Goggins ends the book with the following:

I never needed to be the hardest motherfucker in the world. That became a goal because I knew it would bring out my best self. Which is what this fucked-up world needs from all of us: to evolve into the very best versions of ourselves. That’s a moving target, and it isn’t a one-time task. It is a lifelong quest for more knowledge, more courage, more humility, and more belief. Because when you summon the strength and discipline to live like that, the only thing limiting your horizons is you.

That is a powerful view of the world. We can each improve our lives. We can do extraordinary things. Sometimes it starts with us simply believing it is possible. David Goggins changed his life — what would it take you to change yours?

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was Never Finished by David Goggins. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

Announcement: I am hosting a conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on March 4, 2023. Anyone can attend for free. The goal is to bring together people from different walks of life to debate important ideas that impact our society on a daily basis. The speakers are many of the most popular guests from the podcast over the last few years, along with a few surprises. If you’re interested in attending, you can read about the event details here:

FREE TICKETS: https://www.lyceummiami.com/

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

The world is littered with people who dream, but very few who have the courage to act. You can see this highlighted in every industry. Pressfield assigns a name to the friction that prevents action — Resistance — and then unpacks how you can overcome whatever you are facing, so you can produce your best work. This book is part motivation, part psychology lesson. It is worth reading every page.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Everyone has a talent that arms them with the ability to create something valuable for the world. Very few people act on this talent because they give in to “Resistance.” Pressfield writes:

There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

People claim to be ignorant to what Resistance is. You may have never heard the name before, but you know what the friction is. It has beaten you before. You are human, so Resistance has won at least once. The goal is become the master of Resistance.

Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is. 

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

The goal of Resistance is to simply prevent you from doing your work. Pressfield writes:

Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work. 

Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within.

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.

💡 Idea #2 — Pay attention when you fear something. It is a good sign that you should attack that activity with an immense level of enthusiasm. You will be surprised by the positive impact of completing the task. Pressfield writes:

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. 

If you’re paralyzed with fear, it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.

💡 Idea #3 — There is one strategy that continually defeats Resistance. You must turn pro at your specific craft. If you do this, you have a shot of conquering Resistance. Pressfield writes:

Aspiring artists defeated by Resistance share one trait. They all think like amateurs. They have not yet turned pro. 

Resistance hates it when we turn pro.

Turning pro means that you are disciplined and focused.

Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

The act of turning pro is not just a nice idea, but rather a serious commitment. Pressfield writes:

Qualities that define us as professionals: (1) We show up every day, (2) We show up no matter what, (3) We stay on the job all day, (4) We are committed over the long haul, (5) The stakes for us are high and real, (6) We accept remuneration for our labor, (7) We do not over identify with our jobs, (8) We master the technique of our jobs, (9) We have a sense of humor about our jobs, (10) We receive praise or blame in the real world.

You have to be focused and avoid entertaining Resistance. Don’t even allow it to open the door.

The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.

The professional knows that Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you’re finished. The pro doesn’t even pick up the phone. He stays at work.

There is no secret to turning pro. Pressfield writes:

There’s no mystery to turning pro. It’s a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our mind to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.

💡 Idea #4 — You have to ignore the haters. They will always surface as you build momentum. The professional understands why they are haters and chooses to keep working. Pressfield writes:

An amateur lets the negative opinion of others unman him. He takes external criticism to heart, allowing it to trump his own belief in himself and his work. Resistance loves this. 

The professional cannot allow the actions of others to defIne his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working.

The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.

💡 Idea #5 — Consistency is essential to defeating Resistance. Without consistency, you will self-sabotage. Do the work. Sit down. Be consistent. Pressfield writes:

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. 

When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

Pressfield believes that the classic advice of “you can be whatever you want to be” is flawed. He explains:

We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it.

Finally, don’t be a hack. Don’t try to outsmart yourself.

I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.

The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he’s superior to them. The truth is, he’s scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes, what he himself thinks is interesting. He’s afraid it won’t sell. So he tries to anticipate what the market (a telling word) wants, then gives it to them.

Memorable quotes:

* Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.

* “The enemy is a very good teacher.” - the Dalai Lama

* Resistance is always lying and always full of s**t.

* Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement.

* It’s one thing to lie to ourselves. It’s another thing to believe it.

* The professional endures adversity. 

* Resistance feeds on fear.

* We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are.

* To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution. 

* In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don’t do it. 

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This book is powerful. It is a quick read and hammers home the point that you must learn to act in the face of fear or Resistance. While many of you are not writers or creatives, the lessons published by Steven Pressfield will apply to almost any role or industry.

My first big takeaway from the book was how common procrastination and fear have become in society. Maybe it was always like this, but the modern age of social media has magnified the issue. There are people every day who tweet or post about their grand vision or dream, yet they never make any progress. You must resist confusing motion with progress. By creating a label for this problem — Resistance — Pressfield is able to draw a line in the sand. Resistance is the enemy and we must focus on beating it every day.

My second big takeaway was the idea of “going pro.” I had never thought of various activities or tasks as amateur or professional. They were just things that I did on a daily basis. Take this letter that I write every morning — am I a professional writer or just an amateur? You could argue either, but my work will be exponentially better if I decide to be a pro. This little decision can have profound impact. It also means that you can become a pro at numerous things. Take pride in your work.

My third big takeaway was the classic battle between art and business. You can create things for money or you can create them for the sake of creating. I have personally struggled with this many times in my career. While I am a professional businessman and investor, there is a side to my work that feels like art. The more I have crossed those two activities, the less enjoyable they become. Given my recent announcement about removing advertising from the podcast and YouTube videos, I realized that I have been able to clearly define what is art and what is business. It is exciting to see how that affects my enjoyment level of content creation in the future.

My fourth and final takeaway was that everyone should create something and put it out into the world. It can be writing, singing, talking, building, or a plethora of other activities. We each have unique skills and interests. Use them to create something and then subject yourself to public feedback. Pressfield put it best when he ends the book with the following quote:

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.

This book can be read in a single day. It feels like a book that I will revisit often though. We all battle Resistance on a regular basis. Become a pro, sit down, and get to work.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

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To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was Good Profit by Charles G Koch. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

Koch Industries is estimated to produce $125 billion in annual revenue, which makes it the second largest private company in America. CEO Charles Koch has a unique business philosophy that revolves around “good profit,” or profit that is created through economic means instead of political means. This book delves deep into how the Koch brothers built their father’s business into a multinational conglomerate by simply solving customer problems. Create value for others or eventually be disrupted.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Koch Industries is laser-focused on creating “good profit.” Koch writes:

What I consider to be good profit comes from Principled Entrepreneurship – creating superior value for our customers while consuming fewer resources and always acting lawfully and with integrity. Good profit comes from making a contribution in society – not from corporate welfare or other ways of taking advantage of people. 

This value creation can be for various participants in the market.

We earn profit by creating value – for customers, society, our partners, and every employee who contributes. That is good profit. 

The Koch obsession with good profit means that they are against profits obtained via political means. Koch writes:

Too often, Washington chooses winners and losers in the economy. This is corporate welfare, and it’s the opposite of freedom and good profit. 

Market-Based Management emphasizes Principled Entrepreneurship over corporate welfare, virtue over talent, challenge over hierarchy, comparative advantage over job title, and rewards for long-term value creation over managing to budgets. 

💡 Idea #2 — Great companies are designed the same way that great societies are designed. Koch explains what makes a great society:

Free societies, which are based on respect for what people value, enjoy the greatest prosperity. 

Societies that don’t embrace freedom wind up with the least prosperity. 

This prosperity is obtained by individuals and companies that figure out how to create value for others. Koch writes:

From antiquity to today, the best societies, as well as the best companies, have been the ones with a framework of freedom in which individuals can improve their lives by improving the lives of others.

💡 Idea #3 — Koch Industries is relentless in their pursuit of creative destruction. Koch writes:

Koch strives to drive what Schumpeter called creative destruction, creating “the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization.”

The point of creative destruction is not to destroy for the sake of destroying, but rather to create value.

Value creation is the upside of creative destruction. It makes people’s lives better, thereby contributing to well-being in society. A successful company creates value by providing products or services customers value more highly than their alternatives.

The creative destruction philosophy is essential to survival in the eyes of Koch. He writes:

MBM (Market-based management) teaches that we must continually drive constructive change in every aspect of our company or we will fail. As a result, we constantly pursue disruptive innovations and opportunities through internal and external development as well as acquisition. Similarly, we shed businesses and assets that are unprofitable or worth more to others. We believe we must drive creative destruction faster than our competitors; otherwise it will drive us out of business.

💡 Idea #4 — Your business will not survive, nor grow into a large company, if you fail to have a clearly defined vision. Koch writes:

Despite our superficial differences – David and I have gotten along as business partners for half a century because we have always shared the same vision for Koch: to innovate, grow, and reinvest in order to maximize long-term value by applying our core capabilities.

While Koch’s approach to company building may seem different, they are still following the simple rule of compounding.

Koch’s emphasis on compounding (sometimes called “the most powerful force in the universe”) is another difference between the vision of our company and that of many others.

A strong, clear vision will also make other aspects of your business, such as recruiting, easier than it would be without a strong vision. Koch writes:

Having a clear vision is critical to attracting the best talent, as well. Understanding what a business is trying to achieve and how it creates value – in other words, its vision – not only enables employees to focus and prioritize; it helps them develop and find fulfillment. Having a shared vision guides the development of roles, responsibilities, and expectations. That’s why getting the vision right, helping employees (especially leaders) internalize it, and updating it as often as necessary is essential.

💡 Idea #5 — It is essential to get incentives right for your company, team, customers, and community. Koch focuses on these incentives every single day. He writes:

If profit is generated by Principled Entrepreneurship — by creating long-term value by economic means — then the interests of the company are in harmony with the interests of its customers, suppliers, communities, employees, and society at large.

The incentives aren’t just for customers and the company though. Koch ensures that employees are paid based on how much value they create for the business. He explains:

Since we strive to profit by creating value for our customers and society, our philosophy is to pay employees a portion of the value they create for the company.

Koch realizes that a private company has very different incentives than a company in the public markets. He is religious about their private status. He writes:

Another type of perverse incentive is endemic at publicly traded companies: the quarterly earnings report. Management at a public company is under a great deal of pressure to meet quarterly earnings forecasts, because falling slightly short can cause a significant drop in the stock price. Consequently, management is motivated to make decisions that optimize short-term earnings at the expense of maximizing real long-term value.

Such decisions may include underinvesting in attractive cyclical or long-term opportunities, ignoring needed write-downs, or even manipulating the books. Perverse incentives like these make managing a public company extremely difficult. They also make it clear why Koch Industries prizes its private status, and why I’d counsel any entrepreneur to do everything possible to keep her company private, no matter how big it grows. 

Memorable quotes:

* To be truly rich is to live a life of meaning.

* Good profit is earned through principled entrepreneurship — helping people improve their own lives.

* Businesses with good ideas but poor execution ultimately fail.

* We have found that aligning incentives with performance almost always improves outcomes.

* Beware: Perfection is the enemy of progress

* People tend to take better care of things they own.

* The lesson is that societies are most prosperous when knowledge is most plentiful, accessible, relevant, and inexpensive.

* Dedicating a full-time, A-level performer to a particularly thorny problem is often the key to successful innovation.

* “Grateful for everything; entitled to nothing.” - Coach Clark

* Arrogance is one of the most destructive traits in an organization. 

* The best coaches place as much emphasis on virtue as on talent.

* Now, more than ever, if you don’t have a culture of innovation, your days are numbered. 

* In a truly free society, people and businesses gain by serving others. 

* Short-term profits, while necessary, are not sufficient for long-term business success.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This book has become my favorite business book. That is the greatest endorsement that I could give to something that I have read. Many of the concepts are timeless, but Koch is able to tie them into his overarching thesis that companies should be run like prosperous societies.

My first big takeaway was the idea of good profit. Every company is focused on making money, but there are few that focus on making money the “right way.” Good profit dovetails nicely into Koch’s focus on creating value — for customers, employees, and the local community. That was refreshing to read.

My second big takeaway was how strongly Koch felt about staying private. It essentially boils down to perverse incentives, and I probably shouldn’t have been surprised given that Koch is $125+ billion revenue business in private markets, but it was still fascinating to read. The principled approach is hard to call out because it appears to run throughout the organization and thought process.

My third big takeaway was how hard Koch was still working at age 79 when he read the book. Here is what he said:

Why, at the age of seventy-nine, do I put in nine-hour days at the office and then go back to work at home after I’ve exercised and had dinner with Liz? It’s not for mortgages or tuitions (at least not anymore), since our children are grown, educated, and married. I certainly don’t claim to lead an ascetic life, but neither accumulating material goods nor amassing a big pile of money has ever been an incentive for me to work. My motivation to work hard has always been my need to lead a life of meaning – a fulfilling life. I want to do my best to make a difference in the world. I would rather die for something than live for nothing. Making good profit — earned by economic means instead of political ones — is a measure that tells me people value my contribution. No wonder, then, that it is one of my incentives.

That is just incredible to read. It speaks to Koch as a person, but also the energy and commitment that is set from the top of an organization.

My fourth big takeaway was how Koch treats employees like mini-entrepreneurs. They give them a strong, clear vision to follow and then turn them loose. The right people will solve problems, create value, and drive Koch Industries forward. The company will then do whatever they can to compensate these star employees with compensation that is commensurate to their contribution.

My final big takeaway was the obsession that Koch and his leadership team have with preventing disruption from happening to them. He talks about beating competitors to creative destruction, he mentions that innovation is the key to their sustained success, he calls out the fact that Koch is never too big to fail, and he highlights Coach Clark’s famous saying “Grateful for everything; entitled to nothing.”

It takes immense humility to run a $125+ billion annual revenue business and be focused on preventing a newcomer from eating your lunch. I love reading about people who are razor sharp, even though they are on top of the mountain. That unquenchable thirst for winning is a hell of an advantage in business.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was Good Profit by Charles G Koch. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe