Livin' La Vida Luna y Luca
Me, "Dia, should we I.C.E?"
Before she can answer, both kids scream, "ICE CREAM!!!"
LOL. Definitely need a new code word for that.
Quantity or Quality?
A ceramics teacher divided his class into two groups on the first day of class.
He told the first group they would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced. On the final day, he would weigh their pots: 50 pounds earned an A, 40 pounds a B, etc.
The second group would be graded solely on quality: they needed to produce only one pot, but it had to be perfect to get an A.
At the end of the term, when the teacher evaluated the results, a surprising pattern emerged: the highest quality pots were all produced by the group graded purely on quantity.
But is that surprising? The quantity group spent the entire semester churning out pot after pot and learned from their mistakes along the way. The quality group had spent most of their time theorizing about perfection and ended up with little more than grandiose ideas and a pile of unformed clay.
This parable (originally inspired by a similar real experiment run by photography professor Jerry Uelsmann) illustrates a counterintuitive truth: in creative work, consistent output and iteration often produce better results than the pursuit of isolated perfection.
Flier
This is the first draft of a postcard flier I'm putting together for my business.
When I showed it to Dia, she was like, "15!?!? When did you get to 15?"
I was just as shocked... I bought my first new construction project in December 2021, and it took 2 years of blood, sweat, and tears to ultimately sell it in October 2023.
Since then, I've been hyper-focused on scaling this business.
Then came another question, "Which one was your favorite?"
I didn't have an answer in the moment, but I think I do now. I have two favorites: The first one and the last one.
The first one because I learned more from 0 to 1 than I have since. And the last one because if I'm able to apply everything learned up until that point, it should be the best one of all.
If you haven't yet had the pleasure, I'd highly encourage you to watch some of Jimmy Donaldson's (AKA Mr. Beast) early videos on YouTube. Or do it for whoever your favorite content creator is: Tim Ferriss' Podcast, Mark Manson's Blog, or Ramit Sethi's YouTube.
6.5 years and 335 issues later, I can't help but wonder if I'm getting better at this newsletter thing. Not for more views, readers, or any vanity metrics like that. But just for the sake of putting something relatable out there.
Not everyone who reads this is a parent, runs a business, or has compulsive behavior. But I try to share a highlight of my week that's most relatable to the widest audience. I guess the Y-Axis on my version of the Mr. Beast chart above is # of times someone reads this and thinks, "Ok, so I'm not the only one going through this..."
✌🏽&❤️