Last Thursday I read an excellent piece by Jack Raines called 25% Loaded. He writes Young Money, a newsletter I discovered a couple of weeks ago, and in honor of his 25th birthday he reflected on five things he’s learned so far:
- Don’t sleepwalk through life
- Money is not the goal
- No success happens overnight
- Stretch yourself every day
- Life is good
I read the piece early in the morning, and then re-read it several times throughout the day. I was dumbfounded – who was this Jack Raines, and how had he read my mind so clearly? The piece was exactly what I wished I could write, and from some 25-year old kid. Not a bestseller like Ryan Holiday, not a tech billionaire like Paul Graham – a random dude named Jack that has a hell of a way with words. He even quoted Tim Urban! The despair hit me pretty hard.
I let myself mope around a bit and forgot everything I’d written about running my own race. I ignored all the positive encouragement that got me this far in my writing journey. I looked at the anemic open rates of my own Thursday newsletter and wondered how I’d ever build up to the 4,500 subscribers Raines has.
And then it hit me. Young Money has over 4,500 subscribers, compared to my 100. He dwarfs me every way you cut it, which stings. But the truth is that both of us combined reach fewer than 5,000 people. My office building is bigger than our combined readership, no matter how you split the pie between us. If I care about the same things as Jack, which I do, I might as well amplify his reach and continue to amplify my own. Writing about “the big questions in life” is the farthest thing from a zero sum game there is. We can easily coexist.
Many of my favorite podcast hosts have said something similar. They welcome successful competition, because new blood brings new listeners, which grows the pie for everyone. And no one is a true competitor – they all bring their unique experience and approach to what they do. Just listen to how differently Tim Ferriss and Peter Atia both interview Hugh Jackman.
The same is true of Young Money. Raines quit his full-time job to write the newsletter; I write mine before and after a day job that I very much enjoy. Raines writes primarily about money; I don’t. Neither approach is better than the other, and neither takes away from the fact that Young Money is more successful than EF Writing Project. But we’re in different weight classes. “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.” Jordan Peterson’s quote never loses its relevance.
I am a very small fish in an infinitely big pond. Every week I discover new writers doing exactly what I’m doing, only better. But that’s only a problem if I feel their success must come at the expense of my success. If I can fight through that gut reaction, and recognize that the infinitely big pond serves an even more-infinitely big group of readers, then there’s no question that it’s better to be an ant among giants than a giant among ants. If I’d been a giant on Day 1 – or if I were a giant now – this newsletter would still be just a prototype. So much of my tone, style and content has been taken from writers I admire, and I’m better for it. If I’m fortunate enough to have more great years of writing ahead of me, then the last thing I’d want is to have exhausted my growth potential.
Operating from a place of abundance, rather than scarcity, feels much better too. I joined a team at work last summer that is filled with all-stars, and in a recent team meeting I was blown away by how impressive everyone was. One of my peers has ten times my level of energy and excitement; another has full mastery of details I’d never remember. And while in some ways I compete with them for things like ratings and promotions, in reality I’ll benefit much more from my proximity to those two than I will suffer for it. Rising tides lift all boats.
Zero-sum thinking spooks us into seeing zero-sum relationships where they don’t exist. It leads people to hoard their knowledge at work and hide their career goals from one another. It makes people jealous of their friends’ successes. It causes people to fight against progress because it advantages other groups more than their own. As Adam Grant says in Give and Take, “whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
I’ll be 29 next month, and thinking about my own version of Raines’ post. Despite agreeing with everything he wrote, my reflection will look different than his, and will speak to a different audience. The whole of our posts will be better than the sum of the parts.
In case I don’t write that post, here is one big thing I’ve learned in the past year: Chase what makes you smile. On Saturday, one of the guests at The Meatloaf Kitchen hammered that point home when he told me: “I always see you smiling.” The comment had a huge impact on me, and I thought about it throughout the day. I’d asked myself many times why I loved those early mornings – from meeting other active, service-oriented people to interacting with hundreds of fellow New Yorkers each week – but it turned out my face said it all. Scarcity is allergic to smiles, and the times I found myself giving were the times I had a huge grin plastered across my face.
I’m on the hunt for more smiles.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
Deep Roots – Morgen Housel
“When you realize you can’t connect one dot without a million other dots entering the picture, you realize how impractical it is to predict what the world will look like in the future.”
29 Lessons From Owning A Bookstore – Ryan Holiday
“Starting a small business is not the same as running into a burning building or onto a battlefield, but one thing you can’t escape noticing when you read history or biography is just how badly we need people to step up, to put themselves out there, to pursue their crazy ideas. All of human progress—big and small—depends on that.”
As I Lay Dying – Ted Rheingold
“I’ve gained some powerful emotional powers (super powers) in what I’ve been calling my second life. Most all my deep-set hangups died with my first life. A number (but not all) of my grudges, entitled expectations, self-assumed responsibilities, judgements are simply gone. I have no FOMO. There isn’t an event I’ve heard of since I’ve recovered that I wish I would have been at. I’m simply content to be alive and living my life. I have no bucket list. Life is the bucket.”
What I’m Listening To:
Bittersweet – Spotify playlist by Susan Cain
Awesome collection of bittersweet music – surprised to find some of my favorites in here!