As someone who is going through this now I agree about the importance of learning to love what you do vs. focusing on the outcome which is such challenge when you have a child you care and want to provide for.
On the kid front, the day my children were born weren’t the best days of my life (far from it!!) but the rate I now have ‘best days of my life’ is 100x what it was before thanks to them.
Wow, Evan. Such strong writing and storytelling in this piece, and so many takeaways.
1. Love this: " all truly great things in life are grown, not processesized into existence."
I've been conscious lately of not eating heavily processed foods in my diet. The way you put that sentence made me think, yes, this applies to everything worthwhile, not just good food.
2. The last 3 paragraphs you write debunking the "5-step-process" is so, so refreshing. My Substack feed, LinkedIn feed, and elsewhere are constantly flooded with the "how-tos" from people who have found their version of success in very specific ways. By the time they relay their process, it's either reduced to overly-generalised statements that are no longer helpful, or they are relays of activities that are so unique to their human circumstances that they aren't effectively repeatable by another person.
I wrote about this in (one of) my Thought Essays: that asking how another person succeeded is like asking a lottery winner for their numbers. It's usually more nuanced than reductivism attempts.
Yep and I understand why writers do it too. I'll see a significant increase in my paid conversion rates and open rates when I write the "5 ways to X" type articles. Despite all of us knowing its bad, we all read that stuff anyways!
Great piece. As a father and a tech guy, I’ve found that in many ways tech is the opposite of fatherhood. One is striving constantly for growth you don’t have, the other is reminding yourself daily of what you do. Of the two, it’s pretty clear which is best for the soul.
As someone who is going through this now I agree about the importance of learning to love what you do vs. focusing on the outcome which is such challenge when you have a child you care and want to provide for.
Thanks for sharing!
Gosh, great piece.
On the kid front, the day my children were born weren’t the best days of my life (far from it!!) but the rate I now have ‘best days of my life’ is 100x what it was before thanks to them.
Wow, Evan. Such strong writing and storytelling in this piece, and so many takeaways.
1. Love this: " all truly great things in life are grown, not processesized into existence."
I've been conscious lately of not eating heavily processed foods in my diet. The way you put that sentence made me think, yes, this applies to everything worthwhile, not just good food.
2. The last 3 paragraphs you write debunking the "5-step-process" is so, so refreshing. My Substack feed, LinkedIn feed, and elsewhere are constantly flooded with the "how-tos" from people who have found their version of success in very specific ways. By the time they relay their process, it's either reduced to overly-generalised statements that are no longer helpful, or they are relays of activities that are so unique to their human circumstances that they aren't effectively repeatable by another person.
I wrote about this in (one of) my Thought Essays: that asking how another person succeeded is like asking a lottery winner for their numbers. It's usually more nuanced than reductivism attempts.
Yep and I understand why writers do it too. I'll see a significant increase in my paid conversion rates and open rates when I write the "5 ways to X" type articles. Despite all of us knowing its bad, we all read that stuff anyways!
Great piece. As a father and a tech guy, I’ve found that in many ways tech is the opposite of fatherhood. One is striving constantly for growth you don’t have, the other is reminding yourself daily of what you do. Of the two, it’s pretty clear which is best for the soul.