Above all else

James Lawrence is known as "The Iron Cowboy". He is most famous for running an insane number of triathlons. I heard him share his experience at a recent event, and was intrigued enough to dig up and watch a documentary on him after that, called "50-50-50".  An Ironman triathlon comprises a consecutive 3.9km swim, 181km bicycle ride and 42.2 km run, vs an Olympic triathlon which is already a fairly fearsome 1.5 km swim, 40 km bicycle ride and 10 km run. The Olympic triathlon sounds like it might conceivably be do-able, but let's face it, the Ironman triathlon sounds ridiculous. One day, James decided that he was going to do the 50-50-50. What is 50-50-50?  50 Ironman triathlons, in the 50 different US states, on 50 consecutive days. WHAAT?!? James' friends told him that the world record for number of Ironman triathlons in a year was 20. You know, James, you just need to do 21 to break the record. And James' answer was, it's not about beating someone e...

There’s a glamorous bank advertisement being played on airplane entertainment systems these days, which depicts various industry titans, movers and shakers, who “don’t follow maps but draw them, and build what isn’t there”. And that they just call this “Tuesday”. The point is that to these business paragons, daring entrepreneurship is simply routine. I mean, I'm posting this on Saturday, 'cos Tuesdays are too busy ya know :D I’m no titan of industry. But it’s true that simply calling things “Tuesday” is what often works. As James Clear wrote in “Atomic Habits”, we don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our habits/systems. And it’s not possible to build habits or systems without actually putting them into practice. You can have all the SOPs and how-to-do-it books. But in the end, it takes jumping into the pool, day after day after day. No one is ever truly ready to be married. The only way to become readier, is to get going, and learn to love better an...