🌦️ TREE 572: It’s true on Thursdays
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about non-universal truths.
Kody touched on them a little last week in his post about (not) making your bed. He showed us that
It’s true that habitually making your bed every day will improve your life.
It’s true that purposefully never making your bed will improve your life.
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Toto Wolff, is the boss of the super-successful Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team. He ‘fosters ongoing competitiveness is by encouraging his team members – from the engineers to the marketing people – to find out who their counterparts are on rival teams and commit to surpassing them.’ He emailed his entire team and told them to ‘Take the time to find out who your opposite person is [at the Red Bull F1 team] and look at him or her every day. Put the picture right in front of you so you know whom to beat’ (Anita Elberse, Harvard Business Review, December 2022).
Rick Rubin the super-producer wrote in (The Creative Act, 2023):
‘Wanting to outperform another artist or make a work better than theirs rarely results in true greatness. Nor is it a mindset that has a healthy impact on the rest of our lives. As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, comparison is the thief of joy. Besides, why would we want to create with the purpose of diminishing someone else?
‘When another great work inspires us to elevate our own, however, the energy is different. Seeing the bar raised in our field can encourage us to reach even higher. This energy of rising-to-meet is quite different from that of conquering.’
The super-successful Formula 1 boss says you need an intense focus on beating your opponent. The super-successful music producer says the way to greatness is by not competing. These two ways of working are in complete disagreement with each other. Asking which one is true is useless because they both are. The better question is: Are these ways of working useful in my situation?
This was on my Peanuts calendar the day I wrote this post.
Jecelyn wanted to choose this song for her guess post, but it hadn’t been released yet. Enjoy!
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Grow slowly
Jeff
YAY! This song has already gotten me through some deep client bullshit I was dealing with in my business!
The bottom line is not to suffer. I make my bed because I want to. I am not bound to making my bed. Sometimes I roll out and leave it mussed. Either way, it’s good.