Issue #15: On Shooting Your Shot, Sports and Money, and The Apotheosis of Washington
On Shooting Your Shot, The Strength of Weak Ties, Joe Pompliano on the Business and Money behind Sports, The Apotheosis of Washington, and James Baldwin
Yes, I know what you're thinking. It's Saturday - not Thursday! This is supposed to be Thursday Thoughts - thoughts on a Thursday. Admittedly, I have failed you. But hopefully, these Saturday sympathies will hold you over till next Thursday. Here's a song that I've had stuck in my head the past few days to play while you read this issue this evening:
Thelonious Monk on? Good. Before we get into it a quick update:
I published the first of many Book Notes today here on my website. These notes are on A Gentleman in Moscow which I touched on in the last issue. I cannot recommend that you read the book enough but if you want the gist and the quotes that I found most impactful you can read through my summary and notes here.
I posted a quick 350-word blog about the GameStop situation on my website here. It talks quickly about what we can expect going forward with this situation and about the Rise of the Retail Investor.
Finally, I posted three more engaging quotes to my online commonplace book from John Lennon, James Baldwin, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Check them out here.
With that out of the way, let's get into it.
In this week's issue you will find:
On Shooting Your Shot
A Lesson from The Defining Decade: The Strength of Weak Ties
Joe Pompliano on the Business and Money behind Sports
The Apotheosis of Washington from the US Capitol Building
a quote from James Baldwin
Shoot Your Shot
Last week, I talked about my struggle with Self-Sabotaging Perfectionism - how Perfectionism is just procrastination (or Resistance as Steven Pressfield would call it) wearing a disguise to try and stop you from doing the things that you want to do. Unfortunately just because you make the connection between the two, it doesn't necessarily grant you dominance over it. I still struggle with this perfectionism that sometimes doesn't allow me to ship work that I deem "not good enough".
Case in point this past week. I was interested in applying for a position writing a newsletter for RCG insights - an offshoot of the Rutgers Consulting Group on campus. The newsletter provides an analysis of the top storylines trending across industries - something that really interested me.
Of course, then "work" (read procrastination) distracted me from writing a sample and finishing my application till the day it was due. In fact, it distracted me till the last two hours before the deadline last Saturday at midnight.
That's when the self-sabotaging rationalization kicked in. Do I really want to do this? Don't I have enough on my plate. Wouldn't it be better if I just concentrating on writing for myself? Will I really grow from this? Would they even accept me? I don't really know how to write business stuff.
Even though I knew that this would be a great opportunity for me to dip my toe into the business writing pond - those rationalizations seemed to be convincing.
That's something that I struggle with - working against myself to disqualify myself from opportunities for growth or identity capital as Meg Jay from The Defining Decade would say.
The old saying with friends like this who needs enemies seems to ring true here. If we disqualify ourselves from high growth opportunities then there's no need for enemies because we take care of that ourselves.
But then I just decided to shoot my shot and write a quick 350-word explanation on the GameStop situation (linked here and above). And guess what - I was accepted. All that negative talk and self rationalization earlier just wasn't true.
Now I'm a part of a group of 6 other talented and driven student-writers who I can grow with and learn from. I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I hadn't just taken Michael Scott — or Wayne Gretsky's advice and just shot my shot.
This is an ongoing battle for sure, but the next time I try to disqualify myself from something I'm going to approach the situation a little more intentionally. There's enough going against you and you don't need to get in your own way on top of that. Shoot your shot - even if you miss, you'll feel way better having taken it on anyway.
Lessons from The Defining Decade: The Strength of Weak Ties
This week I'm reading The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. It's a book well recommended about why your twenties matter and sheds light on how you're supposed to make use of them. While the book is packed with useful information I wanted to highlight one in particular: the strength of weak ties.
Often times we surround ourselves with extremely like-minded people. Birds of a feather flock together after all. There are even people who only communicate strictly with the same few people. However, just sticking around the same crowd indefinitely is horrible for your self-growth just because they are the same as you. They often have similar situations and insight and you close yourself off from a challenging conversation or different perspective.
Communicating with weak ties, however, has the benefit of promoting thoughtful growth and change. You are forced to be more organized, thoughtful, and uncomfortable when you talk to weak ties because you don't know them as well as your strong ties. When we only talk to the strong ties we run the risk of preaching to the choir - which doesn't get you anywhere.
So make sure to reach out to your weak ties this week - get on Linkedin and talk with those connections. You never know what a conversation with a weak tie might bring about. Also, feel free to reach out to me on any of my socials or reply to this email to start a conversation!
Joe Pompliano is Breaking Down the Business and Money Behind Sports
Given that it's the Big Game in the US this weekend (Go Chiefs!) I thought I'd shine a light on one of my favorite Twitter follows and content creators in the sports (adjacent?) industry.
Joe Pompliano writes and tweets about the intersection of Sports and Business in his daily newsletter Huddle Up - which is also a great read. I especially love his tweet threads about athletes and franchises. Here's a great story in Twitter thread form to get you started:
The Apotheosis of Washington
I've made it clear that I'm a big Dan Brown guy in earlier additions and just finished The Lost Symbol this week on my binge of his books. Really readable with a massive twist near the end which I didn't see coming but what made me enjoy this book was its descriptions of Washington, DC - where it takes place. I've only visited Washington DC and done the tours as a little kid so I was really interested in all the architecture and ended up going on a Google Image Search adventure. Something that I found really interesting was the Apotheosis of Washington which featured heavily in the book.
It's the fresco suspended on top of the rotunda in the Capitol building and was built at the end of the Civil War - completed in 1863. Apotheosis means "the elevation of someone to divine status" and as you can see in the picture below ole Washington looks like quite the deity - draped in purple with a rainbow at his feet.
That's not even all the imagery involved with a number of ancient Roman gods making an appearance in the fresco as well. The more you know!
Quote of the Week
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world. But then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me the most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or had ever been alive."
James Baldwin
That’s all for this edition folks. Once again, sorry for coming to you on a Saturday - Expect things to go back to normal this Thursday.
If it’s your first time reading, I hope you’ll consider subscribing below:
Take care and see you next Thursday!
Just realized that if I hadn’t submitted that sample and joined that club I wouldn’t have interned and then gone full time at Morning Brew 😢