Lessons from the week (8 Oct 2023)

You have to dream, how to perform at 2x everyday, and making your kids fail intentionally

You have to have a dream

Listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger always inspires me. I already pre-ordered his upcoming book called Be Useful. Just listening to him makes me believe in myself and strengthens my conviction in what I am building. In the conversation he talks about how he asked his kids why they want to go to university. They didn't really have a good answer. At their age, he had a clear vision in his mind about becoming a bodybuilding champion and moving to America. Without that dream which drove his actions everyday, he had nothing. Today's kids, including his, are so lost in devices that they don't sit alone to just think and dream. They have others tell them what to do. This is a problem.

There is so much to admire about Arnold. He sees life as a journey. He sees a peak and climbs it. And then when he is at the top, he sees all the other mountains and peaks. He starts climbing those one by one. That is what life is all about - the journey from one peak to another.

Your upbringing plays a big role in making you who you are - If you don't do the forced reps, you aren't going to grow. Through comfort no one ever grows. Do not shy away from pain, misery, obstacles or falling down. And crawl to get up again from nothing! That was the power and strength my father gave me. I appreciated that. Because I knew if he has done none of that and he had given me all the love. And if I had had all the money in the world. Then I would not have grown up as tough. And I would not have been able to accomplish what I did. It was all because of that upbringing. My kids could not grow up with my desire and my hunger. To do whatever it takes.

Thinking big makes you bigger - I trained just as hard in the gym as anyone else but my goal was just bigger. They wanted to be Mr Austria. I wanted to be Mr Europe. Everything was the same but I was thinking bigger. It didn't take more work to think big. It's just that thinking big makes you bigger. [when I dreamt big as an actor] they said "this ladder is very hard to climb up." And I said "well then I'll build my own ladder." I created my own way of getting up there.

You got to work your ass off - The 5 hours I used to work my ass off to train and to train and to train and to pose and to pose and to pose... to do all the stuff that I needed to do. I said I'm going to take the same 5 hours but I'm going to go and learn English, acting, speech lessons, voice lessons, accent removal lessons. I was grinding it out and eventually it happened. People started hiring me.

SELL, SELL, SELL - No matter what you have - a podcast, movie, painting, car, technology, medicine - if people don't know about it, you have nothing. The more people know about your product or talent, the more you can be successful. Selling is an art. You have to improvise and adjust all of the time. For example - how you speak to kids vs lawmakers is totally different. You have to learn the art of selling. You don't have to just sell your product, you have to sell yourself. You have to become an interesting person. Warhol's art became worth millions of dollars because of the character he created around himself.

*Arnold Schwarzenegger on Betting on Yourself and Thinking Big

Pen, Paper and Coffee has made me deliver at 200% consistently

I have changed my routine. When I wake up, I get ready and drive straight to a coffee shop to have a Cappuccino and pick up one for my wife. The drive gives me exposure to the sun, which wakes me up. The coffee makes makes me super creative and optimistic putting me in a trance like state for the first half of the day.

I then sit in front of my journal and just do a brain dump. I write to think. The clarity I am able to get by just putting thoughts on paper is just unbelievable. I have journaled over the years but this daily ritual has just taken the power of thinking on paper to the next level. For some reason doing this in analog form allows me to go deeper than when I do it on a digital device. I don't know why that is.

I know that I will probably never go back and read what I have written. The purpose is not to create a chronology of my life. The purpose is to have a trusted adviser to think with. Waking up after a good nights sleep brings forward connections that I am able to make in my mind that lights the road ahead. It also allows me to address my worries in a manner that gets them out of my monkey mind and puts them in letters which are visible and addressable. This way these worries are never allowed to become mental monsters.

I highly recommend everyone journal every morning. If you are worried that someone will read about your deepest secrets then just burn them after you've written them. By keeping the zillions of thoughts you have locked up in your head, you are doing yourself a disservice. You can be 200% the man or woman you currently are by just adopting this simple practice.

Put your kids in situations where they fail

I plan to become a parent so learning about raising kids who see this gift of life with the right lens interests me tremendously. Here Shane explains why he put his kids in schools which forced them to do things that they were incapable of. Wouldn't we all have our kids fail at something hard rather than succeed at something easy? It's a great model to follow.

Till grade 6 what kids are really learning is how be social, how to read and learning to do basic math. This you can get anywhere in the world really easily.

Grade 7 it started to change for my kids because of the schools I sent them to. I'm a big believer that kids should be challenged. I'm the type of parent who thinks you can do things you think you're not capable of. So my kids were in a school which gave 90 minutes of homework a night. And school was in a different language (French). They were pushed and challenged. The standards of this school are unrelenting. They don't care how you feel. That is very counter cultural. If you haven't done your homework, you get a 0. The schools approach to this is that "we want to produce effective adults."

At first my son was crying every night. He was so naturally smart that he didn't have to work for anything. And that school in a different language eliminated that advantage. So he had to work hard.

As the parent I'd say "I love you. I know this is hard. Let's shift our mindset around this."

By the end of December he was loving it. He loved being challenged. And when it came time to pick a high school his only filter was "which school is going to challenge me the most." I was so happy he was thinking that way. I rather have him fail at something hard than succeed at something easy.

What we want to do is raise independent adults who can handle the ups and downs of life.

* Shane Parrish on the Tim Ferriss Show

Harsh Batra
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