Success leaves clues…Reason, season, lifetime…Walk good. 28all. Eya. *TB, MM, JD*

The Warm-Up: 

“[Playas] rather work for the man than to work with me / Just so they can pretend they on my level, that [stuff] is irkin’ to me / Pride always goeth before the fall, almost certainly / It’s disturbing what I gross (what I gross!) / Survey says you not even close (not even close) / Everybody’s bosses ‘til it’s time to pay for the office / ‘Til them invoices separate the men, from the boys / Over here we measure success by how many people successful next to you / Here we say you broke if everybody is broke except for you / Boss!” ~The Carters, Boss

The Core: 

“You cant have a long-term horizon if you cant handle short-term volatility.” ~Shane Parrish

“A sign of success: you don’t envy younger people; you even help them get where you are.” ~Orange Book

“No one is ignoring you; people are simply focused on their lives, and they will make time for you if you bring value.” ~Orange Book

“And it’s a new horizon and I’m set on You / And You meet me here today with mercies that are new / All my fears and doubts, they can all come too / Because they can’t stay long when I’m here with You…” ~Pat Barrett, The Way (New Horizon)

“Things everyone needs to come to terms with: *No response is a response / *Taking no risk, is the biggest risk / *If they really wanted to, they would. / *If you’re happy alone, you’ll be happier together. / *Changed behavior is the only real apology.” ~Steven Bartlett

“‘Marketing is what you do when your product sucks.’ What? It took humans 300 years to realize a better use case for the wheel was transportation, not pottery. If the greatest product ever invented couldn’t speak for itself, what makes you think your dashboard can?” ~Nicolas Cole

“It’s crazy to me how most of us are now going to spend the majority of our careers working remotely, and if it hadn’t been for the pandemic we’d all just kept going to offices for 8+ hours every day. Makes you wonder what else we’re all doing just because everyone else is.” ~Jack Altman

“A relationship without hard moments doesn’t exist. Even emotionally mature people will not get it right every time. Being attached to things always being pleasant and entertaining is unrealistic. There will be occasional down moments as you learn to love each other better.” ~Yung Pueblo

“Warrior: The warrior stands tall in the face of it all. They exhibit strength; not so much with their physicality, but with their sheer utter, inner strength deep within their soul. For it is their character that is most telling of this warrior. When their longest days or their biggest obstacles hit, they get back to the basics. They get up after small detours or devastating falls and work even more on themselves knowing they can push past their own limitations further than ever before. In essence, they always believe in their ‘rise’ and work towards their ‘becoming’ knowing their work is never done.” ~Matt Gottesman

“If you watch Stephen play, he’ll lay low. He doesn’t need to immediately assert his will. He’ll sit tight, till it's time. Then he’ll go off, end up with 30-plus and seven threes or whatever. Sometimes it feels like he gets almost all his points in these short bursts. Ninety-second spurts near the end of quarters. He stays present, locked in, getting everyone going. Waiting till some feeling comes over, and then lets it take over. You can feel it when it starts happening. My man isn’t a mamba striking, isn’t young A.I. carrying the whole load or LeBron aggressively throwing no-look passes at teammates he’ll ship off at the end of the season if they don’t consistently convert. My man Stephen is dancing. Waiting for the Holy Spirit to take over. And that shit is infectious. Let the ball fly, you’ll get it back. Watching their team this year, you got these guys who’ve been with him all this time; they’re all letting the game come to them, all doing his shimmy.” ~Sean Thor Conroe, What Michael Jordan Taught Me About Manhood—and How Stephen Curry Changed My Mind

Last Set:

“Humility never loses. They cant beat you if you’re not competing & comparing with them. It’s a different level of play when you don’t want what they want, don’t need what they have, don’t compare with what they do, don’t compete with their approach. Humility brings you to a space where your primary concern is how well you’re watering all that was given to you when you came into this life and how well you expand it. That’s it. That’s the big secret. I don’t want the same things everyone chases. I want what freedom looks like to me.” ~Matt Gottesman

Food For Thought:

“Although Lewis was far too complex to ascribe his powerful drive just to one factor, his reaction to racism was unquestionably a major component in his incredible journey to the boardroom of Beatrice. Lewis possessed a powerful antenna for detecting slights centering on pigmentation. To nonblack readers it may seem that Lewis was a hypersensitive black man with a chip on his shoulder, constantly in search of insults real or imagined. However black males who have been shadowed by store clerks or wondered if only black males are into narcotics and commit heinous crimes—judging from television and news-paper coverage—can empathize with Lewis’s take on the world. The simple fact is that even after Lewis’ incredible journey from the streets of East Baltimore to the pinnacle of business success, many whites simply did not want to believe he was genuinely responsible. And that rankled Lewis and made him even more defensive, sensitive, and more motivated to achieve.” ~Reginald F. Lewis & Blair S. Walker, “Why should white guys have all the fun?” How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire 

Food For Thought II:

“Rafa’s Greatest Rally!”…Advantage, Nadal. “This is one of those scripts, [that] if you sent [it] to Hollywood they would say ‘impossible’...” ~John McEnroe when Medvedev tied the last set 5-5.

I woke up Sunday morning to a series of texts from (extra) Largey that read: “Nadal v. Medvedev. 5th and final set. Been playing since 3:30am. Nadal has come back from 2 sets down. If he wins, he’ll win his 21st grand slam, breaking the tie with Federer and Djokovic.” I sprung up, turned on ESPN, and began watching these men battle for glory. 5+ hours of grinding, or as Largey commented, “A masterclass in relentlessness.” As I watched, appreciating the difficulty and the heart these men displayed, I couldn’t help but think of what was going through their minds as they competed for victory. And though I’ve used it before (11/16/20; 5/13/16), this quote kept popping in my head.

“I tell my kids, what is the difference between a hero and a coward? What is the difference between being yellow and being brave? No difference. Only what you do. They both feel the same. They both fear dying and getting hurt. The man who is yellow refuses to face up to what he’s got to face. The hero is more disciplined, and he fights those feelings off and he does what he has to do. But they both feel the same, the hero and the coward. People who watch you judge you on what you do, not how you feel.” ~Cus D’Amato, legendary boxing trainer

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