Danny Miranda

How To Fail At Everything & Still Win Big Notes

May 15, 2020 by Danny Miranda Leave a Comment

Amazon.com: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big ...

Love the practical nature of this book. Scott’s storytelling makes this a must-read. Would highly recommend for anyone interested in psychology, persuasion, or how to live an incredible life.

When your energy is right, you perform better at everything you do (similar to Kevin Kelly’s rule: enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points).
Market rewards execution over good ideas.
Systems > Goals
- Goal: Lose 20 pounds
- System: Eating right
- If you do something every day, it’s a system. Systems have no deadlines, and on any given day, you can’t tell if they’re moving in the right direction.
Used affirmations. Wrote every day 15 times – “I, Scott Adams, will be a famous cartoonist.”
If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it.
Take care of yourself first so you can do a better job of taking care of others.
If you pursue selfish objectives, and do well, eventually your focus will turn outward to taking care of others.
Every second you look at a messy room and think about fixing it is a distraction from more important thoughts.
Pay attention to your mood after you exercise. Typically always positive.
Ideas change the world every day, and often from ordinary people.
You almost always learn something valuable in the process of failing. (!!)
Things that will someday work out well start out well. (Interesting hypothesis)
Practice is obvious. You have to figure out what to practice.
Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success. (Good + Good > Excellent)
Simplicity trumps accuracy
Everything you learn becomes a shortcut for something else.
Don’t think of the news as information. Think of it as an energy source.
If you see something that impresses you, you are morally obligated to voice your praise.
We don’t always have an accurate view of our own potential.
Psychology = lifelong study
People don’t use reason for important decisions in life. The reality is that reason is just one of the drivers of our decisions, and often the smallest one
How to be a top 10% conversationalist: Smile, ask questions, avoid complaining and sad topics, and have some entertaining stories ready to go
How to overcome shyness: pretend you are an acting instead of interacting
The most effective way of getting people to stop trying to persuade you is to say “I’m not interested.”
Spend time with and around people who represent what you would like to become without trespassing, kidnapping, or stalking. Their good energy will rub off on you.
The biggest trick for manipulating your happiness is being able to do what you want, when you want.
Work can become pleasure if you have the ability to decide when you’re going to do it
Anything that you can make slow and steady improvement at makes you feel you’re on the right track
Pessimism is often a failure of imagination. If you can imagine a future being brighter, it lifts your energy and produces a sensation of happiness
Happiness is the natural state for most people whenever they feel healthy, have flexible schedules, and expect the future to be good
Happiness formula: Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, imagine incredible future, work a flexible schedule, do things you can steadily improve at, help others, reduce daily decisions

Why You Should Utilize Seasons for Your Own Success

May 14, 2020 by Danny Miranda Leave a Comment

Older players told Kobe Bryant he was going to have an identity crisis after he retired.

The game consumed him. How could he ever be the same?

But four years after he hung up his sneakers for good, he transitioned successfully to his next chapter:

He started Mamba Academy.
He wrote children’s books.
His first (and only) film Dear Basketball won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

He accomplished more in his four years away from basketball than most people do their entire life.

How did he do it?

He simply went on to his next “season” – to help the next generation learn basketball.

A season is a period of time when you focus on improving one aspect of yourself.

The Earth has already figured this out.

In the spring, the Earth grows its trees. In the summer, the Earth maintains the growth. In the fall, the Earth sheds the leaves from its trees. In the winter, the Earth wipes its trees completely dry.

Nothing would happen if the Earth tried to do this all at once.

So why don’t we treat our lives the same way?

I originally stumbled upon this idea from Steph Smith’s blog post – Another Year Under the Sun. Steph outlines many of her goals at the onset of each year. Someone commented on her article (via Hacker News):

It may help to think of your life as “epochs” or “seasons”. Sometimes you’re in a work period, or in a startup epoch. Another time you’re in a travelling season. It’s easier to split your interests over time than to parallelise in the present. The season idea can be greatly reassuring – “oh, I’m not doing enough music now, but that’s because I’m in a work period. Focus on work, do that, that’s enough. Spare time – rest, recuperate, so I can do better work tomorrow.”

And I couldn’t help notice how true it is.

When I am “at my best,” I follow this premise. Focusing on improving one aspect of my life for a set period of time.

So let’s explore how the idea of seasons can help you achieve a specific goal.

Preseason: Selecting Your Season

You either fall into one of two categories: you have no focus or you have too many focuses. But in order for seasons to be effective, you need to have a goal or target (your season).

No Goals? Pick Something

If you don’t have a goal, you are drifting.

In Outwitting the Devil, Napoleon Hill talks about the most common form of “drifting”: indecision. Decide what you want to do instead of letting the tides of life carry you.

When you have no goals, you’re an object at rest.

Can you identify one area which you would like to improve?

If you can figure out how you can make tiny improvements on this one goal (your season!), you’ll be in a much different position one week, one month, or one year from now.

Too Many Goals? Use Essentialism

Essentialism, popularized by Greg McKeown, is the concept of focusing on what is truly important.

In the circle on the left, you end up going in twelve different directions but end up getting nowhere. In the circle on the right, you focus on one area and make huge progress.

A useful exercise might be to write down your twelve areas and then ask yourself, “If I could only get better at five of these, which one would I choose?”

Then do that process again with the five you’ve picked. “If I could only get better at one of these, which would I choose?”

Then, you can focus on your one big area ruthlessly.

This is your season.

The Critical Early Stages

When you want to make progress on your season, you need to devote more energy to that specific task than everything else. That way, you’ll get the most out of it.

Great theory, pal.

Does it hold up in the real world?

For a powerful example, let’s look at how you learned to speak.

When You Learned How To Speak

When you are young, your parents select your season. It’s “learning how to speak” season for all toddlers around the globe.

Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley studied 42 families in an attempt to figure out why some students were faster learners than others.

They found:

Children whose families were on welfare heard ~600 words per hour
Working-class children heard ~1,200 words per hour
Children from professional families heard ~2,100 words per hour

By age 3, children in families on welfare hear 30 million fewer words than children in professional families.

They found the greater the number of words children heard before they were 3, the higher their IQ, and the better they did in school.

Learning a language is a skill – like anything else. In the early stages of any journey, you’re laying the groundwork.

To get good at something quickly, you have to cut the noise and surround yourself with those who will help you get better.

If you half-ass something in the beginning stages, you will pay for it later on.

Because when you’re new to an activity, you are working with a blank slate. You have no (or little) knowledge about a subject. And the improvements can rapidly increase your progress.

How Seasons Work In Real Life

My brother writes, produces, and performs a comedy show for his fraternity every semester. He takes it seriously.

The show typically coincides with his finals, club activities, and ragers.

It always turned out great, but never met his high expectations. He always thought to himself, “Man, if I could focus just on the comedy show, it would turn out amazing.”

This past year, he got his wish.

When COVID-19 forced him into quarantine, his schoolwork eased up. He suddenly had no other clubs or parties to attend to.

As a result?

He focused all of his attention on the show. And he produced his best performance.

He was in the season of producing his comedy show.

How To Avoid Post-Season Depression

Here’s one guarantee: life will change.

When we complete one season, it’s easy to fall into a spiral. We lose the focus we had. The flow. The constant improvement. Even the stresses and worries are fun to look back on. Because we’re not drifting.

Seasons give us focus.

There is a sharp increase in deaths among men at 62 in the United States. This happens to be when Social Security is available. While correlation does not mean causation, it’s possible this is a reminder that “work” acts as a season and a reason for living.

So when we go from one season to the next, how do we make sure we don’t ruin ourselves in the process?

You avoid post-season depression by doing what Kobe did:

Starting something new. And doing it fast.

Because it’s easy to fall into the trap of nostalgia. About reminiscing about past successes. To form your identity around a previous version of yourself. But you need to move. You need to get yourself in motion.

Where To Go From Here

You are likely in one of two camps:

No goals
Too many goals

Figure out which bucket you are in.

If you are in the first, pick something you wish you could get a little bit better, day after day. (It could be writing, drawing, coding, illustrating, exercising. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you commit to improving yourself in an area over a set amount of time.)

If you are in the second bucket, utilize essentialism to ruthlessly cut that which is not important to choose your season.

Focus on your season ruthlessly – especially in the early stages. This is the most critical time for your development.

Then, when you’re done with your season, choose something else to improve.

That’s it.

To track your season, utilize Streaks.

Thank you Joel Christiansen, Michael Shafer, and Stew Fortier for looking over the first draft of this article.

How This 17th Century Discovery Can Help You Accomplish Your Goals Today

May 11, 2020 by Danny Miranda 3 Comments

In 1687, Isaac Newton came to a stunning realization:

Objects in motion stay in motion; objects at rest stay at rest.

Today, we know it as Newton’s first law of motion. It may strike us as true in physics or an interesting theory about the way the universe operates.

But what we rarely seem to recognize is that we – human beings – are objects, too.

How The Principle Applies To Us Humans

I’ll never forget…

The first time I saw my brother after a few months apart, he noticed a change in me.

“You seem happier and calmer. Like you have more goodwill towards everyone,” my brother told me.

I was telling him about the benefits of meditation, and how much I thought it was changing my life. How I started to see the world in a different way. How I was bringing light into the world.

He asked, “How do you know it is meditation that is making the difference? You’re also doing all that other stuff too.”

“The other stuff” he was referring to were the components of 75HARD: working out twice per day, drinking a gallon of water, following a clean diet, reading 10 pages, and taking a progress photo.

His question was… how did I know that those weren’t the reasons my life was changing?

My response was that he might be right. But it didn’t matter what the specific cause was.

I was an object in motion. Improving day after day. And this made me more likely to do other things that would improve my life. Which in turn made me (and those around me) happier.

Objects in motion, stay in motion.

By the opposite notion, have you ever had a period in your life where you just felt plain stuck?

Like no matter what you did, you couldn’t make progress.

When this has happened to me, I’m typically at rest. Literally pulling the sheets over my head. My body is not in motion (not exercising). My mind is not in motion (not reading). I am trying my hardest to stay in the same place.

How to get over this?

We often want to make big changes.

The vision of losing 20 pounds or New Year’s Resolution strikes and inspires us.

The problem?

The next day (/week/month) we realize just how much work is needed to go into the vision we aspire to…

And we quit.

So how can you effectively not quit?

The answer might be easier than you might expect…

Make It Easier For Yourself to Get Into Motion

We have to make it easier for ourselves.

Try the Ten Minute Rule:

Commit to an activity for ten minutes. If you don’t want to continue it, just stop.

Oftentimes, what you might find is that you will want to pursue the activity after ten minutes. The hardest part was getting yourself in motion.

Can you make the buy-in so small you’d laugh at yourself for not doing it?

For some reason, we believe we have to make massive progress on our goals every day. But we don’t. We only need to do a little bit to move the needle. Day after day.

Instead of attempting to read 50 pages, read five.

Instead of journaling for 30 minutes, commit to three minutes.

Instead of sitting down for one hour of meditation, refuse to meditate for more than one minute.

I started doing a yoga routine that takes between three and four minutes. It’s nine different poses, each held for 20 seconds. Sometimes I do this routine as many as five times in a single day. Every time I do it, I feel better. Every single time.

Yes, the person who’s doing an hour of yoga a day will lap me in terms of skill and progress in the short term. But will they be able to consistently perform this habit throughout their life? Is it easy enough?

Additionally, every time I do yoga, I’m becoming more likely to think of myself as someone who does yoga.

This is what the Ten Minute Rule is all about. It works because you are building the habit of consistency. Plus, you’re reinforcing your idea that you are someone who does this activity. Day by day, you are creating a new image of yourself. Even if it’s small, it’s something. It’s 10 minutes you weren’t reinforcing a negative habit.

How to Continue The Momentum

Once you’ve started the habit, congrats. You’ve done the hardest part. You’ve effectively gotten into motion.

Now, it’s simply a matter of reinforcing the habit by doing the activity every day.

If you can, try to be accountable to someone else or a group. (That is the goal of Streaks.)

Jerry Seinfeld’s (Fake) Productivity Hack

It was once rumored that Jerry Seinfeld had the following strategy:

Write one joke a day.

If he could do that, he would mark a big, red “X” on his calendar.

The habit was small enough that he could do it every day. But it was big enough that it actually made a difference. Plus, he got the “reward” of marking his accomplishment off on the calendar daily.

Although Seinfeld has since denied using the strategy, it still works: start small and use consistency.

In Summary

Every time you decide to take an action, it leads you to be more likely to do that action in the future.

To quote James Clear, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

And you can effectively change your identity by doing a bunch of small activities consistently.

We can achieve greatness by applying consistency at the microlevel. In the smallest of tasks. And somehow, someway, it transcends those small tasks into something great.

If you make finishing a habit, if you make completing your to-do list a habit, if you make walking for 15 minutes per day a habit… I don’t know. Maybe it’ll surprise you.

When you go to sleep, ask yourself… “Was I a little better today than yesterday?”

If you are able to say yes, then you’re staying in motion.

And you’ll feel damn good about it too.

Thank you Stew Fortier, Dan Hunt, and Diana Hawk for their input on this post.

How To Get Good At Practically Anything Using The Sweet Spot

May 7, 2020 by Danny Miranda Leave a Comment

I naturally sucked.

Instruments. Athletics. Standardized tests.

A common thought when I was younger: “Oh, I’ll never be good at that. What’s the point in trying?”

Okay, maybe I wasn’t completely helpless. But I believed I couldn’t do anything to improve my situation (Carol Dweck calls this a fixed mindset. The opposite of this is, well, a growth mindset, where you believe you can improve your situation.)

Activity after activity. Start, quit, start, quit.

I always quit before I could make any progress. I mean, could you blame me? It’s not fun doing something you think you suck at and that (you believe) you will always suck at.

But then, there was one activity that changed everything.

I came across lifting weights.

Yeah, I wasn’t strong at first (who is… maybe The Rock?). Yeah, I was weak and frail. But it didn’t matter.

Because I found the Sweet Spot.

Introducing: The Sweet Spot

We value what is difficult to achieve.

But here’s the tricky part:

It can’t be too hard.

Especially when we’re starting out.

Imagine if when playing basketball, every time you shot you missed. Every single time? You’d stop playing. (On the other side, if you scored every time, you’d hate it as well.)

If we decide an activity is too difficult, we quit. Like all the instruments I tried from the ages of 11 to 15. Because I could not imagine a world in which I was good at the saxophone, I stopped doing it. Even though we could become great if we didn’t stop, still… we quit.

So what is the Sweet Spot?

The Sweet Spot is the place the activity isn’t too easy or difficult. But most importantly, we must know we are improving, and we must enjoy the feeling.

After my first few weeks of weightlifting, I got stronger. My form improved. I was lifting heavier weights.

Here’s where the breakthrough happened.

I realized, “Oh, if I keep this up for 10+ years, I’m going to be really good. And besides, this is really good for my body and mind. So I’m going to keep doing it.”

The improvement was objective. It wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t difficult.

It hit the Sweet Spot.

The Sweet Spot is similar to flow. When we’re in flow, we:

Get more enjoyment out of the activity
Learn faster
Are more productive
Feel more creative

The Sweet Spot is that perfect area where we don’t feel as if we suck. And we don’t feel as if we’re too good.

Anyone can lift weights because the activity has “beginner, intermediate, advanced” built-in.

Someone who is starting out can use their body weight. An intermediate can progress to dumbbells and barbells. And an expert can add even more weight to their movements.

Meaning: if you “suck” at the beginning (like I did), you can still improve in some way. Which makes the activity fun, rewarding, and challenging.

The Mastery Curve: How To Find The Sweet Spot Throughout The Journey

“A black belt is a white belt who never quit.”

When you begin an activity, you objectively suck. But fear not, the longer you pursue it – while trying to improve – the better you will get.

What’s more important than whether you suck or not?

Finding the Sweet Spot.

In other words, your own perspective matters.

Is the activity is fun? Do you think you’re improving? Are you getting recognition from the outside world?

If yes, you’ve found the Sweet Spot.

Note: The timeline I’ve outlined below doesn’t hold true for every activity. But it’s a pretty good gauge for random, difficult activities.

The “Newbie Gains!” Stage: Your First ~6-12 Months

When you are a beginner, you can make rapid advancements over short periods of time.

In weightlifting, “newbie gains” are when you can add the most amount of muscle in the shortest amount of time. In your first year of lifting properly, you can gain as much as 20 pounds of muscle. For someone who has been lifting for 10+ years, this is nearly impossible to do.

It’s almost as if life has programmed this in, giving you a reason to stay with the activity.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Track your progress by an internal metric. Start a streak. Make it something you can fully control. If you compare yourself to someone who has been practicing the craft for much longer, you probably will get upset and miss the Sweet Spot.

The “Oh, I’m Actually Kinda Good At This” Stage, Part I: Years ~1-3

In this stage, you look back on your previous self.

It is slightly embarrassing.

You’ve come a long way, in what seems like a short amount of time.

You’re also noticing it’s becoming harder and harder to make improvements. Your rate of growth decreases. You’re still learning, but you’ve already mastered the basics.

In order to make the same improvement jump as you did in the first year, you need to spend more time on the activity.

So that’s what you need to do to find the Sweet Spot.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Make the activity more difficult. Add resistance.

The “There’s So Much More To Learn Stage”, Part II: Years 3-10

At this point, you’re at an in-between stage. Most people do not pursue activities for 3+ years, so you’re better than most.

You can teach what you know to someone who is a complete beginner.

But someone who has been practicing for 10+ or even 20+ years can still teach you a lot.

Instead of making progress by day, week, or month, you’re now measuring improvements in years.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Instruct a beginner.

The “This Is Fun Stage”: Years 10+

If you have been practicing an activity for 10+ years, there’s an incredibly high chance you attain mastery in it.

Meaning?

You can have fun with your skills. But more likely? You will want to explore some other areas as a beginner again.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Have fun with your skills. Become a beginner again.

It turns out sucking isn’t so bad after all.

Thanks to Dan Hunt and Stew Fortier for reading drafts of this.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield Notes

May 5, 2020 by Danny Miranda Leave a Comment

The War of Art - Kindle edition by Pressfield, Steven, Coyne ...

Link (Amazon)

A must-read for anyone who wants to create. Short but powerful. Odds of re-reading: close to 100%.

There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t and the secret is this: It’s not hard to write. It’s hard to sit down to write.
Resistance is the most toxic force on this planet.
- From age 24 to 32, Resistance kicked Pressfield’s ass from East Coast to West Coast and back thirteen times, and he didn’t even realize his biggest enemy was staring him in his face (relatable)
Defeating Resistance is about listening to our hearts. What would happen if we listened to our inner calling?

Resistance: Defining the Enemy

Any act act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long term growth, health, or integrity will elicit Resistance.
The more important a call or action to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
The warrior and the artist live by the same code: the battle must be fought every day.
The danger of Resistance is greatest just before the finish line. If you’re just about to publish, you might just stop because you think “it’s not good enough.” Fuck that.
There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing the work.
All of society exists to feed your Resistance [HF!].
- Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder aren’t diseases. They’re marketing ploys created by marketing departments and drug companies.
- Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product
Doctors estimate 70-80% of their business is non-health-related.
What does Resistance feel like?
- First – Unhappiness. We feel like hell. Misery. We’re bored, restless. There’s guilt but we can’t put our finger on the source.
- Second – Vices. Dope, booze, adultery, web surfing.
- Third – Clinical. Depression, aggression, dysfunction.
- Fourth – Actual crime and physical self-destruction.
The truly free individual is only free to the extent of his own self-mastery (Socrates)
Resistance leads to criticizing others. Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement.
If you’re asking yourself, “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.
The more we feel fear about something, the more certain we can be the enterprise is important to us and the growth of our soul
The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.
You’re not alone when you’re with your craft.
The more energy we spend stroking support from friends/colleagues, the weaker we become and the less capable we are of handling our business.
Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off for the past 50 million years.

Combating Resistance: Turning Pro

The professional is there 7 days a week.
“I write only when inspiration strikes,” Somerset Maugham. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
Professional has a sense of humor about his failure.
Tony Koppelman on failure – “You’re where you want to be, aren’t you? So you’re taking a few blows. That’s the price of being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful.”
The professional knows fear only exists in your head. When you are in action, fear goes away.
The professional knows he does not know everything.
Editors are not the enemy, critics are not the enemy (external). These are outside forces. Resistance is the enemy (internal).
The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget her work is not her.
It’s better to be in the arena getting stomped by the bull than it is in the stands or in the parking lot.
The professional does not allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will be facing the blank page.
Ancient Spartans knew any enemy was nameless and faceless.
The pro keeps on coming.

Beyond Resistance: The Higher Realm

Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
Pressfield missed Watergate because he was working (sign of a professional).
As soon as you finish one, start the next one. The work is the reward.
The work exists only as potential. It needs a human to bring this into the material plane.
Once one commits to a project, all sorts of things occur that otherwise would have never occurred. Whatever you can dream, you can do. You need to begin though.
INCREDIBLE TIP: Take a pocket recorder on walks
Artists are modest because they know they’re not doing the work, they’re simply taking dictation (Joe Rogan talks about this re: standup).
There is no difference between “creative people” and “non-creative people.” We’re all creatives. Only some execute on that voice in their head though.
Your ideas in your head (your thoughts) are powerful forces that are as real and solid as the earth
The moment a person learns they have terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place. At one stroke, he’s become aware of what really matters.
Faced with imminent execution, all assumptions are called into question: What does our life mean? Have we lived it right? Are there vital acts we need to perform, crucial words to speak? Is it too late?
Miraculously, cancers go into remission. Is it possible the disease itself evolved as a consequence of actions taken (or not taken)?
The Ego’s job is to take care of business in the real world. It’s an important job. But there are worlds other than the real world. That’s when the Ego gets into trouble.
Ego vs. Self.
The Self believes:
- 1. Death is an illusion. The soul endures and evolves through infinite manifestations.
- 2. Time and space are illusions. Time and space operate only in the physical sphere, and even here, don’t apply to dreams, visions, transports. In other dimensions, we move “swift as thought” and inhabit multiple planes simultaneously.
- 3. All beings are one. If I hurt you, I hurt myself.
- 4. The supreme emotion is love. Union and mutual assistance are the imperatives of life. We are all in this together.
- 5. God is all there is. Everything that is, is God in one form or another. God, the divine ground, is that in which we live and move and have our being. Infinite planes of reality exist, all created by, sustained by and infused by the spirit of God.
When suburban kids take Ecstacy and dance all night at a rave, they’re seeking the Self. When we try to alter our state, we’re seeking the Self. The Self is our deepest being.
Ego responsible for Resistance.
Ego fears we will succeed.
We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
Van Gogh never found a buyer for any of his art in his entire lifetime (!!)
The artist must do the work for its own sake. To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.
The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her. Ask yourself, like the new mother: what do I feel growing inside of me? Let me bring this forward, if I can, for its own sake and not for what it can do for me or how it can advance my standing.
What would Arnold Schwarzenegger do on an unusual day when he wasn’t feeling like himself? He wouldn’t phone a friend. He would work out. For working out is the reward.
Do the work for its own sake, not for attention or applause.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention. It’s a gift to the world. Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.

Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday Notes