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Ikigai: Hara hachi bu (aka maybe you don’t need to crush that plate of beef)

Check out the full notes for “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” by Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia

I finished reading Ikigai on the flight from New York to Montana.

Actually, real quick note: we had to sprint to catch our connecting flight and made it a minute before the doors closed. If we didn’t make it, we’d have a 4 hour wait in the airport and land around 3am. Making it on the flight was peak happiness but it’s definitely fleeting.

Ikigai is about finding sustained day to day happiness through a combination of things: finding work you enjoy enough to do the rest of your life, spending time with friends, and keeping healthy.

One step toward sustained health: eating less. I was raised on the idea that finishing your plate was one of the pure virtues along with not sitting too close to the TV.

How to eat healthier: aim for satisfaction with a bit of hunger instead of the pleasurable pain of reaching your stomach’s absolute limit as frequently as possible. Or, hara hachi bu:

One of the most common sayings in Japan is “Hara hachi bu,” which is repeated before or after eating and means something like “Fill your belly to 80 percent.” Ancient wisdom advises against eating until we are full. This is why Okinawans stop eating when they feel their stomachs reach 80 percent of their capacity, rather than overeating and wearing down their bodies with long digestive processes that accelerate cellular oxidation.

I started reading this for more on finding the intersection of things I’m good at, contribute to society, can get paid for, etc. but it’s a good reminder that building and maintaining a healthy body is in even more control + has more immediate effects.

And it also makes it easier to sprint to catch your flight. All good things.

Info diet check in (August 09, 2021 Monday)

I’ll write some of these posts whenever I don’t have a topic in mind to write about. Maybe checking in with my info diet will somehow be useful or trigger some other ideas.

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia

I’ve had this book for a while but finally started reading it. For some reason I thought it’d be fluffier than it is. But so far it’s presenting a wide variety of research supporting the idea that it’s worth finding a purpose in life and work that supports that purpose.

Maybe the ultimate thing in life isn’t just retiring and doing nothing.

Sometimes I think I’m not too far away from ikigai. I really do find joy in building skills (writing, podcasting, making presentations making videos) that an independent career could be built on.

The current configuration of projects those skills are applied to isn’t quite aligned well in the what you love, you’re good at, the world needs, you can be paid for Venn diagram.

With a few shifts (not easy or short term), I’m optimistic I can get there.

Rewatchables Superbad

I just love The Rewatchables. I wish I could do something like that for a solo books podcast. (Though “solo” automatically removes a good amount of the fun of The Rewatchables.) You get a recap of the movie, the best lines from the movie, then different fun, repeating segments to further break the movie down. The hosts love movies. That love is different for each of the hosts—some watch for entertainment, some watch as film experts, some can switch back and forth depending on the movie.

As for Superbad, I was a Michael Cera stan because I loved Arrested Development. Glad that he was part of a comedy classic. And I’m still always amazed that they wrote most of the movie in high school and just held on to it forever.

It was a great couple of years when Superbad, Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder all came out. (I definitely need to double check the years.)

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

I listened to this leading up to officiating a wedding. I thought maybe learning and doing some mental exercises would help. It went smoothly, though it’s probably more from experience (my third time) than the mental exercises. But I did try to picture myself delivering it all well. And if it helped even 5%, I’ll take it!

I’m going to continue listening to this and trying to visualize a few other things in life: presenting designs to a team, getting into a focused working state, getting out of bed and starting the day with intention.

Also, some quick tips if you’re nervous about officiating a wedding: it’s an honor to take seriously but at the same time not to stress out too much about. It’s public speaking, but you’re totally okay just reading straight from notes in a book. If you time it, and they’re doing their own vows, your actual speaking time is maybe 5 minutes max. And no one actually cares about you, they’ll be focused on the bride and groom.

How to get my groove back after the trip

“This was an important and cautionary lesson: Not everyone benefits from a fresh start. When you’re on a roll, any disruption can be a setback. We see this at home and at work, and though the disruption itself might seem like no big deal, even trivial, the consequences can weigh you down. Think about how it feels to be in the flow at work, only to be interrupted by an unwanted call or a chatty coworker.”
— How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman

Currently in there middle of a two week trip to the east coast and (non French) Montana. Had a good amount of momentum leading into the trip—eating high protein + salads and lifting (somewhat) heavy every other day.

I want to get right back into that mode when we’re back from the trip, but I know there will be some post vacation inertia:

  • don’t give in to the “what the hell” mindset: it’ll be easy to say hey I ate bad so I can just keep this up for a few more days before starting my diet. It should be back to salads right away.
  • do an easy workout to ease back into things: if I plan some devastating workout to shock my system it could create a bunch of resistance to actually doing it. Then the soreness might make it painful to do a second workout, especially after the “get back on the wagon” motivation is gone.
  • use it as a fresh start checkpoint: these checkpoints can be good if you want to do a bit of a phase transition. (They can backfire if you’re on a roll and want to keep a positive routine going.) I’ll reset the week count with a new 8-week goal to try and create as much motivation as possible.

First, get going.

Reading List for August 07, 2021

Not sure if it makes sense do these monthly or what but I did one in April and it was a nice way to check in on my recent reading.

This past week I was in New York and re-listened to Naval’s interview on The Knowledge Project. I’d count this as a top-10 quake episode—podcast episodes that got me to actually take action. In particular, this got me to start jumping between many books. He says he treats books more like blogs, some chapters are better than others and it’s okay to skip or some or just quit a bad book altogether.

That said, I do think I went too far to where books don’t provide a focused outlet for me. It’s too easy to jump between digital books. They’ve become too much like blogs.

To fix this, it should be helpful to write recaps like this and focusing podcast episodes around single books.

On to the books…!

Recently finished

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
I finally finished this. And even recorded some unpublished episodes about the book. Still need to edit them or just record a fresh episode from scratch. In any case, it’s a great book capturing the path to mastery.

If I’m ranking it alongside other 1000 page books I’ve read, it’s the one that made me feel least like a dumbass.

I got to the speech in Atlas Shrugged kept looking for a paragraph break and then for the end of the speech and held like an entire novella between my thumb and index finger and then quit, on a plane if I’m remembering correctly. (I’m probably not.)

I read Infinite Jest and somewhere in the middle realized I’d need… okay well this wasn’t the feeling then but today it’s the feeling I got watching Tenet or Westworld and knowing I’d need to watch some YouTube theory videos afterward.

(The equivalent at the time being reading Aaron Swartz’s ending theory.)

There’s an episode in one of Simon Rich’s shows where the character is figuring out how to position Infinite Jest just right in his apartment before a date arrives. Watching that scene felt like the Predator had his laser sight centered directly on me.

Okay so I’ll re-word it. If I’m ranking Musashi alongside other 1000-page books I’ve read, it’s the one I enjoyed the most. Come for the sword fights (you’ll get them), stay for the journey through mastery and its worth against other things life offers.

You Can’t Lose Them All by Sal Iacono

Cousin Sal talks about his life through the lens of gambling. It’s a fun angle and, man, he does love gambling. If you’ve listened to him on Bill Simmons’s podcast, you’ll know what to expect. It’s definitely a “if you like him, you’ll like the book, if not, you won’t” books.

I like the book.

This will likely be a top-3 book I’d recommend on storytelling. (You know, if someday I ever get good enough at telling stories that I’m ever asked for that recommendation.)

He captures a period in his life that many will experience: you’ve reached a big goal (maybe a peak in life, even, or at least in a career) and you’re working on the next thing.

He also makes it clear what the self talk is like for other overthinkers. (My hunch: Anyone writing about themselves is likely someone who overthinks things, including me.) He even contemplates how he got to be one of these people who writes about their own lives for a living.

Sapiens popularized the idea that shared stories between enormous groups are what make us human. _A Million Miles in a Thousand Years_ explains why personal stories are worth sharing.

Okay I went a little long so I won’t write long notes for these but here are some in progress books.

  • Alexander X: Sci-fi (or like modern fantasy?) about a secret group of immortals. Very fun book to listen to while walking Booster.
  • Psycho-cybernetics: Re-listening (not sure how closely I paid attention the first time) after hearing Pat Flynn and Dan John mention it on their podcast. First steps in an effort in building up my mental fitness. (Enjoyed Shaan and Sam talking about mental health/mental fitness distinction.) Meditation for health, visualizations & mental movies for fitness.
  • Save the Cat Writes for TV: I’m not writing a TV show but am realizing that if I want to take The Notepod podcast more seriously, it mostly means writing. Good book so far but I know I need to, you know, actually write.
  • New Teeth: I look forward to any Simon Rich writing. This time he writes about parenthood. I’m hoping to enter that phase in the next few years so it’s very fun pre-reading.

Okay I’m writing this in a car now and am getting nauseous. I’ll finish by butchering a naval-ism: read books you enjoy until you enjoy reading!

Orson Scott Card and the gap

“You see, the work of a storyteller doesn’t get any easier the more experience we get, because once we’ve learned how to do something, we can’t get excited about doing exactly the same thing again—or at least most of us can’t. We keep wanting to reach for the story that is too hard for us to tell—and then make ourselves learn how to tell it. If we succeed, then maybe we can write better and better books, or at least more challenging ones, or at the very least we won’t bore ourselves.”
— From, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

I started reading this and there’s a nice intro about how the book came to be. Ender’s Game was a novella. Card had an older idea for Speaker for the Dead and then thought maybe he’d be able to make an older Ender the protagonist, connecting his stories.

But first he’d have to re-write Ender’s Game as a full novel. Which he did, then he wrote Speaker for the Dead and the third in the trilogy. Long process, but worth it.

This reminded me of a Jack Butcher and David Perell workshop called “Get going, then get good”. They mention Ira Glass’s The Gap concept. The gap between your ability and ambition is closed by doing a whole bunch of work.

In this case, Card presents a bit of what happens after that. With Ender’s Game he was at the top of the game, but there’s still room to keep stretching.

You can finally make things that satisfy your own taste. You can picture that as the gap is infinite or just that there’s a world you enter once you close the initial gap.

Creator lessons from NYC food: Katz’s

Times Square, ok… Top of the Rock, sweet. Katz’s, can’t wait!

When friends would visit me in New York, it was often their first time so they were eager to see a bunch of tourist spots. Some I’d look forward to more than others.

Anyway, Katz’s was one I’d look forward to going to and a place I went to on this trip back.

It reminds me of the book The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath.

The first time I took my brother there, his wife wasn’t sure what she wanted initially and so he placed his order then after the sandwich was made she tried placing her order and got an earful about ordering both at the same time from the start.

That starting moment overshadowed anything about how good the sandwich was.

On this current trip, I saw a group of about 8 people finishing up and leaving. A minute later, one of them walked back.

He lost his ticket.

At Katz’s, you get a ticket when you enter and the sandwich makers mark the ticket for the food you ordered. (Sort of like dim sum.)

Then you pay when you exit. If you lose the ticket you can’t exit without paying a $50 fee.

But of course you just go back and look around in fear before giving up and paying $50.

It’s a bad way to end the meal.

I’m guessing it overshadowed how good the food was.

But anyway, I haven’t lost my ticket or been chastised at the counter, so I love the food.

Ordering tip: corned beef sandwich with chopped liver (RIP Bourdain)