One Step Up #56
The Diseases of More; Go Big, then Stop; Why Empire Building is Important; Morgan Housel's latest; The Bucket Theory of the Mind
Mike said it best.
Life is an economy. Where everything must be traded for something else and the value of all things rise and fall with the amount of attention and effort you put into them. And in that economy, we each must eventually choose what you’re willing to trade based on what you value. And if you’re not careful with your values, if you are willing to trade things away for the sake of another hit of dopamine, another temporary trip to your own personal psychological 10, then chances are you’re going to fuck things up.
Why Empire Building is Important
The world’s most ambitious teams are led by Genghis Khan-like personalities: always ambitious, always seeking growth. And the world’s most successful companies resemble the Mongolian Empire in their vast reach: Apple has an installed base of over 1.6 billion devices globally; Facebook has nearly 2 billion daily active users.
These are extreme outcomes in the modern business world and, as Phil Knight observed, “Business is war without bullets.” The struggle for conquering territory through war is now played out in the business arena. In the place of standing armies, modern companies have sales forces, product managers, software engineers, designers, business development analysts and marketing teams. All of them need struggle, to conquer. The more they conquer, the more they need to conquer.
MH is the 🐐 - the ability to weave historical events to get a point across is just too good. Here, he talks about why things don’t always compute and the incredible power of stories.
Till next time.
What matters isn't what a person has or doesn't have; it is what he or she is afraid of losing.