I've formulated a new strategy for life: have a selfish but abundant mindset. An abundance mindset is believing the world is a positive sum game. The opposite is a scarcity mindset, where you believe you're in competition with everyone else. Another way to look at this strategy: do what you want to do but be open and helpful to others.

Examples.

Newsletter Launchpad. Louie and I wanted to learn more about newsletters and we wanted to get feedback on our own newsletters. So we created a course on starting a newsletter. We all got better at creating newsletters.

Course Clubs. I wanted to take a course but had trouble motivating myself. By forming a group to take the course together, I didn't just have an accountability group but we bounced ideas off of each other and we all learned more. I learned more about how people learn.

By being selfish, you focus on what you're actually interested in. By being abundant you build in that area for everyone.

Discoveries:

Tim Ferriss had an amazing interview with Todd McFarlane, the creator and author of the comic Spawn.  They covered business attitudes and strategies and also how to approach life.  Instead of sharing different essays, I'm going to share six lessons from this interview. I highly recommend listening to the whole thing or reading the transcript - these excerpts are barely touching the surface!

🔗 Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist

1️⃣ - If you want Change, you’ll not only face competition but fight inertia.

They’re always going to say no to you. There has never been a story written in which the person who had the new idea, the person in the lead said, “Oh, I will now slow down or get out of the way so you can pass me.” Never ever will happen. So if you’re going to do something that’s going to aggravate the system status quo, there’s never been anybody in history that’s ever changed anything on any level and was liked by everybody. Get over it. Get over people liking you. Just figure out what your goal is.

2️⃣ - People will pay up for value.  Your opponents are competing on price; compete on value.

“Little boy, you can’t sell a 6.99 toy. They’re 5.99.” Here’s the answer: of course you can. Here’s how you sell a 6.99 toy: you give them $6.99 of value, period.  Oh, I’ll even give you an upgrade. Give them 7.99 of value, and price it at 6.99. What they were thinking, because they were the big corporate guys, how do you sell a 5.99 toy for 6.99?

3️⃣ - Improvement is incremental.

I’ve never invented anything original. I’ve never done anything new. What I’ve done is taken everything that I’ve seen with my eyes and just made it sexier and cooler, period. That’s it. That’s the recipe. Everybody who’s out there is listening and wants to be an entrepreneur, stop putting the pressure on yourself to think you have to come up with something new and original. You do not. You just have to add three percent sexy to it, and you will now be the genius.

4️⃣ - Most people want to complain, they don’t actually want Change.

There’s also moments where I realized I’m in front of people at times who have been institutionalized. And here’s the frustrating thing that I’ve run into over and over and over in my life. The bark being way better than the bite.  And so artists would go, all these creative people, all these people who worked on animation, “Man, if we could only do it our way, man, these people, these executives, they don’t know anything.” I’ve heard that over and over and over. And we finally get to a point where literally we can almost do anything, and guess what a lot of them did? They just went back to status quo. They just went back to status quo. 

5️⃣ - You’re the only person that will advocate for yourself.  Take action.

There’s only one human being I have dominion over: me. Period. My wife, I love her, I’ve been with her for over 40 years. I don’t even control her and she’s the closest person that I have in the world. Okay, I don’t worry — I mean, it can be exhausting at times trying to drag people to the water but you can’t make the horse drink at times. So at some point I just go, “Guys, you do your thing. I do my thing and we’ll just figure it out.” I do not stand by water coolers and complain about bosses. I quit jobs and start my own companies. As a creative person, if I’m going to complain about how the business works, then I will go and become my own businessman.

6️⃣ - Don’t take the blame, but do take responsibility.

You know who I’m the most aggravated with? Me, because at the end, no matter what’s happening, I have to ask the same question. “Who put me in this position?” “It’s uncomfortable. I don’t want to be here. Why am I arguing with lawyers today? Oh, that was you, Todd. You started that company. You kept it going. You kept doing it.” I don’t get to pass the buck. I have to sit there and say, “The guy who basically caused all this is the guy I shave with every day.”

Blast From the Past:

When I had a real job, I didn't value the work I did.  I didn't think the company did anything important and I thought the work I did could be done by anyone.  That's not to say I had low self-esteem, I just thought the work could be done by a monkey and I was the fastest and smartest monkey. 

Because I didn't value my work, I felt like I was cheating the system. I was lucky to be a cog in the system because even though I was a highly-paid cog, I could be easily switched out.

Side Story:  In an early job, we had a weekly sales meeting, covering the volume that each salesperson had produced over the past week.  One week, the big boss threw a fit and vented, "Do you know what fungible means?  I should take each of your names off this report and replace it with a number!"

This environment leads to two outcomes:

1. Maximize the situation.  Make as much money with as little effort without getting fired.

2. Fear when the spigot gets turned off.  Target an amount of money you need to be "safe".  

Unfortunately, this number will always increase as you make more money.  My career became focused on maximizing the amount of money I made.  Value and money were intertwined in my head.  I had imposter syndrome because I couldn't reconcile that I produced no value but made money.  Throw in the fact that most people look at finance as prestigious and you start to understand what "Golden Handcuffs" are.

Quote of the Week:

"I must CREATE a system or be ENSLAVED by another man’s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to CREATE" - William Blake

You can find more of my writing at chr.iswong.com.

Questions, suggestions, complaints?  Email me at chris@iswong.com.  Feedback welcome.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or two.  And feel free to send anything you find interesting to me!

Leaving you in peace,

Chris