🤯Unknown Unknowns #60 - Mythbusters
You might know that my friend Louie Bacaj and I created Newsletter Launchpad, a course on starting a newsletter a couple months ago. The idea behind the course started off on how to develop a system to create a consistent newsletter with whatever time you have. It evolved into using a newsletter to expand your comfort zone and gaining the confidence to develop your ideas and express yourself online through newsletters.
Louie and I just turned the course into a pre-recorded course, I hope you check it out: https://newsletterlaunchpad.com
We also started a newsletter to share our ideas at: https://newsletter.newsletterlaunchpad.com
Discoveries:
I never watched that much tv, but Mythbusters was a show that I always liked. Adam Savage and Jaime Hyneman would test common myths with scientific techniques (for example, can paper be folded more than seven times).
Adam Savage now has a YouTube channel where he answers fan questions. I'm amazed by the enthusiasm and joy that he has. I'm impressed by how much interest he has on anything he does. You can see that in the care and attention he gives to the answers. One topic that comes up a lot is dealing with uncertainty. (I started the videos at the points the quotes start, but I recommend watching all the videos in full).
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Adam deals with uncertainty by remembering "It's not a plan, it's a process"
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On life being uncertain.
If you think you've got it wired, life is winding up to smack you back into sense. If you think, 'oh man, I got this, this is going to be easy and fun', life has other plans for you. That is completely axiomatic. That is a truism that never changes. Every moment i have ever thought, 'i got this'. <shakes head> Uncertainty is your friend. Uncertainty and confusion mean that you're doing it right.
Don't try and be the person that can solve all the problems. Nobody needs you to solve all the problems. Only you think that you should solve all the problems and I mean this in everything.
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Embracing the unknown comes with expressing yourself.
So much of the richness of my life comes from being able to express myself. Whether is it is in a a conversation like this that we have here, whether it's working on my R2 head... I want everyone to have that experience.
I think there is power and magic as Goethe says - and the leaping towards the unknown. And when we express ourselves we really are leaping towards the unknown. Specifically because we are social beings and we are we live in a world of objects. We define ourselves by the surroundings that we that we have around us. We bounce off of each other like molecules and other people's reactions to us helps us understand our impact on the world and vice versa.
Later, Adam says:
Someone said, 'look if you want to know how to structure something, write your ideal press release for the thing that you're building and then work backwards from that. Which is a great idea, right. You just think about the impact and then work backwards from that. And so questions like 'what do you think your legacy will be,' while impossible to actually answer, are a really important mental exercise to do with yourself about the things that you're doing.
You're embarking on a project. Let's say you want to make a paper house. You might want to ask yourself, 'How do i want this to feel to me when i'm done with it?' Or 'How do i want other people to respond to it?' That second question might not be your concern, which is totally fine, it doesn't have to be - but if it is important to you it's good to know what you might think that you want the result to be.
Asking those questions that zoom out your perspective are a really great way to lend some color and shadow to the topography of your future.
Questions, suggestions, complaints? Email me me at [email protected]. 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