Focus, grit, service
RWL #385
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The daffodils are breaking through! It’s always so exciting to see them. It also reminded me that it’s time for spring clean up. Yay, daffodils! Boo, spring clean up. But also, just yay spring! It’s almost here. Almost time to get back out on the water. Leaves will be returning to the trees. The woods will be beautiful again. Well, beautiful in a different way. They are always beautiful.
Progress continues on internship placements - I am at 21/24. Just three to go. Spring break starts next week, so it looks like I will miss my goal, but I am so close. One of these years I will get there. Clearly I just need to work harder.
This week’s read is two books I have recently finished, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara. Both are easy reads and valuable for different reasons. I actually listened to them on Spotify. Apparently if you have a paid Spotify account you now get a certain number of free listening minutes each month, so I took advantage of that benefit. I liked both so much I have ordered hard copies of the books. I’m also deep into Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. Also excellent, but not a book for self-improvement. Maybe societal improvement.
On to the links! As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger
Why: You might be thinking, why would I want to read a book by a meathead like Schwarzenegger? But pause and think about all he accomplished in his professional career: he was born in rural, post-war Austria in a house with no electricity and no plumbing; he decided he would be a world-champion bodybuilder, then he pivoted and became a movie star, then he pivoted and became the governor of California, twice, and now he has pivoted to being a philanthropist. He’s not a meathead. No one accomplishes all of those things without being driven, smart, disciplined, and focused. I’m not sure how much you can do about your innate drive or intelligence, but discipline and focus can be trained. In this book he talks especially about focus, and allows that focus tends to naturally lead to discipline. It’s an easy read and I think it would be valuable to anyone for your personal development.
(I also made mention of this in last Sunday’s FITW newsletter.)
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What: Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara.
Why: Unreasonable Hospitality is about the origins of the top-ranked fine dining restaurant in the world, Eleven Madison Park (colloquially, “EMP”). It may not be #1 still now, but the book is about their journey to number 1. Again, why am I recommending a book about fine dining to you? I came from the healthcare industry. Healthcare delivery is not unlike fine dining. To achieve the level of consistent excellence EMP achieved, you have to relentlessly work on your processes, you have to relentlessly think about how to deliver the highest quality in a highly variable and changing environment with customers who have incredibly high expectations and competitors who are constantly trying to knock you off your ranking. Healthcare delivery is a customer service business. There is a lot of overlap between healthcare and fine dining in the expectations and the need for consistent excellence ever time. This is also true for any industry. If you want to win in any industry, you have to be consistently excellent. What I told my students when I recommended this was, as early careerists, you have to start thinking now about exceptional service and how you will deliver it, whether you are on the front line in a patient-facing role, or in the back office where other employees are your customers. If you want to be successful, you have to deliver excellence consistently. I think that’s true regardless of where you are in your career.
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Watch
What: Angela Lee Duckworth, Grit: the power of passion and perseverance (6 min)
Why: I haven’t read Duckworth’s book (by the same name as the title of this talk), but it’s on my list. There’s been a lot said about her theory of grit since she proposed it, which is kind of cool because if you come up with an idea and lots of people have something to say about it, you’ve obviously hit on something important. I think for grit to matter, it has to be combined with focus and purpose - so listen to this idea and consider Schwarzenegger’s insight above. There’s value in being gritty in pursuit of something, but being gritty for the sake of being gritty - that would waste a lot of time.
(thanks to my student MB for the link)
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Listen
What: The Foreign Affairs Interview:India as It Is (43 min)
Why: from the always-excellent Foreign Affairs, an excellent panel about the state of politics in India. India is friendly with the US, but not exactly a friend. India, like China, would like to see more of a multi-polar world, and that means supporting Russia, even as Russia conducts its genocide in Ukraine, and even as Russia supports Hamas’s campaign of rape and murder in Israel. Politics is messy. To understand the world, you have to understand what the incentives are. This pod is good for exploring that.
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