Just Start: Life advice from Cool Runnings

Hey all,

When I was a teenager, my sister’s favourite film was Cool Runnings. I’m a few years older than her, but she comfort-watched it all the time, and it’s a great film so I’ve probably watched it almost as many times as her. And there’s one line in it that always stuck with me, from bobsleigh coach Irv Blitzer to bobsleigh coach Derice Bannock:

“A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.”

A decade or so after that, I got a job on Men’s Fitness magazine, and got the opportunity to interview…well, a lot of Olympic gold medalists. I counted once, and I think it was eight. And most of them said the same thing about winning a gold medal, which is the same thing that most athletes say about winning gold medals if you look it up, which is that the overwhelming emotion when you win a gold medal isn’t joy or exhilaration really, but relief.

Relief that all the training was worth it. Relief that the sacrifice paid off. Relief that you don’t have to try again in four years if you want to be referred to as an Olympic gold medalist. Sweet, sweet relief.

I think there’s probably a lesson here.

I’ve never won an Olympic gold medal or anything close to it, but I’ve done a couple of things that have worked out the way I wanted them to, and the feeling’s pretty similar. The overwhelming emotion is relief, not exhilaration or jubilation or whatever world-conquering emotion you might expect to feel before the thing happens. Relief that the effort was worth it.

What does this mean? Well, that’s really up to you, but for me I think it means that if you aren’t already happy without the thing, you probably won’t be happy with it. And what does that mean? Probably that, whatever goal you’re driving towards, you have to work on being happy in the moment too: because you have a family you love, friends you really like, and a brain that you can get off the productivity treadmill for long enough to chill out occasionally. How do you do that? It’s a longer subject than I can deal with in one newsletter, but since I spent several years on Men’s Fitness telling all of the writers to never leave a reader without some actionable advice, here’s a selection of what works for me.

• When you see something that would make someone you like happy - whether it’s a recommendation, a gift, an article they’d relate to or whatever - don’t rely on your brain to remember it. Ideally, put it in a spreadsheet. It might seem initially weird to systematise your affection like this, but it works.

• Every so often, browse your whatsapps to see who you haven’t spoken to in a while. Whatsapps are low-pressure, and you can kick them off with almost anything.

• Follow Kurt Vonnegut’s advice: When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”

• Read Seneca’s On The Shortness Of Life. It’s great.

Have a great weekend!
Joel x

Stuff I’ve done

📰 Article - 20 Ways To Become A Morning Person

For most of my 20s, I was a night owl - if I had to work, I did it late, and I regularly stayed up until 2am. These days, I never go to bed after 11, and get a lot of my most productive stuff done before a lot of people are awake. I spoke to a lot of experts about it, and wrote about how in my first piece for The Observer (but if you’d like to see my actual morning routine, I talk about that in this video).

🎥 Video - Why you should read physical books

I've been reading a lot more traditional paper books for the last six months — and it's helped me read more, read faster, and (I think!) remember more about what I’ve actually read. Here's why I think it’s worth doing.

Stuff I like

📖 Book - Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America

I’ve been meaning to read this for a while, then actually did it just before Vince McMahon resigned among some absolutely horrific allegations — and I’ll be honest, it’s not a comfortable read. I’ve dipped in and out of wrestling for decades — where else can you see real men screaming over-the-top spins on their real issues with other men out in front of a cheering crowd? — but I didn’t know anything about Rita Chatterton, the Jimmy Snuka lawsuit, or the ringboys. This book’s a well-researched take on it all, even though I’m pretty sure it gets some basic stuff about the Ali/Inoki match wrong.

Video - WWE Speeches That Will Make You Cry

If you want to understand a bit of what I mean about wrestling, watch this: it’s helpful if you understand some of the backstories, but basically all of these speeches are based on real things that were going on in the wrestlers’ lives, supercharged and exaggerated and yelled out to create drama in front of an audience, by men who work on the craft of cutting promos for 300 days a year. You can’t see this in any other form of art or sport.

🪶 Quote of the week

“You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.”
From Seneca’s On The Shortness Of Life

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And if you haven’t already, please check out my YouTube channel, where I deep-dive into stuff like productivity, lifelong learning, piano and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.