I’m back in Hong Kong this week after a nice team off-site in Bali where the 14 of us hung out in a lovely villa, did some business planning stuff, did some excursions and dinners etc. Great vibes all round. Except on the last day, where I got struck with food poisoning and ended up bed bound with fevers and lots of trips to the toilet.
Thankfully, Izzy and I had booked a few extra days in Bali at a nice hotel at the end of the team offsite, so I was able to use that time to recover. And tbh it was kinda nice lying in bed all day reading more Harry Potter Fan Fiction – just finished book 2 of The Arithmancer trilogy, set in an alternate universe where Hermione’s an absolute legend at maths, and so ends up becoming a next-level Arithmancer able to create spells, understand how magic works etc. It’s great.
Anyway, in this issue of LifeNotes, I wanted to share a few notes to myself – reminders of lessons I’ve learned (or re-learned) in the last few weeks that I’m hoping to actually stick to.
1 – Nothing good comes from staying up late. The only circumstance in which it’s nice is when we’ve got friends over for dinner, and the vibes are great, and we want to keep the party going for a bit longer. That’s acceptable. But for literally everything else – it’s just not worth it. The extra hour of work being squeezed out at 10pm – not worth it. The extra hour of scrolling on Instagram or watching random YouTube videos – obviously not worth it. Even staying up engrossed in a book beyond 10:30pm – not worth it. An early night = more refreshed and energised the next day, across literally every measure. It shows up in the various health-tracking scores: sleep, recovery, stress. And more importantly, it shows up in our mood and energy levels. So for goodness sake – stop staying up past 10:30pm. Go to bed at a reasonable hour, read on Kindle in bed (nothing too exciting though), and wake up feeling amazing the next day.
2 – On the work front, there’s no need to be in such a rush. We’re planning to do this for decades. Whether we launch the thing this week or next week, or even next month, makes literally no difference in the grand scheme of things. So remember that the most important goal is to be able to continue playing the infinite game, and to continue enjoying it. The biggest threat to the business isn’t that we didn’t launch product X early enough. It’ll be if we stop enjoying the game of it, and then want to quit and do something else. Optimise for sustainability and fun.
3 – At this stage, improvements in our subjective well-being (or “happiness”) won’t come from external stuff. We’ve already won the external stuff game. The journey to focus on now is the internal journey. Being at peace with where we’re at, immersing ourselves in the present moment, staying open and expansive rather than closed and contractive. Everything’s unfolding exactly as it’s supposed to, so there’s never any reason to worry about anything at all.
Have a great week!
Ali xx
