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The Sunday Three

Maintaining the Magic

Sunday Reset: #7

Sul Mahmood
Sep 25, 2022
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Maintaining the Magic

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👋 Welcome to this week’s Sunday Reset – where I provide you with 1 quote, 1 idea, & 1 article to either end your current week or start your upcoming week with something new.

📬 To get future issues delivered to your inbox, subscribe below:


This week’s reset:

  • Idea: Maintaining the magic in your life.

  • Quote: A different approach.

  • Article: Define your rich life.


💡 One idea

Maintaining the magic

Packy McCormack wrote a great piece last week about magical technology.

Simply put, when a product is released, the value it provides to the user is such an innovation from its previous generations that it’s nearly magical. However, over time, that magic degrades and the product becomes ordinary.

This is summed up by this graph.

This is undoubtedly true. Packy uses the music industry as an example. The evolution of CDs —> buying songs on iTunes —> unlimited streaming on Spotify is very magical.

Yet, after having Spotify for 6+ years now, the appeal and magic of the product have worn off. It’s no longer special.

This is an idea that can be represented in our own lives.

Think about the last time you bought shoes. You likely loved them at the beginning, avoided puddles so that they wouldn’t get dirty, and designed every outfit around them.

Yet over time, that new shoe magic wears off, you slip into your old routines, the shoes get dirty — you no longer care as much.

In fact, I argue that this can apply to most things in life.

  • The new house you moved into

  • Your new job

  • The new gym class you’ve been going to

Based on this, the greater question is:

How do you maintain the magic to stay driven and motivated on what you’re working on (your job, side hustle, creative pursuit)?

Packy argues that for technology, the magic will always depreciate but I believe that the new-found magic in things in our day-to-day lives can be retained.

How? I argue two things.

  1. Keep it fresh by switching contexts

    • Seek continuous improvement — optimize the processes you work on as well as your internal system of how your workflows

    • Get involved in something outside your typical wheelhouse — pursue leading a new/different project than what you’ve worked on in the past

  2. Be relentlessly curious

    • Always seek for why?

    • Be the one who is curious and solves the problems no one realizes exist

  3. Take productive breaks away

    • Burnout is real

    • Ensure that you’re approaching your work with a refreshed mindset

Key takeaway: Maintaining the magic in what you do is crucial for long-term success.

Not Boring by Packy McCormick
Indistinguishable from Magic
Welcome to the 1,142 newly Not Boring people 🤯 who have joined us since the last post I wrote in August — I need to take breaks more often! If you haven’t subscribed, join 153,359 smart, curious folks by subscribing here: 🎧 To get the magic right in your ears, listen on…
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a year ago · 80 likes · 3 comments · Packy McCormick

🚨 One quote

The people who invented the twenty-first century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing, hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because they saw differently.

The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England, Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking.

— Walter Isaacson (author) on Steve Jobs

Key takeaway: What are you doing differently that positively separates your cause from the competition?

🗞 One article

Define your rich life

What is your rich life?

That is what Paul Millerd asks in one of his latest articles by building off of an idea from Ramit Sethi.

My favourite takeaway was this:

I always ask people two questions:

  • Why do you want to be rich?

  • What does being rich mean to you?

Most people never spend even ten minutes thinking through what “rich” means to them.

Here’s a hint: It’s different for everyone, and money is just a small part of being rich.

For example, my friends all value different things. Paul loves eating out at Michelin-starred restaurants where a meal might cost $500. Nicole loves traveling. And Nick loves buying clothes.

If you don’t consciously choose what “rich” means, it’s easy to end up mindlessly trying to keep up with your friends.

Learn how to define your rich life, so that you don’t spend your time building someone else’s.

Boundless by Paul Millerd
New Favorite Q: What is your rich life? | #198
September 24th, 2022: Greetings from Lisbon. We explored Porto and went on an epic bike ride through the city and dow the coast. Excited to be going back to Texas next weekend. Not sure if there will be an issue next week, so stay tuned. + “This episode was awesome” - a listener…
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a year ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Paul Millerd

Thanks for reading this week’s issue of my Sunday Reset.

If you enjoyed what you read, I’d really appreciate it if you could forward it to a friend, family member, or colleague who you think might like it as well!

Or, if you’d like to share it on one of your social networks, that’s always great too.

Share

Hope to see you again soon 😊,

— Sul


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