“People spend time leveling up video game characters, but I enjoy leveling up myself.”

The friend to my right rolled her eyes.

“What a Harvard thing to say.”

But the classmate to my left, a Harvard and Oxford graduate who had been busy debating Keats and Eyre, reacted similarly.

“That’s such…such an intense way to live!”

—

I used to play plenty of Pokemon. And by play, I mean hide under the covers, dim light glowing through the thin summer blanket.

Half of me would wander through Kanto’s tall grass while the other half waited in fear of Mom or Ah Pah opening the bedroom door and catching me and my younger brother playing more than our draconian 1-hour-a-weekend max.

Glimpses of our nascent personalities could be found in our approaches to the game. For me, all six of my party Pokemon logically had to be at least 15 levels higher than those of the Elite Four, which resulted in many an hour spent wandering victory road, tediously defeating golbats and machokes. But my brother would skirt by on super effective attacks and full restores, often coming within hair’s breadth of whiting out as I shook my head at his risk taking.

Strategy, diligence, patience, avoiding parental detection. All great life skills to nurture.

Eventually, we would both graduate to different games, before finally putting them away for the most part. But the principles are still there. If Pokemon games can be optimized, so can life’s assortment of challenges—anything from long essays to tough choreo to setting a new deadlift PR can be gym leaders of their own sort.

Can I live life like a video game? Can I constantly challenge myself to improve that extra 1% every time?

The fear for this next year is not of failure, but of reaching, hitting the wall. Complacency, mediocrity, frustration. Lack of focus, 5sets x 5reps turning into 4×5+1×4, riding the anger train rather than watching it pass.

If success results in over-satisfaction and complacency it can even become a paradoxical ceiling of its own.

The first step was to accept that “I can grow.” Next is to believe that “I will grow.”

Thoughts

“It’s only a flesh wound!” is already an unknown phrase to my generation.

Having Carol Dweck’s growth mindset means nothing without growth actions.

“Hobbies > Harvard” (from Zuckerberg).

Change happens to 99% of people. 1% make the change.

Does Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule apply to looking at 10,000+ sports photos to get a photographer’s eye?

News

Last week I linked about a startup called Plenty, and now telecom behemoth Softbank has joined the party among its potpurri of deals ranging from WeWork to Slack to (maybe) Uber. Link

Speaking of Uber, they need quite the face-lift at the CEO position—apparently the short list is down to six? Speaking of Lyft, there’s a known blueprint for nice guys finishing second and doing just fine. Link

Linkin in Menlo Park? RIP Chester Bennington, but today I learned Linkin Park also has a VC arm with a comparably impressive portfolio. Link

Vroom, V-Roomba: While cleaning the floor, they can create a floorplan. Link

Some gal or guy put down a ton of money betting that fear is going to set in the markets soon. Link (paywall)

A common misconception is that “AI” is an all-encompassing term. Artificial intelligence is a huge field and just because you talk to one person in the field doesn’t mean that’s whats going on in AI. And no, it won’t be able to form skynet on its own. Link

If you’re afraid of a drone dropping a payload on you or just want Amazon to fly-deliver somewhere else, Skysafe’s got your back. Link

Eye-candy

Risky click of the day: iPhone + Dali = panorama art. Link

There’s classy pets, and then there’s Louisky Vuitton. Link