Hi there, it’s Mehdi Yacoubi and this is The Long Game Newsletter. To receive it in your inbox, subscribe here:
In this episode, we explore:
Most supplements don't work
Efforts and goals and joy
A map is not a blueprint
John D. Rockefeller’s 38 letters to his son
How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent
Let’s dive in!
Let’s talk supplements a bit. I’m not anti-supplements. My general feeling is that people love to focus on the fun and flashy part that doesn’t matter much and neglect the boring stuff that works. This is the case in health, and in pretty much everything else, work, relationships, etc.
People are not satisfied to hear sleep, exercise and eat mostly clean foods, they prefer to talk about their morning routine comprised of 40 different pills 💊😅
This article is a good reminder that most supplements don’t work:
Whenever I see someone touting the merits of, say, neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman’s $370 supplement stack, I’m tempted to go full PubMed on them. You really think the herbal extract Fadogia agrestis is going to boost your “healthspan and muscle performance” based on an obscure study of male albino rats published by the Asian Journal of Andrology back in 2005? A grand total of zero human trials is what Huberman means by a “robust foundation of science”?
But this kind of gladiatorial approach is likely to miss the mark. For one thing, there’s an ocean of weak and biased supplement research out there, so many popular supplements do have at least superficial backing from what looks at first glance like science. The real problem runs deeper, though. The quest for a silver-bullet performance boost presumes that these pills, potions, and hacks will improve your life in some meaningful, measurable way. And there’s reason to doubt this is true even when the supplements do what those who peddle them claim. Here’s why.
The first issue to consider is margins. There are a small handful of elite athletes around the world for whom a half-percent improvement in speed, strength, or recovery is meaningful. For the rest of us, even something that produces a statistically reliable improvement—a threshold that, according to the International Olympic Committee’s most recent scientific review, only caffeine, creatine, baking soda, nitrate, and possibly beta alanine meet—is unlikely to have any practical impact whatsoever on our lives. If the effect were large enough to matter, we’d be able to measure it easily instead of arguing about how to extrapolate from albino rat studies. Even the best-case scenario is comparable to a marathoner shaving her head: the aerodynamic advantage is real, but it’s also meaningless.
I know that no matter how often this message is repeated, it won’t change much, looking for the magic supplement that will 10x your sleep/ muscle mass/ recovery/ productivity is too tempting!
Anyway:
You have limited time, energy, and resources, and dedicating these to performance hacks can distract you from training, recovering, eating, and sleeping well.
“If you really want something, then the soul must make demands of the body.”
I first read this piece a few weeks ago, and this quote stayed with me. I suspect it will stay with me for a long time.
I find it ideal to always have more ambitions, plans, and projects than one could possibly accomplish. Aspirations — even unlikely ones, maybe especially unlikely ones — are an essential part of living well. When we are at our most ailing, we are reduced to thinking and talking only of our ailments. When we are at our most vigorous, our most alive, we think and talk of our goals and aspirations. Over long time frames, the pessimist becomes an unobservant man, and the optimist creates the world.
If you make lists of lofty goals, it can be easy to leave them to accumulate, as happens sometimes, into a mountain of to-do’s and notes and half-forgotten plans. Dreaming alone is seductive, even a little sweet, since it lacks the pain of trying. So it feels proper to prize attempts more than dreams. You should have ideals, but you cannot only love an idealized future, you must cultivate a love of effort, too. If you really want something, then the soul must make demands of the body.
Since I have suffered years of chronic back pain that went away thanks to Dr. Sarno’s work on MindBody Syndromes, I am very attentive to the physical manifestations of emotions.
I think that the modern world and modern medicine have led us away from developing intuition when it comes to our health and feelings and we are worse off from it.
Pair with: The Mindbody Prescription
This is a great essay that explores the complex interplay between human innovation and the natural world, focusing on the unintended consequences of our attempts to outsmart nature. It’s a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the delicate balance between human ambition and the natural environment, stressing the need for a healthy skepticism towards promises of simple fixes to complex natural phenomena.
I’m sure that by this point you are understanding the general character of the problem:
First: We see a biological, natural process in the world, and we want to understand it. So we study it as intensely as possible and make our best efforts to map it to explain it to ourselves and others.
Second: We see some deficiency in the process as it exists today. Farmland is running out. Some of us have mental health struggles. Natural fats are expensive and unkosher.
Third: Using our map of the process, we create a solution to the problem. Trans fats, lobotomies, synthetic fertilizers.
Fourth: The solution will seem like a home run. It will address all the problems of the original system, with no side effects, because the location of the side effects is outside the map. The consequences of hubris will always be hiding in the parts we don’t yet understand.
Fifth: Problems will eventually emerge, and we will realize that we did not have an accurate map in the first place. Heart disease, suicides, soil depletion. So we go back to the source, study it as intensely as possible, and make a new best effort to map it and explain it to ourselves and others.
And then the cycle repeats.
The example of Ozempic is particularly timely.
I've shared this essay on here a few times already, but it's the type of essay that you always keep open in a tab on your laptop.
Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem. You can't think of this time as a cost, or it will seem too high. You have to find the work sufficiently engaging as it's happening.
There may be some jobs where you have to work diligently for years at things you hate before you get to the good part, but this is not how great work happens. Great work happens by focusing consistently on something you're genuinely interested in. When you pause to take stock, you're surprised how far you've come.
The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.
If you do work that compounds, you'll get exponential growth. Most people who do this do it unconsciously, but it's worth stopping to think about. Learning, for example, is an instance of this phenomenon: the more you learn about something, the easier it is to learn more. Growing an audience is another: the more fans you have, the more new fans they'll bring you.
Pair with: Love the Mission or Love the Game
The way I see it, there are two types of true entrepreneurs. There are those in it for the love of the mission that they’re obsessed with championing. And there are those in it for the love of the game of entrepreneurship itself, almost irrespective of the mission of the business. Sometimes the mission is the business and sometimes the business is the mission. Type I, and Type II.
People who are in it for the love of the mission:
They need to be deeply inspired and obsessed with a problem or idea in order to dedicate time and mindspace to working on it. Any amount of rationalizing something they “should” work on will fail in the end. Even if they try, they’re energy will be sucked away when they encounter something else that sparks that fire in them. You might call these people missionaries or visionaries or something else. They’re driven by a view of the world they want to turn into reality.
People who are in it for the love of the game:
They’re obsessed with the game itself. The game is entrepreneurship — with some mix of building a business, creating something from nothing, “winning” against a field of competitors, capturing the world’s attention, making a lot of money, rising to the top of the entrepreneurial respect ladder. To a large extent, they could get excited about any idea, so long as the game around it is compelling. Importantly, they are deeply driven by playing the game, not just by winning it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of loving the game or loving the mission lately. I think Anu describes the nuance of this question very well in her essay.
An inspiring read into Jay Z’s outsized success. One of the main ideas of the book is that “belief comes before ability.”
"We change people through conversation, not through censorship."
"I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!"
"Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you."
"The challenge is not just to survive. You're gonna get knocked down. But it's how you get back up. That's the challenge."
"I'd rather die enormous than live dormant."
I’ve officially entered my Rockefeller obsession phase. These letters to his son are so good. It’s the perfect way to understand his mindset and how he thinks about life. There is something special about the type of advice a person gives to their children.
Some interesting points from the book:
Starting points do not determine your end point
Our destiny is determined by our actions, not by our origins.
“John, opportunities will always be unequal, but the results prove otherwise. In history, whether in politics or businesses, (especially in businesses), there has been many examples of successful people who started from scratch. They have had only a few opportunities because of poverty, but they eventually achieved fame because of their past struggles. However, history has also been filled with examples of rich children who were privileged but have failed in life. According to a study that was conducted in Massachusetts on 17 wealthy people, it was revealed that none of their children left the world wealthy.”
Luck depends on planning
Everyone is a designer and architect of his own destiny.
“I admit, just like a person cannot have no money, a person cannot have no luck. However, if you want to make a difference, you cannot wait for luck to patronize. My credo is: I do not live by God-given luck, but I do-so by planning luck. I believe that a good plan will affect luck, and in any case, it can successfully affect luck. My plan to turn competition into cooperation in the oil industry justified this.”
Comparing Heaven and Hell
The greatest reward for our hard work is not what we get, but what we will become.
“John, this very humorous fable tells me that: Losing work means losing happiness. It is regrettable that some people only realize this after being unemployed, which is very unfortunate!
I am proud to say that I have never tasted unemployment. This is not my luck, because I never treat work as hard labour without fun, instead I found infinite happiness from work.
I think that work is a privilege, as it brings more than just sustaining life. Work is the foundation of all businesses, the source of prosperity, and the shaper of genius. Work makes young people work harder and do more than their parents no matter how rich they are. Work is expressed in the humblest forms and lays the foundation for happiness. A job helps to add flavours to life.”
Do it now
Opportunity comes from opportunity.
“I have always believed that an opportunity comes from another opportunity as even the best ideas have flaws. Even if it is a very ordinary plan, if it is actually implemented and developed, it will be much better than a good plan that is abandoned halfway, because the former will be carried out consistently, but the latter has already been given up. So, I said that there is no secret to success. To achieve positive results in life, it is of course good to have extraordinary wisdom and special talents. There is nothing wrong with it. As long as you are willing to take active actions, you will be closer to success.”
A beautiful essay that I recommend reading.
Close friends know that childhood was hard. Difficult. Challenging. Pick your adjective.
Growing up was different. Different from what most of your peers experienced. That’s always made it hard to connect over the typical coming of age stuff.
You grew up in Ohio. Poor by American standards.
And religious. Very f*cking religious. Like some people would call your sect of Christianity a cult religious.
Dad was the pastor. Not the mega-church with a book and a private-plane type of pastor but the works 2 jobs on the side to make money net out every month type of pastor.
You grew up believing that God created everything and that Evolution is a lie. That the bible is the infallible word of God. That you should base your entire life on its teachings. That you should follow God’s calling for your life. Stuff like that.
An excellent piece about relationships and dating:
If I had an avocado toast for every time a female friend told me how much she loves dating around, I would be on the housing ladder by now! It’s a regular conversation, especially with women who are professionally successful and secure in other ways. They will tell me about their escapades with this or that man and will reassure me that all they want is fun, and they definitely don’t care if it leads to something. The other women in the group will nod in agreement and smile reassuringly. Not me. I was raised by an emotionally reactive mother, so when it comes to picking up on other people’s emotions, I am like a predator in the jungle. I can see the increased moisture in their eye socket and the exaggerated curve of their smiles. These women suffer from what I call ‘sexual revolution Stockholm syndrome’ where because they have no choice but to date casually, they have convinced themselves they are having sex without commitment by choice.
This is especially true for women with well-paid, high-flying careers because the ego-bruising of failing to achieve your personal life goals stings so much more when you have mastered control of all the other aspects of your life.
Some of the neediest women I know will repeatedly try to convince you they don’t need a man. On the other side of the coin, I would say horny men will say they want to get laid, but God forbid they move as much as a finger to do what it takes to achieve that (go on a date, get rejected and try again, get to know someone etc.).
Pair with: For Gen Z, an Age-Old Question: Who Pays for Dates?
When the date ended, we split the bill. But our discussion was emblematic of a tension in modern dating. At work and on social media, where young people spend much of their personal time, they like to emphasize equity and equality. When it comes to romance and courtship, young people — specifically women and men in heterosexual relationships — seem to be following the same dating rules their parents and older generations grew up learning.
This one is very good, whether you have talents or not.
Do grunt work. Most people do not like doing grunt work. More often than not people want to be doing “creative” work, such as discovering or creating new things. Fortunately for you, this is your opportunity to shine. Become someone who loves grunt work. Most times the work is not that complicated, it’s just laborious, repetitive, and not that intellectually challenging, but it is important. Learn to genuinely love it and do it for the team or project. People will appreciate you.
Do the boring things. Similar to grunt work, there will always be boring work to do. Learn to love it & do it! This is an especially good area to work in if you aren’t so smart or talented because people will show you more grace & patience to get up to skill (purely because they don’t want to do it themselves).
Learn undefined skills. Learn skills that have not yet been professionalized or established. A really good example of this is learning to code with AI.
Work hard. If you are not that smart or talented it’ll often take you more time on average to complete a task. And that’s okay. Just be aware of this and put in the extra time and effort to not only produce at a good pace but produce above standard. Again, most smart or talented people can produce above standard with much less effort than you. But sometimes they don’t do so because they don’t see a clear reward at the end. Try to counteract this and put in the extra effort. It might not always lead to a super fantastic outcome, but you significantly increase your chances of bumping into such an outcome if you do.
Bring a sense of urgency & move fast. If you think about it, most deadlines are arbitrary, and smart & talented people know this. They will still work to the deadline but they may not feel a real sense of urgency to move faster. Try to counteract this energy. I’m not sure why but moving faster increases the likelihood that work will actually get done, and also opens you up (and therefore the team) up to a lot more opportunities along the way. Most likely because you are “prepared” when you meet luck, or something along those lines. Anyways.
Impressive!
All of your messaging applications in one app. That’s it! It is super useful to have WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook, Twitter DMs, iMessage, Slack, etc. all in one app.
On top of that, it enables scheduling messages, which I have always needed as I think sending messages at the right time helps a lot in pushing things forward.
Do everything, and you will win.
Thanks for reading!
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Until next time,
Mehdi Yacoubi
