Do extraordinary things, live an extraordinary life. [#78]

Something incredible just happened: my train just arrived early. It’s 08:50am on a Saturday, and now we’re stuck in Wolfsburg. I have a chance to look at the VW plant.

Germany’s biggest company. Thousands of jobs created. Huge GDP driver for the state of Lower Saxony. Hell, the entire city of Wolfsburg exists because of this plant. 

Inside of it, as in many other car manufacturing plants, workers have been working on the morning shift since 06:30am, producing VW Golfs and other cars. A river freight ship sailing under the Czech flag just went by. Probably delivering goods to VW. 

Most employees at VW spend their entire lifetime working for the company, working inside this plant. They show up, day in, day out, and assemble cars. For 40 years. To then retire with a nice, company-backed pension, negotiated by their union. 

This is the ordinary German life: 

You show up for work, do your job for 8 hours, and go home.

At the end of the month, you receive a paycheck. Your yearly highlight is the boys’ trip to Mallorca, or a family vacation at the Baltic Sea.

At night, you knock back a few beers on the couch, hang with family and friends, go to bed early. 06:30am shift the next day. If you get sick, the government takes care of you. Eventually, you retire. 

Not a bad life, at least compared to the rest of the world. 

But that’s not the life you, dear reader, want to live, right? 

Thought so. 

You want the extraordinary. Freedom. Wonderful people around you. Wealth. Health. Cool trips. 

Well – nothing in this life is free. If you want to live an extraordinary life, you need to do extraordinary things. 

I already pitched this last week, but buried it at the end of the newsletter. Big mistake.

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Imagine this. You’re running a marathon. Your friends come to cheer you on. 

The likelihood is high that your friends will cheer you on at 2 places: the starting line, and the finish line. 

This is what life looks like on social media: we read about people starting things, and we see the absolute highlights of someone else’s life. So much that we believe that everybody has this “extraordinary” life, where in reality, it’s just a snapshot. 

But in between the starting and the finish line? 

Nobody watches. 

Nobody sees the pain you’re going through. 

Nobody notices the conversation inside your head:

• Can I make it?
• How far is it?
• Will I shit my pants? 

You see, this is problematic: by vastly overindexing on “starting” and “finishing”, we start to feel entitled to have what others have to. 

We want the results but not the process. 

• Looking athletic without hitting the gym. 
• Having financial independence without building something yourself. 
• A loving relationship without hard conversations. 

98% of life happens between the starting and the finish line. 

This is where the magic happens, where you do the things that most other people wouldn’t do.

So that you can life that extraordinary life. 

What are those things? You have to find your own extraordinary. But a few common patterns stand out: 

[1] Protect your focus 

The best work isn’t done in 11 minutes between checking your phone. It’s done in long, focused bouts of work with zero distractions. It works so well that Cal Newport wrote an entire f**king book on it. Warren Buffet keeps his schedule empty. Matt Gray, Alex Hormozi, Shane Parrish – they all preach the gospel of deep work. 

Honestly, what makes or breaks my day is whether I did 2 things the night before: 

(1) close down all distracting apps on my computer, and (2) clearly outline the tasks for the first 3-4h of the day. 

When I do this, I’m unstoppable. When I don’t, like on Friday, I instead send a lot of messages, read about the Ten Cent Beer Night, and figure out how to affix a face mask to a hockey helmet. 

[2] Build systems

Instead of doing everything yourself, do this: 

1. Note down all the tasks you’ve done in the last 8 weeks 

2. Ask: does it give or drain energy? 

3. For everything that’s draining: can you eliminate, automate, delegate this? 

4. If a task doesn’t move the needle for your business, eliminate it. 

5. If you can automate it, automate it. 

6. If it doesn’t give you energy but is essential for the business, delegate it.

[3] Invest in yourself 

I like this three-step investing strategy from Alex Hormozi: 

1. Invest as much as you can into yourself (coaching, education, health, fitness, therapy)
2. Once you cannot possibly invest more into yourself (your most valuable asset), start putting money into a holding pattern (eg. ETFs that reflect the market)
3. When you figure out your investment edge, begin allocating money to this (eg. buying and growing businesses)

The first step is the most important here: by investing ridiculous amounts into yourself, you’ll outperform the competition. 

[4] Work to create assets, not income

“You can literally just do things.” 

Today, the cost of starting your own business and building your own personal brand are basically zero. Yet most people still work as employees. Because it feels safe (it’s not). Because receiving a paycheck every month is gratifying (humanity’s top 3 addiction). 

Ain’t nothing wrong with having a job, but to live a truly extraordinary life, you gotta do something outside of it. Could be writing. Could be building small side hustles. Could be real estate investing. 

Create your own assets, not just jobs.

[5] Do the work consistently 

James Clear’s book Atomic Habits was a classic overnight success. When Atomic Habits came out, it became an instant bestseller – and has remained one ever since. 

(In fact, today, it still ranks 9th for all books on Amazon in Germany.)

What most people don’t see: before publishing his book, he wrote 2 articles a week for 3 years straight. Most of them never went anywhere. But that consistency was necessary to build the audience for a successful book launch. 

Get the basics right daily. 

“To achieve extraordinary things, you need to do ordinary things for an extraordinary amount of time.” – Shane Parrish 

Small houses forming villages are passing by, surrounded by lush, green trees. The sky is gray. 17°C. A few boys are warming up for their soccer game. It’s summer in Germany. 

My train is still early. Most people around me are sleeping or watching Netflix. The lady in front of me is arguing loudly on the phone with her father, attempting to explain why he can’t hear her. I guess she thinks just speaking louder helps. 

Very ordinary things to do on a Saturday. 

And I’m sitting here, typing these lines, attempting to build something that’s extraordinary. 

One newsletter at a time. 

I’m fired up for this week. Hope you are too – great week to get after it. 

To doing some extraordinary things this week. 

LFG. 

PS: Interesting take from Sahil Bloom how the "tragedy of the commons principle" applies to AI.