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The internal debate about confidence calls to mind a well-known concept from the radio pioneer Ira Glass, which could be called the Taste/Talent Gap. All of us who do creative work . . . we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good . . . It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste—the thing that got you into the game—your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. It is in precisely this gap that ego can seem comforting. Who wants to look at themselves and their work and find that it does not measure up? And so here we might bluster our way through. Cover up hard truths with sheer force of personality and drive and passion. Or, we can face our shortcomings honestly and put the time in. We can let this humble us, see clearly where we are talented and where we need to improve, and then put in the work to bridge that gap. And we can set upon positive habits that will last a lifetime.
Ego Is the Enemy
Ryan Holiday
Danny was like a kid with the world’s best toy closet who is so paralyzed by indecision that he never gets around to enjoying his possessions but instead just stands there worrying himself to death over whether to grab his Super Soaker or take his electric scooter out for a spin. Amos rooted around in Danny’s mind and said, “Screw it, we’re going to play with all of this stuff.” There would be times, later in their relationship, when Danny would go into a deep funk—a depression, almost—and walk around saying, “I’m out of ideas.” Even that Amos found funny. Their mutual friend Avishai Margalit recalled, “When he heard that Danny was saying, ‘I’m finished, I’m out of ideas,’ Amos laughed and said, ‘Danny has more ideas in one minute than a hundred people have in a hundred years.’”
The Undoing Project
Michael Lewis
As Princeton Newport Partners closed I reflected on the proposition that what matters in life is how you spend your time. When J. Paul Getty was the richest man in the world and manifestly not fulfilled, he said the happiest time of his life was when he was sixteen, riding waves off the beach in Malibu, California. In 2000, Los Angeles Times Magazine, speaking of new multibillionaire Henry T. Nicholas III of Broadcom Corporation, said, “It’s 1:30 a.m. He’s just turned 40—at his desk, in a dimly lit office. He hasn’t seen his wife and children, ‘my reason for living,’ for several days. ‘The last time we talked, [Stacey] told me she missed the old days, when I was at TRW and we lived in a condo. She told me she wants to go back to that life.’ But they can’t go back because he can’t let up.”
A Man for All Markets
Edward O. Thorp
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