A billionaire, an MMA fighter and a bodybuilder
Hi there👋 Building Blocks is a weekly roundup of content to prickle your mind. Barack Obama describes it as “a hot serving of intellectual pie”.
Today’s stories (overall reading time < 4 minutes):
⏱️ The next 10 years
😬 Fear
🇿🇦 South Africa’s survivor tree
🏋️ Fitness vibes
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**Please vote ✅ for your favourite article of the day in the poll at the bottom. 🙏🙏
💪 Life: The next decade of your life
I liked this tweet that I saw this week:
If you don’t recognise the man in this picture, it’s Francis Ngannou. From the most humble origins in Cameroon (think working on sand quarries at age 9), it took him 14 months to traverse more than 3,000 miles across the Sahara desert, through Nigeria, Niger and Algeria to Paris, where he arrived in 2013. Upon arriving in Paris, he spent the first few months sleeping in the stairwell of a parking lot.
From this bleak situation, a decade of hard work and dedication later, he became the mixed martial arts heavyweight world champion and has banked millions of dollars.
It’s like a Rocky movie…
In the beginning, everyone sucks.
There was a time when the comedians you see on Netflix sucked. In the early 90s, even the legendary Dave Chappelle got booed off-stage during his first night at the Apollo Theater:
At 25, Jimmy Carr was working at the marketing department of Shell and had never written a joke in his life. But then he pivoted to the world of stand-up comedy and did over 300 shows a year during the early stages of his career. Today he is one of the most renowned British comedians…ever.
According to Malcolm Gladwell's well-known "10,000 Hour Rule", world-class mastery in any field requires approximately 10,000 hours of purposeful practice. Over ten years, that’s less than 20 hours per week. A lot, but not unfathomable.
The moral of the story is this:
It’s insane what can be achieved over a decade.
If you need further social proof, Bill Gates agrees with me:
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
📖 Books: Fear - A Billionaire’s Thoughts
I recently finished reading Felix Dennis’s book, How to Get Rich. He was a college dropout who built a publishing empire from nothing and became one of the wealthiest people in the UK.
Don’t be put off by the book’s fortune cookie title. It’s riddled with insightful nuggets on ambition, wealth and life.
I’ve been thinking of fear a lot of late.
Dennis’s thoughts on the topic echo in my mind:
And what is fear?
‘Fear is the little death, death by a thousand cuts,’ goes the ancient Japanese saying. Nifty, but ultimately unhelpful.
Similar to Shakespeare’s ‘Cowards die many time before their deaths: / The valiant never taste of death but once.’
…
After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this.
🇿🇦 Geopolitics: The state of democracy
Living in South Africa is like playing footsie with chaos. Crime, power cuts, corruption, collapsing infrastructure - geez, it tests your mettle.
But like the ground zero survivor tree that withstood the World Trade Center collapse, transparency and democracy in South Africa stand as a beacon in the inferno. According to The Economist’s 2022 Democracy Index, the country still has a relatively robust democracy.
The liberty to voice dissent against the government and its president in public without fear of being whisked to a dungeon must be cherished. This luxury is a pipe dream in many corners of the globe, especially in Africa.
As long as the threats to our democracy remain low, my hopes remain high.
🏋️ Health: Squat technique
As you know from my post two weeks ago, I’m all about the #healthvibes these days.
I’m on my way from this:
To this:
Management guru Peter Drucker famously said: “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it” - so I did a fitness assessment this week to get an idea of where I’m at.
I won’t be heading to the Olympics any time soon, but the results weren’t hopeless.
My squat technique, however, needs work.
To remedy this, I visited the digital oracle in search of advice - YouTube. There, I stumbled upon Jeff Nippard, a professional bodybuilder and powerlifter. His channel is a treasure trove of gym info and has almost as many followers as New Zealand has people.
Technique trumps weight, so if you want to improve your squat, look no further. 👇