Newsletter Subject
David's Musings (Ambitious People Need Ambitious Peers)
From
perell.com
Email Address
david@perell.com
Sent On
Mon, Apr 10, 2023 03:09 PM
Email Preheader Text
Hi friends, I spent the weekend at The Masters golf tournament, which is certifiably the best sporti
HTML
[Read in your browser here.](=) Hi friends, I spent the weekend at The Masters golf tournament, which is certifiably the best sporting event I've ever been to. And it's not just because of the golf. The conditions are immaculate, the food is delicious, and the operations are top-notch. To my surprise, the tournament gives television rights to CBS and ESPN for free, in exchange for total control over the broadcast. This is why there are so few commercials on TV, why the announcers pump endless praise into their microphones, and why it's so easy to watch the tournament on your phone. [I wrote about my experience at The Masters in this Twitter thread](=). All weekend, I was thinking about how important it is to have supportive and ambitious peers. That's what today's piece is about, and it's also a core function of [Write of Passage](. "Find Your People" is one of three commitments we make to students because it's so hard to consistently write well without the emotional and intellectual support of your peers. So many students come into the course with friends who mock their creative pursuits. But in the course, they meet ambitious peers who support them. Enrollment for [Write of Passage Cohort 10]() closes in 48 hours, and we'd love to have you. [Enroll Now](=)
â[Ambitious People Need Each Other](â Ambition breeds a particular kind of frustration, and the more ambitious you are, the larger it looms. Without like-minded peers, ambitious people become suffocated by life â chained by tall poppy syndrome and the dogmas of complacency. As social creatures, humans need to feel validated by their peers in order to go all in on who they are. We become like the people around us, so itâs hard to sustain ambition in a complacent environment. This is why actors move to Hollywood, musicians move to Nashville, and basically every podcaster/biohacker/Internet-writer type lives inside a twelve-mile radius in Austin, Texas. Moving in search of ambitious peers isnât a new idea. Itâs why [Ramanujan](), one of historyâs greatest mathematicians, went to Cambridge. At home in India, even though he showed a divine aptitude for math, he flunked out of school and hid under a cot because his parents disapproved of his obsession with math. Though he taught himself number theory by working through problems in a borrowed textbook on his own, he knew that his genius was ultimately constrained by a lack of ambitious peers. And so, he wrote to Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy to ask for help getting his work published. Once they met, everything changed for Ramanujan. See, ambitious people donât just need peers. They need mentors. They need people who will encourage them to pursue hard and meaningful projects. In college, I felt insane for being driven and obsessive. The anti-dedication environment drove me nuts. My ambition was only validated when I arrived in New York City and met people who exuded the kind of heart and hustle for which Iâd always been called crazy. The people I interviewed on my [North Star Podcast]( became some of my peers. Paul Graham, the founder of Y-Combinator and the low-key God of online writing says âAmbitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in peopleâs lives, then the ambitious ones wonât have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water.â Fight to find your kindred spirits, even if it means moving across the world like Ramanujan or staying in on Saturdays to write on the Internet. The more ambitious you are, the more consciously youâll need to cultivate your social circle. Ask yourself: Who do I need to surround myself with? Have a creative week, [David Perell Logo 2x]
Thanks for reading! If youâre serious about learning to write, [sign up for my 50 days of writing series.]() Iâll send you a series of emails about every aspect of the craft, from finding new ideas, to editing your writing, to building an email list. If you'd like to update your email settings, choose one of the options below. 1. [Click here](=) to unsubscribe from Monday Musings only. 2. [Unsubscribe]( to be removed from all future mailings. That'll make me sad. But hey... I get it. You're busy. Just know that once you click this link you won't receive any more emails from me. If you want to opt-out of Monday Musings and don't see a link above to do so, just hit reply and let me know. I'll take care of it for you personally. 3. If you're interested in subscribing to my other emails, [click here](). In particular, I recommend my weekly [Friday Finds]() email. In it, I share my favorite books, articles, videos, and podcasts every week. 10900 Research Blvd Ste 160C PMB 3016, Austin, Texas 78759
EDM Keywords (137)
wrote
writing
write
working
weekend
watch
want
validated
update
unsubscribe
tv
tournament
together
today
thinking
tend
taught
surround
surprise
supportive
support
subscribing
students
staying
spent
showed
share
serious
series
send
see
search
school
saturdays
sad
removed
recommend
receive
reading
rare
put
problems
piece
phone
people
peers
particular
order
options
opt
operations
one
obsessive
obsession
nuts
need
nashville
mock
microphones
math
masters
make
love
lives
link
like
let
learning
larger
lack
know
knew
kind
interviewed
internet
interested
important
immaculate
hustle
home
history
hid
hey
heart
hard
golf
go
get
genius
frustration
friends
free
founder
food
flunked
find
exuded
experience
exchange
everyone
ever
espn
enrollment
enroll
encourage
emotional
emails
editing
easy
early
driven
dogmas
delicious
david
cultivate
craft
course
cot
consciously
conditions
complacency
commercials
combinator
college
click
certifiably
cbs
cambridge
busy
building
browser
broadcast
ask
arrived
ambitious
ambition
always
also