Seeing yourself through the eyes of others
The massive power of getting another perspective
👋Hello friends. And a special welcome to the ~50 new subscribers that joined us this week—mostly as a result of my Twitter thread on push-ups. More to come on that.
Today, I've got 3 things for you:
Some thoughts on going viral.
The power of getting another perspective.
One important piece of content I'd really like you to consume.
Let's do this.
Going viral
So this past week was kind of crazy. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I undertook a challenge in October: Doing 100 push-ups every day for 31 straight days. On October 31st (Halloween), I posted a thread on Twitter detailing what I learned from this undertaking. And then... I watched it absolutely take off. I'm not entirely sure what it was about this piece of content that inspired so many people to engage with it but... wow... in a 24-hour period, the thread had:
~4200 likes
~400 retweets
~142 comments
And took my Twitter followers from ~3800 -> ~6500
Kind of crazy. Here are 7 things I learned from the experience:
It is incredibly distracting. I recently wrote about social media addiction. Going viral does NOT help with that. It was almost impossible to avoid opening Twitter every 5 minutes and each time I had 20+ notifications. Talk about messing with your dopamine.
The 'high' wears off quickly. I'm a big proponent of the concept of hedonic adaptation—which basically says that our emotional state reverts to the mean. We get high from big wins, we get low from big losses, but we revert pretty quickly. This is true far beyond social media, and especially important to remember when you get knocked down.
People come out of the word work. I must have received 50 direct messages related to the thread. And some seriously random ones. People pitching me cryptocurrencies. People pitching me their apps. But also people genuinely interested in connecting.
It feels great to help others. No question, the best part of sharing my experience was that it seemed to inspire a lot of people. I've had dozens of people reaching out telling me that they plan to try this same streak. That feels really good.
But haters gonna hate. The more viral you go, the more creeps come out. While 9 out of every 10 comments were positive. The 10% that weren't kind of stung to be honest. But I'm getting better at laughing them off and making quick and liberal use of Twitter’s 'block' function.
Higher numbers boost the ego. I'd be lying if I said 6000+ followers doesn't make me feel slightly more important than 3000 followers did. But that's just a façade, of course. I suspect this is like money, you never get to a point where you have "enough" so...
What actually matters are relationships. I've written before about the dozen or so MEANINGFUL relationships I've built on Twitter. Getting notes of support and celebration from these folks mattered WAY more than racking up more likes and retweets.
Long story, short: Kind of a weird experience, but net positive. Below is that thread if you missed it.
The real lesson here: Pictures of me with bare feet in my basement do huge numbers.
Seeing yourself through the eyes of others
A friend of mine called me this week looking for advice. He's done a really great job building a brand for himself in a specific niche, growing a large audience and even attracting sponsors that pay to be associated with him. But despite all of that, he wasn't sure where he could (or should) go next.
To me, it was instantly obvious: a) how talented he is, b) why people love him, and c) how he could branch out into many more activities that could be both fun and lucrative.
Why was it obvious to me but not to him? The answer may be that sometimes we're too close to our own situations. Sometimes, as my friend Nathalie Rachel Sinyard implied in a tweet this week, we can overlook some of our own best qualities.
Seeing ourselves through the eyes of others can be immensely beneficial. If you hire a high-end career coach, one of the first things they do is conduct "360" interviews with the people who interact with you the most—spouses, friends, bosses, direct reports.
And what they come up with is usually humbling—hearing your weaknesses laid bare before you can have that effect—but also eye-opening—as you get to hear specific details about what people think your true strengths are.
This can be both an ego booster and an incredibly effective way to get a reality check.
You don't necessarily need to hire an expensive career coach to do this either (though it's not a bad idea if you can afford it!).
You can take a more organic approach. Ask five people close to you what they think your true strengths are. Ask them to specifically name 3 or 5 things that you are in the top 5% of the population for. (They'll be more comfortable giving you honest positive feedback than negative feedback).
What comes out of it may surprise you. Skills or talents that you take for granted may be more highly valued by others than you think. The problem is that we're not great at telling each other this naturally, which is a shame.
Maybe even more powerful is thinking about all of this from the perspective of others. Think of the 3 or 5 people closest to you. What do they do REALLY well? What do you REALLY appreciate about them? Maybe consider letting them know.
They're probably in their own heads just like you are... and hearing about something that they do really well could end up being transformational.
I think about this with friends, co-workers, family members and especially KIDS. Man, kids have a lot of pressure these days. They are overscheduled with sports and academics and who knows what else. They're constantly measured on how they are doing in all of the above. And ACUTELY aware when they are failing vs. their peers. I think it's probably a major reason behind the rise in depression and anxiety among young people.
So I'm going to make a concerted effort to practice what I preach. To tell my kids (and the other kids I'm around - the ones I coach, the kids of my friends, etc.) exactly what I think they are good at. In very specific terms.
You know what's crazy? I think back to compliments I got DECADES ago that still stick with me to this day. You never really know how you can impact someone's life in a crazy positive way just by speaking up and telling them something you appreciate about them. So I'm going to resolve to start doing more of that.
How cool would it be in 25 years for someone to walk up to you and say "Hey, I'm hugely successful today because of what you said to me when I was 10-years-old." Man, that would be amazing. I'm going to try to make it happen. Maybe you want to join me.
Content Diet
Dr. Andrew Huberman & Will Ahmed on the Whoop podcast
If you read this newsletter regularly, you already know I'm a huge fan of Huberman and Whoop. So when worlds collide, it's bound to be awesome. And it is. I actually want you to do me a favor and listen to this episode. Sometimes people don't get through Huberman's content because it can be long and detailed. But this episode is short, to the point, and packs in incredible punch when it comes to easy changes you can make to improve your health. We're talking breathing techniques (just trust me on this), sleep practices and more. Really, I want to help improve people's lives. Help me accomplish that by listening to this. I'll sleep better tonight if you do.
My new YouTube channel!
Hey now! I'm on YouTube. I recently started posting video episodes of my podcasts. So if hearing and reading yours truly is not enough, now you can see me interviewing awesome people like Dan Go, Dave Kline, Kat Cole and more. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Subscribe here → youtube.com/@intentionalwisdom
That's it for this week. You guys are all awesome. Thanks for giving me a little bit of your time today. I'll be back in two weeks!
— Greg