#15 | Why not decide you've won? Nick Cave on AI, freestyle in New York, and Derek Guy

Why not decide you’ve won?

I’ve started to end my showers with what can only be described as an undignified 20 seconds of cold therapy. I stand there, breathing heavily as ice-cold water charts an unwelcome path. I make noises and try to keep my breathing regular. I repeat in my mind that it’s worth it, that I’ll feel better, but it’s miserable. 

I’m sharing because I’ve been thinking a lot about habits and routines. I just started a new job and I’ve been amazed at how disruptive small changes can be. Different subway stops, unfamiliar coffee shops, not knowing the location of a single meeting room in a building. These small things add up to a big tax on your brain. I’ve been exhausted at the end of every day—so much so that I’ve been trying to optimize my routine—I’ve tried to use the disruption as an opportunity to improve. 

If you’re worried I’m about to list a variety of supplements and protocols that have worked for me, fear not. I would never do such a thing to Wireframe readers. 

I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter how elaborate you make your morning routine. It doesn’t matter if you use Himalayan salt in your lemon water. You don’t need to biohack your way to productivity. 

Like most things, it’s simple, but hard. 

I’ve always enjoyed reading and listening to Naval Ravikant. He’s not a hustle-culture Valley-bro. He’s well read and stoic and talks a lot about fundamentals that work—like the compounding nature of all investments. I heard him talking to Chris Williamson on Modern Wisdom and he said:

“I reject this frame that efficiency, productivity and success are counter to happiness and freedom. They actually go together.” 

Are you having fun yet?

I coach a lot of designers and hearing Naval say productivity and happiness go together made me realize that most of my coaching conversations focus on efficiency, productivity, and success. I can’t remember the last time we talked about happiness or freedom. 

It’s not to say productivity conversations aren’t valuable, but understanding the relationship between enjoyment and productivity is, I think, the key to everything. It’s the simple but hard thing.

Think back to the projects where you had the most impact. Think back to the times when you felt your contributions were the absolute best they could have been. Now consider whether you were having fun. I bet you were. Or at least, I bet it didn’t feel like a grind.

I worry that the hustle bro nonsense has framed success as something you have to grind out. As though you need to push your way through the purgatory of work, only to emerge on the other side where you can have fun in a flow state.

It’s the wrong way round. You need to engage in your work in a way that you enjoy first, because only then will you ever reach any type of true productivity.

I’ve found this to be particularly helpful in my new role. I have to hire a new team and I’ve approached that with a sense of excitement. I sold it to myself. How often do you get to hire a team from scratch? Bring together a group of people who are greater than the sum of their parts? It’s a really exciting prospect—and something I could have approached as an operational task, or a design challenge. When I framed it as the latter, it was some of the most fun I’ve had at work in a long time.

Why not decide you’ve won?

If you read this newsletter, you’re someone who’s engaging with work in a meaningful way. Why else would you be here reading about design, technology and leadership, when you could be watching Love Island or rereading Great Expectations (both noble uses of our short time on earth)?

You undoubtedly earned your place on your team. I’m sure you probably pushed to get the role you’re in right now. So here’s a question that’ll fester; are you enjoying it?  

Simon Sinek presents an interesting framing in The Infinite Game: you can’t win. We’re not playing the type of game where you can beat other people and win. It’s unwinnable. The game keeps going, so the only choice you really have is to shift from the mindset of winning, to a mindset of perpetually playing. If you’re going to play a game forever, enjoying it isn’t a byproduct of your approach. It shouldn’t be something you put off to the next chapter of your career. Enjoying the game is the strategy.

Now this is obviously easier said than done, but having gone through a huge change recently, I can attest to the fact that it’s within your power. 

You can choose how you show up to everything you’re doing. And like I said, you’re probably in a role you once longed for. You’re probably on a team you fought to get onto. You’re probably doing work that your younger self could only dream you’d have the opportunity to do. 

You don’t need to rise’n’grind.

Decide you already won.

Then hard work will feel like play.

A drop of links to keep the signal strong. Tools, essays, books, oddities. Anything I find that I feel is worth sharing. Email sam@readwireframe.com with any suggestions.

• Andrew Dominik made Nick Cave a beautiful film using AI, archive footage and historical photos. It’s great—as is Nick Cave’s articulation of how essential it is to keep an open mind.

• Naval shared my favorite productivity hack on Modern Wisdom. Enjoy it. No, that’s the productivity hack. Enjoy what you’re doing and you’ll outwork everyone else. [The Identifying our happiness chapter starts 32 minutes in]

• This sort of thing is why I cannot get enough of New York. Freestyle rap on the street. Some guy with a wearable mixing desk. I love everything about Ari at Home—you want to freestyle to a soul sample? Well I’m making it from scratch. Wanna record your own soul sample so we can use it on the track? Perfect.

• I skimmed Simon Sinek’s book The Infinite Game and found it to be very helpful. His framing of the shift in mindset is the main insight for me: enjoying the game is essential. But he also elaborates on certain practices that can support succeeding in the infinite game. Trust, flexibility, continuous improvement. It’s worth a look. 

• If you’re unfamiliar with Derek Guy, I recommend you follow him on Threads. He writes about menswear, but in such a way where you start to appreciate the socio-economic and geopolitical dimensions of what we choose to wear. I also suspect Wireframe readers will enjoy his wit.