The Hard Truth about Simple Things

Cutting through Confusion, Complication, and Consternation

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again. —André Gide

It's easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time. —Clayton M. Christensen

Above: To spell it out for you…

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If you really stop and think about it, existence is a pretty simple enterprise.

The dichotomy is ironic; we only need to perform a few, basic actions to sustain the complex phenomenon we call life.

We must breathe, sleep, eat, drink, clothe ourselves (debatable), and obtain shelter.

That’s it.

We tend to overcomplicate things by conflating words like need and want, must and should. In this way, a lot of problems in life resemble trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.

An adaptation of Solzhenitsyn’s timeless quote comes to mind: We know what we have to do, we know that we are not doing it, we know that it is not in our best interest not to do those things we know we have to do, and yet we do the same inane things over and over and over, blaming our tools, systems, and processes instead of our willful, stubborn negligence.

I once read somewhere that the truth suffers from too much analysis. I think that nails it. Complication is seductive because we all think “It can't be that damn simple!” But, more often than not, it is.

My friend Luke Burgis expanded on this recently:

The most important truths in life are not complex. They don’t require “high IQ” to figure out. There is no podcast on earth that is going to magically reveal them through the Discourse.

The most important truths in life are very simple; they’re just hard to accept and live out.

Far too much that masquerades as preparation is actually procrastination. It is friction that inhibits progress, not lubricant that quickens it.

We do this because oftentimes what we have to do, though simple, is too painful or too hard. Saying “I love you,” “I forgive you,” “I’m sorry,” burdens us more than a tight deadline, final exam, or heavy deadlift.

The simple truth is that if we just did what we already know we should do—no seeking out the newest, most optimized or insightful way—we would be 100x closer to who we know we can be.

I touched on this in a prior piece entitled Less is More: 

I have thought a great deal about the inalienable truths that, put together, make up my life.

These are few and far between. They are the laws versus the theories—what should happen versus how it happens.

They are often simple but never easy. 

After all, the wonderful thing about life is that progress is often a straightforward, mathematical exercise.

To lose weight, eat less and move more.

To become wealthy, spend less and invest more

Nuances are aplenty, however, the truth is that these simple steps taken daily will often lead you exactly where you need to go.

Put simply, the shortest messages often hold the deepest truths. What they lack in breadth, they allow for in depth.

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To hammer this hard truth home, a brief foray into the world of sports.

Sports offer tremendous analogies for life. Each, in turn, mandates a proper outlay of sweat, struggle, and sacrifice in order to taste success.

In basketball, a man that reached the sport’s apex time and again, one of the most tenacious, dedicated practitioners of anything—Kobe Bryant—incessantly sweated the small, simple stuff in order to become great:

Kobe was going through an intense warm up before his scheduled workout started with his trainer.

I sat down to watch.

For the first 45 minutes I was actually shocked.

For the first 45 minutes I watched the best player in the world do the most basic footwork and offensive moves.

Kobe was doing stuff that I had routinely taught to middle school aged players

This is Kobe Bryant we're talking about.

This is the Black Mamba.

He was doing everything at an unparalleled level of effort with unparalleled focus, but the actual stuff he was doing was very, very basic.

Later that day at camp I went up to him and said:

“Kobe, I don't understand. You're the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills?”

He said:

“Why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics. I *never* get bored with the basics.”

Just because something is basic doesn't mean that it's easy.

If it was easy, everyone else would be doing it.

So the key to us improving our performance in any area of our life is identifying what those basics are, what those fundamentals are, and being relentlessly committed to performing them with consistency.

And that's hard because the basics are usually boring.

They're mundane.

They’re monotonous.

We all want to chase what's flashy and what's sexy, but the basics is where the gold is.

The the highest performers I've ever been around —in basketball or business— have found a way to fall in love with the basics and make them a part of their daily routine.

Put simply, life is as much about grit as it is creativity or motivation.

It is not an act of genius, but one of will.

Like this very piece of writing, don’t overthink or overcomplicate it.

Take a deep breath, go for a walk, and do what you know you must.

Oh, and keep it simple, stupid.

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Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom