Good Morning Move Fast, Think Slow readers! And welcome new readers! 🤗MF/TS delivers weekly pro tips on life, team performance, or brand marketing.
Last week’s newsletter asked the question: are we optimizing ourselves to death? Thanks to human beings’ new abilities to measure real-time metrics, recent evidence is starting to point to an observation that this obsession is watering down entertainment products and furthermore, most everything creative in our world is starting to look the same.
It’s all reminiscent of two laws that get thrown around sometimes.
Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” | Source
Campbell’s Law: "The more a metric is used, the more likely it is to corrupt the process it is intended to monitor.” | Source
The tl;dr is overthinking a narrow metric point can lead to failed executions and create toxic systems because a focus too narrow, creating bad results. It’s worth geeking out on those laws.
P.S. I appreciate everyone’s patience with my grammatical errors in the last version. At times I am rushing to get these out, so I don’t catch everything when I am moving fast.
WTF IS GOING ON THIS WEEK - KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR YOUR VIBES
No deep dives this week but three things come to mind.
Thought(s) of the week
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity
The law of reversed effort
Hot Take of the week - geeking out on film studio A24
Fan Boy’ing on A24, the current saviors + future of cinema
LUCK IS WHERE PREPARATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY
The old ball coach used to love to say to us:
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
He’d say this to us nearly once a week. But he always did it with a certain flare. Kind of like he rehearsed it. 🤣
Like a Coach Bellicheck of Texas high school football. He was trying to tell us it’s the situation that matters, but you can’t come to that party ready to win if you haven’t paid attention beforehand.
Preparation is tied to this notion of always practicing. It’s tied to study, repetition, and getting ready for the mission.
The opportunity / opportunities in life?
They come and go. But the preparation is constant.
The preparation is something you can control.
And then sometimes, opportunities suddenly appear.
And all of a sudden, you are lucky.
What are you preparing & practicing constantly?
Think about it.
THE LAW OF REVERSED EFFORTS
I’ve been journaling about this thread all week.
The point of the story?
"The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed." - Aldous Huxley
The thought continues:
“Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent unknown quantity may take hold.” - Aldous Huxley
Here’s the whole thread if you’re interested in diving deeper.
A24 IS SAVING FILM / IS THE FUTURE OF CINEMA
I can’t remember exactly when A24 stole my heart, but it was years ago.
There was a time when I dreamed of being a film agent or Executive Producer. Never happened. But never say never. Needless to say, I wanted to do that because I FACKING LOVE MOVIES.
Growing up in Los Angeles. We saw EVERYTHINGGGGGG. And I became a film geek later in life going to Vidiots in Santa Monica to watch 8 1/2, On the Waterfront, Casablanca, among many, many other films.
I stan A24 not just because they keep serving us amazing films year after year, but because they’re representing THE (FILM) CULTURE.
Somehow, I learned about their new “membership club” that included a Zine, and I was FACKING IN.
I don’t even care what the other perks were (but they’re kind of cool).
My hot take on this membership as an entertainment business nerd: It’s brilliant. I don’t understand why other big-time entertainment brands don’t do something like this. It’s a loyalty play, and there will be value here for A24. It can lead to other really interesting community-growing initiatives that will be good for the bottom line.
What’s your favorite A24 film?
IMAGES OF THE WEEK
Go forth.
Stay safe.
Ride the wave.
-Mitch