Founders
#357 Haruki Murakami
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Consistent effort over time leads to meditative focus and excellence in tasks.
- Passion is essential for success as it drives dedication and surpasses competition.
- Failures are inevitable, but exceeding self-set standards is crucial for advancement in any field.
Deep dives
The Power of Obsession in Pursuing Goals
Haruki Murakami's dedication to writing novels and running over 30 years reveals the invaluable lessons and ideas accrued from his passions. His autobiography reflects the essence of his obsessions, highlighting the significance of committing to one's life's work. The relentless pursuit of excellence and the ability to distill knowledge shape successful endeavors. By intertwining writing and running, Murakami embodies the essence of focus, endurance, and lifelong dedication to his craft.
Lessons on Consistency and Endurance in Achieving Goals
Murakami underlines the pivotal role of focus and endurance for a novelist, emphasizing the necessity of concentrated effort on critical tasks. He stresses acquiring these qualities through daily training, akin to building muscles over time. With a mantra of 'consistency over intensity,' he exemplifies the importance of unwavering dedication and perseverance in attaining long-term success.
The Struggle Between Burnout and Renewed Passion
Mistakenly pushing himself to the limit in an ultramarathon, Murakami experiences a period of 'Runners Blues' and a loss of enthusiasm for running. This burnout leads to introspection and a reevaluation of his commitment, emphasizing the thin line between excellence and excessive strain. After facing this struggle, he renews his dedication, reinforcing the essence of making informed, sustainable decisions in pursuing one's passions.
Embracing Commitment and Cutting Away Other Options
Murakami's narrative delves into the essence of commitment, elucidating the Latin root of 'decision' as 'to cut away from.' His unwavering dedication to writing novels and running stems from a personal, intrinsic desire, defying external pressures. Through seasonal challenges and completion of tasks, he embodies the spirit of endurance, emphasizing the importance of maintaining focus while embracing long-term visions.
Final Reflections on Running, Writing, and Lifelong Dedication
With a profound connection between running and writing, Murakami encapsulates the ethos of a lifelong commitment to his dual obsessions. His narrative navigates the seasons of life, marked by marathons and novels, with a forward-looking perspective. The culmination of each stride symbolizes his identity as a runner, capturing the essence of persistence and unwavering dedication in the pursuit of personal passions.
What I learned from reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami.
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(3:01) No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act.
(4:00) Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
(4:00) The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.
(10:00) You can't fake passion — someone else, that really loves the job, will out run you. Somebody else sitting in some other MBA program has a deep passion for whatever career path you're going down, and they are going to smoke you if you don't have it yourself. — Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love
(12:00) What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away.
(14:00) Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you. — David Ogilvy
(16:00) If you absolutely can't tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting. — Jeff Bezos
(16:00) So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets.
(19:00) Failure was not an option. I had to give it everything I had.
(19:00) My only strength has always been the fact that I work hard and can take a lot physically. I’m more a workhorse than a racehorse.
(22:00) I was more interested in having finished it than in whether or not it would ever see the light of day.
(26:00) I’m the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do.
(29:00) The entrenched professional is always going to resist far longer than the private consumer. — James Dyson
(34:00) You really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing,
(37:00) You can’t please everybody. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and said he’d come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it the other way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten didn’t like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I learned through running a business.
(40:00) The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing. — How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)
(41:00) When you follow what you are intensely interested in this strange convergence happens where you're working all the time and it feels like you're never working. — How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)
(43:00) No matter how strong a will a person has, no matter how much he may hate to lose, if it’s an activity he doesn’t really care for, he won’t keep it up for long.
(44:00) Nobody ever recommended or even desired that I be a novelist—in fact, some tried to stop me. I had the idea to be one, and that’s what I did.
(45:00) I decided who I want to be, and that is who I am. — Coco Chanel
(46:00) Once, I interviewed an Olympic runner. I asked him, “Does a runner at your level ever feel like you’d rather not run today, like you don’t want to run and would rather just sleep in?” He stared at me and then, in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, “Of course. All the time!”
(47:00) I pity the poor fellow who is so soft and flabby that he must always have "an atmosphere of good feeling" around him before he can do his work. There are such men. And in the end, unless they obtain enough mental and moral hardiness to lift them out of their soft reliance on "feeling," they are failures. Not only are they business failures; they are character failures also; it is as if their bones never attained a sufficient degree of hardness to enable them to stand on their own feet. There is altogether too much reliance on good feeling in our business organizations. — Henry Ford’s Autobiography
(50:00) If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again.
(51:00) Focus and endurance can be acquired and sharpened through training.
(54:00) Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
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