No. 640 – August 3, 2025
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Tiny Thoughts
Progress only comes from changing how you see the world.
The walls you put up to protect yourself work to imprison you.
The longer you delay that thing you know you should do, the more difficult it gets. The easier thing in the short run is often the harder thing in the long run. Pain today, gain tomorrow.
Insights
Napoleon on details being the key to succcess:
“The pursuit of detail is the religion of success.”
Jack Dorsey on identifying the right details:
“Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.”
Estée Lauder on how details matter:
“I have an uncompromising sense of detail which permeates everything I do. The meals I serve, the parties I have, the business I created, the places I go, my friends, my family, my business associates everything must be treated with infinite respect and care.”
The Knowledge Project [Outliers]
When Katharine (Kay) Graham took over the Washington Post in 1963, she was a shy socialite who’d never run anything. By retirement, she’d taken down a president, ended the most violent strike in a generation, and built one of the best-performing companies in American history.
Graham had no training, no experience. Just a newspaper bleeding money and a government that expected her to fall in line.
When her editors brought her classified documents, her lawyers begged her not to publish. She published anyway. Nixon came after her with everything he had. Then Watergate. She was ridiculed and isolated while pursuing the story that would bring down the president.
Graham proved you can grow into a job that seems impossible and that no amount of training can substitute for having the right values and the courage to act on them.
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Thanks for reading,
— Shane Parrish