Flawless Fundamentals.

Be flawless on the fundamentals.

It is this simple—and this difficult...

Whatever thing you’re working on: a strong body, calm mind, deep relationship, financial abundance, meaningful work, spiritual discipline, dazzling smile, healthy hair.

Big or small, tangible or immaterial, it boils down to being flawless on the fundamentals.

Exercise 3 times a week. Meditate for 10 minutes every morning. Call your friend. Save more than you spend. Give 20 minutes daily to your passion project. Floss. 

The fundamentals are more basic than you imagine:

• It's not 'pick a hardcore training challenge and do it every day'—it's 'move your body vigorously, regulary'.
• It's not 'try the new narrative structuring novel format'—it's 'sit down and write 500 words'.
• It's not 'jump into the ketogenic intermittent fasting protocols'—it's 'drink water and eat a healthy meal'.
• It's not 'take the coaches coaching coaches incubator'—it's 'create a thing people can buy and tell them about it'.

You distract yourself with trivialities, fads, hacks, and the latest flashy snakeoil salesman poking at your deep insecurities to flip a quick buck.

You can safely ignore nearly everything.

It’s all noise. Distraction. Vanity.

Do you really need the shiny software to write your book? Is that missing supplement the real obstacle in your health journey? Sometimes yes, you're at the deep optimization stage, and these minor tweaks become high-leverage unlocks.

But is that really where you're at right now with this thing you want to do?

Jack Dorsey was the CEO of Twitter and Square simultaneously, using only the Notes app on his iPhone.

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." — Bruce Lee

Return, over and over, to the fundamentals. 

Then, execute them flawlessly. Do the best you can until you know better. Once you know better, do better. 

You don't need authoritarian self-punishment for this. Life happens. You stray from the Way. Just breathe, pick yourself up, and return to the fundamentals.

Work out. Write. Meditate. Eat real food. Do them for 1000 days straight.

You want the answer to be flashy. You want it to sound cool when you share your story in the mythical autobiography someone is going to write about you in 20 years. You want ayahuasca to drop a mind-bending insight on you that it auto-magically sorts out every one of your problems.

Get over yourself. This is how you overcome yourself. This is how you get out of your own way. Your ego is the obstacle. 

Agency isn’t about fancy.

It’s about fundamentals.

It’s aiming at flawlessness.

Don’t break the streak. Do it with proper form. Don’t make excuses. Don’t quit.

Do. The. Thing.

Writing a 100,000-word book is just the ugly process of sitting down 100 times and banging out 1000 words. Followed by a dozen editing sessions. That’s it. 

The idea that you haven’t found the ‘perfect answer’ or the ‘right tool’ is simply resistance.

You can do it.

Just be flawless on the fundamentals,
EB.