GOAT quote to kick things off for Volume 23 of The Superset. I have been a Michael Jordan fan my entire life. It’s safe to say he shaped a lot of the way I approached my athletic career as a kid, and studying him as an adult has aided in business as well. (He is also probably why I have a sneaker addiction…but that’s beside the point).

Michael’s story is both relatable and unrelatable. He is the greatest basketball player of all time. He is a better athlete than 99% of the people that have walked this Earth. Things no one reading this will ever achieve.

Yet what’s relatable is the way he never stopped working on getting better. The way he controlled what he could control. The way he set the standard for himself and his teammates on when and how they practiced. The way he approached competition. The way he led by voice and example.

We can learn so much from the greats of what we do, and as I get older, I continue to gain more appreciation for the best of the best in their field.

Watching Wimbledon the last two weeks for example - an extremely fun sporting event to watch and appreciate just how good these guys and girls are, while also acknowledging it is extremely unrelatable to my skillset. Go to a musical on Broadway, even if you’re not a fan of music. Go to an art exhibit. Listen to a Fortune 500 CEO speak on a niche topic outside of your industry.

Greatness can look a million different ways. Lucky for us, we have millions of examples to look to, appreciate, and grow inspiration from.

Allison and I went to our wedding consult at an Indochino suit store on Friday. I walked out of there legitimately amazed - not because of the suits and the fabric, but the knowledge of the salesmen. He told stories about the origins of certain lapels, why the third pocket was there so the 18k gold pocket watches didn’t get scratched in the 30s - how this type of suit was what Harvey wore in “Suits”, and Leo wore in “Great Gatsby.” It was a great reminder of what being an expert in our niche can do for the power of our career.

What’s something you’ve gained respect for of late? If you don’t know, go looking for it this week.

Brain - Through A Child’s Lens: Understanding The Science of Motivation

Understanding motivation for both personal and educational reasons will probably be a lifelong endeavor of mine. As science and content have become more readily available on the subject, it is becoming easier to understand how our motivation is sourced, developed, and strategically tapped into.

In re-listening to an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast on the subject of dopamine / motivation, I took to the internet to find some additional sources and ran across this great piece from Harvard titled “InBrief: Understanding the Science of Motivation.”

The content of the article is nothing revolutionary - we tend to have a general understanding of where and why motivation comes and goes, but the angle they approached it from - how motivation is developed and influenced as children age - stood out as an interesting one, and one worth a read / share.

The article lays out an outline with supporting ideas for the 5 basis points below:

1. A healthy motivation system is best built through the combination of internal (intrinsic) drivers supported by positive feedback.

2. The desire to have a rewarding experience can be more powerful than the pleasure of the reward that is actually experienced.

3. Experiences at different stages of childhood may have different kinds of impacts on the developing motivation systems.

4. The brain’s motivation systems can be disrupted by a lack of responsive relationships, feelings of helplessness, and addictive behaviors and drugs.

5. Implications for Policy

As a parent, it’s great to have an idea of what influences the current and future motivation of your child, but it can also be helpful for personal reasons to understand why certain events from your past have maybe influenced where you are today, and provide context to help you overcome some unperceived obstacles.

A good short read to kick off your week. I found the idea of the two types of motivation an interesting topic:

• “There are two main types of motivation: approach motivation, which involves the release of a neurochemical that tells us something is about to happen that we should enjoy; and avoidance motivation, which directs us away from a threatening or unpleasant response by releasing hormones that trigger a “fight or flight” response. Both approach and avoidance motivation develop in childhood and are influenced by intrinsic (internal) drivers and extrinsic (external) feedback.”

Body - Take The Progress Photos

There is nothing more uncomfortable than Day 0 or 1 of a weight-loss block, standing there in front of the mirror with your camera out, minimally clothed, having to mentally come to grips with what the reflection is showing back at you. I’ve been there, and I get it.

Much like tracking calories, I have been through periods where I have and have not taken progress pictures throughout either a cut or a bulking phase. As I look back, all of the times I was the most successful non-coincidentally were the ones when I was taking weekly progress pictures.

The scale can be your best friend and your biggest enemy during a weight loss phase. Weight is a fickle, day-to-day measurement that can fluctuate for several reasons - muscle gained, fat lost, time of day, water consumed, bowel movements, and more. I’ll often have weeks where I will be ecstatic to get on the scale Friday because of how I feel and look, only to be disappointed when the scale has only gone down by .3 pounds.

The progress photos are your second source of information - the scale is just one piece of the pie. If you don’t have pictures from each week, not only do you not have a starting point to compare to, but you also don’t have a photo to match the scale. If you are lifting weights seriously for the first time in a while, your body is going to put on lean muscle mass, which will counteractively throw off the scale, but improve your look.

These are all fairly emotional reasons to justify taking the pictures, but the data and science paint a similar picture.

• Progress photos force you to be objective about the work you’re doing. We tend to be our own worst critics and it’s all too easy for us to glance in the mirror, and think we haven’t made any progress. Progress photos eliminate this subjectivity.

• In a weight loss research study conducted by Ray Wu, the cofounder of Weilos, a social media platform for people to talk about their weight loss and fitness goals and share selfies of their progress, showed people who posted progress photos documenting their weight loss lost 1.2 lbs. per week, compared to 0.27 lbs. lost when they didn’t use the sharing platform.

• Targeted Fat Loss - It doesn’t exist. All of our bodies burn and hold fat in different places. For me, I burn my fat first in my face and my legs, and frustratingly last in my lower abs. Taking the pictures spot-checks you to get a complete picture of change where your eyes tend to gravitate to your problem areas.

Pick a day of the week, set a reminder in your phone, and take a front and back picture of yourself. Send them to yourself by email if you need accountability or a friend who you can trust to not post them on Instagram. Some of my proudest reflections of my fitness journey are being able to look back at where I started. Don’t sell yourself short of that opportunity.

Book - Right Thing, Right Now by Ryan Holiday (July Book Club)

Before I share a few great sections from our July Book Club read, I have to put in a short word for my fun read that I have had going alongside it. This week I finished Golden Son, the second book of the Red Rising series (Sci-Fi). I am rolling right into book 3, but already have this series easily in my top 5 favorite fiction reads of all time. Pierce Brown is a genius writer. If you like science fiction, you have to pick these books up. Period.

Now onto the important stuff. This section will be brief this week, as I know a couple of you are reading this book with me, so I don’t want to ruin your experience. I can already tell it is going to be another great addition into the Ryan Holiday line though, and hope these sections encourage you to join us in reading:

• “The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts but by his everyday behavior”

• “The phrase ‘I am not responsible’ has become a standard response in our society to complaints of a job poorly done. This response is a semantic error. Generally, what a person means is ‘I cannot be held legally liable.’ Yet, from a moral or ethical point of view the person who declaims responsibility is correct: by taking the way out he is truly not responsible, he is irresponsible.”

• “Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being. Remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation.”

• “How we treat people in ordinary circumstances is one thing. How we treat them when we’re tired, when we’re stressed, when the weight of the world is on our shoulders…when someone has just screwed up, just cost us something serious. This says so much.”