This Week's Quote
"He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking."
— Michel de Montaigne (Essays, 1:42)
What I'm Thinking About
Michel de Montaigne is my current go-to philosopher for looking at the world through the lens of the right balance of optimism and stoicism.
As of late, I had drifted too far into stoic attitudes and became somewhat apathetic and cynical—a little too ‘detached from outcomes’.
This quote has brought my ambitions back into line again: that whilst it is wise to have a sense of detachment from outcomes in one's business affairs—particularly in relation to deals closing or funding landing—do not slide so far down the detachment scale that you lose ambitiousness.
What I'm Experimenting With
Mostly: what can I build for free, or near enough to free, with AI?
In August, I was spending 100 EUR on Claude.
September: 18 EUR.
October has been 5 EUR for Gemini, which also comes with additional cloud storage and YouTube Premium.
Likely I will scale back up again to larger credit/monthly expenditures on AI, but this month, for the glorious price of 5 euros:
I have created two games with my daughter, in an attempt to awaken an interest in coding and AI, but also to show her that she can create and not just consume.
We created a Pac-Man clone where the ghosts are replaced by me and her mother chasing her around the house to get ready for school. Immediately funny and addictive.
Secondly, a house-decorating game (her request). You choose items to decorate your home. Here is where we added a learning element, gamifying mathematics homework. In order to release an item for your interior design jaunt, you need to solve an equation.
(Side note: my daughter is saying at the school gates, “I hope I do not have maths today,” so I have a battle on my hands to make maths fun and engaging)
What I'm Watching
Better stated as 'how I am watching' this week.
Because if you are over-eager to be productive, you will forget the importance of creativity in your work, even if you don’t consider yourself or the field you work in to be a creative one.
I'm sure more and more of us are suffering from productivity guilt, driven by constant comparisons with others and the pressure we put on ourselves.
I have been alleviating this productivity pressure by watching a film every day for a week, once my daughter is in bed. It’s been an exercise in taking the pressure off and allowing myself to enjoy the creativity of others, in a bid to encourage my own.
Not everything is supposed to be hustle, or as the kids these days call it, "locking in".
Thoroughly enjoyed this film if you haven’t seen it already!
What I'm Reading
Loosely related to the productivity thread above. With books, just reading something > reading what you are told you should read or is good.
Other People's Money — Neil Forsyth & Elliot Castro
"Very much a 'reading for entertainment's sake' read. The Scottish Catch Me If You Can story."
Status Anxiety — Alain de Botton
Extremely pertinent for those of us unfortunate enough to spend too much time on LinkedIn. Status is an illusion, and what is considered high or low status has changed over the course of time.
This book, with its well-curated writings from philosophy, literature, and art, as well as its central thesis, feels like a cure for your ego and calms the desire for status, showing us how ridiculous the whole thing really is.
That's everything for this week.
Matt
Work with me on
Closing bigger deals. Founders who need to sell. The mental game of revenue generation, or even getting into the industry in the first place.
Hit reply if any of that relates to you. Always happy to talk.
www.mbarton.co.uk · Long-form, monthly, on Medium