Wheeler Crowley

Advisor on many things, only formally qualified on some things.

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@Abude_al_asaad @Camp4 @LeylaKuni What’s underneath the hood? What does this private credit portfolio look like? How liquid is the investment?

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@DeadCaitBounce They’re making new stuff. Original or even just vaguely familiar stuff.

Drop. The Amateur. Mickey 17. Black Bag. Novocaine. Love Hurts.

People aren’t going. We’re our own worst enemies. If we want them to stop remaking old stuff, we have to reward them for something new.

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

World-class performers don’t have superpowers.

The rules they’ve crafted for themselves allow the bending of reality to such an extent that it may seem that way, but they’ve learned how to do this, and so can you.

These “rules” are often uncommon habits and bigger questions.

In a surprising number of cases, the power is in the absurd. The more absurd, the more “impossible” the question, the more profound the answers.

Take, for instance, a question that Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and others:

“If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”

For purposes of illustration here, I might reword that to:

“What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next 6 months, if you had a gun against your head?”

Now, let’s pause.

Do I expect you to take 10 seconds to ponder this and then magically accomplish 10 years’ worth of dreams in the next few months?

No, I don’t.

But I do expect that the question will productively break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities.

The “normal” systems you have in place, the social rules you’ve forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks—they don’t work when answering a question like this.

You are forced to shed artificial constraints, like shedding a skin, to realize that you had the ability to renegotiate your reality all along.

It just takes practice.

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@johnhfio Love Portland, Maine. My favorite city. But definitely doesn’t qualify as Small Town America.

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

Hey @eightsleep just yesterday I was considering buying a mattress for a family member. This morning I woke up with a leaky pod and a soaked mattress. Out of warranty, and out another $1,400 if I want to replace it. Second leak in three years. Pretty bad customer experience

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

fantastic evening with ⁦@steadycraig⁩ at ⁦@vinhillmusic⁩, as unique and cool a venue as I’ve ever been to. Craig’s music - either solo or with ⁦⁦@theholdsteady⁩ - has been a steadfast ballast in our lives for the last two decades. Thanks again for everything

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@Jason @DonaldJTrumpJr This is a joke, yeah?

[Kevin Dahlstrom @Camp4]

The Long Game
(a post everyone needs to read)

My friend @p_millerd (author of The Pathless Path) said something at lunch the other day that I keep thinking about:

“I love long games.”

Same here, Paul. Here’s a secret known by only a select few:

👉The highest level of success—in all its forms—is reserved for those who endure and outlast.

It applies everything:

Work
Hobbies
Marriage
Parenting
Health & fitness

People who approach these things as lifetime projects enjoy a special form of satisfaction—one that transcends money and status.

Unfortunately most people never taste it because they give up too soon. They spend their life looking for shortcuts and quick fixes. Even if they find one it doesn’t satisfy.

🐢People who play The Long Game operate on a different timescale.

They measure progress in years and decades, not weeks and months. Like the tortoise from Aesop’s fable, they may appear slow… but in the long run they end up way ahead of the pack—because deliberate effort over a prolonged time period compounds exponentially.

The key to success in The Long Game is patience, a virtue that’s in short supply these days. For those who are patient, near-term ups & downs and individual W’s & L’s, are irrelevant—if you zoom out far enough you can’t even see them.

Why does this matter?

👉Because zooming out and playing The Long Game changes your behavior TODAY.

Since Paul inspired this post let’s use him as an example:

His first book (a must read!) has sold 50,000 copies—a great start for any new author, especially one who is self-published. He’s about to release his second book and there’s a temptation to set a loftier sales goal.

That would mean putting a lot of effort into marketing and promotion over the next year rather than writing.

But Paul is playing The Long Game. He’s in it for life—the writing itself, not book sales, is the primary reward. The release of his second book isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning—he has at least 20 books in him over the next 30+ years.

When you zoom out like that, you’re less motivated by near-term goals and more motivated by perfecting the craft.

It’s liberating.

Paul can simply focus on his true passion—writing great books—and let the rest take care of itself.

And ironically, playing The Long Game tends to result in MORE commercial success over the long run. But you have to be patient and let compounding work its magic.

(It’s worth noting that Paul has also designed a life that doesn’t require high income and he’s built other income streams—this gives him the freedom to play The Long Game.)

Here’s my point:

👉Playing The Long Game is the most satisfying way to live—all of the best things in life take years and decades to build.

When you zoom out, your behavior changes. You level up.

Are there areas of your life where you need to zoom out? Have you given up to soon?

Don’t miss out on the highest level of success…

Play The Long Game.

P.S. The X algorithm HATES this type of content so if you enjoyed this post would you please like and REPOST it?

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@OriginalRoddick

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@awealthofcs BK crowns still alive and kicking.

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

Because not all hardships are financial, Nick. But frequently the unnecessary ones are.

And not for nothing, teaching our kids how to use these tools might be more useful than withholding the tools from them.

[Nick Maggiulli @dollarsanddata]

For those of you that are trying to build "generational wealth", why?

If you became successful by overcoming hardship, what's the point of putting your children's lives on easy mode?

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

Convenient time period

[Brian Feroldi @BrianFeroldi]

Glassdoor's "best places to work" list is a great hunting ground for investing ideas:

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@danielcrosby Love Hard is one of our new go to holiday movies

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@johnhfio Well naturally

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@michaelbatnick @awealthofcs it’s like a video making fun of Blackstone, except it’s made BY Blackstone. Discuss amongst yourselves…

[Overheard on Wall Street @OHWallStreet]

Blackstone’s 2023 Holiday Video

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@allstarcharts $5

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

Truth. Watched this for the first time this week, also the day I found out my uncle died. Hit hard.

Also hit the favorites list.

[Caitlin Cook @DeadCaitBounce]

If you’re ever feeling lost or lacking in motivation and purpose, watch Season 2 Episode 7 of The Bear

Without question one of the best episodes of a show ever made

Every Second Counts

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

The most powerful thing I am aware of is to spend your time doing what you want to do.

I've been on a multi-year mission to make as much of my calendar filled with things I actually want to do as possible. This has been SHOCKINGLY hard.

I've learned there's actually only one thing that I really love, that I'll do until I die: spending long periods of time with extraordinarily talented people (usually founders, investors, and teachers--people with really high leverage).

I like to learn from them (nothing energizes me like someone doing what they are supposed to be doing with their life), and I like to try and help them by unlocking something productive: a podcast that exposes them to the world's best audience, an introduction or two that accelerates some part of what they are doing, a distillation of their narrative or core message, maybe even an idea they hadn't considered before.

There are many days now where I have 2-3 long conversations and that's it. Those are the best days. "conversationalist" isn't a job you imagine as a kid, and its not one that'd "make your parents proud."

The bizarre part is that if you just do what you love, incredible but unpredictable things will happen. I run a private equity/venture capital business and a media company, and both were an unforeseen consequence of being a conversationalist. About every 100 or so conversations, an amazingly interesting investing opportunity spontaneously appears (I'm very rarely explicitly hunting for some specific investment, and I've found the best ones come from some strange source).

Kevin Kelly has this great idea that you need your own distinct definition of success. For me, success would be cultivating a very specific reputation. I'd like my reputation to be "talk to that guy and you'll leave energized, thinking about something new. Good things will happen, and it'll generally cost you nothing."

I sometimes feel guilty that my "work" doesn't feel like a grind. People think great accomplishment requires "grit" and "grinding," and I have nothing against those things, and surely tons of the great outcomes were just made possible by extreme grinders...but, I never feel like I'm grinding when I do the thing I like doing.

Maybe I'd offer an alternative to "grit." Great long term outcomes require an unusual fuel source. Chips on shoulders is one, but I tried that and it almost killed me. The best long term fuel source is some repeated act that energizes you in a way that then lets you become a generative person, who uses the energy to make things for others. A great question is "what is your renewable fuel source?" While its not perfect, I think the best answer is "do what you want."

Joseph Campbell wrote "the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." Being who you are, or doing what you want, sounds selfish, but its the opposite. My experience with countless people doing what they want is that they do THE MOST for others.

What I've learned watching others try to do more of what they want is that the transition from a life of "I should" to "I want" requires extreme conviction, courage, and a leap of faith. It should be telling that while you sometimes see people make this transition, you never see someone transition back the other direction.

I sincerely hope more people take this leap.

"A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: 'as you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.'"

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@drgurner @AdamMGrant They also lead me to/introduced me to the places and people I needed to meet in order to have my career, and y experience positioned me to succeed.

That said, in each respective field, the honesty and guidance provided in terms of post-education career was severely lacking.

[Wheeler Crowley @WheelMC17]

@drgurner @AdamMGrant Aren’t both things true? On the face of it, both my major and my masters degree have nothing to do with what I do today. At the same time, they broadened my understanding of the world and the people in it, and I doubt I’d be of much use as an advisor without them.