@elonmusk Cursor is one of the greatest tools on earth. In 3 days I have created an estimating database for my company. I have cut estimating time for a project 3 hours. I am linking it to scheduling resources. In 30 hours of time I now have a manageable estimating system, resource allocation, and sales calendar. I can scale and teach new project mangers how to estimate. Next I will attempt to add a pdf drawing reader to scan for surface areas and read material lists. All in house with no coding skills and no added overhead. Game changer.
@russvought We need smaller ships. Ships that release unmanned drones, autonomous submarines, smaller, nimble, and more affordable. The world changed. Just like the battleship the carrierโs time has passed. Less is more.
I was a bricklayer.
It was how I paid the bills when I first moved to America. Even the biggest title in bodybuilding, Mr. Olympia, only paid a thousand dollars back then.ย
It makes me proud that in March, the winner of our Arnold Classic and our Arnold Classic UK took home more than a million dollars. He can focus on bodybuilding.
But in our day, that wasnโt an option. Some guys were teachers. Some sold insurance. Franco and I laid bricks.
We put an ad in the paper and sold ourselves as European craftsmen. We figured if people heard the accents, they would picture old-world masonry instead of two bodybuilders with a wheelbarrow.ย
It worked.ย
The phone rang. And then we had to go out and actually do the job, which was the part nobody could fake. Luckily, Franco knew what he was doing.
The work was simple. Mix the mortar. Set the brick. Tap it level. Scrape the edge. Then do it again. And again. Nobody claps for you. There is no crowd, no music, no trophy. There is just the next brick sitting there waiting for you.
You can still find some of the walls we built in Venice.
Thatโs where my lesson today comes from.
One brick doesnโt look like anything. Ten bricks donโt look like anything. A hundred bricks, youโre starting to see something, but it doesnโt impress anyone.
You just keep laying bricks until the job is done.
And you know what happens after four or five hours on a wall?
You are so damn tired, or you feel so great that you stop measuring.
You are not standing back every ten minutes asking how far from finished it is. You are covered in mortar, your hands are raw, youโre schvitzing, and you are happy. The work took the question away from you.
That is the part nobody tells you about hard work: It doesnโt just build the wall. It terminates the voice that keeps asking when the wall will be done.
I am the President of MileagePlus at United Airlines.
You read the confession of the man downstairs โ the one who unbundled the seat. He sells the airplane. I run the thing the airplane is for.
In 2020 we borrowed $6.8 billion against my program. The appraisers valued it at $22 billion. The entire airline โ every plane, every gate, every pilot โ was worth $13 billion. My division owns no aircraft and is worth nine billion dollars more than the company that contains it.
57% of all miles were never earned on an airplane. A bank prints them. I sell them to the bank for cash, then decide what they're worth on the day you try to spend them.
In 2019 I deleted the award chart. A currency with no published exchange rate. On April 2 I cut your earn rate from 5 to 3. The next day, my colleague announced his seat fees, and every reporter called him, and not one of them called me.
He charges you for this trip. I devalue every trip you were saving for.
The full confession.
https://t.co/YYgkLbuhiO