Hey everyone,

Hope you've had a great week. It's hard not to feel a little lighter post-inauguration. I'm hoping this sense of optimism continues and that we can carry it into making some real progress on the pandemic. Anyway, on to this week's idea:

Is It Good to Be the Best? 💪

A few weeks ago, I came across a video from a tennis player named Eric Butorac. I'd be surprised if you'd ever heard of him--he was ranked a career-best #17 in doubles and never won a Grand Slam. That said, he made a living playing pro tennis, and is now the Director of Professional Tennis Operations at the USTA (the governing body of tennis in the US).

The video I saw of him detailed his decision to play Division III tennis after one season of Division I tennis. Essentially, he felt that his career would be better served by playing DIII than DI, because he'd be the best player on his DIII team. His thinking was that he'd have to put more effort into practice to get anything out of it, and that in matches he'd get to play against the best players from other teams. Take a look:

While watching the video, I was really struck by this quote about his time in DI because it's extremely countercultural:

This thought process goes against the grain because in tennis, it's taken for granted that the way you get better is by hitting with better players. But Butorac was distracted by the status game of the weekly lineup and felt it was hurting his progress.

What's more, Butorac makes the point that for the best players in the world, every practice is with someone that's not as good as they are. He says he'd tell parents that their children don't need to be surrounded by better players.

Butorac's decision (and subsequent success) is virtually unheard-of. But I wonder if there's something to it:

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of "Caroline Sacks," an aspiring scientist who chooses to attend Brown over the University of Maryland. Caroline ends up dropping her chemistry major after a couple of semesters, feeling that everyone else is having an easier time with the material and that she just isn't cut out for it. The principle Gladwell draws from the story (and through citing studies done on the subject) is that we're better off being a big fish in a small pond.

It seems Eric Butorac would agree. If we accept that we tend to compare ourselves to others, perhaps we should seek situations in which our status isn't in question.

Pete's Picks ✅

1. What I'm Reading: I've heard a lot about Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and just started reading it this week. Taleb's work focuses on randomness and probability, and Antifragile focuses on the the idea of benefitting from exposure to volatility (hence, being anti-fragile). I'm not doing it justice, but it's worth a read.
2. What I'm Watching: I binged Night Stalker on Netflix this weekend - it was solid but not the best ever as far as streaming true crime is concerned. About a serial killer in late 80s L.A., this may be the most disturbing case I've heard of yet.
3. What I'm Listening To: I heard this episode of The Colin and Samir Podcast about creator sponsorship deals this week and thought it was super interesting. Lots of funny stories about how tactless the people who hit up creators for deals can be.

Video of the Week 📹

Tweet of the Week 🐦

Cheers,

Peter