🌱 The “significance” test

Learn: Significance Test, Content Benefits, Obituary

Read: 3 min

Hola from Buenos Aires, 

Here are 3 goodies to make your week more impactful. 

🤔 Significance vs Success

Success adds value to our own lives. 

Significance adds value to others.

Here’s the kicker, successful people are not always significant. But significant people are almost always successful. 

I love hearing coach Tony Dungy talk about this. He says winning a Superbowl is success. But off the field, in the locker room, or in the community, is where you build significance. (Video here: caution it might give you goosebumps and inspire significance)

Here's a quick test to examine for yourself.

Imagine getting a handwritten note from someone whose life you touched deeply. It reads, “hey thanks for doing ___ for me. It allowed me to ___.” 

Consider what pops into your mind here. What tiny clues have you received already?

One clue for me has been through writing. I get a teeny-tiny dose of this when people reply to emails or reach out after reading the blog. Such as this DM:

Note: I only share real examples here because it's the feedback you amazing readers have requested. It's not about me, it's about whatever is helpful for you! 

✍️ Why Content? 

I reader replied last week, telling me he’s read the newsletter for a year (yay!) and appreciates the weekly nuggets. But had one question. Why do I write this newsletter? (great Q Sam!)

After replying back to him, I thought about it further. 

Here are the top 5 benefits of writing and sharing content.

• Curiosity → Writing is like a mental gym for curiosity
• Clarity → I often don't know what I think about something until I write it out
• Consistency → Weekly publishing is the perfect cadence for consistent learning
• Connecting → With dope people from all around the world is one of my FAVORITE things
• Compounding → Content (and knowledge/relationships listed above) gets more valuable with time

I think about the long game with this chart too. 

(Image from MarketingExamples). 

🖤 Obits

Counterintuitively, obituaries have nothing to do with death, and everything to do with life. 

Author Austin Kleon says obits are like near-death experiences for cowards. 

He explains, “reading about people who are dead now and did things with their lives makes me want to get up and do something decent with mine.”

It’s a little spooky when you think about it your own obit. Like logistically think about it. 

Here’s what we know for certain: 

• You will have one 
• It will have a photo of you. Have you taken this photo yet? 
• It will describe your story. Will it be epic? (dare I say significant?) 

But the end comes no matter what. So rather than be spooked, we can choose to instead be sparked. In the words of Neil Young, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

Happy livin' friends, 

Mitchell 

Ps. Interest rates