Acceptance, Self-Efficacy, and Work as Play

Naval Ravikant, Codie Sanchez, and Michael Jordan

Choosing change or acceptance

Around 33 minutes into this episode, Naval describes how you have three options in any situation:

In any situation in life, you only have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What isn't a good option is to sit around wishing you'd change it but not changing it, wishing you'd leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it. That struggle, that aversion, is responsible for most of our misery. The phrase I use most often to myself is "accept." Anytime I'm judging something about myself, I just say "accept."

I like this simple philosophy as it blends elements of Stocisim, Buddhism, and Existenialism. We are responsible for our lives and deciding whether or not we want to make changes. And if we choose not to make a change, then we should accept our situation without condemning or resisting it.

The importance of self-efficacy

Around 24 minutes in, Mark comments on the importance of self-efficacy:

In psychology, they call it self-efficacy…it's basically just like people who feel like they're capable of something. Like you are doing something, you are able to change your environment in a way that is creating value in some way. And it's such a key component of our happiness and well-being. It can be as simple as, I don't know, being a garbage man or whatever. But it makes sense to me that employment is so tied to it."

I think this insight is extremely important, especially at at time when so many people feel disempowered and depressed. Accomplishing any task can help contribute to self-efficacy and our overall self-esteem.

Framing work as play

In Michael Jordan’s book Driven From Within, he shared his perspective on work:

To this day, I don't enjoy working. I enjoy playing, and figuring out how to connect playing with business. To me, that's my niche. People talk about my work ethic as a player, but they don't understand. What appeared to be hard work to others was simply playing for me.

As an incredibly competitive person, putting things in terms of a playing a game helped Jordan accomplish incredible things.