🇺🇸 Veteran | Creator: Formidable Function Notebooks & Journals | Writer: LP/OP Newsletter • Decoding Society, Status & Sport • Posts do not represent the DoW
🇺🇸
Joined February 2024
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- Followers2.3K
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Ryan Joseph retweeted
I’m joining the team at @X to lead Product.
I am a huge believer in @SpaceX's mission to extend human consciousness to the stars, so it’s time to make shitposting multiplanetary.
X is the best way to find out what’s happening in the world right now and talk about it. The team has been working tirelessly to make X a better place and product for the people who love it, and many have noticed the recent momentum. My goal is to help accelerate that momentum for our community, new users, and businesses globally by continuing to make this product beautiful and useful.
We are twenty years in, but it truly feels like X’s next chapter will be our greatest. I look forward to your ideas and feedback; I’m sure the replies will be measured and magnanimous.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Follow @RyanJoseph for more.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
It's a good book. Get your copy here: simonandschuster.com/books/T…
Finally read this book.
Verdict: Tremendous/powerful read.
I’ll admit, the reason I held off so long is because I’d heard Rob Henderson speak about his past and path a lot on podcasts so I felt I kind of got where he was coming from. That was a dim assumption on my part.
His story resonates with me a lot of ways, but I admittedly have zero understanding of what it was like to grow up in foster care.
However, I am from Northern California originally. Grew up poor in early childhood. Was exposed to “unsavory” and criminal elements more than most. Was no stranger to a fight. Completely understood the Air Force anecdotes Henderson shares being an AF vet myself.
While Henderson has gone on to be so much more than an AF Veteran, he is and can be an inspiration to many more AF vets specifically. I’ve met many good troops that come from difficult upbringings that are also good troops deep down. They just need a chance, guidance, leadership, the will to confront and overcome their past like Henderson — and most importantly, love.
The book reads fluidly because of his honesty and writing skill.
Highly recommend.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
"Play is the work of the child."
-Maria Montessori
If you have small children... they happily "play" along with rehearsals of any nature.
The ONLY difference between John Wick and you... is practice.
Practice produces skill.
You’re not John Wick.
Neither am I.
But I have taught weapons and tactics for over 20+ years.
Most think about home defense and security backwards.
They obsess over the moment of final denial.
The moment of contact.
Instead of stacking layers that buy time and options long before that moment arrives.
I’m talking about Defense-in-depth.
Shaping avenues of approach.
Rehearsing response.
Until it’s automatic.
These three fundamentals work the same when hardening any position.
> A home
> A business
> A hilltop
Adding depth and layers to your strategy and defense beforehand can make one failure a problem that can be overcome instead of an irreversible catastrophe.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
🇺🇸 MEMORIAL DAY
Today in the United States we pay respect to our armed forces veterans who fought bravely and lost their lives in service to our country.
Over 400,000 Veterans are laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
It is sacred ground to visit.
A thread on honor:
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Taking an intentional look at how something helped you grow and develop can bring out more growth in you.
You may know sports (or fill in the blank) helped you, but can you articulate how? Here are some excellent examples.
xitter.gq/RyanDeQuiroz/status/20…
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Flanking: The Strategy of Indirect Approach
*You’re either flanking or being flanked.
Direct competition produces predictable outcomes. The stronger party wins. Resources, positioning, and accumulated advantage determine results before the contest begins. This is why frontal engagement is a waste of time when you’re not the dominant player. You expend maximum effort for minimum gain. You face the opponent's strength with your relative weakness. The contest drains resources that could be deployed where they produce asymmetric returns.
Flanking is the strategic alternative. Instead of attacking where the opponent is strong, you position yourself where they are weak or absent. Instead of competing on established terms, you change the terms of competition. Instead of matching their resources, you make their resources irrelevant to the outcome. This is not deception or trickery. It is strategic positioning that makes force unnecessary.
The concept derives from military strategy but applies universally. In warfare, flanking means attacking the enemy's sides or rear rather than their fortified front. The front is where they concentrate strength. The flanks are where they are exposed. A smaller force positioned on the flank can defeat a larger force positioned frontally because positioning determines leverage more than raw numbers.
In competitive domains outside warfare, flanking means identifying dimensions of competition where incumbents are structurally disadvantaged. This might be a customer segment they ignore, a distribution channel they cannot access, a value proposition they cannot match without cannibalizing existing revenue, a timeframe where their decision-making is too slow. The flank is wherever their advantages become disadvantages.
Colonel David Hackworth put the principle with characteristic bluntness:
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"If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly."
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Hackworth spent a career in combat and concluded that the frontal assault — the default approach of conventional military doctrine — was the strategy most likely to get your people killed. Every engagement he planned was designed to be unfair. He wanted advantages in position, timing, information, and surprise that made the outcome as close to predetermined as combat allows.
This was not cowardice. It was intelligence. Hackworth watched American units in Vietnam walk into ambushes, advance up fortified hills, and engage in firefights where the enemy held every advantage — because doctrine said to advance, and officers feared that anything other than a direct approach looked like weakness. The casualties were staggering and unnecessary. Hackworth's alternative was simple: never fight the enemy where he is strongest. Find where he is weakest. Attack there. If you cannot find weakness, create it through positioning, timing, and maneuver. If you cannot create it, do not engage.
*Fight fairly but fight obliquely.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Happiness Was Never the Point! | Rebecca Goldstein on Mattering youtu.be/TjgO_BE3JZ4?si=Bq10… via @YouTube
Ryan Joseph retweeted
A great read, especially if you’re frustrated in the middle part of something (like your life).
Winning requires constantly assessing what’s worked and what hasn’t.
Then choosing something right now that inches you even closer to being in a class all your own.
Winning is work.
*Only read if you’re into winning.
Losers go ahead and carry on losing.
If you’re still here, let’s get personal.
The reason you aren’t winning is because you are operating on the incorrect side of Price’s Law.
Denial is detrimental beyond belief.
Start with an honest assessment. In your field, your organization, your domain of creative or professional work — are you in the productive square root? The answer has nothing to do with self-esteem. I’m talking about observable evidence. Proof.
Are you legitimately producing output others in your field recognize as disproportionately valuable?
Are opportunities flowing toward you or are you chasing them? Or even worse, maybe you’re avoiding them and still hoping to be part of the top core. Everyone thinks, “this isn’t me”.
Winners constantly think, “maybe I am slipping and are constantly looking for ways to stay on the leading edge.
Are you being sought out for the hardest and most consequential problems, or are you just handling the routine work that anyone could do?
If the honest answer is that you aren’t one of the power hitters in the lineup, your urgent question must be why?
There are only three possible explanations:
> First, you may lack capability. This is addressable through focused development, but only if you have natural aptitude and genuine interest in the domain. Grinding toward competence in a domain that doesn’t fit you is the worst possible application of Price's Law. *Caveat being if you are the rare human that is simply obsessed with winning no matter what you’re doing. But most are fighting the mathematics rather than leveraging them.
> Second, you may have capability but lack positioning. You’re doing excellent work that no one sees, in a context that does not reward your type of contribution, for an audience that cannot distinguish your output from the average. This is a positioning problem, not a capability problem, and it requires repositioning — changing where you work, who you work for, or how your work becomes visible. You have to get creative to maneuver without being manipulative.
>Third, you may be in the wrong domain entirely. Your capabilities, interests, and aptitudes may align with a domain you have not yet entered or discovered. The square root of contributors in that domain might include you naturally, if you were positioned there. Many people spend careers in domains where they are structurally average because they never considered that a different domain might make them structurally exceptional.
The most dangerous position is being good enough to stay but not good enough to be in the square root. You perform adequately. You receive average compensation. You experience average recognition. Nothing is obviously wrong, but nothing is compounding either. You are in the comfortable middle of the distribution, producing work that does not differentiate you and does not compound. This position is stable and can persist for an entire career. It is also the position from which the most potential is wasted. The biggest danger in this zone is you’ll also be the first to go when the organization swings the axe.
Nobody is looking for average, and it shouldn’t be what you’re looking for in yourself.
*Never forget to apply excellence in all you do. Things tend to work out when excellence in effort is present.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Next week;
I got together with @ModernDad to discuss how to operate in a high performance environment while still building a strong family life.
Comments to learn when it's released:
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Becoming a mom is the most biologically normal aspect of the human existence.
There’s no perfect moment to have kids, just have them.
She never wanted kids. But at 39, she started to worry about regrets. Here's why this mom and hundreds of other women over 40 are having kids. usatoday.com/story/life/heal…
Ryan Joseph retweeted
This is a wonderful read. Don't miss it!
And if you like it, give @RyanDeQuiroz a follow.
Some people go through life blindly believing and following a script.
> School
> Career
> Chasing promotions
> Retirement
Others got hit hard enough the script stopped working.
Deployment(s). Divorce. Loss of a friend or loved one. A battle with substance abuse. A diagnosed (or undiagnosed) disorder or illness. Some failure or loss that didn’t fit the plan. Maybe it was a book or idea that split your life into “before” and “after.”
Once you’ve crossed a certain threshold or crucible, showing up and playing along feels different. You still do the job. You still carry your share. But something died in you that just left you different.
I’ve been taking a lot of time to think about who I’m writing for (besides myself). I’m invested in those who’ve been through it and somehow retained their resolve to stay “in the game” despite all they carry. I truly believe these people are the ones making a positive difference in the world. I invest in them - although they are rare.
I believe firmly in Jung’s aphorism:
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
I see a lot of this in the people I’ve connected with here.
It’s part of what makes 𝕏 worthwhile to me.
Suffering comes for all of us. I hope yours comes and goes swiftly and your deity grants you the strength to endure it and emerge from it stronger.
Ryan Joseph retweeted
i’m glad my posts aren’t shown to my followers and i don’t see posts of people i follow
it makes sense to have an app based on following accounts discard that signal and instead fill your timeline with rando accounts repeating stuff you’ve recently looked at really great job
Ryan Joseph retweeted
Heads up Texas and Oaklahoma friends and family 🙏🏻
Live updates on the fire danger in TX and OK. Currently a fire has started south east of Beaver, OK. To view check out my livestream: youtube.com/live/S0fymrVCC0g…
