Contemplations
Sport is filled with stories of underdogs who briefly challenge the status quo and revolutionise the game.
In the 90s, the Oakland A’s baseball team was struggling. They couldn’t compete financially against the top teams. These financial constraints forced them to get creative. They used data analysis to identify undervalued, talented players that other teams overlooked.
In the 60s, Dick Fosbury, an American high jumper, realised that he had no chance against his competitors using the conventional ‘straddle’ technique, so he invented an entirely new approach.
Constraints act as powerful incubators for creative thinking. They compel you to think beyond the obvious and push the boundaries. When faced with limitations, you have a choice: accept the status quo or find a way to change it.
The Oakland A’s and Fosbury both recognised that prevailing mental models in their sport were outdated and ripe for disruption. They spotted inefficiencies and opportunities hidden in plain sight and seized them.
The other baseball teams and Fosbury’s competitors initially dismissed and ridiculed their innovative approaches as too unconventional. They predicted failure and waited eagerly for it. However, the Oakland A’s started winning games and making playoff appearances, while Fosbury won Olympic gold and set a high jump record at the 1968 games using his new technique.
Once these two innovators achieved remarkable success, every competitor who had mocked them started copying their methods. Within a few short years, the Oakland A’s marginal gains were eroded because the wealthiest teams adopted data-based recruitment strategies. Fosbury never returned to another Olympic Games after 1968, but his technique became the default high jump method worldwide. Ultimately, both innovators’ temporary advantages were neutralised as competitors caught up by copying their groundbreaking ideas.
This illustrates an important lesson: even innovations with a brief edge can transform entire systems and inspire others to follow.
So, what about you? Where do you see outdated methods or inefficiencies in your life or work? Rather than seeing constraints as barriers, try viewing them as opportunities to challenge conventions and find a better way forward. Remember, even if success is fleeting, the impact of innovation often outlasts the innovator.
Consumptions
The Violet Hour is a meditation on dying. This book by Kate Roiphe examines the final days of five creative individuals—Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas, and Maurice Sendak. Roiphe explores how they faced death: their resistance, struggle, acceptance, and creative output.
Death is not just a burden for the dying; their loved ones are drawn into its orbit. The countdown to the last breath weighs heavily on everyone involved. Roiphe’s concise writing and the focused structure of her case studies make this exploration of mortality compelling and approachable.
📺 (TV Show)
Secret Level is an animated anthology series available on Amazon Prime. It consists of 15 episodes, each lasting 8 to 19 minutes. Tim Miller, who created the popular Netflix animated series Love, Death, and Robots, brings a similar concept to Amazon. Each episode is inspired by a specific video game woven into the storytelling and visuals.
I enjoyed most of the episodes, particularly compared to Love, Death & Robots, which can be more of a mixed bag.
Some of my favourite episodes include:
- It Takes a Life (Episode 2)
- The Once and Future King (Episode 3)
- Xan (Episode 4)
- And They Shall Know No Fear (Episode 5)
- Odyssey (Episode 11)
- The Way of All Things (Episode 14)
