#53 - Lead Bullets
A Welshman, barbaric, and clarifying
I’m a silver bullet kind of guy. If there’s an easier route, I’ll take it.
Sometimes there is no silver bullet. You need good old lead bullets.
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A Welshman
I first learnt hard work aged 22. Unfortunately that was post university. I sidled through my first 22 years, barely lifting a finger. Until, that is, I spent a summer working at Silverstone Race Track. For a chap name Lee.
Lee is an extremely energetic Welshman. A force of nature. When I, a bone idle english boy, pitched up I could see the disappointment in his eyes. Lee ran the operations for all the concessions at Silverstone: The food trucks and bars. It transpired I did not have a glamorous role at the British Grand Prix. No, Lee needed bodies to lay out hundreds of picnic tables, flags, and other objects. I was, laughably, the muscle.
Barbaric
The team was myself and Jack, another feeble specimen. We were put to work immediately. Laying out picnic tables. Easy right? Not so. Picnic tables are deceptively heavy and the wood rubs your hands raw. Jack and I spent hours limply dragging them around the sites.
By the end of the day Jack was in tears. His hands cut and blistered. This is barbaric. I thought, not in much better shape myself. Lee was beside himself. What the fuck is the matter?? He led the tearful boy away. I never saw poor Jack again.
On Day 2 it was just me. Me, and hundreds of picnic tables. I couldn’t believe it. Do they don’t seriously expected me to lay out all of these? It’ll take weeks…
I turned the situation over in my mind, looking for a silver bullet. But none came. It soon dawned on me that lead bullets were the only option. After 22 years of idleness, I dug deep and got to work.
Clarifying
Ben Horowitz mentioned lead bullets in his startup bible The Hard Thing About Hard Things. He quotes one of his colleagues addressing the threat of Microsoft:
“Ben, those silver bullets that you and Mike are looking for are fine and good, but our web server is five times slower. There’s no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.”
Good old Lead bullets. That’s what works.
There have been many times with Unplugged where our challenges have looked insurmountable. From launching in a pandemic to wrestling together a funding round. It’s lead bullets that have got us through. We've (eventually) stopped feeling sorry for ourselves and got started.
There is always so much deeper you can dig. That’s what I’m realising. So many more avenues you can explore. Raising money, finding sites for cabins, finding the right people; it’s all a numbers game. You have to kiss a lot of frogs- and quickly.
There’s something immensely clarifying once you’re over the initial disbelief. Once you realise no one is coming to save you. Then it’s simple. It’s time to get to work. It’s time for lead bullets.
My Week in Books📚
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
A cracker. We each have four thousand weeks to live. Doesn’t sound like much- it’s not. Rather than talk about how we need to fit in as much as possible Burkeman says the opposite: we should cherish the fact we can’t do everything. That’s what makes it special.
Thank you Connor Swenson for the recommendation!
The Art of Statistics by David Spiegelhalter
A thorough guide on statistics & probability. I could have saved myself a few resits if I’d read this during my Maths & Stats degree. Then again, who am I kidding, I wouldn’t have read it. Surprisingly digestible. Certainly not a must read. Especially if you’re not a numbers fan.
I’ll be updating the books I’ve read this year here. Any recommendations? Let me know!
A Final Thought 💡
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door”
― Milton Berle