The Magic of 100 Days
If you haven’t noticed, I am a weird guy who does weird things. For example, I don’t shave until I get on stage speaking, so I go through cycles of looks from professional to homeless. I have a bottomless stomach... I ate 62 pieces of sushi in one sitting the other day.
And I am addicted to 100-day sprints. They have become my superpower.
I found out that I could pretty much do anything amazing in 100 days – from getting into the Duke MBA program, to becoming a famous though temporary YouTuber.
In fact, I just finished a 100-day sprint, which was both a failure and a success at the same time, and launched a book into a bestseller.
100 days is long enough for me to focus on an extremely ambitious project, and short enough that I never get burned out. It’s magical. It feels limitless.
Now I live my life as a series of 100-day sprints.
Pretty weird huh.
The Next 100 Days
I’m now two weeks into my next 100-day sprint.
And my next extremely ambitious, meaningful and world-changing project is…
Drumroll
Build a new podcast called Easy Ambition.
Yawn…
I know I know, everyone and their mom has a podcast nowadays. It’s like “I’m getting a dog, or I’m buying a Model Y.” It sounds good to you, but it’s so boring and no one else cares.
And competitively, podcasting is one of the most saturated markets. There are more shut-down podcasts than beer cans on the side of a California highway. What do I have to say that’s different?
In fact, I have been thinking about doing a podcast for 10 years. These past topics came to my mind:
A podcast where I interview famous people on how they overcame rejection
A podcast where I talk to Tracy about how to feel like newlyweds 16 years into our marriage
A podcast about the worst business ideas possible – Yelp for local banana peelers.
A podcast about historical counterfactuals – what if Hitler loved anime growing up and moved to Japan; what if JFK were a 7’6” NBA center and he got shot in the collarbone instead?
But in the end, I decided against all of them, because I was not excited about them enough to actually do it.
But now I have found an idea that I am genuinely interested in:
Interviewing English-speaking authors in Chinese
Oh yeah.
Why
There are hundreds of millions of book readers in China. They don’t necessarily speak English, but they love reading translated Western books.
Do you know Ray Dalio’s book has 19,338 ratings on Amazon, but 39,851 ratings on Douban, the Chinese equivalent?
Now authors like Dalio have done a million interviews in English, but none in Chinese.
Well, with me hosting, and the help of AI translation and dubbing, now it’s possible. Chinese readers would have a chance to listen to Ray Dalio speaking to them in their language.
And there is a personal reason too:
I came to America from China at age 16 without knowing a word of English. My uncle told me, learn English like your life depends on it. It’s like training martial arts with your left hand. When it becomes strong enough, you’ll become a two-handed master.
For the subsequent decades, I did everything in English – getting higher education, writing books, giving talks.
As a result, my Chinese has atrophied to become my weak hand. I have no intellectual output in my native language.
But now, that’s about to change. I am building and hosting the only (as far as I know) Chinese podcast interviewing Western authors.
My sprint runs August 10 to November 18. I’m two weeks in, so you’re joining mid-episode.
I will:
Make a podcast that interviews 10 awesome authors (with 1k+ Amazon reviews). The topic: how they made hard things easy.
Distribute the resulting English episodes on YouTube.
Then translate/dub the episodes into Chinese.
Distribute them on Chinese platforms (such as BiliBili and Xiaohongshu).
My Baby Shower Shout
So why am I telling you this?
This is the trick about doing 100-day sprints – it works best if it’s public. If I tell this to the world, the world will hold me accountable.
I call this the Baby Shower Shout. I once did this, telling everyone who cared about me enough to show up at my baby shower that I was starting my own company. And it worked. I didn’t quit when it got tough.
So now you are in my virtual baby shower, and I’m shouting to you.
Why Should You Care
The answer is: you shouldn’t. So please don’t. Unless:
You want to be my first audience – I will have an English version of my interviews on YouTube. You listen and tell me if you’ve learned something and how I did. If you think I made a mistake, tell me. If you think I’m boring, don’t hold back. If you think I’m ugly… nah shut up.
Anyway, your feedback is truly valuable.
If you have your own thing you keep not starting – an ambitious personal project or business goal, here is your chance to do it in the next 100 days. Join me, starting today.
Tell me what it is in the comments or reply. Every time I write something, you tell me your progress - the project and your day count.
You keep going, give your all, and don’t stop until 100 days hit.
The magic of 100-day sprints is that you aren’t shooting to win something forever. You are only testing it for 100 days.
You can do anything for 100 days!
Love to see it! I’m doing “100 Days of RIDICULOUS Gratitude” leading up to Thanksgiving in the US.
Where do we find the podcast? Is it available publicly yet?
My dad was a big fan of collecting 100 event milestones. He ran 100 marathons, 100 half marathons, 100 10k runs, rode an ElliptiGO across the country in 100 days (at age 72!), rode several century (100-mile) rides on the ElliptiGO, attended 100 house concerts at two different places (200 total), and had hoped to live to be 100 years old. Unfortunately, he passed away in his mid-80s, but he was a remarkable man. Here's more about him: https://www.elliptigo.com/miles-of-inspiration-celebrating-the-life-of-rick-hermelin/