Do Nothing & Do Everything
"Doing nothing is often the most important something."
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For two years, from the age of 19 to 21, I served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The schedule was rigorous. Wake up at 6:30, exercise, two hours of scripture study, then 10 hours of proselytizing. Knocking on doors, talking to strangers on the street, teaching people lessons in their homes. Every day, except for Monday, when we got to do our laundry. I called home twice a year, and wrote emails home once a week.
Before we set out, we spend some time in the Missionary Training Center (MTC). Anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks, depending on if we’re learning a language.
Taking a Breath
During my time in the MTC, I heard a sermon that has stuck with me ever since. I waited my entire life to be a missionary. From the time I could understand what it meant, I knew I wanted the black name tag. I wanted to work hard. I wanted to dedicate my life, however briefly, entirely to a cause greater than myself. To give a tithe of two years from my life. Lots of people feel that way. But what that can cause is an intense sense of inadequacy. You never feel like you’re doing good enough or working hard enough.
After a particularly stressful day, we had a teacher who gave us a clear bit of counsel on the importance of pausing to reflect on our experiences, rather than being overwhelmed by them. The problem is that to a group of over-stressed young try-hards, pausing to reflect just feels lazy. Here’s what he told us:
“The trouble with pondering is that it looks like nothing. But pondering is not nothing! It’s something. Sometimes you have to look like you’re doing nothing, because sometimes, that’s the biggest something.”
Over the course of my mission, I reflected on that experience. I came across another sermon from a modern-day Apostle, named Richard G. Scott, that offered me additional context:
“[God’s] answers will seldom come while you are on your knees praying, even when you may plead for an immediate response. Rather, He will prompt you in quiet moments when the Spirit can most effectively touch your mind and heart. Hence, you should find periods of quiet time to recognize when you are being instructed and strengthened.”
As busy as I was, I continued to feel pushed to pause and reflect. It wasn’t just about taking a breath, it was about opening up the opportunity to be instructed by the spirit of God.
But it wasn’t a conflict between being busy and being calm; it was a balance. In fact, in the same way that taking time to ponder on what I was learning was a critical part of the equation, there was another aspect that caused me just as much imbalance. A failure to work smart, rather than just working hard.
Each missionary is assigned to a specific area. That area has a Mission President who is responsible for managing that subset of missionaries. Mine taught me a valuable lesson about quantifying what it meant to work smart. I’ve thought about it often as the Axe Sharpening Problem.
Sharpening The Axe
The basic premise is this. You have 60 minutes to chop down as many trees as possible. The first tree takes one minute. If you don’t sharpen the axe, then the second tree takes two minutes. Then three minutes for the third tree, and so on. If you sharpen the axe, it takes five minutes. But then you’re back down to it taking one minute for the first tree. Some people might default to just sharpening the axe every time. Other people would say they should just keep cutting down trees. But there is an optimal balance. Chopping down three trees before you sharpen the axe.
While the math lesson was helpful, I eventually had it illustrated in practice for me. You see, there are a set of planning guidelines we’re encouraged to follow. We prioritize people who are at different phases in their spiritual journey. Most missionaries ignore them. They’re just trying to fill their days, feel busy. Chop down trees.
On one particular night, I was feeling disheartened. All chopped out. I was expressing my frustration to the guy I was working with. I said, “I guess we could do what the instructions say...” and so, as if to humor the advice, I followed it. And lo, and behold, it worked! We had the most productive day I had ever had. It exposed the reality that just working as hard as you can doesn’t yield the results you want.
Dueling Fates
The principle instilled in me from that formative experience was that life’s balance comes from a combination of working hard enough to be smart, while pausing long enough to ponder. Working too hard led to burnout but never finding time to pause left you imbalanced.
The principle of balancing doing nothing and doing everything isn’t just a spiritual experience I had in my youth. It’s something that you see countless examples of anywhere from stone age hunter gatherers to Kim Kardashian’s legal profession. First? Hunter gatherers.
The idea of pondering, pausing, breathing, and breaking from the standard activity of life has a basis in our evolutionary experience. In fact, the constancy of hustle and bustle leaves our tank run dry and our cognitive capabilities diminished. Without the pause, there is limited power.
But while the majority of people sacrifice pause in favor of pursuit, you still see examples of people chopping down trees without much thought for sharpening the axe. I was reminded of Kim Kardashian’s advice for women in business: “get your f*cking ass up and work.”
It’s not about instant gratification, its about hard work. Just chop those trees! Why was I reminded of this once-in-a-generation advice? Because I saw the result of it in another video. This one? Kim Kardashian crying about failing to pass the bar exam.
Some people were quick to point out that they’d been able to pass the bar exam, all while working in a law firm, running a YouTube channel, and self-studying. What’s more, people emphasized that with “the amount of money and time this woman has, she’s either kinda dumb, or kinda lazy, or kinda both.” Other people came to Kim’s defense, saying she’s a very hard worker in regards to her family, her fashion and influencer businesses, her criminal justice reform activism, and more. Their takeaway?
“What’s happening is that she’s running into something she’s just not well suited for. She’s very well-suited to the grind of doing hundreds of appearances, endorsements, photoshoots, etc, every year, which is real work. But she didn’t go to law school or even college. She’s never done anything like this, and it requires a totally different skill set, and because she’s doing a dozen other major things she’s time-limited. So she’s currently failing.”
I don’t know anything about Kim Kardashian’s work ethic. I’ve also never taken the bar exam... or been to law school... or been a billionaire influencer. So I’m not here to judge. But what I saw was the contrast between what other people see as a judgmental dismissal of other people’s inadequacy, while embracing the injustice of their own inadequacy. What Kim may have been experiencing was the feeling of chopping down trees, while seeing other people sharpening axes, feeling just as dismissive of that as a band of do-good 19 year olds when they saw the laziness of “pondering.”
Just Nike It
The principle of “just do it,” isn’t one of specificity. It’s one of action. Do what? Depends. The balance between pausing and partaking requires equal levels of action.
We fail to take time to pause and ponder, but we have to do it.
We fail to take time to sharpen our axe, but we have to do it.
Investing can feel like a constant act of hurrying up to slow down. Feeling like the manic activity of deals stop you from pondering, but simultaneously feeling the pull to find space for thinking, reflecting, and sharpening the axe.
The problem with most VCs today is they give themselves over to the manic energy. Though, the problem with “value investors” is often that they give themselves over to thinking and never doing. Finding the balance between when to ponder and when to pursue is the magic of finding what you believe.
Both are required. Do nothing. Do everything. Life’s balance comes from a combination of working hard enough to be smart, while pausing long enough to ponder. Find it.
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Great read, Kyle. It reminded me of Nietzsche’s line: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
He understood that while his deep-work sessions were essential for shaping ideas, the long walks he took in Sils-Maria were just as important for clarifying them. His sharpest insights came not from force, but from stillness, those stretches of quiet, unstructured wandering where the mind finally settles.
Stillness is a feature, not a bug. The best ideas often emerge in the spaces between effort: in the quiet, the nothingness, the moments where we finally stop trying.
Helpful message and perfect reminder as the holidays are nigh upon us. Thanks!