The Utility-Consumption Model of Friendship
I am not a pleasant person to play soccer or football with. The zen and calm Aussie you’re all used to disappears on the pitch, replaced by an angry commander. I’m not the most blessed by ability unfortunately, but my Dad ingrained in me from a young age the importance of on field communication and leadership as a point of difference. I’ve been compensating for a lack of ability with my barking instructions ever since. “Why don’t you work!”
How to give yourself better problems to solve.
In 2018 a group of young students from my old school took time out of their trip to Nepal to visit us and witness the work of From the Ground Up. Nick and I spent the day with them discussing the story of the organisation, the communities of Ghumarchowk and Sankhu that we were working in, and we toured our projects and brick factory. At the end one of the school teachers made a point to the boys. She pointed out that whilst Nick and I could be doing anything with our lives, we were choosing to help people. This was meant to
You must build interests or die tryin’ – preface to Interest Mapping
In 2014 I had all of my eggs in one basket. Then something crashed into me and I dropped the basket. The eggs broke. I’m not the first, nor will I be the last to put all my eggs in one basket. Despite the conventional wisdom. It’s easy to fall into the trap when everything is going well - an example that will keep repeating itself is housing. When the market is hot, it’s hard for people who have never put eggs in baskets before to understand that the temperature will eventually change. They stretch themselves more and more to get into more and
Build Community or Die Tryin’
I woke up at 5am this morning so I could avoid feeling depressed, isolated, lonesome, devoid of meaning and ostracised from the world and those I love. That’s a good incentive to wake-up early. At 5:30 I had arrived at a park for @the530Club.ryde. I sat on a picnic rug with a small group of people and meditated for ten minutes. I was excited for the day ahead but tried to bring focus to my breath. At 6:00 our morning cafe opened. I sat, opened my laptop and started writing. Around me people were reading books, typing away, or chatting lightly. We do this
There is no wealth but a wealth of social connections
Forbes is refusing to do an article on me. Despite frequent emails, submissions and protests. My contention is, I’m one of the richest men in the world. But they refuse to recognise it. Here’s their latest email. 13th September 2020. Subject: Reply to ‘Stop leaving me off Wealth Lists’ - Joe Wehbe Dear Mr. Wehbe. We appreciate your continued correspondence and persistence, but we must ask you to respectfully cease communication on this topic. Whilst you have an abundance of this ‘real currency’ - as you call it, this is not a currency that can be factored into your net wealth. In fact, your net wealth
Accelerating Midlife Crisis
Let’s be honest - we all do it. We see a middle-aged man riding around in a hot-red ferrari that just feels and looks out-of-place. As out-of-place as socks-and-sandals. We laugh and think to ourselves… that will never be me. No it won’t be you… but not because you’re immune to the midlife crisis. But rather because you’ll be driving a Tesla. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to accelerate, rather than avoid their midlife crisis. Appreciation, Getting Intrinsic Last time out we discussed the very problematic Expectations Gap phenomena, a theory that seems to explain the Happiness Curve. This issue is utterly catastrophic in its
The Expectations Gap
I left high school thinking I would become one of the greatest film directors of all time. I pictured myself winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Actor in a Lead Role all in one fell swoop before the age of thirty. To me, that was the way to go down as the greatest and stand out from everyone else who’d ever worked in film: To do what no one else has done, all before the age of thirty. As such, achieving all this before thirty became an ESSENTIAL, a REQUIREMENT. Failing to live up to this
The Happiness Curve
A short while ago my friend Pat found a speech I’d done for him when we graduated high school. He sent me a picture of the speech, sending love, and captioned it ‘simpler times’. Perhaps life was simpler when we were at high school. Now, as adults, we have more responsibilities and are charged with confronting the full complexity of the world. Do any of us reach the heights we expect to hit when we leave high school? Do any of us anticipate the bumps and disappointments on the road? In the West, we celebrate our youth and are told to make the
We are born in the passenger seat of our own life.
You are not born with control of your own life. You are born with the illusion of control. Have you ever seen the opening credits for the Simpsons? See the most important section here. Young Maggie thinks she is driving the car in this section. We the audience, from our perspective, think ourselves that she is driving. However the following shots indicate that her steering wheel is in fact a toy, a dummy, a fake. Her mother Marge is in fact driving. Note - two episodes of the With Joe Wehbe Podcast are available on this blog topic if you prefer video, audio or if
The widening gap between our biological and cultural evolution
We’ve recently discussed the war that’s been raging for 70,000 years for control. For control of what? Control of nature. Of you. Natural Selection vs. Humanity. We discussed how the Cognitive Revolution drastically shaped the way our culture and environment evolve over time, how it changed all the rules. The problem is, our biology cannot evolve as fast as the world we craft. Animals of all shapes and varieties have found over time the value in building shelters from larger prey. Humanity is no different. We are not the fastest, not the largest and do not have the sharpest teeth or claws. But we mobilise groups