Month: March 2018

We all experience points in our lives when we realize that things that were humming along aren’t anymore.

It could be that the hours are getting too long consistently. It might be the regularity with which you find yourself taking shortcuts. Or even the fact that you find yourself short with people more often than you like.

These are powerful moments because the niggling feeling that tells us something’s not right precedes the full blown realization that something is broken.

When that niggling feeling comes along, I revisit a powerful principle and an old friend – “What got you here won’t get you there.”

I think of it as an old friend because it tends to be life’s reminder to take ownership and change things up before you feel pushed into a corner with no other option.

Always choose to change things up before you have to.

In a podcast about his new book “Skin in the Game,” Nassim Taleb said he didn’t believe loss aversion exists. He had a Medium post where he explained his view further – excerpt below.

Note: The flaw in psychology papers is to believe that the subject doesn’t take any other tail risks anywhere outside the experiment and will never take tail risks again. The idea of “loss aversion” have not been thought through properly –it is not measurable the way it has been measured (if at all mesasurable). Say you ask a subject how much he would pay to insure a 1% probability of losing $100. You are trying to figure out how much he is “overpaying” for “risk aversion” or something even more stupid, “loss aversion”. But you cannot possibly ignore all the other present and future financial risks he will be taking. You need to figure out other risks in the real world: if he has a car outside that can be scratched, if he has a financial portfolio that can lose money, if he has a bakery that may risk a fine, if he has a child in college who may cost unexpectedly more, if he can be laid off. All these risks add up and the attitude of the subject reflects them all. Ruin is indivisible and invariant to the source of randomness that may cause it.

I believe that risk aversion does not exist: what we observe is, simply a residual of ergodicity.

As psychology buffs know, loss aversion was a concept introduced by Nobel Prize winning duo of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. So, this is a fascinating assertion.

And, after mulling this over the last few days and considering my own experiences, I agree with Taleb’s point about the futility of attempting to measure loss aversion in a laboratory. I think we all treat risk as a portfolio. So, attempting to isolate and draw conclusions from one aspect of the portfolio isn’t going to generate meaningful results.

It is a compelling idea. I think I need to read more Taleb.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

In 2005, the late David Foster Wallace shared this short story as he began a graduation speech at Kenyon college. In doing so, he also immortalized it. The story sets the stage for a speech that warns against unconsciousness in face of the daily rat race.

This story always makes me ask myself – am I conscious of the water that surrounds me? Or, am I swimming around unaware of its existence?

Perspective is a powerful thing. And, I’m grateful for David Foster Wallace for a story that never fails to gift me some.

This is water.

My “release notes” for the last few versions have involved 3 synthesized lessons. Today, however, I thought I’d share a few random reflections from lessons I’ve either been learning or attempting to learn over the past year. I’ve written about many of these in detail – today is all about the abridged collection. :)

On relationships

The most important relationship in your life is the one you have with yourself.

Good relationships are self governing. They require two people who care enough to stay in sync – in spite of everything going on in their lives. The rest follows from there.

To get a good relationship going, one or both folks need to take a leap of faith and choose to invest in one another. For most folks, age brings a certain amount of risk aversion that gets in the way of taking these leaps of faith. We can choose to not let that happen.

We can find framily anywhere in the world.

Our hearts have an infinite capacity to love.

The best way to build relationships is to work on something together.

Love is the will to extend ourselves for our own or another’s growth. Love and growth, thus, go together. And, relationships go from good to great when both people are committed to each other’s growth.

Every once a while, we end up building relationships with folks who end up playing the disapproving voice in our head and make us feel un-worthy. They tell us it is to help us grow. But, growth is positive, not negative. When you sense negativity, walk away.

Seek to understand and then to be understood.

Hugs >>>>> Handshakes.

There are few things as beautiful as human beings who walk their talk. If you know them, hold on to them.

On wisdom and decisions

Wisdom flows from good judgment. Good judgment, in turn, flows from mental models that come from the habit of reflecting and synthesizing the lessons learnt from our experiences, those of others around us and from what we read.

Reflection can be a process that is painful in the short term. It is this pain that keeps many away from reflection and ensures that there is no correlation between age and wisdom.

The wisest decisions we make are those that involve trading off pain in the short term for growth in the long term.

The moment we decide to take responsibility for our outcomes is the moment we become mature.

The most important decisions we make are who we decide to surround ourselves with. The adage that we are the average of the five people we surround ourselves with is very true. It is why the decision we make on who we marry (if we choose to do so) is the single most important decision we will make.

Focus on decisions over outcomes. In the long run, good outcomes follow good decisions.

We can change.

On parenting

“Strive to be like them, seek not to make them like you.”

The more I plan and expect, the more I realize I must let go and grow.

The days are long, but the years are short. :)

On productivity

You often need a break when you feel you can’t afford to take one. When in doubt, take that weekend completely off. Re-entry is a powerful thing.

Productivity is focus x intensity x time. Focus is the constant, iterative process of doing what’s most important. Intensity is getting the most out of the hours you put in by committing to depth instead of shallow, multi-tasked attention. Beware any productivity gains from increasing time as it doesn’t scale. Focus instead on focus (ha) and intensity.

The busier you are, the higher the RoI on a bit of planning. Planning helps us focus and keep the main thing the main thing. Mindfulness flows from this focus.

Single best lesson on prioritization – stack rank the 3 things you’d like to get done at the start of the day. And, proceed in that order.

Optimize for creation over consumption. When in doubt, choose to write instead of reading.

The optimal amount of content consumption is the bare minimum required to inspire reflection and creation.

Afternoon naps are special. They help us get more done too.

On money

A penny saved is worth more than a penny earned (you lose some amount to taxes :)).

We over estimate the amount of happiness money brings.

Money doesn’t buy class.

There is a lot of happiness available for free or for cheap.

On careers, workplaces and teams

Focus more on slope versus intercept.

Strong professional bonds almost always translate to strong personal bonds.

Great professional relationships follow knowledge -> understanding -> trust. When you start working with a new group of people, take the time to get to know them. You have to go slow to go fast.

Learning to contribute to and build great teams is among the most useful and rewarding skills we will learn.

We are all in sales. The more we grow in our career, the more our jobs becomes sales jobs. Soft skills are the hard skills in the long run.

On leadership

Leadership is caring deeply about people, processes and results.

Leadership and management are different in the exact way effectiveness and efficiency or focus and intensity are different. One deals with doing the right things and the other deals with doing things right. As different as they are, they can’t exist without one another.

On privilege

The more privilege you have, the harder it is to see it.

Success is intention + effort + luck atop a platform of privilege.

The more privilege you have, the more your hard work counts. The biggest mistake privileged folks make is that they assume folks who are struggling aren’t working as hard or as “effectively” as them. The opposite is generally true.

Debating values is a privilege. When you don’t have enough for sustenance, you don’t have time for values.

On happiness 

Our daily happiness is reality over expectations. Working on the denominator is as powerful as working away on the numerator.

If you do insist on increasing happiness by shaping your reality, just know that our ability to do so is directly proportional to the amount of time we spend focused on what we control.

Expectations have a lot to do with perspective. Perspective is our ability to keep things in context. It allows us to examine our expectations and better appreciate what have it. It is why happiness and perspective go together. It is also why I wish people perspective these days.

It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.

On life

Our problems are, generally, first world problems.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

What got you here won’t get you there.

Do not fear mistakes. Fear only the absence of creative, constructive and corrective responses to those mistakes.

Life isn’t just about living in the present. It is about integrating the past, the present and the future in the right proportions.

It is harder, and generally, better to be thoughtful over smart and kind over clever.

Our lives are a collection of stories made possible by many wonderful co-authors. And, today, more than ever, I’m grateful for all those co-authors.

As I look ahead to v29, I hope to make all this privilege count.

(Past birthday notes: 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23)

Dentists generally start with the question – “How often do you brush your teeth?” If you don’t give the expected answer (2), that will be the first and most important recommendation. Then, you’ll likely be asked – “How often do you floss?” Again, if this isn’t daily or near daily, that will be the next recommendation.

It is only after that do they have the conversation about how well we do it.

The principle here is that quantity typically precedes quality. If we want to make better art, we have to first commit to making lots of bad art. If we want to write well, we’ll need to commit to writing poorly and doing it often. Similarly, the analogy for productivity is that some hard work and experimentation precedes smart work.

The challenge, however, is making sure that we’re conscious of this process and taking ownership of our learning.  Deliberate practice is far more effective than practice.

So, as you are working your way up the learning curve on a new gig, commit to quantity – just show up and plug away for a while. Allow yourself to experiment, stumble and fall during this time – but, use all these opportunities to soak up the learning and get better.

Then, do better.

The purpose of planning isn’t simply to be planned and organized.

Instead, the purpose of planning is to be able to deal with the unexpected and unplanned with the kind of engagement and spontaneity that comes from knowing that you have done your best to deal with everything you can control.

Imagine sitting at a magical dinner table that only existed to feed us more of what we like. If we take a morsel of our favorite sweet treat, the next morsel would be a similar or sweeter treat.

If we don’t keep tabs on our health often enough, it may be a while before we realize that this isn’t a viable strategy to keep good health. But, once we do, there are a few questions we’d need to ask. For example –

What is the best way to take what I need from the table, walk away and eat elsewhere?
How do I keep away from the short term temptation that does little good in the long term? 
How can I cook more and bring my own healthy food to the table? 

The internet content machine works similar to the magical dinner table.

And, it is on us to ask ourselves these questions.

A Manchester United soccer team assembled with players worth a billion dollars surrendered meekly to a team whose squad cost a third in a two legged European Cup game yesterday. It was a two legged game that illustrated the power of mindset.

Right from the first leg in Sevilla, the Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, set up the team to avoid defeat. The players seemed instructed to pass the ball sideways and take no risks. He approached the game like a Little League club might approach the game against the world champions.

If you’ve watched or followed soccer long enough, you know that the best strategy for a team with great players is to simply go out and play attacking football. Sure, they may concede a goal or two. But, you’d back them to score more than they concede often enough. When you force a “take no risks” strategy onto attack minded players, you paralyze them. Eventually, when the opposition does score that dreaded goal, it takes too long to overcome the inertia and fight back.

In that sense, a risk-free strategy is actually the most risky of them all.

Such (pathetic) defeats are a reminder of the power of mindset. You may have access to the best resources on a day-to-day basis. But, if your mindset isn’t any good, your results won’t be either.

A lot of the literature around goal (and system) setting focuses on the act of commitment. We might make the commitment on a special day (read: new years), break it down to actionable components or a habit by using systems thinking, share it with friends or an accountability group, and so on.

While all of the above matters, I’ve observed that the biggest leading indicator to a goal’s success is our commitment to re-commit to it as often as possible.

We don’t acquire worthwhile habits or goals because we made a commitment. We achieve them because, in doing so, we commit to re-commit until we make them happen.

The takeaway for us, then, should be to be thoughtful and intentional about the re-commitment plan for any goal or system we commit to. A good re-commitment plan consists of frequent checkpoints – these could be weekly or even daily depending on importance. It doesn’t require anything fancy – a simple question at the end of our daily to do list to spark reflection works. The important thing is to surround ourselves with reminders.

There is nothing as important as the act of re-committing because stumbling and falling as we pursue goals or meaningful habits are inevitable.

And, recommitting is the equivalent of the quiet voice that reminds us that failure is not the falling down, it is the staying down.

During the first couple of years of writing this blog, I used to habitually “save good ideas for tomorrow.” I didn’t believe I had many good ideas – so, I thought saving good ones for later made sense. For someone who had committed to sharing a learning every day, my mindset was remarkably fixed.

Of course, this isn’t how idea generation works. Good ideas are just a function of the number of bad ideas you have. The more bad ideas you generate, the more likely it is that you will find a good idea. You just have to commit to paying attention to the process of cultivation of ideas and take them all, good and bad, down. You’ll learn to filter based on your needs.

Ideas, optimism, complements, goodwill, affection, care – we don’t have limited stock of any of these wonderful things.

The more we use and cultivate them, the more and better there will be.

And, we can start today.