Month: May 2023

Someone I know was in the hospital because of a bad back problem. This friend was in a room with 3 beds (a.k.a. a 3 bedder)

As he lay flat on his bed, he found himself envious of the 2 others who could just get up and do simple things – like go to the bathroom or simply stretch after long hours on the bed.

We spoke of this as we wondered if there’s anything else we take for granted as much as good health.

Every one of us in the conversation spoke about how we all go through this when we fall sick. Our body is top of mind when it isn’t working but just retreats all the way to the back when it is fine.

So let’s take a moment to appreciate everything about our health that’s working today. Take a deep breath, stretch, squat, jump, sleep, and appreciate how our body processes the food we eat.

Everything goes south when our health goes south. And while it is on us to do what we can to keep it from going south, let’s appreciate all that’s working. There’s always more to appreciate than we think.

And, if we’re struggling to do so, let’s remember this friend in the 3 bedder.

Observation: If an hour of work/productivity before 9 is worth two hours during the rest of the day, an hour before 6 is worth three.

A former colleague and I exchanged texts after a long while. After some catching up and pleasantries, we shared sharing updates from the past couple of years.

He shared that he’d become a manager. That switch led to a lot of self-reflection as he realized just how hard the job is and found himself looking at past managers and past jobs with renewed appreciation.

“Sometimes you have to eat sh*t elsewhere to get a broader perspective” – he wisely remarked.

It reminded me of two things at once.

Joy wouldn’t be good if it wasn’t for pain. Every challenge/difficult situation is an opportunity to gain some perspective and appreciate everything that is good in our lives.

And no amount of talking can help someone (or us) gain perspective. Conversation can bring about awareness maybe. But perspective is a whole different matter.

It isn’t given. It is earned.

It is fascinating to think about driving change like water. When water faces a challenging obstacle, it just keeps chipping away – making a small dent every year.

Do it long enough and you get this.

Sometimes, our biggest lever is ordinary effort for an extraordinary period of time.

At an event with folks from various industries, we sat down to talk through the most challenging issues we were facing.

After the discussion, the facilitator said something telling that made us all chuckle. She said she’d been hosting these discussions for over 15 years. And not once was the most challenging issue a technical problem. People seemed to find their way through those.

Instead they were always human challenges. Dealing with insecurities, vested interests, conflicting incentives, and contrasting values was what made work challenging.

Soft skills are the hard skills.

I was reminded again recently that there is no “right” decision.

There is just a right decision for us given the context at this point of time.

And, ultimately, if we’ve done the research to understand the context, sought varying input to give ourselves perspective, thoughtfully considered the timing, and done the work to understand ourselves, no one will know better than us as to what that decision should be.

They might know the right decision for them. But they’ll never know the right decision for us.

Every time we take a shortcut, we rack up a debt.

This happens when we choose… –

• to sleep less than we should
• a short-term design solution
• to write hacky code
• rush through the process of building trust
• to eat junk
• to skip exercise – both mental and physical

There’s always good reasons to rack up debt. And it isn’t wrong to rack up debt either – they just signal periods of imbalance. And we need to experience periods of imbalance to earn and appreciate balance.

The only thing that we must take note of, however, is that the debts always come due. Always. And with interest.

Be aware of your outstanding debts and aim to pay them before they come due.

A question I’ve been asking myself over the past months is – how should I think about generative AI’s impact on what I do? A simple mental model I’ve been using is that generative AI’s best applications seem to be for productivity vs. matching.

So I don’t expect generative AI to change how Uber matches drivers and riders for example. But it is great for saving time by reducing grunt work (planning travel, creating checklists, parsing documents) or getting a jumpstart on creative tasks – e.g., creating a presentation.

This is an early mental model and I’m sure there are many holes/caveats. But it’s been helpful in thinking about the kinds of tasks generative AI can help automate.

I’m of course all ears if any of you have better ones. If you see this over email, please just hit reply. And if you’re reading this elsewhere, please just send me a note on rohan[at]rohanrajiv[dot]com.

There’s a hilarious moment in the show Queen Charlotte on Netflix. The Queen keeps going down to her garden and attempts to pick an orange. However, every time she reaches out to pluck it, a helper rushes to her side and plucks it for her. It is a symptom of a lifestyle she grows to detest because it is a lifestyle that attempts to isolate her from everything that she considers part of the human experience. She’s isolated from people, helped with her clothes, served great food, and even stopped from picking oranges.

Later in the series, Queen Charlotte finally expresses her frustration at this arrangement and decides to * gasp * pick her oranges herself. It is a fascinating moment because it represents the beginning of a series of events that results in her taking ownership of how she wants to live her life.

That moment got me thinking about modern life. We don’t need royalty levels of wealth to create the life Queen Charlotte had. Grocery and food delivery is more accessible than ever before. Hired help may not be cheap depending on where you live – but it is accessible. It is easier than ever to eliminate the friction.

And while it can seem desirable, I think we’ll all come to the same realization that Queen Charlotte did. It helps to keep some friction. It helps to do the work – to clean some vessels, to iron some clothes, to cook, to garden, to lift something heavy, to get our groceries and so on.

The friction keeps us connected to the world around us.

I’m loving Kevin Kelly’s book Excellent Advice for Living. I’m sure I’m going to be sharing many ideas from the book in the coming weeks. So thank you Kevin.

The idea I’ve been thinking about over the past two days is “Don’t measure your success with someone else’s ruler.”

It is wise, pithy, and profound.

Much like the rest of the book.