“It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set.” | Josh Waitzkin
While this is true in any professional field, this is true in life too.
A few skills – grit, gratitude, constructiveness, along them – play a disproportionate role in a well-lived life.
A simple indicator of the amount of privilege in our life is the percentage of choices we get to make that aren’t in the realm of what the average human being gets to contemplate.
Examples of such choices might be – where should I fly for vacation?, should I send my kids to private school?, should I buy a home in that area?, should I be optimizing for work-life balance in my next job?, and so on.
An indicator of the amount of privilege we’ve been fortunate to accumulate is – what percentage of the privilege choices we’re contemplating now were choices we were able to contemplate a decade ago?
(a) Writing when we’re experiencing negative emotions and
(b) Consistently reflecting on the things and people we’re grateful for…
…may be the highest RoI (return on investment) forms of therapy available.
In my recent travels over a 2 week period, I kept a rough count of how often I turned to ChatGPT vs. Google search.
There were some searches which weren’t possible on ChatGPT – e.g., finding restaurants open nearby. But, for everything else, I estimated ChatGPT had 80% share. It felt fascinating to think there’s a solution out there that I’d willingly give up google search on mobile for (I’ve been using Ecosia/Bing on Desktop).
My typical questions were –
(1) Give me a 6 hour itinerary in x place with 6 year olds
(2) What is special about Y
Using ChatGPT for these questions was way more delightful – both because of the synthesis and the interactivity.
My mental model prior to this trip for harnessing the power of generative AI was as a productivity tool. I’ve updated that to include high intent search as well.
A few years ago, there was confusion about why electric cars were better than ICEs or internal combustion engine/gas powered/petrol powered cars. The reason for the confusion was around the assumption that these cars needed a fossil-fuel powered grid to charge themselves.
Of course, EVs become SO much better for the environment as we continue to transition to a renewable based grid (more here).
But that’s not all. 9 out of 10 units of energy used to charge an electric vehicle is used to drive the vehicle vs. 2 out of 10 for a petrol car. That’s 450% more efficiency.
This got me thinking about our energy conversion as humans.
For every unit of energy we take in, how much actually goes into meaningful output? And how much goes into avoidable drama, politics, frustration, and angst?
Take inspiration from electric vehicles, we must.
“The best fights are the ones we avoid.” | Mr Han
“If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep.” | Kevin Kelly
The equivalent in product management is the problem statement.
When things feel off, it inevitably is a lack of clarity and/or alignment on the problem that we ought to be solving.
We can double our productivity by simply becoming twice as hard to annoy.
Easier said than done of course.
But there also aren’t as many levers that provide comparable return on investment.
The question – “Will this matter if I knew I was dying tomorrow/in the next 6 months?” – is a guaranteed source of perspective and clarity.
“The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. They depend, for their power, on the ability to make other people powerful.” | Ben Zander
As do all leaders.
Whether or not they know it.
A Learning a Day 