Month: December 2023

George Clooney knew Matthew Perry – who played Chandler on Friends – when he was 16 years old. As they were both starting out on television together, Perry would say – “I just want to get on a regular sitcom and I would be the happiest man on earth.”

Reality couldn’t be more different. In Clooney’s words – “And he got on probably one of the best ever. He wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace.”

“And watching that go on on the lot — we were at Warner Brothers, we were there right next to each other — it was hard to watch because we didn’t know what was going through him.

We just knew that he wasn’t happy and I had no idea he was doing what, 12 Vicodin a day and all the stuff he talked about, all that heartbreaking stuff. And it also just tells you that success and money and all those things, it doesn’t just automatically bring you happiness. You have to be happy with yourself and your life.”

Reading this poignant note reminded me of a note from a Ryan Holliday post on money.

I’ve never met a person who ever reached ‘their number.’ You know, people say, ‘When I hit $Xm, I’ll be good.’ They say, ‘Once I have X years salary in the bank, I’ll be good.’ No one ever seems to get to that number. We’re never ‘good’ because we move the goalposts…(or because we set a preposterous and unrealistic number to begin with).

That, then, got me thinking about Ash Barty. Ashleigh Barty retired from women’s tennis as the world #1 – after winning 3 grand slams. She said this in her retirement video.

“Wimbledon last year changed a lot for me as a person and for me as an athlete. When you work so hard your whole life for one goal. To be able to win Wimbledon, which was my dream, the one true dream that I wanted in tennis, that really changed my perspective.”

“I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself. I’ve said it to my team multiple times, it’s just I don’t have that in me anymore. I don’t have the physical drive, the emotional want, and everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top of the level anymore, and I just know that I am spent. I just know physically, I have nothing more to give. That, for me, is success.”

Ash Barty’s note struck me as incredibly wise. She grew up wanting to win Wimbledon and likely the Australian Open (as an Australian). She did both and decided to move on to other things. She defined success in her own terms and didn’t move goalposts.

We all have goalposts. Sometimes, they are explicit and stated. Other times, they are implicit. Taking inspiration from Ash Barty, it is best to deal with them consciously.

Money and fame don’t automatically bring happiness or contentment. They often do the opposite. It is on us to define success for ourselves.

And then not move goalposts.

The most effective people and organizations consistently choose internal instability for longer-run external stability.

Internal instability involves willingly pushing for change internally. It requires proactiveness, flexibility, and a willingness to disrupt our existing patterns. It means being curious about what is actually working or what should be done vs. clinging onto comfortable patterns. It is the natural outcome of adopting a learner’s mindset.

The downside of internal instability is that we’re never “settled.” We’re always becoming. Always evolving and changing. Always prioritizing discomfort and learning over comfort. That can feel exhausting. Especially so when we’re running large organizations which have a natural inertia and bias toward stability and predictability.

But the upside is that this ensures we change before we are forced to.

For us as people, this means we tend to our relationships before they break down. We exercise before it becomes a doctor’s order. We eat healthy before we’re asked to monitor our intake.

And for us as leaders in our teams and organizations, this means we reorganize before we are forced to. We change priorities before it comes “top down.”

The end result, in both cases, is often the same. The right things need to get done. The difference is why we do it and how early we get started.

That sounds like a small difference – but think about when you’ve done something because you decided to do so vs. because you were forced to do it. It makes a world of a difference.

Internal stability is the tax we pay to earn external stability.

Most of us grow up in systems that teach us to obsess about perfection. The perfect score, the perfect performance, and so on.

The quest for perfection matters in our professional lives. But a big part of our ability to transition from average performers to elite performers is realizing it is about the quest vs. the attainment.

In our personal lives, however, I’m convinced that this quest is counter-productive. Too many experiences are ruined by attempts at perfection.

A great example is weddings. They’re often associated with process, months of exhausting planning, and stress. A colleague once said – “I’d love to go back to do my honeymoon again. But I’d never want to go back to plan that wedding.” They’re not alone.

We did the opposite with our wedding. We talked about having one objective – our pictures must have photos of people smiling. While a tall order in a culture where weddings are an exercise in hours of process, that simple objective changed everything. We had 90% of the people we cared about at that time – all together. And we focused on maximizing the fun at every step with lots of thoughtful and fun-filled touches.

This undoubtedly came with lots of trade-offs. A lot of our planning was DIY – we had friends play event planners and photographers. I ended up cobbling together the wedding video myself. That also meant there were portions that didn’t work as we expected, events that surprised us (thanks friends), and many moments of magic.

But the end result was what we hoped – photos of people smiling and memories full of laughter. So much so that I sometimes wish I could transport close friends we made since go back in time to join us at our wedding.

Our wedding, in many ways, was the anti-thesis of perfect. But things don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful.

Learning to let go of perfect in our personal lives is both counter-intuitive and incredibly powerful. It changes how we operate.

Perhaps, more than anything, it helps us focus on creating experiences that have a high probability (note: again, it is about the quest vs. the attainment) of turning into memories. There’s no guarantee that it’ll happen. But, with the right ingredients and with thoughtful touches, they’ll happen more often than not.

Shooting for perfect, however, is a fool’s errand. Perfection be damned.

Things don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful.

“The story of Ender’s Game is not this book, though it has that title emblazoned on it. The story is the one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.” | Orson Scott Card

Stories are made together indeed.

As we approach the end of 2023, I just wanted to say thank you to you for being part of this learning journey. I appreciate the dialog, thoughtful feedback, and the long standing e-relationships. :-)

In the final analysis, the people who care about us will care more about how we achieved* vs. what we achieved.

*This does assume we’ve accomplished something of value. :-)

Acceptance is the simplest antidote to suffering.

“The purpose of listening is not to reply, but to hear what is not being said.” | Kevin Kelly

I was talking to a good friend who works in sales. He was talking about how there’s no substitute to meeting a customer in person. I nodded all the way through – I think it has a lot to do with my experiences attempting to listen and being listened to.

We’ve all learnt an important lesson from the COVID lockdowns – every meeting doesn’t have to be an in-person meeting.

But the opposite of a good idea is often a good idea. And I’ve come to appreciate that every meeting shouldn’t be a video meeting as well. Non-verbal communication is a significant part of how we communicate, and those signs are hard to read over a video conversation. It is why brainstorming and therapy don’t work as well on video. This is especially true on newer teams / when we’re attempting to form new relationships.

Relationships are built on trust. Trust, in turn, flows from understanding which can only happen when we feel listened to. And reading non-verbal cues helps us listen by helping us hear what is not being said.

The 10 question annual reflection is a longstanding ALearningaDay tradition. I recommend doing it in 3 steps:

i) Carve out an hour in the next week to “look back and look forward.” It helps to do this in a quiet place with no distractions or interruptions.

ii) Work with a list of 10 questions that make you think. For a starter list, I’ve shared the 10 questions I ask myself below (also available to print as a doc or PDF by downloading from this folder – just make a copy onto your Google Drive). I prioritize keeping my list simple – some years, I get done in an hour and in other years, I spend a few diving deep into a question or two. The important thing is not the length/depth, it is simply carving out the time to zoom out.

iii) Archive your questions and notes for next year. Check in with them over the course of the year and read them before you start next year’s reflection. Looking at what was top-of-mind a few years later is also guaranteed to make you smile. :-)

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1. What are the top 2 themes/memories/moments I will remember 2023 for?

2. What were the 2 biggest lessons I learnt in 2023?

3. We learn from a mix of 3 sources – i) taking action and reflecting on our experiences, ii) people, and iii) books/courses or synthesized information. What did my mix look like in 2023? What would I do differently in 2024?

i) Action + reflection:
ii) People:
iii) Books/synthesized info:

4. Looking back at how I spent my time in 2023, what were the top 2-3 themes/buckets x processes/outcomes I prioritized (Examples: Career – prioritized ABC project or getting a raise, Health – prioritized more outdoor exercise or losing 10 pounds)? Did what I prioritize align with what I intended to prioritize/were there any surprises?

5. What are the top 2 themes/buckets x processes/outcomes I intend to prioritize in 2024?

6. What do I most need to learn in 2024 and how do I plan to do this?

7. What are habits/checkpoints I have in place to recommit to my priorities? (E.g. weekly/monthly check in)

8. What have I got planned in 2024 to prioritize renewal and memorable experiences (e.g. holiday plans, weekend activities, hobbies)?

9. Health, money, and relationships are foundational to the quality of our lives on this planet. What are my guiding principles or habits as I think of these dimensions in 2024?

Health:

Money:

Relationships:

10. Do I have a personal philosophy – a set of principles and/or virtues that I want to live my life by? (If not, would I consider putting together a first version?) What have I learnt about them in my attempts to live them? Do I plan to evolve them in 2024?
[Note: Virtues are values we actually embody. Inspired by the code of the Samurais, the difference is what we believe (values) vs. what we do (virtues). Our values become virtues when living them costs us money, time, or something valuable]

I picked up Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Be Useful” recently. I thought it was a great title – a nice motto for life. And I was curious about Arnold’s approach to life as well.

It takes a lot to be successful in one career. So I’m fascinating when folks repeat it across careers – as a bodybuilder, an actor, and a politician in Arnold’s case. There was a lot in the book that I expected to hear. Arnold, predictably, is an “all in” kind of person with an incredibly high pain threshold. He doesn’t leave anything on the table.

The first chapter of the book, however, is on “clarity of vision.” He spends a lot of time talking through the role this played in his life and why he believes this is the place to start. He explained that we normally start with fuzzy visions. For example, as a kid growing up in Austria, he had a fuzzy vision of going to America. That vision became clearer over time as he realized bodybuilding could be his ticket. He then saw a fuzzy vision of himself as an actor that became clearer over time. And so on.

It is a recurring theme in the book – develop a vision, get clearer, then go all in and make it happen.

This struck a deep chord – vision lock is my biggest learning from 2023 after all. I’m looking forward to reflecting more on this in the coming days as I begin to work out how I want to change how I do things in 2024.

12 years ago, I wrote a post titled “Short. But Meaningful.” I remember writing it ahead of the holiday season. I was reflecting on a collection of over-scheduled breaks when I returned to meet family/friends and realized I needed to change my approach to such holidays.

Twelve years in, I still remember that post ahead of family + friends time (kid-time has eaten up most of what used to be friends-time in reality) when we visit India. The main insight from that post was to prioritize my own energy first. A simple insight that is surprisingly hard to live by.

I’ve since extended that insight on breaks like this. I take a couple of minutes to write out my top 3 priorities. This tends to be along the lines of –

(1) Time with self to decompress, reflect, and catch up on the backlog
(2) Time with family
(3) Enjoy special treats (could be a great conversation, a food treat, or some other experience)

It is amazing just how much of a difference this simple priority list makes to my happiness. I try to make time on most days to do all three of these.

It also helps me set expectations with myself on how much I will, for example, get done. There’s a bunch of admin that has piled up over the past months. This way, I carve out a chunk of time most mornings to keep whittling that list down.

Then it is onto family time. And so on.

The simplest equation for happiness is Reality/Expectations. This list helps me calibrate my expectations and allows reality to consistently outdo them.