Author: alearningaday

Modern loneliness

We stumbled upon “Modern Loneliness” by Lauv recently. Lauv called it the most important song of his career when he released it.

Modern loneliness
We’re never alone, but always depressed, yeah
Love my friends to death
But I never call and I never text, yeah
La-di-da-di-da
Yeah, you get what you give and you give what you get, so
Modern loneliness
We love to get high, but we don’t know how to come down

In an interview that followed the song, Lauv said – “Meanwhile, before all of this [social media] existed – we would just be having conversations in person with one another. You get through the awkwardness and eventually get to know each other, because you’re in front of each other and have no choice – where as now, every relationship you have online is so ‘immediate’ that you don’t experience any of the feelings you should when meeting a new person. Humans are built for real community and connection, and I think we are missing that from our world right now, due to social media…[It’s] not real and human connections. I think that’s why as a generation, we feel so alone all of the time.”

No amount of surfing photos of beautiful landscapes on the internet can replace breathing fresh air amidst a grove of trees or sitting on the grass.

No amount of texting or even video calls can replace the alchemy of meeting in person.

No amount of vitamin supplements can replace the nutrition we get from a good fruit.

As Noah Smith writes in “Honestly, its probably the phone” – an essay about teenage unhappiness:

The first adaptation might just be to consciously prioritize in-person interaction, instead of just waiting for it to happen like we used to. Dan Kois has an excellent article in Slate about Sheila Liming, whose new book Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time provides a much-needed alternative to phone addiction. Perhaps hangouts will go from being something that everyone just naturally did because it was the only way to get human contact to being something that people deliberately carve out time for and put on their calendars.

Another adaptation is probably to take social media less seriously. Twitter isn’t a field of combat where heroes decide the fates of nations — it’s just a silly room where people scream at each other and tell a bunch of lies. You don’t have to look fabulous on Instagram or go viral on TikTok to be cool and have friends. Perhaps Zoomers will realize these truths, and embrace a cheerful detachment that Millennials never managed to achieve.

Word.

The one armed judo champion

Years ago, I read this story and found it incredibly inspiring. I shared it with a group yesterday – and sharing it reminded me again of just how profound the message is.

A young boy who was born without a left arm was sent to Judo lessons by his mother in a bid to help with his confidence. So he began taking lessons with an old Japanese master.
Ever practice session the master taught the boy one throw. Just one technique over and over again.

Every so often the one-armed boy would see the other students learning different techniques and ask the master why he wasn’t learning anything else.
The master always replied – “Just focus on this one throw. Keep practicing”

Several months later, it was the state Judo championships and the old master entered the young boy.

The young boy was terrified.

The first match began and the one-armed boy grabbed his opponent and to the shock of all the spectators – easily flipped him to the ground. Instant win!

The second round was a little harder but the one-armed boy again pulled off the technique – the only technique he knew, and won.

The third and fourth round amazingly went the same way and the young boy found himself in the tournament final facing a much bigger, stronger and tougher opponent, who had won the tournament for three straight years.

The young boy was overmatched it seemed. Te referee and the organizers of the tournament spoke to the master and asked him if he wanted to withdraw his student..

“No” said the master. “We will fight”.

As the final match began the entire crowd were on the edge of their seat. The opponent stepped and grabbed the young one-armed boy and pulled him towards him. For a second it looked as if it was all over…

But then the one armed boy reached with his right hand, stepped in and BOOM – he threw his opponent flat on his back, to win the match!

The crowd went nuts – the one-armed boy was the state Judo Champion!

On the drive home, the young boy asked his teacher – “Was this a set-up? Did they just let me win because I only have one arm? I only know one technique – these guys know hundreds!”

The teacher replied “No – you won fair and square. But there are two reasons. You won because you mastered one of the most devastating  techniques in Judo. And the only known way to defend against that throw is to grab the left arm!”

What appeared to be an incredible weakness – was in fact his greatest strength.

Keeping a sense of humor

I love the phrase “keep a sense of humor.” It points to a powerful insight – a sense of humor isn’t something you are expected to be born with. Instead, it is something you choose to keep with you.

It is a habit I’ve attempted to become better at over the years. For someone whose natural propensity is to “fight fire with fire,” remembering that I can choose to keep my sense of humor has been both powerful and liberating.

There is space between stimulus and response. And keeping a sense of humor can fill that space with creativity and possibility.

Seriously but not literally

One of the things you learn with experience is to default to taking direction from executives /people higher up in the hierarchy seriously, but not literally.

That happens after we make the mistake of doing the opposite – taking guidance literally instead of seeing the feedback as a signal to prioritize time and effort to get the thinking/execution right.

Good executives rarely know the right answer given the execution constraints on the ground, but almost always know to ask the right questions. Taking their guidance seriously ensures we do the work to figure out the right answers to the important questions.

Seriously, but not literally.

95% Mentality

Marcus Rashford is a resurgent Manchester United’s player of the season. He’s been scoring many goals with impressive regularity and celebrating with a finger pointed toward his head. He was recently asked why.

To this, he said – “Football is probably 95% to do with your mentality,” he said. “For me, that’s everything, that gives you the baseline to go and perform. Without that side, you’re just playing off ability. There are a lot of players that have ability, that’s why they play at the top level, but what sets them apart is the mentality. I’ve been on both sides of it.

I understand the strength of it and the value of it. I’m just concentrating a lot more on keeping myself in that headspace and I think it’s needed in order to go and win games and trophies.”


I think this is true in every profession. When you work in a top company that gets to hire great talent, everyone around you has raw ability – often a combination of intelligence and emotional awareness. However, the differentiator is nearly always mentality.

Grit, persistence, equanimity, and the ability to be constructive when things go wrong (and they often go wrong) make the difference at the highest level.

Responsibility and accountability

“Responsibility can be delegated. Accountability can’t.” | a wise teammate.

This teammate struck a powerful chord when she reminded me of the difference between responsibility and accountability.

I can delegate responsibility for a task to someone on my team. But I still remain accountable for the outcome.

It is a simple nuance – but one that can be forgotten. As a leader, however, the buck always stops with you.

So… I’ve thought a lot about this

Dan, a dear colleague of mine, is one of a kind. He’s the kind of person who has always has a fascinating story ready to share. And, over the years, we’ve joked about Dan’s propensity to weigh in on a random topic and start with “So… I’ve thought a lot about this.”

One reason for this kind of deep thinking is that Dan believes in the importance of preparing for outlier events that may be low probability in any given year but are not low probability over the course of a lifetime. I – and many others – have learnt from Dan’s thoughtfulness about this topic and we asked him to create a “disaster kit” that we could buy.

He did one better and started writing on www.SoIveThoughtaLotAboutThis.com. He shared a great intro in one of his first posts.

So what? Who cares about being prepared? This is entirely subjective, of course, but I personally believe that a great many people would simply prefer to not think about bad things that honestly probably won’t happen. Spending your days worried about pandemic or zombies, or asteroids, or even catalytic converter theft is not a good way to live. It is isn’t healthy, and it isn’t even productive, in my opinion.

For me, the “pay off” is the little things. I absolutely love being a stronger part of my community. I love being the sort of family that people in my neighborhood call if something goes wrong, or they need to borrow a tool. If the neighbor kid needs her basketball pumped up, I am proud to be the person to answer the door and help. I have great pride in the number of times I have pulled over to help a stranded motorist. Or jump start that old car in the back of the WalMart parking lot. Or had some blister tape in my pack on that little day hike.

Sure, the big wins feel even better. Having invested the money and time to actually get Solar and Powerwalls installed before PGE’s latest calamity. Having spare blankets in the car because we were stuck on Donner Summit in a blizzard trying to go skiing. Having thought ahead to repair the well at our house BEFORE it broke. Having spent the money and time to trim those trees so they don’t fall on our car.

But the pay off is in the little things. And usually, the people that benefit are hopefully your family. I feel like as a dad and husband (my favorite jobs) it is my duty to do my best to keep my family safe, and comfortable. And being prepared (and teaching preparedness) is an excellent way to do that.

I hope as you read some of the topics and my thoughts on this page, you come away with an idea of what being prepared might mean for you. Maybe it means more sleep my dealing with a midnight bloody nose better. Maybe it means being able to help your elderly neighbor out during a power outage. Maybe it means moving to Montana and living in a converted missile silo (invite me!). That is something only you can decide.

He’s already got 6 posts up – it was an immediate add to my Feedly/RSS and I’m looking forward to digging in and getting a bit more prepared.

Dan hasn’t yet got email subscriptions set up. So, if you like what you read and would like to subscribe over email, feel free to reach him on SoIveThoughtALotAboutThis@gmail.com. I’m sure he’ll be happy to set it up (and I will nudge him too!).

Update: Email subscriptions are now up

Wealth – not what one has

“How I pity you, and this is honest. You are an old man, and ought to have some rest, and yet you have to struggle, and deny yourself, and rob yourself restful sleep and peace of mind, because you need money so badly. I always feel for a man who is so poverty ridden as you.

Don’t misunderstand me, Vanderbilt, I know you have $70 million. But then you know and I know, that it isn’t what a man has that constitutes wealth. No – it is to be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth.” | Mark Twain to one of the richest men of his time.

A lovely definition of wealth – to be satisfied with what one has.

It resonated.