Author: alearningaday

A habit that I’ve made half-hearted attempts to change in the past two years is picking up the phone first thing in the morning and opening up/checking my (personal) email.

I describe my efforts as half-hearted because I wasn’t committed to it. I’d occasionally think about changing it. Then, I’d slip into familiar patterns the next morning and feel particularly good about getting out of bed with my inbox cleared.

Half-hearted commitments are exercises in self-sabotage because you don’t do much to change your environment to make change happen. So, you slip back to old ways and then make (reasonable sounding) excuses for yourself. Ergo self-sabotage.

Such exercises don’t seem to do much damage in the short run – seem being the operative word.

Every time we make a half-hearted commitment where we don’t follow through, we reduce our belief in our ability to commit. Our integrity gets compromised – one daily excuse at a time.

So, I spent some time thinking about this habit over the past 3 weeks. After wrestling with it for a bit, I’ve come to realize that what annoys me isn’t just the checking email first thing in the morning. It is the stunning lack of depth that the act of checking inspires.

And, after years of pruning sources of shallow engagement in my day, this might just be the final frontier (as is the case with bottlenecks, I’ll find out after I prune this).

So, I’ve finally made the commitment to changing my habit. This means getting to work fixing my environment. This is a mix of guidelines (move any checking/browsing onto a bigger screen) as well as changes – e.g., ensuring there are books everywhere I usually slip into checking/browsing on the phone, changing up my morning routine.

I expect it to be two steps forward and one step back for a while as I iterate.

Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

In the first part of the past decade, I used to pick 3 areas/themes I wanted to prioritize as part of my annual review. I had mixed success with them. Some years, they worked out great. In others, they didn’t at all.

The only common factor in my successful attempts that I identified was simplicity.

There were years when I had a hard time remembering my themes and sub-themes. A recipe for failure.

So, I’ve gradually simplified both my templates and my goals. I don’t expect to see more than 2 priority areas. If there are more than 2 and if they’re hard to remember, they’re unlikely to get done.

This drives home an important related idea. If I struggle to remember a list of goals I deem important, imagine how hard it is for our teams and organizations to remember lists of priorities.

Simplicity in prioritization and communication go a long way in helping us get things done.

I was thinking about an anecdote* from a book by late Vanguard founder John Bogle. This was an exchange Bogle witnessed at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island in New York.

The late novelist Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller responded – “Yes, but I have something he will never have…enough.”

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This is an incredibly powerful quote in the context of money. The question that follows as we think about the new year is – what about other aspects of our life?

Are we seeking wealth of a different nature – an awesome financial investment? Or is it status? Social media followers? A promotion?

These questions bring us to 2 central questions –

(1) What game(s) are we playing?
(2) When will we have enough?

Best to define what winning is like before we start playing.

*I’ve shared it a few times on this blog – but not enough. :-)

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

i) Carve out an hour in the coming days 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 asked myself below (also available to print as a doc or PDF by downloading from this folder).

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 grin. :-)

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“Sometimes, we need to just take a step back and look back at how the pieces fell. When we do that, we see what was important and what never was.”

(1) What are the top 2 themes/memories/moments I will remember 2021 for?

(2) What were the 2 biggest lessons I learnt in 2021?

(3) We learn from a mix of 3 sources – i) taking action and reflecting on our experiences, ii) people, and iii) books/synthesized information. What did my mix look like in 2021? How do I plan to keep this going in 2022?

i) Action + reflection:

ii) People:

iii) Books/synthesized info:

“Show me your schedule and I’ll show you your priorities.”

(4) Looking back at how I spent my time in 2021, what were the top 2-3 areas/buckets + 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 areas/buckets + processes/outcomes I intend to prioritize in 2022?

(6) What do I most need to learn in 2022 and how do I plan to do this?

“How we hope it works: Commit → Take action
How it actually works: Commit → Fail → Recommit x 20 → Fail x 20 → Recommit → Take action”

(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 2022 to prioritize rest and renewal (e.g. holiday plans, weekend activities, hobbies)?

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

(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 2022?

Health:

Money:

Relationships:

(10) Do I have a personal philosophy, a set of principles or virtues that I want to live my life by? If not, would I consider putting together a first version?
And, if I do have them, what have I learnt about them in my attempts to live them? Do I plan to evolve them in 2022?

(Notes:
– “What I value” can be a way of stating our personal philosophy/principle.
– 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 or something valuable that we need to trade-off)

For a few years, my desktop wallpaper was one of these two quotes –

“Doing one thing at a time is how one Zen master described the essence of zen.”

“Expect problems and eat them for breakfast.”

They are no longer my wallpapers. But seeing them every day for long periods of time ingrained these ideas in my head.

And it occurred to me today that my growth and happiness over the years have been directly proportional to the percentage of time I put these ideas in action.

We have a lot of valuable information about ourselves stored online and it helps to take steps to ensure we’re staying safe. There are two categories of steps we can take – ideally with an annual reminder to check in on them:

(1) Reactive: Set up a security / breach monitoring services – services like SpyCloud, CreditKarma, Lastpass offer this for free – notify us if our credentials were found in a breach or on the dark web. Signing up for 2 or 3 of these (or similar) services will help ensure our reactive game is strong.

(2) Proactive:

(a) Password managers help us get ahead of problems by helping us generate strong passwords/set better passwords and notifying us when our passwords need to be updated*. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if you use LastPass or 1Password or some other manager. All of these will work better that saving these passwords on a napkin or on Passwords.txt as these apps also ensure these passwords are easily accessible on our phone.

(b) Set up 2 factor authentication as often as possible – for every service that matters at any rate.

(c) Finally, avoid clicking on random links that ask you to input your password/credentials and be suspicious of any inbound phone call asking for such information. And, needless to say, avoid responding to emails from Nigerian princes who promise to wire you a million dollars.

These steps are similar to setting up an alarm system and keeping our doors and windows locked when we leave our home. The most determined/sophisticated burglar will still find their way in. But, it will deter or prevent everyone else.

*Typically a premium feature. I use a premium Lastpass account for this ($36/year) and am a fan.

We had a fascinating conversation about money the other day. An idea we kept coming back to was – how much do we think about money relative to how much we want to?

I kept coming back to this note from Morgan Housel –

“A thing I’ve noticed over the years is that some of the wealthiest people think about money all the time – which is obvious, because it’s causation. But it’s an important observation because most people, despite aspiring to become one of the wealthiest, actually want something different: the ability to not have to think about money.

It’s a different skill, but it’s powerful when you make it work. A person whose expectations relative to income are calibrated so they don’t even have to think about money has a higher form of wealth than someone with more money who’s constantly thinking about making the numbers work.“

There are two powerful ideas in here. The first is about being intentional about our relationship with money – by defining how much we want to think about it.

The second is about calibrating our expectations relative to our income.

I’m excited to think about both questions as part of my annual review in the coming days.

We watched The Rescue recently (on Disney+). It describes the daring rescue of the Thai soccer team trapped deep within a flooded cave in Northern Thailand in 2018.

In one word, the documentary is incredible. A must-watch. Over the course of the 2 hours, I was struck by the…

…courage and compassion of the cave divers who chose to transform from hobbyists to heroes. A special hat tip to John Volanthen and Richard Stanton for their exceptional leadership.

…bravery and cooperation among the Thai Navy seals, the American army, the cave divers, and the thousands of volunteers who showed up to help.

…ingenuity of the human mind. As an example, the network of dams and equipment rigged up to drain water from the caves made the rescue possible.

…thoughtfulness and commitment of the Australian doctor cum cave diver (Dr Harris) whose expertise made the final rescue possible. The boys had to be sedated by his fellow cave divers for the rescue. And, even though he hated the plan, he realized that it was the only one that had a chance of working.

…importance of risks, leaps of faith, and luck in any challenging endeavor.

I could go on.

But, amongst the many amazing moments, there was one that stood out. After rescuing 8 boys in the first 2 days, the rains arrived again on the night before the third day. This downpour made for very unsafe diving conditions.

So, the pre-dive briefing in the morning understandably involved folks asking the “should we be going in” question. At the same time, a few of the others felt postponing could be fatal. So, before the discussion could further, that group just walked toward the cave. Everybody else followed.

That turned out to be an important moment as the downpour never stopped. It was eight months before the cave became accessible again.

Incredible.

I was reminded of a story about a person of power I knew growing up. He was a wonderful human being. It was fitting, then, that he always had a group of friends join him on his morning walk. They seemed to enjoy the walk and conversation.

I had asked about the morning walk routine a few years ago. It turned out that the group of friends stopped joining him on the walk. This disappearance coincided with his retirement.

It reminded me of another story I think about from time to time – the one about the styrofoam cup shared by Simon Sinek.

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I heard a story about a former Under Secretary of Defense who gave a speech at a large conference. He took his place on the stage and began talking, sharing his prepared remarks with the audience. He paused to take a sip of coffee from the Styrofoam cup he’d brought on stage with him. He took another sip, looked down at the cup and smiled.

“You know,” he said, interrupting his own speech, “I spoke here last year. I presented at this same conference on this same stage. But last year, I was still an Under Secretary,” he said.

“I flew here in business class and when I landed, there was someone waiting for me at the airport to take me to my hotel. Upon arriving at my hotel,” he continued, “there was someone else waiting for me. They had already checked me into the hotel, so they handed me my key and escorted me up to my room. The next morning, when I came down, again there was someone waiting for me in the lobby to drive me to this same venue that we are in today. I was taken through a back entrance, shown to the greenroom and handed a cup of coffee in a beautiful ceramic cup.”

“But this year, as I stand here to speak to you, I am no longer the Under Secretary,” he continued. “I flew here coach class and when I arrived at the airport yesterday there was no one there to meet me. I took a taxi to the hotel, and when I got there, I checked myself in and went by myself to my room. This morning, I came down to the lobby and caught another taxi to come here. I came in the front door and found my way backstage. Once there, I asked one of the techs if there was any coffee. He pointed to a coffee machine on a table against the wall. So I walked over and poured myself a cup of coffee into this here Styrofoam cup,” he said as he raised the cup to show the audience.

“It occurs to me,” he continued, “the ceramic cup they gave me last year . . . it was never meant for me at all. It was meant for the position I held. I deserve a Styrofoam cup.”

“This is the most important lesson I can impart to all of you,” he offered.

“All the perks, all the benefits and advantages you may get for the rank or position you hold, they aren’t meant for you. They are meant for the role you fill. And when you leave your role, which eventually you will, they will give the ceramic cup to the person who replaces you. Because you only ever deserved a Styrofoam cup.”

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A wonderful reminder of just how much life changes when we acquire or lose money/ power/privilege.

“Consider all the technology intended to help us gain the upper hand over time: by any sane logic, in a world with dishwashers, microwaves, and jet engines, time ought to feel more expansive and abundant, thanks to all the hours freed up.

But this is nobody’s actual experience. Instead, life accelerates, and everyone grows more impatient. It’s somehow vastly more aggravating to wait two minutes for the microwave than two hours for the over – or ten seconds for a slow-loading web page versus three days to receive the same information by mail.”

I started reading “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman. In the first chapter, he makes good observations about how time management techniques focused on a pursuit of efficiency have failed us.

And, yet, given our life spans are likely to last for just about four thousand weeks, time management is the essence of life.

Four thousand weeks.

It isn’t the first time I’m hearing that number. But every reminder makes me pause. As it should.

I need more of them.

PS: This first chapter is titled “In the long run, we’re all dead.” Definitely my kind of morbid reminder of the brevity of life. :-)