Author: alearningaday

How’s it going?

I’ve found 2 use cases for the “how’s it going” question. The first use case involves an asker who is moving at speed. This  is just the workplace hallway equivalent of “what’s up?” No response beyond a smile or some equivalent greeting is expected or required.

The more interesting use case is when the asker actually pauses to hear what you have to say. The general expectation is to hear that it is either a good/bad/“crazy” day.

And, this typical answer points to something fascinating about our default setting – our need to label and judge things. 

The challenge with labeling days is that we never know if a good day is a good day. A day that seems good may be a disaster a few months later. And, a day that we thought was bad may seem like a blessing in retrospect. 

Work relationships function similarly. It is always tempting to start out with a sweeping first impression judgment of your new manager or colleague. But, in truth, we never really know until we’ve been in the trenches with the person. Folks you never thought you’d like may end up shining in tough situations and vice versa. 

So, my takeaway over the years has been to delay the labeling process – both with events and people (this is harder) – as it is just a waste of time. My best response to the “how’s it going” question is, thus, to respond with – “It’s going.” I don’t know if it is going good or bad. But, the best I can do is to keep plugging away with my best effort. 

In the long run, things have a way of working themselves out. Doing the work will help that process. Labeling decidedly does not.  

Post smartphone era weekends – a way to measure success

A way to measure success in post smartphone era weekends is to ask – how many times did you forget where your smartphone was? 

I found myself forgetting about my phone for hours at a time on memorable weekends. So, I’ve begun starting weekends by leaving my phone in obscure places within the home (e.g. under the pillow). The more obscure the location, the less I check it, and the better the weekend.

10 years of A Learning a Day

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of writing here. I’ve been reflecting on this 4,494 post journey over the past few days and I thought I’d share what I’ve been most grateful for.

(1) Learning to show up. I decided to call this blog “A Learning a Day” because I wasn’t capable of discipline ten years ago. I remember someone I knew saying I’d shot myself in the foot with that name. Inevitably, I stumbled and missed names in the first year of writing. But, since then, I show up every day and do my best to share something of value. On some days, the learning sucks. On others, it is passable. And, every once a while, it is insightful. But, regardless, I show up, remember to breathe deeply, give thanks, focus on what I’m learning, and ship.

It is my daily meditation and I’m not sure what I’d do or who I’d be without it.

(2) Learning to think and learn. For many years, the tag line of this blog – “Never failure, only learning.” I started writing here because I was short of confidence after an incident where I’d found myself incapable of failing gracefully. I thought writing about my failures may change the way I think about them. And, if I did so long enough, maybe it would change my approach to learning. I hadn’t heard of Carol Dweck’s research on fixed and growth mindsets at that time. If I had, I’d have recognized myself as someone living in a fixed mindset and as someone who was incapable of a life of learning and fulfillment.

Asking myself “what did I learn?” every day 10 years has helped me understand what it means to live with a growth mindset. I still don’t do it every time – at least not at first. But, I do it a lot more often than I used to. And, 3653 daily attempts later, I’ve begun to appreciate its power.

(3) Learning to make and keep commitments. Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, says that we blog for two people – ourselves and one other person who we can picture reading what we write. While I could always count on my mom and wife to read my notes, I’ve also met many wonderful people along the way.

(An aside – someone recently wrote in sharing that her excitement about an upcoming change. It was the first time she’d written in and she wondered if the email would just go down some “dark hole” of unread messages. I explained to her that A Learning a Day mail is what I look forward to when I open up my email every day.)

Aside from hearing about your perspectives, counter points and notes, the most powerful effect the notes have is to remind me that I’m making public commitments. So, when I share an aspirational note and say I intend to do something, I feel the pressure to do it. Thanks to this, I’ve begun to grasp why Stephen Covey defines integrity as making and keeping commitments. That’s because we feel whole as we become consistent in what we do and say. And, integrity comes the word integer – which means whole.

The process of habitually making these commitments and following up has helped me experience this wholeness. And, once you get a taste for it, you hope to continue being worthy of that experience.

I started writing here because I thought I’d learn how to write better and think better. And, while I hope I’ve gotten better at that, I am certain that this process has taught me how to live. And, I couldn’t be more grateful.

Thank you for being part of the journey.

Butterflies and Erosion

When we talk about change, we often talk about the transformation of caterpillars to butterflies. We’ve all heard a version of this analogy at some point in our lives. It is the ultimate story of dramatic transformation.

We are drawn to dramatic stories – ergo the entertainment industry – because they provide the escapism we crave. But, these stories are the exception and not the rule.

Most change, for example, is akin to erosion. Erosion is the process by which rocks are gradually worn away by flowing water or the wind. You can’t erode a piece of rock in a day and there’s definitely no beautiful transformation story. Instead, a stream might effect the change it desires over a period of months and years. And, it can only do so by showing up and keeping at it every day.

Maybe more of us would stick with our plans for change if we thought of change more like erosion?

It probably doesn’t need force

There’s an unsaid rule when you are assembling an appliance or a piece of furniture – the right tools and technique work much better than force.

If you’ve tried applying a lot of force to align edges or to ram screws into pre-drilled holes, you’ve experienced this. When force seems to be the only way through, it is likely you need to go back to the manual or find a different tool.

It turns out that solving people problems isn’t all that different. While there is the rare occasion when force is useful, for the most part, it serves as an indicator that you are doing something wrong. Technique in working with people is making the effort to understand those you are seeking to influence and employing a combination of humor, care, systems and thoughtfulness.

When in doubt, choose tools and technique over force.

Tai Chi and breathing

I’ve been sharing “meditations” from Josh Waitzkin’s “The Art of Learning” in the past few weeks. I’m down to my last two passages. Today’s note is about Tai Chi and breathing.

In William Chen’s Tai Chi form, expansive (outward or upward) movements occur with an in-breath, so the body and mind wake up, energize into a shape. He gives the example of reaching out to shake the hand of someone you are fond of, waking up after a restful sleep, or agreeing with someone’s idea. Usually, such positive movements are associated with an in-breath – in the Tai Chi form, we “breathe into the fingertips.” Then, with the out-breath, the body releases, de-energizes, like the last exhalation before falling asleep.

It is Chen’s opinion that a large obstacle to a calm, healthy, present existence is the constant interruption of our natural breathing patterns. A thought or ringing phone or honking car interrupts an out-breath and so we stop and begin to inhale. Then we have another thought and stop before exhaling. The result is shallow breathing and deficient flushing of carbon dioxide from our systems, so our cells never have as much pure oxygen as they could. Tai Chi meditation is, among other things, a haven of unimpaired oxygenation.

This is such a practical and, yet, fascinating thought. I plan to think about it further and see how I can integrate this idea into my day. More when that happens.

Thanks again, Josh, for a fascinating insight.

Ask advice better – replace the generic question with a hypothesis

The typical approach to asking for advice is to ask generic questions like – “how can I get a job in xx?” or “how can I do well in my x admissions interview?” 

Aside from being hit and miss if you are the person asking these sort of questions, they can be very frustrating if you are on the other end of these questions. They showcase no thoughtfulness and feel formulaic.

A better way is to replace this question with your hypothesis or approach. For example, you could lead with – “I realize it is challenging to make the switch to xx. But, my research points to other folks who’ve done it by doing yy. So, as a first step, I plan to do yy. Second, I am thinking about taking a course on the side or working on a side project to prove I can do it. I’m curious to hear your feedback on my plan?” 

This simple change in approach can have a magical effect because it showcases your preparation and thoughtfulness. In conversations where people don’t know each other well (and, let’s face it, we don’t have such conversations with people we know well), showcasing interest works much better than saying “I am interested.”

Show, don’t tell.

I am really bad at that

When we say “I am really bad at that,” what we are really saying is that it isn’t worth our effort to get better at it.

It is perfectly acceptable to decide it isn’t worth investing in a certain skill or habit. It may not be the best use of our limited time.

But, it isn’t right to pretend we aren’t capable of getting better. That’s just a way to let ourselves off the hook. And, while it might seem perfectly harmless to let ourselves off the hook on something trivial, it spirals quickly into skills and habits that aren’t so.

We can get better at anything we want to get better at. And, the first step to doing so is by fixing language that allows us to let ourselves off the hook.

Building trust in relationships and teams

The research on great teams has concluded that the key ingredient is psychological safety. That, to me, is just another word for trust. Great relationships and great teams are built on trust. If you’ve ever worked in a team which operated with 100% trust, you know what such experiences are like. They are a thing of beauty and are experiences you’ll cherish forever.

It turns out that there are no shortcuts for trust. Trust is predicated on knowledge and then understanding. We can claim to know someone when we know who they are and what their story is. We begin to understand them when we begin to understand how they make decisions and why they do what they do.

Building diverse teams, as a result, requires this investment. It needs to begin by taking the team out for a day or two and spending time understanding each other’s stories. No devices, no distractions, 100% presence. It is only after such a day that we can begin to understand how and why people operate the way they do. We hear stories we’ve never heard and find ourselves opening up to perspective that we’d never have considered. Only then are we ready to get work done. We have to go slow to go fast.

This sounds like a painfully intentional approach to building diverse teams. It is. Diverse teams are rarely built by accident. When that happens, it happens because the team members are stuck in the trenches – in very difficult situation that requires them to go through the same process under stress. Such situations often creates friends for life. The process of building and operating in a great teams isn’t different.

This process also speaks to why we naturally gravitate to building teams with people who are similar to us. It is easy to understand people who are similar to us. They share similar back stories, similar backgrounds and the process of understanding takes little effort. But, in my limited experience, such teams are the equivalent of getting five guitarists together. You may have a great jam session.

But, you rarely build a great band.

And, you never have a shot at being a part of an orchestra.