Author: alearningaday

What do people like you do?

The main beach at the Thai island town of Krabi has 6 Indian restaurants within a 100 metres of each other. That’s quite a number for a town of that size. What astonished me was the enthusiastic salesmanship outside the restaurant and outstanding customer service in the two places I visited. In isolation, this is amazing as I am fairly sure the same restaurants in India would have had forgettable customer service.

Add context to it, though, and it makes sense. Between the 6 restaurants are many many Thai and western restaurants run by equally enthusiastic staff. The customer service bar is high and every one needs to step up their game to survive. The staff at these restaurants don’t think of what they’re doing as special. That’s just the norm to them. It is what they need to do to survive. And, perhaps most importantly, it is what “people like them do” in Krabi. Their tribe just gets customer service.

So, what do people like you do? What are the tribes you are a part of known for?

If you are striving for personal change, perhaps you should stop punishing yourself for your seeming inability to do so and focus on joining tribes that are known for what you are striving for. If you want to get fit, make friends with people who exercise.

The most powerful change is one of culture.

Big picture and close up – The 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath..

American President Franklin D Roosevelt always worried about the quality of information that reached him. So, he had a strong network of people outside the federal government who gave him feedback. He would even have his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, visit projects unannounced and send him reports. He also maintained relationships with lower members of staff to ensure he always had the right information.

But, his most important tool was the ‘big picture and close up.’ He used polling heavily to figure out what the people thought. During his time, the White House would receive 5000-8000 letters every day. If it dipped, he would complain. He would make sure they were analyzed in terms of the problems they found and made sure they were then categorized (e.g. 3,000 on tax, 2,000 on healthcare, etc.).

Then, he would review specific letters to understand the “temperature” of the issue (e.g. specific complaints on a change to the tax code). This way, he got a big picture view and dived in to understand the nuance.

How can we apply the “big picture and close up” approach to make decisions in our lives?

 Big picture close up

Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

“The country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something… We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely.” | Franklin D Roosevelt

Who owes you?

A lot of human unhappiness is caused by thoughts of what the world and the people in it owe us. These thoughts are caused by the world view – “I am a good person. I’ve done good for … and, so, … owes me for it.”

This world view causes expectation and this expectation results in inevitable disappointment. It is also foolhardy for many reasons; the first of which is that we vastly over estimate the effects of our actions.

Things get much better when we internalize 2 truths –
1. Nobody owes you anything (no, not even a thank you)
2. It is actually you who owes the world and its denizens. You take up space (physical and emotional). And you better have something good to show for it.

So, get over it. Get sh*t done. Be happy.

The frustration caused by inconsistency

I ordered a Lenovo ultra-book 11 days ago. I spoke to their sales department immediately after and was assured shipment within a week with delivery within 2-3 days of shipment.

A week later, I called them up and was told that the new shipment date was a week later. Oh, and the new delivery date would be delayed by another week as the new shipment would be from China.
Okay, in that case, could I change my shipping address? Apparently not – because I had used Amazon Payments to process my order. No address changes for me.
Alright, if that’s the case, can I cancel my order? Yes. Absolutely. No problem.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the matter. I get an email a few hours later from Lenovo that the order can’t be cancelled in time at this stage. The shipping will likely proceed as initially planned. Once it does arrive, I’ll have to give Lenovo a call and they’ll explain the next few steps involving receiving shipping labels and then shipping it back to them.

And, after all this, I get a shipping notification the next day (3 days after the original date and 3 days before the new estimate). I have no clue if the cancellation will reach in time. At this point, I’ve stopped trying to guess.

In the meanwhile, I ordered a newer version of the same ultra book from the Microsoft store and had it shipped to me within a day.

You know the big issue with all this? It’s simple – consistency. How could this have been avoided?

1. Set a realistic ship date and over deliver – e.g. when I ordered my first iPhone, Apple assured me that it would take 3 weeks. I received it in 2.5 weeks and was absolutely delighted.
2. Train customer service folk to take ownership. The way to do this is to avoid phrases that put the blame to other departments and focus on phrases like – “I’ll follow this up for you and get back to you.”

A combination of realistic expectations and trained customer service would ensure some amount of consistency between interactions. And, as customers and people, we can take consistent delay (because we begin to expect it) but it is inconsistency that frustrates.

PS: Lenovo, it’s a bad sign if your partners are able to ship your stuff better than you. Thank you for the learnings though! :-)

A few notes on managing passwords and Lithium-ion batteries

We use passwords and Lithium-ion batteries (the batteries that power whichever device you are reading this on) a fair bit. I went on a best-practice gathering mission the other day on both. And here’s what I found –

Passwords – Lifehacker resource
– Use Lastpass or KeePass to create random passwords (available as extensions on chrome)
– Don’t use a password formula – e.g. Password123 – unless absolutely necessary

Suggested approach (based on reading suggestions across a few blogs)
Step 1: Use a password manager (i.e. lastpass) with a secure master password
Step 2: Create 2 tiers of applications – critical and non critical. For critical, set difficult passwords and ensure two-factor authentication is turned on.
Examples of critical applications
1. Email
2. Storage – Crash plan + Dropbox
3. Payments and credit card accounts – Amazon, iTunes, PayPal
4. Bank accounts
5. Social – Facebook + Twitter+ Tumblr + Linkedin
6. Any others For all others, just use a couple of generic passwords you will remember in case Lastpass isn’t at hand. They probably don’t matter that much anyway.

Lithium-ion batteries – Lifehacker resource
– Don’t worry about discharging the battery completely – just do it once a month (Old Nickel based batteries needed this. Li batteries don’t)
– Shallow discharges and charges or charging from 40%-80% are seen as ideal to prolong battery life and are much better than discharging to 0% and recharging to 100%
– One charge cycle is when you use the FULL 100% – so 40% + 40% + 20% discharge is just 1 cycle. Discharging to 50% results in optimum charge cycle usage
– If you plan on storing a battery away for a long time (e.g. your laptop’s), discharge to about 50% and keep in a cool place
– Always use the correct charger
– Don’t leave the battery plugged on overnight – causes overheating.

Hope this helps!

In praise of heroes

Mentorship is an all-encompassing relationship. It works for some and doesn’t work for others. And, even for those whom it works for, it brings all sorts of complications with it – for example, ‘letting go’ / the eventual break is problematic in many mentor-mentee relationships.

However, we can all have heroes. While Seth Godin defines heroes as folks who live their life in public and broadcast their model to anyone who likes to follow, I tend to think that that’s just a part of the equation. A hero, in my definition, is anybody who inspires you to be your best self. While heroes can be people who live their life in public, they can also be people you’ve met for a short while, they can be your friends – just about anyone who inspires you to be better, learn more, and take action.

For example, I met a friend on a recent project in Japan. Let’s call him Jan. Jan is my hero for banishing procrastination. I have a sneaking suspicion that he has no clue what procrastination is (I didn’t proceed to define it for him). You give Jan a task and it is done. There is just no delay. No hangups. He substitutes the usual groans at having to do an annoying task with enthusiasm and a fantastic attitude. I was blown away.

Since spending time with Jan, I’ve made many changes in my life to follow his example. I clear emails when I see them now – no dilly-dallying. I remember him every morning when I look at the list of things to do. I attempt a Jan-esque smile at the annoying tasks and then work to plough through them. His example has inspired me to be the best I can be… and, for that, I am really grateful.

That’s the best part about heroes. You can have hundreds of heroes and they can help inspire you to do the little things better. Almost everyday, when I hit publish on this blog post, I ask myself – “Would this be a blog post that Seth Godin would consider worthy?” It inspires me to take another look at the post and do my best every day.

RIP Robin Williams

There is a small collection of actors whose presence always makes me want to watch a movie – Robin Williams was definitely one of them. His performances in Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting were nothing short of spectacular.

The Ellen show has shared a lovely post with memorable moments with Robin. I am saddened at the news of his death. We will miss you, Robin.

“The techniques we use are no big secret…

…it’s just about making an effort and repeating the same thing every day.” | Yoshikazu, Sukiyabashi Jiro from Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Information isn’t wealth any more. Sure, there still are patented techniques that are probably the modern day equivalent to “the secret sauce.” But, if we dig deeper, I think we’d find that the secret sauce, like nostalgia :), isn’t what it used to be.

Google isn’t just the best search engine because of its ground breaking page rank algorithm. It is the best because it didn’t use that innovation and head-start to sit back and relax. Google has been running experiments on how to tweak the algorithm ever since at ground-breaking speed using data from user behavior for 15 straight years, week after week. They make the effort. It shows.

Yes, being the first mover is an advantage. Billy Beane did that with the Oakland A’s focus on using statistics to build teams around groups of players rather than look for star players. However, other baseball franchises caught up with his methods soon enough. So, Billy Beane began focusing on the college players draft as he felt inefficiencies lay there. Soon, the other franchises will catch up there too. If Beane is to continue having the sort of impact he’s had on the game, he will have to continue making the effort to find inefficiencies every day.

Why doesn’t everyone do it? Because it is hard, complicated, and not guaranteed to work. It involves accepting that you simply don’t know enough and that your current way is probably woefully inefficient.

So, if you are still intent on finding a secret sauce, I’d suggest looking hard to Sukiyabashi Jiro, Google, and Billy Beane. The techniques they use are no big secret. But, their genius lies in their consistency of effort.

Show up on time, look for what’s hard, complicated, and not guaranteed to work…. and ship. Then, do it again tomorrow.

7% better – The 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from our RealLeaders.tv interview with Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi..

Social scientist and author of the now legendary book on happiness – “Flow,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and team spent a week collecting data from a group of internet chess players who played over 1000 games.

They had the players fill out how much “flow” they felt in the game afterwards. All previous psychological theories spoke about play as a way of boosting self esteem by winning. But, Prof Mihaly and team’s hypothesis was that greatest enjoyment doesn’t come from winning but from playing opponents who are equally matched – so skill levels and challenges are equal (i.e. in “flow” territory).

Flow
Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

Interestingly, the results showed that the optimal challenge was when the opponent was about 7% better. Playing against better players meant the curve of enjoyment went down very slowly while playing against really bad players meant enjoyment went down precipitously. The point is clearly not to just win because, when we play against someone better, we win only 30% of the time but when we do win, we feel much better.

Are we regularly giving ourselves challenges that are 7% harder than our current skill level?

“Happiness is not something that is guaranteed, or that comes with our birth certificates. Happiness is to do things that are harmonious with who we are, with what we can do, with what we like, and with what we think is right.” | Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

What should I do if I’m really struggling at work and feel incredibly down because of it?

Someone (anonymous) prompted me to answer a question on Quora. I thought I’d share the question and my response below. The tough part about such a question is that no one can answer it. The best (I believe) you can do is provide a frame that will hopefully help. The response has many of elements I write about here on this blog and all of what is recommended has been tried and tested. So, here’s hoping this helps the person who asked the question and anyone else who might be having a difficult time.

What should I do if I’m really struggling at work and feel incredibly down because of it?

I changed job about a year ago, and really haven’t been doing well in my new job, definitely not as well as I did in my old. Some things are solvable, or at least I can see how to solve them, e.g. project management. However, my job is very technical and requires a deep understanding of material that is complex. I cannot seem to get my head around it, my learning on it is very slow. For that I just do not know what to do, and feel hopeless. It is strange for me because my technical grasp in my old job was good, I don’t know why I am struggling so much here. I feel so demotivated and I do not know who to talk to, as people who do not work in the industry do not understand. I really want some constructive feedback and something concrete to work on, but my colleagues and management say “understanding technical issues should be a given” which makes me wish I could just quit and do something else, although I can’t actually afford to do that financially.

 

Dear friend,

Congratulations! This is an opportunity that can make you and really change your life.

What you describe is the essence of the toughest struggle we face as humans – it is part external, part internal and part existential. It is when the resistance seems to just overpower you and suddenly everything that you seem to touch seems to have failure written all over it. There is nothing harder. I have experienced losing both my father and uncle between ages 9 and 11 and then facing many difficulties as a consequence of that. And, yet, when I look back at a time when I went through something like this, I found death and it’s consequences easier to deal with. This sort of experience will teach you to be human and, in many ways, I think it’s those that learn to be human are those that learn how to be happy.

The toughest part about this sort of situation is that it comes with a seeming lack of options. You seem stuck in an endless spiral and rebuilding your confidence and your sense of self feel like a lot of hard work.

So, given the situation, it is great that you are asking the question. It is sometimes hard to step out of ourselves when we are having tough times. And, this is definitely a good first step. Well done.

Here’s how I would approach it.

Step 1. Examine your options and make a conscious decision.

It seems to me that there are 4 options –
1. Quit now (which you can’t seem to afford financially)
2. Search for a job now
3. Stay and continue status quo
4. Stay and change things

Out of these 4 options, I think searching for a job now could be an escape. However, given your current mental state, it is unlikely that is going to be fruitful. Since option 3 is not one I would recommend, let’s focus on the decision you have in front of you – To fix it or not to  try.

If you decide to fix it, then we proceed to step 2.

Step 2. Rebuild with a 1 month short term plan.

Give yourself a clear short term process goal, e.g., “I’m going to work hard on “being happy” and I’m going to measure my efforts on it.”

This will take 3 steps – 

1. Get the basics – eating, sleeping, exercising, and reading – right. Eat healthy food every 4 hours, kill alcohol and cigarettes for a month, sleep 8 hours every day, exercise 6 days a week (aerobic for 20 minutes) and spend 30 mins every day reading/listening to a book (perhaps start with your commute). When you start,  start with “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E Frankl.

Create a simple tracker and measure yourself on these.

2. Journal your daily learnings. You are learning something every day. Reflect on it and write about it. Every challenge is learning and every day, we get better at dealing with them.

3. Recharge emotionally – via good times and volunteering. Spend at least a day a week with loved ones and get over yourself when you do (no moping / complaining). And, make 3 hours to volunteer at a place with underprivileged kids.

Notes
– This may not immediately change anything. You’re in a spiral, and as you face the inevitable frustration once you start trying, you’ll probably spiral further down. Allow yourself to hit rock bottom. It’s a liberating place to be when you realize you can’t sink any lower.
– Don’t take it personally – great footballing stars have gone on to become massive failures when they switched clubs. It isn’t just about you – it is also about the environment.
– As you might have gathered, this isn’t about the technical skills. Our first step is to work on your confidence and motivation. • Be willing to iterate and change approaches. This will help you with stage 1 – getting started and building your confidence. You’ll need to keep tailoring your approach as  some things will work and some won’t. That’s okay. It’s a long way up and there is no easy way out of it.

And, this is not going to be easy or quick. You will feel stuck and annoyed many many times as you work your way through the process. If that happens, welcome to the club. This is how we get made.

PS: I’d love to help beyond this Quora thread. If this thought process helps, that’s great. Even if it doesn’t, please feel free to write me on rohan@rohanrajiv.com if I can be of help in thinking through this. Good luck and good skill!