Author: alearningaday

I spoke to my high school chemistry teacher recently and shared that I don’t remember what he taught anymore. But I sure remember how he taught.

He was a Chemistry genius and stand-up comedian rolled into one. His style was to walk in with just a few pieces of chalk and a duster – he remains the only teacher from school who never brought a textbook with him.

Attempting to control a group of 40 boys in high school in the middle of the day was a task few succeeded at. Everyone else who succeeded did so because they inspired fear. He, however, inspired respect. We wanted to be tuned in to what he had to say.

He’d often start his class with a joke. For example, he’d wonder aloud as to why there existed an industry for sleeping pills. “Just use chemistry textbooks. Guaranteed to help you fall asleep in 2 minutes. ”

Then he’d go on to hold our attention for the next 40 minutes and make Chemistry come alive. He’d interact with us, treat every question seriously, and bring in humor at every opportunity. He believes any teacher who comes into a classroom intent on teaching something has it all wrong. Every class is simply an opportunity to interact and learn – with the subject being the excuse.

It was a masterclass in teaching…. and leadership. I am so grateful to have witnessed it up close.

PS: For those of you who get these notes via email, a double post edition today thanks to a time-zone kerfuffle that accidentally delayed yesterday’s note.

A subtle change that wise leaders make is turning the focus of their humor to themselves as they grow in influence. This matters for two reasons –

(1) As you get more senior, it is easy to think your jokes have gotten funnier. In reality, people around you are just significantly more likely to laugh at your jokes.

(2) It is easy to forget just how impactful your words can be. I’ve been on the receiving end of humor that was well intentioned. But it got uncomfortable quickly. It makes a world of a difference when the focus of your humor is you. It helps create a culture where everyone understands it isn’t worth taking yourself too seriously around here.

A sense of humor is a powerful tool. It provides levity, adds perspective, and makes work a lot more fun.

As with all powerful tools, it needs to be used well.

I spent many hours working through my annual reflections this year and stumbled on an insight that, in retrospect, should have been obvious – the “look forward” section needs to be all about the reminders.

As I worked through my priorities for 2024 and reviewed principles on health, close relationships, money, et al, I realized that the system that helps me make them happen is the system of reminders.

In my case, there are 4 systems –

(1) Morning reading (takes about 3 minutes to read the pinned note)
(2) End of day check in (takes about 2 minutes to write out reflections from the day)
(3) The weekly reflection template (takes 5 mins on a weekend)
(4) The weekend priority list template (used to organize what I need to get done)

I could write whatever I want in my goals for 2024. However, they will get done when they consistently make their way into these templates.

As long as they’re in there, I’ll naturally get a daily/weekly reminder of what matters. That reminder increases the probability I’ll get what I want to get done.

The principle here is recommitment. Commitment in an annual reflection process is the starting point. Success, however, is going to come from recommitment – over and over again.

That’s why it is all about the reminders.

Two years back, I started a simple morning practice – I’d start the day by reading a few notes from my synthesis of a few principles/themes that emerged from my Stoicism reading journey. Over the past two years, these expanded to include other principles/ideas that I held dear and included an articulation of my aspirational virtues.

The purpose of the practice was to quickly remind myself of a few ideas that matter at the start of the day. When it’s done well, it grounds me and inspires more equanimity. But the expanded length made it hard to focus on all ideas at once.

The challenge with such exercises is that it takes a few attempts to clarify your thinking. And the clearer it becomes, the simpler and more integrated it is.

So, as I work through my annual reflections, I took another pass at a simplified set of principles for my morning routine. I’m excited about the simplified version 4.0.

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1. Starting point: It all starts with integrity – make and keep commitments. We can’t always do or make “big” commitments/things – but we can do the small things with extraordinary care.
   
2. Mission: Contribute by working on things that matter, build relationships by playing long-term games with long-term people, and choose learning by seeking new experiences and not fearing mistakes – instead, focus on a creative, constructive, and corrective response.
   
3. Operating principle: Create clarity of vision, bring relentless constructive energy, and build systems and teams that deliver results.
   
4. Building blocks: Health, close relationships, and money are the core building blocks to a good life. Write out your approach and check in every weekend.
   
5. Gratitude: Take the time to be thankful for all the luck and the privilege that enables us to choose minor discomforts to get what we want done. It doesn’t matter how the day unfolds – you never know if a good day is a good day. And there’s always something to be grateful for.

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I have it ready on the Notes app on my phone and I look forward to testing this out in 2024.

This is my way of wishing myself more wisdom and equanimity in 2024. I wish you and your loved ones the same.

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.