Category: Everything else

Mixed bag

Every time I reflect on a representative stretch of time – a week, month, a quarter, or a year – I always see a mixed bag.

I see the wins. I see the failures, mistakes, and embarrassments – those tend to loom large. I see the people whose support and partnership made it happen. I see other relationships that didn’t work out or went sour.

In aggregate, assuming I was intentional about what I wanted to achieve, I tend to see progress. But it is never linear. It is full of squiggly lines, troughs, and unexpected turns.

There’s no such thing as a perfect stretch of time. Some stretches are better than others – or at least feel that way. But it is always a mixed bag.

We get to choose where to focus and how to move forward.

Minor discomforts

I start the day by taking a quick look at the latest version of my commitments to self. This is a reminder of 5 synthesized notes from my detour into the world of stoicism (notes) and the virtues I commit to uphold.

I’ve been engaging in this practice for two years now and it’s helped me develop more equanimity by reminding me – every weekday morning – to keep perspective. As these notes are a collection of ideas, I expect to just think deeply about one of them every day as I skim them.

For example, the one that I thought about today was on discomfort.

Welcome minor discomforts – cold, hunger, and the pain that comes from stretching mentally or physically. Reach for those discomforts everyday by spending time in depth, exercising, reading, listening, and eating right.

I think of this note often. Aside from being a reminder to reach for these discomforts in an attempt to operate better, they’re a regular reminder of just how much I take for granted.

Some of these discomforts – effectively when we need to do things we may not want to do or consciously make a short-term trade-off – may loom large on a daily basis. But, in the grand scheme of things, they’re drops in the bucket. And, in some cases, the fact that we get to make these trade-offs often are an indicator of the presence of massive privilege.

This is a nudge to make sure I keep that perspective.

After all, it isn’t climbing the mountain that wears us out. It is the pebbles we carry with us in our shoe.

And those pebbles are often mental blocks around “minor discomforts” that go away when we make a slight shift to our perspective.

13 lessons from thousands of notes on marriage

A few years back, author Mark Manson shared a post about the 13 things he learnt from polling a few thousand married couples about what they’d learnt about successful marriages. I discovered it today and have copied the takeaways with a quote each that describes what it is about below.

1. Be together for the right reasons

“Don’t ever be with someone because someone else pressured you to. I got married the first time because I was raised Catholic and that’s what you were supposed to do. Wrong. I got married the second time because I was miserable and lonely and thought having a loving wife would fix everything for me. Also wrong. Took me three tries to figure out what should have been obvious from the beginning, the only reason you should ever be with the person you’re with is because you simply love being around them. It really is that simple.”

2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance

“Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life—the good, the bad and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world.”

3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect

“What I can tell you is the #1 thing, most important above all else is respect. It’s not sexual attraction, looks, shared goals, religion or lack of, nor is it love. There are times when you won’t feel love for your partner. That is the truth. But you never want to lose respect for your partner. Once you lose respect you will never get it back.”

4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts

“There can be no secrets. Secrets divide you. Always.”

5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals

“Understand that it is up to you to make yourself happy, it is NOT the job of your spouse. I am not saying you shouldn’t do nice things for each other, or that your partner can’t make you happy sometimes. I am just saying don’t lay expectations on your partner to “make you happy.” It is not their responsibility. Figure out as individuals what makes you happy as an individual, be happy yourself, then you each bring that to the relationship.”

“Shitty, codependent relationships have an inherent stability because you’re both locked in an implicit bargain to tolerate the other person’s bad behavior because they’re tolerating yours, and neither of you wants to be alone. On the surface, it seems like “compromising in relationships because that’s what people do,” but the reality is that resentments build up, and both parties become the other person’s emotional hostage against having to face and deal with their own bullshit (it took me 14 years to realize this, by the way).”

6. Give each other space

“Be sure you have a life of your own, otherwise it is harder to have a life together. What do I mean? Have your own interests, your own friends, your own support network, and your own hobbies. Overlap where you can, but not being identical should give you something to talk about and expose one another to. It helps to expand your horizons as a couple, but isn’t so boring as both living the exact same life.”

7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it

“Over the course of 20 years we both have changed tremendously. We have changed faiths, political parties, numerous hair colors and styles, but we love each other and possibly even more. Our grown kids constantly tell their friends what hopeless romantics we are. And the biggest thing that keeps us strong is not giving a fuck about what anyone else says about our relationship”

8. Get good at fighting

“The relationship is a living, breathing thing. Much like the body and muscles, it cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You have to fight. You have to hash things out. Obstacles make the marriage.”

9. Get good at forgiving

“When you end up being right about something—shut up. You can be right and be quiet at the same time. Your partner will already know you’re right and will feel loved knowing that you didn’t wield it like a bastard sword.”

“In marriage, there’s no such thing as winning an argument.”

“Been happily married 40+ years. One piece of advice that comes to mind: choose your battles. Some things matter, worth getting upset about. Most do not. Argue over the little things and you’ll find yourself arguing endlessly; little things pop up all day long, it takes a toll over time. Like Chinese water torture: minor in the short term, corrosive over time. Consider: is this a little thing or a big thing? Is it worth the cost of arguing?”

10. The little things add up to big things

“Children are worshipped in our culture these days. Parents are expected to sacrifice everything for them. But the best way to raise healthy and happy kids is to maintain a healthy and happy marriage. Good kids don’t make a good marriage. A good marriage makes good kids. So keep your marriage the top priority.”

11. Sex matters… a LOT

“And you know how you know if you or her are slipping? Sex starts to slide. Period. No other test required.”

12. Be practical, and create relationship rules

“There is no 50/50 in housecleaning, child rearing, vacation planning, dishwasher emptying, gift buying, dinner making, money making, etc. The sooner everyone accepts that, the happier everyone is. We all have things we like to do and hate to do; we all have things we are good at and not so good at. TALK to your partner about those things when it comes to dividing and conquering all the crap that has to get done in life.”

13. Learn to ride the waves

“I have been married for 44 years (4 children, 6 grandchildren). I think the most important thing that I have learned in those years is that the love you feel for each other is constantly changing. Sometimes you feel a deep love and satisfaction, other times you want nothing to do with your spouse; sometimes you laugh together, sometimes you’re screaming at each other. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, ups and downs all the time, but as you stay together long enough the downs become less severe and the ups are more loving and contented. So even if you feel like you could never love your partner any more, that can change, if you give it a chance. I think people give up too soon. You need to be the kind of person that you want your spouse to be. When you do that it makes a world of difference.”

Many of these notes resonated. I’ve been mulling about relationships myself as my wife and I approach our 10 year wedding anniversary in the coming weeks. This post gave me food for thought. Synthesis to follow… :-)

3 observations about corporate politics

(1) The best definition I’ve heard for corporate politics is the act of advancing careers or agendas by means other than merit/contribution. (H/T Ben Horowitz)

(2) A lot of what people refer to as politics – salesmanship, conflict, negotiation – isn’t politics as a result. Politics, by definition, is a dirtier game. When you’re dragged in it or choose to play it, you feel it.

(3) Politics thrive when leaders exhibit one or more of the following behaviors –
(a) Away from the details (=> they don’t know how work is getting done),
(b) Emotionally unaware (=> they’re unable to understand agendas), or
(c) Overly biased toward great narratives over results (=> they prefer hearing what they want to hear over seeking the truth)

Order confirmations

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been using a simple system to keep track of confirmations and refunds.

Every time I receive an email that confirms either an aspect of travel (flight bookings, AirBnB rentals) or purchases made outside of Amazon, I file them under the “Order Confirmations” label.

This does 2 things at once –

(1) I have one place to find any upcoming orders that haven’t been fulfilled. It is easy to pull these up when I need them.

(2) It helps ensure I stay on top of any pending refunds as these emails stay undeleted until they’re processed or resolved. Every business promises refunds in x days and probably gets them right 99%+ of the time. It is on us to make sure we’re not in that 1%. And, at least anecdotally, I’ve found myself running into glitches more often than I’d like to.

My primary Gmail account over the years has morphed into a place for newsletters and transactions as personal communication with friends and family has moved almost entirely over to Whatsapp and text. “Order Confirmations” is a simple system to make sure the system operates as intended.

Extreme POVs

David H Hansson from the former 37 Signals team shared a post recently about how hybrid work is remote work’s evil twin. And his message was – either pick remote or fully on-site. Don’t bother with anything in the middle.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen DHH’s posts floating around in the ether. I have a lot of respect for all he’s done. He and his partner Jason Fried are a case study in content marketing as they’ve built a brand around sharing extreme points of view.

This post is a great example of that. It makes for an entertaining read.

I just don’t think it is right.

I think there’s a lot of ways hybrid work is way better than either alternative. And I’ve spoken to many others over the past months who feel similarly. As with most things in life, there’s nuance and a middle path.

But – and here’s the lesson – balanced points of view rarely provide entertainment value. They don’t attract attention.

So, if you want to create popular content, take a page from DHH’s playbook and take an extreme point of view. Ignore the nuance. You’ll attract both the lovers and haters – but you’ll win the attention game.

However, there’s limited, maybe even negative, correlation between what gets attention and what is right, wise, or useful.

So just make sure you’re clear about what game you’re playing.

And where that path leads.

Fishing in muddy waters

A good friend shared a quote a wise friend shared with her once – “Don’t fish in muddy waters.”

This was during a turbulent time on her team. A combination of factors external to the company as well as some leadership changes were driving a lack of clarity. During this time, a few folks decided to use the opportunity to posture for more scope and responsibility.

By making that choice, they traded off helping the team get to clarity and providing the stability their leaders wanted them to provide.

“Don’t fish in muddy waters” is a lovely reminder to wait for things to settle and even help drive clarity if possible before “attempting to fish.”

When times are tough, it is tempting to be focused on the fish we want to catch. But it is counter productive.

Good leaders always notice.

Don’t fish in muddy waters.