Category: Everything else

Ramanan Raghavendran shared a lovely post on his blog titled – “Remember who brung ya to the dance.” Below are a few excerpts.

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In life — work, home, relationships of all kinds — there are people who “brung ya to the dance.” Sometimes we forget them, and this is a mistake. It is essential to remember them, both because gratitude is a noble emotion and so you are mindful about paying it forward.

All kinds of people have brung me to various dances along the way. Many of them are, to my great good fortune, still in my life.

There is the admissions officer who admitted me to Penn 35 years ago. There is the classmate who single-handedly got me through a hairy course junior year. There is the colleague who made the crucial introduction nearly 30 years ago that got me into the VC business. There is the recruiter who found me a position that landed me on my feet after a disastrous turn in my career.

When we achieve some modest measure of success, it can be very easy to forget how much luck is involved, at crucial moments. And behind that luck, always, is a human being who made a decision or an intervention in your favor.

It isn’t necessarily some earth-shattering decision. It is often not something viewed as a favor by the person making the intervention. For example, that recruiter I mentioned — he was just doing his job.

But “doing his job” resulted in a complete transformation of my life’s trajectory. Without him, things would be very, very different.

Remember all these people, and if you can, hold them close.

They brung you to the dance, and without them, it’d be a very different dance.

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It resonated.

Author and researcher Arthur Brooks had a fascinating take in a conversation with Dan Pink (~3 min video). Below is my paraphrased version.

The reason is not the number of friends. It is the type of friends. Specifically, do you have real friends or deal friends?

Deal friends are the people who can help you in a transactional way and they probably do care about you, and you probably do like them.

Real friends are the people that might call you at 2 o clock in the morning in a crisis. This is somebody that you might share the intimate details of your romantic life with without feeling weird about it or without feeling it might be divulged to a whole bunch of people.

Think of the 5 people you are closest to. Now ask yourself – “How many of these are deal friends vs. real friends?“

A simple way to find out – deal friends are useful to you to further your career. Real friends are “useless.”

So, if all your top 5 friends are deal friends, good for your career. But, it also means you need to start doing the work to find real friends.

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Fascinating take.

There is minimal correlation between age and maturity or wisdom.

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

A good friend is working through a couple of health setbacks. He was reflecting on some of the lessons he’s been taking away from this experience. 4 lessons rose to the top:

(1) Self-care should be our #1 priority. It is amazing how everything pales when we face a health setback. Make health your priority… or you’ll be forced to do so in more challenging circumstances.

(2) Seek second (and even third) opinions for painful problems. Lines are better indicators than dots (single datapoints).

(3) Even amidst challenges, we are often privileged enough to be recipients of care, kindness, and support. There’s a lot to be grateful for. Make sure to take stock from time to time.

(4) Prioritize strength training.

Sage advice.

“Romance is theory, love is practice” | Arjun’s blog

I thought this was a beautiful encapsulation of how love – the real thing – takes work.

While written with partners in mind, this is equally applicable to how we deal with ourselves and to ideas that we get excited about.

It is easy, for example, to get excited about a new year resolution. But it takes a lot more than that excitement to put in the work. Every single day for 365 days.

Romance is “easy come, easy go.”

The work begins when we commit to the practice.

It is why love – of any kind – is hard. And powerful.

I decided to try a workout from a trainer I hadn’t seen yet on Apple Fitness+ yesterday – it was a 10 min total body workout by Amir.

I was tired and was dragging my feet on working out. Until the video began to play.

It turned out Amir was an amputee. He’d lost his left leg in an accident, managed to fit a prosthetic leg four years later, and decided to make the most of his second chance by becoming a fitness trainer.

Seeing Amir on the screen felt like the universe asking me – “What’s your excuse again?”

It reminded me of how I felt another day when I realized the trainer, Sam, was many months pregnant.

“What’s your excuse again?”

I had none.

Thanks for the reminder, Amir and Betina.

An important skill in our pursuit of progress is learning not to waste any emotional space when we inevitably take a few steps back or sideways.

The word progress inspires images of linear forward motion.

It is anything but.

This illustration captures it brilliantly. Credit to whoever came up with it.

“The original Latin word for “decide”, decidere, means “to cut off,” as in slicing away alternatives; it’s a close cousin of words like “homicide” and “suicide.” | Oliver Burkeman in Four Thousand Weeks

It is always fascinating to understand the origin of a word. The power of making a decision lies in its ability to cut off options.

This origin story is a great reminder of that.

Good strategy is just as much about what we decide not to do as it is about what we decide to do.

That helps us stay focused on the things that we absolutely need to do in a sequence that gives us the best chance of achieving our goals.

I recently made a purchase in our corporate rewards store powered by Workhuman. Within a minute of making the purchase, I realized I made a mistake. I should have used my points for something else.

I searched for a cancel order button for the next 3 minutes and found a help center post recommending I call them. So, 4 minutes in, I did that.

Credit to them, they picked up within minutes. But, I was told they had no way to cancel it at the moment. It was Saturday and they’d have to call the supplier on Monday morning.

I checked in on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, however, the supplier had shipped it before I reminded them. So, the package was on my way. I could, however, call Fedex if I wanted it canceled.

When I called Fedex, I learnt that only the sender could cancel it. So, I called Workhuman back and asked them to request the supplier to cancel it.

They told me via email that this didn’t work. I have no idea why. So, I’d now have to wait for the Fedex delivery and refuse the package.

You guessed it. The Fedex delivery person just left the package at the door. So, I couldn’t do that. Can I get some return labels?

After a couple of email requests and calls, I finally received a quick questionnaire that I needed to fill out – including sending photos of the unopened box. Then, I finally received said return labels and, eventually, my refund.

The entire process took about 4 weeks.

To think of all of this could have been avoided by a cancel button.

If that breaks the order relay system, we could imagine a solution that delays sending orders by 15 minutes to external suppliers and thus enable users to cancel within 15 minutes (I assume that’s a reasonable window to catch a mistake).

Another great reminder that it’s got to be easy to remove a charge.