Category: Everything else

“Growing up” is a function of 2 things –

(1) The degree of awareness we have about how what we do affects others.

(2) The degree of responsibility we take for the outcomes/circumstances we live with.

When we seek to make progress on priorities that matter, the curve of progress often doesn’t follow the curve of action.

We need continuous action over long periods of time to experience significant progress. That progress, however, doesn’t come linearly.

You don’t understand a subject for the longest time. And then it all begins to click.

You can’t seem to get that stroke right for the longest time. Suddenly, it happens.

Your capability doesn’t seem to translate to income for the longest time. Until it does.

Gradually, then suddenly.

The important thing is to keep plugging away.

“Focus on the job you’re doing, don’t focus on the next few jobs. Understand the company’s politics, but don’t play in the politics. And put your hand up for the toughest assignments. That’s when you’ll get noticed.” | Indra Nooyi

I thought this was fantastic advice.

It is so easy to get caught up in planning ahead and lose sight of the job at hand.

And, it is just as easy to get caught up in the politics. Understand it, but don’t play it is a note that is about as wise as they come.

Discipline – our ability to voluntarily do something long before we are forced to do it.

“Listen to me. Don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to Edwin Akufo. Don’t even listen to Sam. You just listen to your gut, okay? And on your way down to your gut, check in with your heart. Between those two things, they’ll let you know what’s what.” | Ted Lasso

“Listen to me. Don’t listen to me.”

Beautiful.

We lost Prof Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi this week. If you’ve ever heard of the word “flow” or sought it yourself, you’ve been touched by Prof Mihaly’s pioneering work on psychology and productivity.

I interviewed Prof Mihaly 7 years ago for a side project. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak to a luminary. So, after some prep, I was ready and excited.

5 minutes into the conversation, my computer crashed. Okay, take 2.

5 minutes into take 2, my computer crashed again. Then, inexplicably, my screen froze again a few minutes into attempt 3.

At this point, I’d wasted 20 minutes of his time and I expected him to say goodbye and tell me to go sort out my technology issues (it would have been justified!). As I called him for the 4th time, I shared how embarrassed I was feeling.

“Technology exists to embarrass” – he said with a kind smile and got on with take 4 as if nothing happened.

Prof Mihaly said many an insightful thing during that interview. But, those moments of kindness, humor, and patience have stayed with me all these years.

He didn’t just teach us about happiness and fulfillment. He lived it.

He will be missed.

A disclaimer that should accompany every conversation on career choices – “There may be patterns to be found when we look at careers on average. But, one person’s career journey is idiosyncratic. So, no one knows what’s right for you.”

Ultimately, all inputs and perspectives are just that – inputs and perspectives. No one has the right answer. All we can do is do our research and then make the best call knowing what we know.

When we know better, we’ll do better.

As we experiment with teaching our kids letters and numbers, I find myself reflecting on my identity as a student growing up. A big part of this identity – as a “good student” – revolved around how much I knew.

It took me years to unlearn that idea and focus instead on how well/quickly I learn.

I’m obviously hopeful we’ll be able to set the example and focus on learning right off the bat for our kids.

But, as I’m learning from these experiments, it is so easy to default to a fixed mindset.

It is much easier to celebrate good answers vs. good questions.

I chuckled when I saw this email in my inbox this morning. The honesty in the email “Greetings MASS EMAIL” was unintentional. But, it was representative of the quality of the rest of the email.

Mail merge functionality has made it easy to incorporate the illusion of personalization.

But, no amount of mail merge can save us from not caring.

It always shows.

If you think you will be unhappy during the week, you’re right.

Conversely, if you think you will be happy, you’re right about that too.

We decide whether we’ll be happy or unhappy first and tailor our responses to what happens after.

Not the other way around.