Category: Everything else

I received a “privacy rights” notice from a financial service provider who collects payments on a loan. They notified me that I had the right to tell them to not share my data with other financial services companies. However –

(a) If I didn’t explicitly say no, they’d assume I am supportive.
(b) If I did want to say no, I can’t just do it via my account online. No, I’d need to mail in a response.
(c) They graciously added an envelope. However, I wouldn’t just be able to drop it in the post box. I’d need to get a stamp.

I marveled at the thoughtfulness that went into adding just enough friction for me to discard the mailer and thus give them what they want.

Imagine if we all applied the same amount of thought to adding or removing friction to drive better habits/behavior.

We all go through phases when things don’t look as sunny in our careers/lives.

What we want in times like this is more sun. Permanent sunny weather if you will.

What we need instead is to learn to appreciate how sunny it really is – even when it doesn’t feel like it.

The sun always exists behind those clouds.

Once I make a commitment, I hate missing it. But, every once a while, I find it helpful to miss a commitment to recommit to a better process. Here’s an example.

I used to host this blog myself. A few years in, I started experiencing a spate of phishing attacks from some Russian bots/. This led to a predictable pattern – I would realize something is wrong (included the blog going down/an inability to post), go back and forth with my hosting provider requesting for help to clean up the Russian files, and then call one of my trusted developer friends for help to save the day.

Eventually, we’d get it back up and I’d sneak in my post for the day and not miss my commitment.

After this had happened a few times too many, I decided it had to stop. So, I missed a day.

Instead of the usual short-term fix, I used the day to stop hosting the blog myself and handed over the reins to WordPress.com. Safety/security came with the package. And, for $40 or so per year back then, I bought myself peace of mind.

I thought of this incident recently as I found myself contemplating yet another last-minute sprint for a project. But, instead of doing so, I decided to miss my commitment (it hurt!) and, instead, commit to a better process.

Here’s to that.

I came across a Winston Churchill quote – “People who don’t change their minds don’t change anything.”

It resonated.

“In fact, it’s Douggie’s growing conviction that the greatest flaw of the species is its overwhelming tendency to mistake agreement for truth. Single biggest influence on what a body will or won’t believe is what nearby bodies broadcast over the public band. Get three people in the room and they’ll decide that the law of gravity is evil and should be rescinded because one of their uncles got shit-faced and fell off the roof.” | Richard Powers in “The Overstory”

That line about our overwhelming tendency as humans to mistake agreement for truth hit me hard.

It is the best description I’ve heard of our fallibility.

Gallup has been asking Americans for more than four decades, “Are you satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. right now?”

The average percent of Americans answering “no” since 1969 is 63%.

What’s interesting is that Gallup asks a follow-up question: “Are you satisfied with the way things are going in your own life right now?”

There, the average “no” response is just 15.8%.

People tend to be optimistic about themselves but pessimistic about others. Social media probably supercharges that. Benedict Evans says, “The more the Internet exposes people to new points of view, the angrier people get that different views exist.”

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Such a great factoid. It puts a lot of what we see on social media in perspective.

(H/T: Morgan Housel’s blog and his seemingly never ending reservoir of great stories)

A metronome provides a steady pulse for musicians to play on time.

It is unerringly consistent and predictable. Boring even.

It is what our self-care systems should aspire to be. Whether it is rest, exercise, good food, or something else, the best systems should just work every day. No fuss. No drama.

Just like the metronome.

Ben Horowitz has shared some phenomenal posts on leadership over the years. A teammate reminded me of a post that I consider one of the best of the lot today- “What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology.”

As he outlines the unique challenges of leading a company – tough job, nobody to blame, too much broken, lonely – he shares a powerful note on one of two mistakes he sees CEOs make.

“1. They take things too personally

2. They do not take things personally enough

In the first scenario, the CEO takes every issue incredibly seriously and personally and urgently moves to fix it. Given the volume of the issues, this motion usually results in one of two scenarios. If the CEO is outwardly focused, she ends up terrorizing the team to the point where nobody wants to work at the company any more. If the CEO is inwardly focused, she ends up feeling so sick from all of the problems that she can barely make it to work in the morning.

In the second scenario, in order to dampen the pain of the rolling disaster that is the company, the CEO takes a Pollyannaish attitude: it’s not so bad. In this view, none of the problems are actually that bad and they needn’t be dealt with urgently. By rationalizing away the issues, the CEO feels better about herself. The problem is that she doesn’t actually fix any of the problems and the employees eventually become quite frustrated that the Chief Executive keeps ignoring the most basic problems and conflicts. Ultimately, the company turns to crap.

Ideally, the CEO will be urgent yet not insane. She will move aggressively and decisively without feeling emotionally culpable. If she can separate the importance of the issues from how she feels about them, she will avoid demonizing her employees or herself.”

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This is powerful because this isn’t just applicable to leading a company. It works just as well in our own lives too. Learning to care enough about the problems to give it our best without emotionally attaching ourselves to the outcome turns out to be the wisest way forward.

Whether you think it is a mountain or a mole hill – you’re right.

It is what you make of it.

There’s a great anecdote from the sets of “Don’t Look Up.” Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, and a few others of the star studded cast regularly referred to Meryl Streep as the GOAT.

In one of the photoshoots a few days in, Jennifer referred to the Goat.

And Meryl said – “That’s right, just tell the old goat where to go.”

“Meryl, you know GOAT means greatest of all time, right?”

“Oh! No!”

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On the one hand, this was clearly awkward. One of those moments that illustrates how important it is to ensure newbies understand the jargon we use in our day-to-day.

But on the other hand, I was touched by Meryl Streep’s lack of ego. That she just assumed the rest of the cast referred to her as an “old goat” says a lot about her.

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Don’t Look Up is a hilarious satire – it tells the story of two low-level astronomers who go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth. Poignant, funny, and powerful all at once.