Category: Everything else

The Maasai tribe have roamed Tanzania for centuries. And, given the challenges of living amidst the world’s largest lion population, the rite of passage for Maasai boys to become “warriors” was to kill a lion.

Over time, this decimated the lion population in Tanzania. The Tanzanian government responded by banned this practice – to no avail.

Conservationists, on the other hand, tried a different approach. They enlisted help from the Maasai warriors to protect lions. The new symbol of courage for the warriors is saving lions while safeguarding their communities instead of killing them. And, this program has made more progress over the past years than other attempts over the past decades.

This anecdote speaks to the power of culture to drive meaningful change – in ourselves and others. When we transform the “this” in “people like us do things like this,” we transform ourselves, our worlds, and, in time, the world.

(H/T: This is Marketing by Seth Godin)

I spent three months on a project in Shanghai in 2013. The Air Quality Index in Shanghai during that period was always “hazardous.” So, we spent a lot of time indoors and never opened the windows.

In hindsight, that time was a gift as it helped me appreciate fresh air in a way I hadn’t till then. Ever since, I’ve always been a proponent of keeping windows open wherever I am and generally choose fresh air over air conditioning when I get a chance.

For a few days last week, I was reminded of those months as we experienced poor air quality due to a bad forest fire near where we are. The air cleared up on Wednesday just as we headed into thanksgiving weekend and, in doing so, gave us another thing to be thankful for.

While the fire gave us plenty to think about from the standpoint of climate change, I’m going to leave that discussion for another day. For now, I’m going to give thanks for the ability to open windows and take in fresh air.

It is one of the many gifts we have that we tend to appreciate most when it is absent.

I fell in love with the idea of thanksgiving well before we moved the US. I loved the idea of a holiday that existed just for us to say “thank you.”

To me, this day marks the start of the end-of-year reflection season. I typically wind down any ongoing weekend projects (there used to be more of these pre-kids :-)), take a few weeks off from work in December, and take the time to read, think, reflect, and be present with family. And, I am really excited to do all of that this year.

I am the recipient of many blessings and privileges. As I reflect on them today, I find myself very grateful for the folks who’ve chosen to love me, for those who took a chance on me and gave me a break when I needed one, and for those who’ve been generous in sharing ideas and insights that have changed my life.

Finally, I remain very grateful to the many of you who take a few seconds (minutes?) of your limited attention to read these notes, share them with your friends and family, and even write back from time to time. Writing here has changed my life and it is your presence and encouragement that reminds me of the privilege of getting to share these notes with you while simultaneously pushing me to do this privilege justice.

Thank you. I remain very grateful.

And, I wish you a very happy thanksgiving.

Scientists from 60 nations approved a new definition of the kilogram on Friday. For over a hundred years, the weight of a kilogram was based on a hunk of metal (Platinium Iridium to be precise) in France.

For industries and research that depend on pinpoint measurement accuracy, basing our measurement on a hunk of metal resulted in minor discrepancies over time. However, with Friday’s vote, the scientists agreed to base it on the “Planck’s constant” – a value that will stay constant over time.

Jon Pratt, one of the leading scientists, grinned with pride as he acknowledged a symbolic moment. As the Washington Post put it beautifully – “It is an acknowledgment of an immutable truth — that nature has laws to which all of us are subject. And it’s one more step toward a lofty dream — that, in understanding nature’s laws, scientists can help build a better world.”

To summarize, we had a certain approach to measuring something important. Scientists realized that there was a better way. So, they figured out a path to the better way and had peers from all over the world sign off on the change.

At this time of contention and discord, that is such a big deal.

I am grateful to the scientific community for showing us how change for the better gets done.

I was in the midst of an engaging and perspective shifting conversation with someone who’d given thoughtful consideration to big ideas like the effects of climate change on our species, the effect of the evolution of modern medicine on the notion of  “death” (will it be a choice soon?), among others.

It was a fascinating conversation – one of those that gets you thinking about ideas well beyond your current host of minor problems.

As we approached the end of it, I asked this person how he balanced the perspective from thinking about problems like climate change with having to, for example, close a deal next week. He responded half jokingly – “Because this is the life I’ve been given and I want to make sure it doesn’t suck.”

I’ve reflected on that note a bunch since our conversation. It struck me as the definition of pragmatic. Through his career (a very successful one), he’s done a great job “making sure it doesn’t suck.” And, in doing so, he’s acquired the resources required over time to effect meaningful change to the causes he cares about.

There’s a lot of attention given to romantic pursuits of problems that disregard practical considerations. But, at least in my experience, the pragmatic approach – especially when combined with thoughtfulness and long term planning – is often very effective.

We went to a Target outlet recently to purchase a piece of winter clothing. We’d looked it up online and it was supposed to be in stock at this particular outlet. After combing through the relevant aisles, we finally learnt from the customer service desk that the “in stock” status on their app isn’t the most reliable.

The natural response here might be to say this was a bad outcome. We drove a bit longer to get to this particular outlet and failed to get what we wanted.

But, that would completely negate the process. We did our research, found the one spot where we’d find what we were looking for, and then learnt that their stock status isn’t the most reliable. There’s not much we’d do differently.

It is one thing to know that it is important to separate outcomes and processes. But, it is quite another thing to actually do it when we encounter small outcome setbacks everyday. I’ve learnt to view incidents like this one as practice sessions. As we build our muscle memory to evaluate processes instead of evaluating outcomes, we invest in more learning focused, thoughtful, and happier versions of ourselves.

PS: We ended up finding another version of what we wanted online. It easy to take it for granted – but, online shopping is such a game changer.

NPR had a lovely article celebrating the life of Stan Lee – the person who created characters like the amazing Spiderman and the X-Men.

Stan was known for creating superheroes who struggled with being human. He explored insecurities, unhappiness, and themes like racism through his stories. He put being human before superhuman and did it all while ensuring he made us smile.

In his words – “Before Marvel started, any superhero might be walking down the street and see a 12-foot-tall monster coming toward him with purple skin and eight arms breathing fire, and the character would have said something like, ‘Oh! There’s a monster from another world; I better catch him before he destroys the city.’ Now, if one of our Marvel characters saw the same monster, I’d like to think Spider-Man would say, ‘Who’s the nut in the Halloween get-up? I wonder what he’s advertising?‘ ”

When reflecting on his career, he once said – “I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: Entertainment is one of the most important things in people’s lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end.”

Thank you, Stan. You will be missed.

“According to its teachings, as social beings, the path to happiness for humans is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or fear of pain, by using one’s mind to understand the world and to do one’s part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly.” | Wikipedia on Stoicism

Someone recently asked me about the kinds of changes writing here for a decade had inspired. I always share a few example themes when asked this question – learning to focus on process vs. outcomes, to reflect and synthesize, to be intentional, etc. It is hard to tell the full story as the change daily public writing has inspired is both vast and deep.

But, in the spirit of synthesis, it occurred to me recently that a lot of these coalesce to form some of the tenets of stoicism. To accept things as they are, to prioritize discipline and commitment over desires and fears, to be thoughtful, to seek to be aware of the environment, and to view the world from a lens of abundance and collaboration.

Interestingly, and perhaps most significantly, the stoics believed that the truest measure of what people believed lay in their behavior. The idea that we shouldn’t listen to what people say and, instead, watch what they do has been among the more hard earned lessons I’ve taken away in the past decade.

So, a better description of the impact writing here has had on me is that it has helped me understand some of the fundamental principles of stoicism without seeking to understand it.

If I had to boil it down to four words whose meaning I’m slowly beginning to understand, I would choose “awareness,” “thoughtfulness,” “commitment,” and “perspective.” I think the act of writing about what we learn everyday inspires this journey toward understanding.

I am grateful for that and for your role in that journey.

If you are manufacturing cars, there is no point doubling down on manufacturing doors or steering wheels if the rest of the car isn’t being produced at the same pace. “Understand the goal” and “don’t optimize sub-systems” are thus key principles in operational effectiveness.

These principles have powerful life lesson equivalents. First, they ask the question – what is the car equivalent we’re building in our lives / what are we optimizing for? And, what is the right amount of production for each of the aspects (work, home, social or however we define them) in our lives to build it well?

Second, they speak to the futility of comparing certain aspects of our lives with that of others. Unless we’re optimizing for the exact objectives someone else is optimizing for, there is no point comparing the sub-systems.