Category: Everything else

Metrics we could optimize

We’re all likely accountable for a metric or two in our workplaces. And, doing a good job optimizing these metrics can go a long way in shaping our career’s trajectory.

But, it doesn’t end there. Thanks to our phones and our favorite apps/websites, it is easy to find ourselves optimizing metrics in our personal lives as well. It could be likes on the photos of our new hobby or latest travel picture, listens on that podcast we do on the side, reshares on that witty quote, views on that video, subscribers on that newsletter, and so on.

Of course, we don’t have to optimize any of these. We could, instead, decide to optimize other alternatives that are less present – doses of insight that changed how we approach our days, the number of hugs we gave to those we love, times we resisted the urge to interrupt, changes we embraced, and positive contributions we made in rooms we were in.

The metrics that we most need to optimize for a better life are rarely found in any notifications tab.

The next, next big thing

One of the constants in competitive sports is hearing about wonder kids. The other constant is the fact that most of these wonder kids don’t make it. I’ve been reading excerpts from a book called “Next, Next Big Thing” that profiles 15 such football/soccer wonder kids and the stories in there are very poignant.

The wonder kids share powerful stories about their journey exposing various factors like injuries, a bad relationship with a coach, personal problems, timing, etc., that got in their way of becoming top flight footballers.

The stories reminded me of a chance conversation in London with a train ticket inspector who was an Academy player at Chelsea football club. He shared that most of the high potential kids stop playing because of injuries. The ones who emerge are either lucky to avoid them or have incredible mental strength to find a way back.

Similarly, reading each excerpt has been a profound reminder of both the importance of mental strength when the chips are down and the power of luck in shaping any success.

While we tend to have plenty of conversations about the former (“grit,” “perseverance,” etc.), we often neglect attributing our success to the latter. Perhaps we should… and perhaps we’d appreciate what’s good in our careers a lot more when we do.

The Pink Tax

I was purchasing T-Shirts for a team celebration recently and was intrigued to find that female T-shirts cost $10 or 25% more than a male T-shirt at $8. The reason I was given by our vendor (something about volumes usually purchased) wasn’t convincing . I realized I was seeing the “Pink Tax” in action.

I recently came across a fascinating 2015 paper by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs about the cost of being a female consumer. In the 397 retail products compared, women paid more 42% of the time while men only did so 18% of the time.

For example, girls’ toys cost more 55% of the time versus 8% of the time for boys. Girl’s clothing costs more 26% of the time versus 7% for boys. Women’s personal care products cost more 56% of the time versus 13% for men. And so on. This is nuts.

These costs add up over time and have powerful implications on women’s ability to save for retirement – to the tune of a million dollars over the course of a lifetime. Thanks to taxes, a penny saved is worth a lot more than a penny earned.

So, while it is great to see all the efforts going into achieving pay gap equality, we’ll need to pay as much attention to the pink tax. Improving the top line without paying attention to the bottom line is the definition of counter productive.

Good career advice

Sometimes, I think most good career advice boils down to some version of –

“Don’t be in a hurry to climb some arbitrary career ladder or obtain some badge of supposed honor. Hustle, instead, to identify and solve problems that you think are challenging, useful, and learning filled – even if they’re risky at times. And, while you’re at it, invest effort in becoming self aware, doing good work, and being kind to people along the way.”

As with all great advice – it is relatively easy to formulate and say/find and very hard to live by.

Reset – 30 minutes at a time

A few weeks back, I’d shared a note on “learning to reset” –

After reflecting on a year of attempting to “seek to understand and then to be understood,” I realized that my ability to do so seemed to decline through the day. I write a quick note at the end of the day with an assessment of how I did. And, I found that I was most vulnerable to interrupt-itis at the end of the day. This is especially the case if there were a series of meetings in the second half.

As a result, a skill I’m working on is learning to reset during the day.

My thought process at the moment is that my ability to listen gets lost as I flow unconsciously through the day. And, teaching myself to reset would be a reminder to be conscious about how I approach the next section.

This sounds great in theory. But, I’ve struggled, so far, to execute on the idea. So, as is usually the case, I’m writing about it to clarify my thinking on it and make a public commitment to do better at it.

I hope to have more on this in a few weeks.

I do have an update. After a couple of failed attempts, my current working solution is to run a recurring 30 minute timer through the day.

Every time I pay attention to my phone vibrating, it reminds me to take a deep breath and reset.

I pay attention (versus simply notice) 20%-30% of the time now. The next step is to increase that sense of awareness to 50% of the time. It feels doable thanks to this process. And, I’m hopeful these resets will help me become more aware of my impatience in conversations – 30 minutes at a time.

More to follow in a few weeks.

Hustle

“When we talk about “hustle,” perhaps what we’re really referring to is one’s level of persistent tolerance and determination to do a lot of frustrating and tedious work that feels immaterial day-by-day but ultimately matters.” | Scott Belsky

This remains the best definition of hustle I’ve come across.

Our homes and workplaces demand plenty of it.

It doesn’t seem to lead to much for the longest time.

Until, of course, it does.

Less sweets and teaching

There’s a great folk story about an exasperated mom who was running out of ways to convince her son to eat fewer sweets. She finally decided she’d ask a village elder/”guru” her son respected for her.

The elder listened to her, sympathized, and asked her to come back in four weeks.

Four weeks later, she went back to him with her son. This time, he took the boy aside and advised him to eat fewer sweets for his own sake. The boy had tremendous respect for the elder and, thus, promised to listen.

The mother found the whole episode curious. So, she asked the elder why he didn’t just give her son this talk four weeks ago. He explained to her that he was guilty of eating too many sweets himself. So, he spent the past four weeks fixing his habits before having the talk with her son.

Many associate teaching to be all about passing on knowledge. In reality, the great gift of attempting to teach is to grow into a place where we earn the right to be worthy of doing so.

The Shape of Us and Imperfections

The Shape of Us is a beautiful song by Ian Britt, a yet-to-be-discovered British guitarist and singer. While Ian does a great job with the lyrics and the singing, the star of the song is a gorgeous acoustic guitar riff that plays in the background the whole time.

Now, if you listen carefully however, you’ll notice imperfections. As guitarists move their fingers on the strings for riffs like this, they make a scraping sound (listen to ~1:04 for example). If you listen for it, you’ll hear that sound through the song. And, if you haven’t listened for that scraping sound before, it is likely you’ll now hear it in most of your favorite acoustic guitar riffs.

That scraping sound is a natural side effect of playing gorgeous riffs on an acoustic guitar. Attempting to hide that imperfection or engineer that out would ruin the experience of listening to the acoustic guitar.

It turns out that playing to the guitar’s strengths by focusing on simple, melodious, music and accepting that a few imperfections come with the package is a recipe for creating magical music.

Somewhere in there is a learning for all of us.

Back-and-forth

Tools like slack and email on the phone have made it easier for us to go back-and-forth with colleagues on questions. I’ve been paying attention to the many times I’ve been guilty of initiating these sorts of conversations.

These start with an unassuming “Hey, quick question -” and soon spiral into – “Oh, does that mean….?”

Every once a while, these back-and-forths exist because of the complexity of the problem. It is hard to ask that next question if you know little about the problem. But, more often than not, a little bit of upfront thought could help us lay out the 4-5 questions we actually do want to ask.

Giving that extra bit of thought upfront and batching our questions can make a big difference to the productivity of the person on the receiving end.

Here’s to doing that.

All the noise

There’s all this noise. The news, the chatter about others we know, the chatter from others we know, the plaudits about the movers and shakers of the day, and everything else that we think we need to keep up with.

The default setting for the noise in our lives at this time is “on.” And, it is easy to forget that none of it matters unless we earn our livelihood by writing about the noise.

For most of the rest of us, all that counts is just what we do with what we control and how thoughtfully we do it.

The more time we can spend with the noise turned off, the more we’ll ship, the better we’ll get at shipping what we want to ship, and, if we’re thoughtful about it, we might learn a thing or two about living these days better.

So, let’s put those proverbial headphones and get to work.