Category: Everything else

3 recommendations –

1. If you’re ever trying to find a beautiful free image, check out Unsplash. These are photos gifted by “the world’s most generous community of photographers.” They are gorgeous. I use these images as I share daily blog posts and I’m thankful for them everyday.N
2. Azeem Azhar sends The Exponential View to around 20,000 readers every week. He curates interesting links about the future – on topics like artificial intelligence, the blockchain, electric vehicles, etc. He is a wonderful curator.
3. If you’re in the market for a great wireless mouse, this ~$10 buy from “VicTsing” has been excellent so far. If you like small recommendations like this that might improve your life, Kevin Kelly and team send a newsletter called Recommendo with 6 recommendations every Sunday. It is worth a 45 second skim – you might just find something useful. For instance, I heard about Unsplash from Recommendo.

Thank you to all these folks for their effort and generosity. It makes a difference.

Happy mid-week!

The most common response to unexpected behaviors from humans or systems is one of surprise. In some cases, the surprise leads to panicked reactions and temper tantrums.

However, “But, it was unexpected” is a really lame excuse for an immature response. That’s because unexpected behaviors are the most predictable outcomes when humans and systems interact with each other. Their exact nature may be unexpected but their presence is not.

So, if something is expected and inevitable, there’s no place for panicked and frazzled reactions. A creative, constructive and corrective response is all we need.

And, if you feel up to it, a sense of humor is a bonus that would work great, too.

When you search for rich, you see two meanings for the word. When I was growing up, I defined rich as the first meaning – having a great deal of money or assets.

But, I’ve realized over time that money and assets is just one kind of wealth.

Similar to the second meaning, I think the other kind of wealth comes from a place of peace of mind and confidence. It recognizes that, if you live simply, money can be abundant. And, it helps us appreciate the fact that there’s plenty of wealth and goodness out there for all of us. It is on us to be grateful and spread this wealth and goodness.

The first kind of wealth is easy to measure and more fickle. Focusing on it typically leads to us obsessing about maintaining or growing it.

The second kind of wealth is harder to measure and, in many ways, harder to get to. But, unlike the first kind, once it arrives, it is here to stay.

I first came across a talk by NYU Professor Scott Galloway two and a half years ago. He gave a 15 minute overview of what was going on in tech at the DLD conference in NYU. I found his talk very insightful and used some of his material when I gave a couple of presentations on the same topic while I was in graduate school. But, I wasn’t really drawn to him as I thought of him as someone who seemed to just enjoy being controversial.

When I stumbled upon his material again this year, I found it thought provoking again. So, I subscribed to his weekly newsletter – “No Mercy/No Malice.” I’ve been subscribed for the past few months and have begun to really look forward to receiving them on Friday’s.

He splits his newsletter into two parts – one half is commentary on technology and one half is commentary on life. I came for the commentary on tech but I find myself sticking around for the life.

I thought I’d share a portion from his “life” section from 2 weeks ago – a post about the schools he went to when he was growing up.

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It seemed as if the teachers at Emerson were angry and hungover a lot. Emerson defined the term “warehousing” youth. Most of the affluent white kids transferred throughout the first year, leaving a student body from middle and lower income households. We had black against white softball games and, though technically an integrated school, we self-segregated on campus. There was little commingling until the ninth grade, when you began to see friendships form across racial boundaries. My closest friend was a Mormon kid, Brett.

We then went to University High School in Santa Monica, which had a similar demographic makeup. A strange and nice thing happened: we all began to get along. I still hung out with Brett, but also was friends with Ronnie Drake, a black kid who lived in Bell Gardens and was starting middle linebacker for the University Warriors football team. Our mascot was a Native American with a headdress, screaming as if he was mid-battle. The mascot has since been changed to the Wildcats, but that’s another post.

Ronnie’s dad was a reverend who would bellow, when I would visit, “Somebody feed this boy.” I drove a Renault Le Car and wore cut-off shirts, Top-Siders with no socks, and Vuarnets. Ronnie drove a Buick, liked silk shirts, and also wore Top-Siders. I was hoping to get into a UC campus, and Ronnie was hoping to get a football scholarship, which he did, to Linfield College in Oregon.

We all studied, partied, and took ski trips to Mammoth together. After being color-blind in elementary school, we were again color-blind in high school. We lived in different neighborhoods, listened to different music, and wore different clothes. But the things that united us overrode our differences. We were all awkwardly spilling into adulthood, establishing the links between effort and achievement, trying to figure out who we were, what attributes we wanted to develop, and what was next given your grades and early indications on your potential. It wasn’t a given that we were all going to college, nor would even get a job.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” It’s not that we didn’t like each other. We just needed to get to know one another better.

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Thanks to his strong opinions, his newsletter never lacks personality. For instance, here’s the end of his note from yesterday – There are few better examples of what Pope Francis refers to as an unhealthy “idolatry of money” than our obsession with Steve Jobs. Though he accumulated an estimated $8.3 billion fortune through his holdings in Apple and a 7.4% stake in Disney, there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity. It is conventional wisdom that Steve Jobs put “a dent in the universe.” No, he didn’t. Steve Jobs, in my view, spat on the universe. People who get up every morning, get their kids dressed, get them to school, and have an irrational passion for their kids’ well-being, dent the universe. The world needs more homes with engaged parents, not a better fucking phone.

But, what I love is that he makes me stop and think – every week. And, for that I’m grateful.

Thanks Prof Galloway.

A simple way to ask yourself if you are maximizing your learning is by asking yourself – what have you taught recently?

Absorbing content or experiences is one thing. Teaching is quite another. Teaching requires you to synthesize – i.e., reflect on the content or experience, boil things down to what really matters and frame it in a way that makes it easy to retain that information.

The best part about the act of teaching is that you don’t need an audience. You can teach a concept to a dog on a walk or to the trees. Or, you can write it all down on a blog that is likely just read by your mom (let’s face it, that’s most of our blogs :)).

We learn when we synthesize information. And, teaching is a wonderful excuse to synthesize.

If you’re not taking the time to teach and share, you’re likely not learning as much as you think you are.

Working through the most hairy, worthwhile problems typically ends up with us taking three steps forward and two steps back.

This is almost always the case. Think back to worthy habits you’ve built – exercise, reading good books, eating well, better organization, prioritizing your work, among others. I bet they didn’t just stick the first time you tried.

No, you started with a few days at the gym. Then, something came up and you had to restart the habit again.

Three steps forward, two steps back.

The lessons for me from this pattern are two fold.

First, remind yourself of the progress you make when you feel demotivated after the two steps back. You are one step further than you were before and you know what it takes to take three steps forward again.

And, second, expect stops and starts as you deal with hairy problems and worthwhile habits. Let it not be too much of a big deal when either happens. Instead, keep optimizing for learning and plugging away.

Yesterday’s post was all about a simple question – “would it help?” – that can change our perspective in a tough situation. It is a beautiful checkpoint.

But, “would it help?” is a level 1 question. I’d still suggest starting with “would it help?” as it helps check negative reactions at the door.

Once we’re able to do that, a level 2 question is “what would help?” With this, the onus is on us to respond to the situation with something constructive. This is the sort of thing that is easy in theory, but incredibly hard to do when every one of our instincts is pushing us to do something rash.

But, we can, of course. We aren’t naturally wired to react to stimuli in any way. We cultivate habits based on what we’re exposed to. And, we can change those habits and those seemingly hard-wired reactions. This was a powerful lesson for me as I always thought of myself as emotional, impulsive and impatient. I could be all those things more often than not but I didn’t need to channel them every time I respond to a situation. They’re habits that needed to be replaced. And, one by one, they’ve made their way out.

Our habits are a by-product of the questions we ask.

It is on us to ask better questions.

HT: Rebecca Rapple – who wrote in yesterday with a note on “what would help?” that inspired this post.

“Would it help?” – 3 powerful words that cut through the noise.

The next time you find yourself:

• feeling a surge of anger
• getting irritated
• reacting to something that isn’t going as per plan
• thinking up a sarcastic response to get back at someone
• harboring envy or jealousy
• feeling worried

Ask yourself – would it help?

A calm and measured response aside, nothing really does help. Any other reaction is a waste of time, energy and emotion.

You know this. I know this. We also know it is hard to remember this in the heat of the moment.

So, instead of expecting us to respond better, let’s just make it a point to ask – “Would it help?”

Over time, we will respond better.

(I thought of this wonderful line recently as I thought of a post from December 2015 after watching “The Bridge of Spies.” If you’ve seen the movie, you’ve likely seen these words in action. And, if you haven’t, maybe it’s time to see the movie. :))

Smart: Having or showing a quick-witted intelligence. (adjective)

Thoughtful: Showing careful consideration or attention. (adjective)

Somebody I once knew and was influenced by used to rank and judge everyone they met by IQ – or intelligence quotient. As a consequence, I did too. The way I saw it, there was nothing more important than being smart. As long as that criteria was met, the rest would be figured out.

As I reflect on this phase, I realize how much this way of thought screams of a fixed mindset. When you focus on smarts, you assume intelligence is fixed. It is a world view that encourages judgment and opposes learning and growth.

The funny thing about world views is that it takes a really long time to completely get rid of them. I caught the remnants of this world view a few weeks ago when I reflected on something I did. I inadvertently asked myself – “Was that the smart thing to do?”

“No, but it was the thoughtful thing.”

And, it was. The outcome hadn’t worked out as I’d hoped. But, I’d given the process every bit of attention, consideration and engagement. When I attempted to think of myself as smart, I spent way too much time analyzing and fretting about outcomes.

I don’t now. Being smart matters little to me.

I’d pick thoughtful over smart any day of the week.

There’s an interesting, oft-repeated, story among technology geeks about the difficulty of getting forecasts about disruption right. In the mid 1980s, AT&T hired McKinsey & Co. to forecast cell phone adoption in the US by the year 2020. After racking up what must have been a multi million dollar bill, McKinsey said the answer would be 900,000 subscribers.

They were off by a factor of 120x.

Currently, the forecasts from leading energy analysts and think tanks on Electric vehicle adoption shows ~30% adoption in 2040. Clean energy guru Tony Seba believes things will work out different. He predicts that all new cars will be electric by 2030. In addition, all new cars will be, at minimum, semi autonomous by 2030. And, finally, all new energy will be solar by 2030.

It is very hard for us to predict the future because we are wired to think about improvements linearly.

But, technology growth is never linear and generally occurs due to a combination of technological innovations that combine to make new things possible. The current artificial intelligence wave was not made possible by deep learning algorithms alone. Instead, it took parallel computing (GPUs) and the ability to process big data that made deep learning algorithms effective.

Energy guru Tony Seba calls this “technology convergence.” Convergence happens when a group of technologies come together to make new things possible.This is why technology adoption follows “S curves” — they don’t occur linearly.

To illustrate this, this was 5th Avenue in New York City in 1900. There is one car in the photo.

In 1913, it was hard to spot the horse.

My belief is that we will see the adoption of electric vehicles and solar accelerate in the next decade. Autonomous vehicles will follow closely. It is an exciting time as it will actually enable us to make significant progress to our climate change goals as a global community.

It is a decade that will be similar to prior periods of technology upheaval. For the longest time, the big oil cartel and coal powers will all seem to dominate.

Until they won’t.

Longer version of this note on Medium or LinkedIn.