Category: Everything else

No deal

There are many fundamental requirements for a win-win deal to work. We need to take the time to listen to what the opposite side are really saying. That, in turn, will help us understand their key priorities (and ignore their “positions”). But, for them to work, we have to be willing to accept the risk of not doing a deal at all. The wonderful rewards that come from win-win can only work when we’re willing to take that risk.

If you are imagining complex business deal negotiations here, “win-win or no deal” is about a lot more than that. It could be negotiating something with your kids or friends or manager. Great negotiations have the same characteristics – regardless of who we’re negotiating with. Lest we forget, we are negotiating more often than we think.

And, win-win agreements are the best kinds of agreements. They’re typically win-win-win, when executed well, with the third “win” coming for all stakeholders involved.

But, they require us to walk in with a mindset that accepts “Win-win or no deal.”

That’s the overlooked part of the idea of pursuing win-win agreements. They don’t always work. They can’t always work – because it requires both sides to be able to buy into assumptions of abundance.

But, much too often, we give up on them without giving the other side a chance.

As with many great things, we have to start with “this might not work” to give it a shot at actually working.

Amplifiers

In 1906, Lee De Forest invented the first amplifier. Until amplifiers were discovered, performers relied on the acoustics of a given space to amplify their voices. Opera artists were expert proponents of this performance genre.

One of the more powerful uses of amplifiers was a political rally. Suddenly, a powerful speaker could command the attention of thousands of people, live. Every great technology has seen uses that are good and evil – the amplifier was no different.

On the one hand, amplifiers were a critical aide in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

And, on the other hand, they also helped Martin Luther King Jr. create change that enabled better lives for millions of African American in following generations.

Similarly, all the technology around us can be used to make things better… or worse.

As always, it is our choice.

What to do versus who to be

A close friend emailed Hunter Thompson’s letter “On Finding Your Purpose.” I’d read this a while back but I’d forgotten about it. And, it resonated very deeply this time around. The part that resonated was his distinction between what we want to do and who we want to be. I picked out my favorite notes below.

As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors — but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal.

Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. But you say, “I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.”

And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know — is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.

I feel I’ve been stumbling at the fringes of this idea in my years writing here without ever explaining it with such clarity. Its beauty lies in its simplicity. The conventional approach to life is to focus on what we want to do. We, then, shape who we want to be in accordance. If we end up in a job that requires us to work 90 hours a week, so be it. We’ll give up those dreams of valuing health or family. It assumes no thought or intention.

Instead, decide who we want to be and seek to find a career that conforms. This is hard. Who knows what we want to be?

It turns out we don’t really know what we want to do either. For the most part, we just start with an unconscious hypothesis and keep moving forward. The only difference is that we seem to be following millions of others who are doing the same thing. It is easier.

And, as always, let’s not confuse easier with better.

Things we don’t usually talk about

Things we usually talk about: The weather, celebrities, our mood, random memes, the cat video of the moment, television, gossip, politics.

Things we don’t usually talk about: Tough decisions, dreams, challenges, books, lessons learnt, ideas that inspire us.

What if we flipped these around?

Germ theory and gender equality

In “How We Got To Now,” Steven Johnson makes an interesting connection between germ theory and gender equality. In the epidemic ridden early 1800s, few made the connection between bad water and disease.

Many advances helped our ancestors make that connection. And, prime among them was germ theory. Thanks to scientists like Ignaz Semmelwies, Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, we connected germs with disease. Once we did that, the next step was to rid water of germs. And, in one of the riskiest experiments in history, John Leal tested the effects of adding small amounts of Chlorine on the New Jersey water supply without asking anyone for permission. John Leal was a Health Officer at the time. As a physician trained in bacteriology, he was sure a small amount of Chlorine would help eliminate germs. But, it was still a huge risk. And, it paid off.

In one of the most wonderful displays of magnanimity, Leal didn’t patent his idea or attempt to commercialize it in anyway. It was free to spread around the world and it ended up saving millions of lives over time.

A side effect of these steps forward was the creation of swimming pools. And, with the creation of swimming pools came bathing suits. This, in turn, led to a reinvention of attitudes toward the female body. There were multiple other factors that contributed to these change in attitudes – hollywood, mid century feminism, etc. – but few consider the massive effect that clean drinking water had on gender equality.

I’ve been reflecting on this flow of events as it is one I find very powerful. First, I think this is a great illustration of how progress is often so non-linear. It is very hard to make the connection between gender equality and clean drinking water. And, yet, there exists one. It illustrates why progress at a societal level is so hard. After all, there are so many hidden variables that we don’t really understand or control. And, suggesting that we might solve tough societal problems by pulling one or two big levers is naive.

Second, when we look back at human history, we celebrate the likes of the Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. As we should. But, we should also make space to celebrate the many human beings who, for various reasons, didn’t become immortalized despite their incredible work. Leal, Semmelweiss, Koch, Pasteur and co., combined probably saved more lives than any other human team. Here’s to their incredible work.

We really do walk on the shoulders of giants.

Fifteen steps backwards

There are many things that make changing personal habits very hard. But, one that makes this process supremely frustrating is the fact that, after some initial success, you start by taking fifteen step backwards for every one step forward.

We’ve all been there. The first week of our new exercise routine goes great. And, then comes the lull. Two weeks go by. We’re struggling. Should we just give up?

Maybe that’s why personal change is the hardest kind of change there is. Dealing with the obvious conflict between our rational and emotional selves can drive us nuts. And, try as we might, there really isn’t an easy solution. There are no hacks that can solve the problem. There is only awareness, thought, patience and consistent effort.

Take one step forward and fifteen steps back. Then, try again. And, again – maybe it will be fourteen steps back this time. And, yet, you’ll continue to feel that stubborn force pushing you back.

Steven Pressfield called this force the resistance – the force that acts against all personal change, progress and creativity.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study… Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

Overstatement or not, we often find it easier to conquer environments, nations and organizations than to conquer ourselves.

Less checking, more thinking

All that checking isn’t helping.

No need to read that piece of news now. Maybe ever.

That email? Deal with it later. It is quicker to deal with them in groups anyway.

And, those notifications don’t care if you check them. They’re just designed to for you to keep coming back. Few things of consequence ever happened because a notification lit up.

But, checking is, unquestionably, the norm. The instinct of our times is to pull out a phone whenever there is a spare moment. It is part of the illusion of productivity. And, thanks to attention residue, it probably costs us more than we think.

Scarcity is generally a good indicator of value. There already exists a lot of checking in our time. And, we are in dire need of more thinking and more engaging. While it feels like an excuse for engaging, it gets in the way more often than not.

Let scarcity point the way. Less checking, more thinking, and more engaging.

Greatness

There are two ways to define greatness.

The first is “greater than everyone else.”

The second is “being the best we can be.”

Many of us aspire for greatness and default to the first definition. But, comparison and win-lose come along with “greater than everyone else.” Envy is a key companion too.

We can switch this in our heads to the second definition and focus, instead, on simply being the best version of ourselves. Everybody can aspire to greatness. And, most importantly, everybody can win.

Our choice.

Action replay

When something goes wrong, using an action replay feels like a tempting option.

A few years back, I had my phone snatched from me in a train station in East London. It happened without me realizing what was going on as I was on a call. One moment I was trying to pull my phone back in shock. A moment later, it was on the floor. And, my snatcher had then taken it and run onto the tracks.

So, I was stuck in action replay mode asking myself – “What could I have done?” A couple of days later, my action replays involved me doing some form of karate to thwart my opponent. Of course, I’ve never learnt karate.

But, similar things happen when we make a dumb mistake or misplace something.

It is worth remembering that action replays, while useful when watching sports, aren’t all that useful in real life. The only purpose they serve is to beat ourselves up – a useless activity. While you could make the case they might help the next time you are in a similar situation, it isn’t generally the case for one-off events. A better, longer term approach is to be more mindful. And, even that won’t guarantee a mishap-less life.

Mistakes happen every once a while. If they’re fixable, make the attempt to fix them. If not, reflect, learn and move forward. There’s a reason the rear view mirror is so much smaller than the windshield.

When do you study

There are typically two kinds of classes in school – theory and lab. Theory classes are only useful if we find time after class to synthesize what we learn. And, assuming we do that, we should be in a good spot to put what we learnt in practice in the laboratory. That’s not to say we don’t learn stuff in the laboratory. We do. But, it is really theory that helps us make sense of our experiences in the lab.

Of course, school is designed to be heavy on theory. So, we spend a lot more time on theory than we do in laboratory. And, that, in turn, requires us to spend significant time studying. Again, theory without study is largely useless.

Our life post-school is essentially a collection of labs – broadly, a personal life lab and a professional life lab. There is one obvious challenge – there is no one scheduling time on your calendar for theory. That doesn’t mean there isn’t enough material. On the contrary, there is more material that might help than you’d imagine. But, you have to get to it. Few do that. Then, of course, getting to the material isn’t enough. We also need to synthesize it. Fewer do that.

And, yet, a much larger percentage of professionals say they love learning. Sure, they might love learning in a way a first time tennis player shows up at the court with a friend and runs around attempting to hit the ball, professing to be learning tennis. It is very far from the real thing.

Many things have changed since school. But, one thing remains constant – if you aren’t taking the time to study, the chances are high that you aren’t learning.