Category: Everything else

The shrinking circle of influence

I have many all-time favorite Stephen Covey concepts (that he managed to pack them all in one book is nothing short of wonderful) and the one for the day is the circle of influence.

circle of influence

In short, we all have a circle of influence with things we control and a circle of concern with things we don’t control. We get to choose what we focus on and, in doing so, we shrink or grow our respective circles. So, if you spend all your time thinking about things you don’t control – bad politics, global climate change – you will feel powerless and less inclined to do anything valuable. Spend more time on what you can influence, however, and you will feel your circle of influence grow.

A couple of days ago, I found myself feeling aware of a certain dissatisfaction that was brewing within. I had just spent an hour mulling various such issues – politics, the planet, immigration system issues. I had, in effect, shrunk my circle of influence. There are a couple of interesting takeaways from this idea –

  1. The illusion of control is an important aspect of our happiness. I say illusion because that is really what it is. We have far less influence over our lives than we think we do. But, it is important to believe we do.
  2. Even if we have far less influence in our lives than we think we do, we have a lot more influence than we often give ourselves credit for. Small things we do can have tremendous, even global, ripple effects. So, it remains a bit of paradox – we are neither as powerless or as powerful as we think we are.
  3. The quality of our lives is directly proportional to the amount of time we spend in our circle of influence.
  4. I believe the reason morning routines are very powerful for the reason that they involve us focusing on our circle of influence. By doing things we fully control – meditate, journal, etc. – we walk into the day feeling more in control.
  5. Related, but different – I think this is why waking up early is incredibly powerful. Wake up late and your attention can easily be captured by what other people want from you.

Spend more time in your circle of influence.

2 way growth

Disenfranchised parents, leaders, and teachers are often those who walked into the experience expecting 1-way growth. 1-way growth is when your world view revolves around the idea that you have plenty of wisdom to pass on. And, your kids/subordinates are will now be delighted to benefit from your experience. Sure, they may teach you a few tricks. But, how many new tricks can you teach an old dog? Beside, will the old dog really have time to learn given how much old dog wisdom there is to pass down?

As you might imagine, this affliction hits families a lot harder than in the workplace. As parents, it is tempting to think raising a child, who starts off entirely dependent on you, is all about passing on your wisdom. It is hard to imagine that a little human being can have an agenda or path of his/her own.

Khalil Gibran in, “On Children,” puts it beautifully –

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

It all comes back to the idea that love is the willingness to extend oneself for your own and another’s growth.

Demonstrating true love as a parent, teacher or leader is primarily about caring enough to learn and grow through the experience. True teaching doesn’t occur when we set out to teach. True teaching occurs when the recipient is willing to learn and be influenced.

And, it is only when you are willing to be influenced do you have a shot at influencing others.

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The Great Salmon Run

The Great Salmon Run is a part of another David Attenborough + BBC special called “Nature’s Great Events.” This episode profiles millions of pacific salmon making an incredible journey from the sea to the mountain streams where they were born, to reproduce.

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The event is very important to the entire ecosystem. As the salmon make their way upstream, they provide much needed food to the grizzly bears who make their way down the mountain to fatten up for the winter.

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They keep traveling up till they reach the exact spots where they were born. Here, they reproduce and die – the effort involved in making the 4000 odd kilometer journey is all too much. Even in death, however, they are crucial. The grizzlies again benefit greatly from the easy prey along with the animals around the forests. These animals often leave dead salmon near the trees – this, in turn, provides vital nitrogen and minerals for the trees in the forest. And, the dead salmon in the water provide necessary nutrients for the new born fish they spawned.

It is an incredible documentary.

Every time I watch these documentaries, I wonder if these events will last beyond the next two decades. Global warming is fundamentally changing the pattern of the ocean currents. Pesticides and plastics in the water, on the other hand, are making conditions harder for the fish. Every time we mess with a part of the ecosystem, we end up messing with the entire web that is dependent on the one piece we affected. This is the part that makes me sad.

On the up side, I hope more people watch these documentaries and understand that the threats around climate change are real. Maybe we could all begin by taking small steps to instill more environment friendly behaviors, where possible. Maybe if a few more of us paid attention to recycling, if a few more of us kept our eyes open to the prospects of saving energy, then we will go on to make more energy friendly decisions when the stakes get bigger.

We might soon be left with no choice but to do just that.

Over index on the intangible

If there is a number associated with something, our natural instinct will be to optimize it. All good mobile games understand this. Cut The Rope, Temple Run, Angry Birds, etc., are all about optimizing numbers – levels and overall scores.

tangible, numbers, intangible

The issue, of course, is that while we are spending hours optimizing our numbers on Angry Birds and Temple Run, there are a whole lot of other, more important things, that we are saying no to – important relationships, our health, our mental growth and development, etc. But, it is hard to recognize that until something breaks. Without numbers to mark progress, it takes a lot of focus and discipline to keep working away on the intangible.

My proposed solution is to over index on focusing on the intangible. Any time you see something hard to measure, spend extra time thinking about whether you should spend time investing on it. Yes, there will be some things that you should ignore. But, for the most part, you will find that the intangible stuff is what contributes to a lot of success and happiness in the long run. In school, that means going beyond grades to focus on learning the “soft skills.” In our companies, that means investing in building a great culture. In our careers, that means focusing on long term skill development over a short term pay raise. In our relationships, that means putting in effort to be thoughtful and caring. And, in our lives, it means spending time on activities that help us learn, grow and become better people.

Ben Horowitz once said – Management by numbers is like painting by numbers – it is strictly for amateurs. It isn’t all that different in our life.

Pay attention to the numbers, sure. But, remember to over index on focusing on the intangible stuff. That is difficult. The difficulty lies in the fact that intangibles don’t seem to pay off for the longest time.

Until they do.

IQ versus DOT

Growing up, we’re often told implicitly that raw intelligence/IQ or intelligence quotient is a big deal. There are, however, two things we aren’t told.

First, after a point, IQ actually doesn’t matter all that much. Some of the greatest scientists of all times didn’t possess high IQs.

Second, in a battle between raw intelligence and a combination of discipline, organization and thoughtfulness (let’s call them DOT), DOT nearly always wins. And, this is in every measure – from building a successful career to, perhaps the most important, having a good life.

And, the best part? IQ is something we are born with. Discipline, organization and thoughtfulness, on the other hand, are traits we build – much like building our biceps.

And, as far as muscles go, they don’t get more powerful than those.

Dithering and Constraints

This is my third attempt at a written blog post this morning. I’ve rejected at least three others in my head. The problem? The lack of obvious constraints.

I have an implicit deadline on most days to get the post of the day written. But, on a day off like today, there isn’t an obvious one. So, I dither. I keep trying to find the perfect post since I have that little bit of extra time.

Of course, there is no perfect post. And, creating the perfect post isn’t just about figuring it out in my head. Creating that post involves writing until I get it right. I might get that post after hours of deliberation. But, I would likely just cut a frustrated figure at having spent so much time attempting to write my learning for the day.

When we imagine happy lives, we often imagine lives without annoying constraints around money and time. But, as my experience with a lack of constraints shows, such a life would be full of dithering and without much creativity.

Constraints matter. If you find yourself stuck in a rut, it is perhaps worth wondering if having a few constraints (real or imaginary) might help get your creative juices flowing.

Creativity isn’t just about thinking out of the box. Most of the time, it is all about thinking on the edges of the box.

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Demonstrating gratitude

I had a moment yesterday when I asked myself a question – “What do I appreciate about the people I appreciate?”

A close someone suggested that the answer might be people who’d been through some kind of adversity. We discussed that for a bit. Getting through adversity was a proxy for strength of character. But, that wasn’t quite right.

After wrestling with this for a bit, the conclusion I came to was that it was all about people who were grateful for the experiences in this life and who cared about demonstrating their gratitude by doing good work. People who are grateful for the things that happen to them are not always very easy to find. (And, it is possible to link this to people who’ve experienced adversity of some sort. Going through difficult stuff often makes us more appreciative of the things that do end up working for us.)

demonstrating gratitude

But, in my experience, it is MUCH harder to find people who take that gratitude and do something about it. These folk realize how privileged they are and go out of the way to make their communities better. Just because they can. In giving to their communities, they embrace uncertainty, banish cynicism and just care enough to give whatever they do their best shot. And, as givers who give with purpose, they learn and grow tremendously from the process. Such people are special because they let their work do their talking. I love watching such folk in action, working with them, hanging out with them and then sharing stories of their work with anyone and everyone I meet.

It is one thing to be grateful. It is quite another thing to make that privilege count. So, when I find such people, I do my best to hold on tight.

Climb a cliff to get to school

cliff

cliff

The Atuler village in Sichuan is located in a remote location – so remote that traveling around can be very stressful. To get to school, students with backpacks need to climb an 800 meter rock face on rickety ladders and claw over rocks. The descent takes 90 minutes and doing this right is a matter of life and death – small mistakes can be very costly. It is too dangerous to do this every day – so, students only visit their families twice a month.

Today is my last day at graduate school. I can think of many moments in this life when I have been thankful for a a dollop of extraordinary luck. But, none more so than when I received my offers of acceptance to college and graduate school. I know there are many who say education isn’t as valuable it once was – and that’s true in many ways. However, I am yet to find a good substitute for high quality education and, in my case, both these acceptance letters led to incredibly rich experiences that I am very grateful for.

While there are a few things beyond luck that may have contributed to these opportunities, it is hard to look beyond making it past the lottery of birth and being born in a place that didn’t require me to scale an 800 meter cliff to get to school. In the absence of climbing a cliff to go to school, we could focus on growing up in an environment that focused on learning and play. Context shapes culture and the “this is what people like me do” norms.

This post isn’t one about poverty. There’s a lot that can be written about doing our bit to improve the context and access of a large portion of the world’s population. Instead, it is a reminder for us. If you are reading this, you, like me, likely didn’t have to have narrow brushes with death to go to school. That is such a privilege. Are we making the most of all this privilege and living lives that add value to this world?

Making our time here count here is not a choice. It is a responsibility.

Your human-size life

Seth had a nice post on blogs yesterday where he explained that, as the internet focuses on clicks, Facebook and Google have been doing a lot to make reading blogs harder. He said something that rings very true – reading more blogs is one of the best ways to become smarter, more effective and more engaged in what’s going on. Blogs are so much better than the news in many respects – and I have an example to share that illustrates just that. (Also, thanks, Seth, for sharing this blog..)

Dave Winer is the authors of one of the internet’s first blogs. He had a fantastic post on “Your human-size life” in which he takes a philosophical look at a piece of controversy around Peter Thiel and Gawker media. In short, Gawker published an article in 2007 announcing Peter Thiel’s homosexuality before Thiel had begun talking about it in public. It turns out Thiel has been plotting revenge for many years and, recently, Thiel was found to be funding lawsuits against Gawker that threaten the existence of the company. There are many sub plots here and Gawker is by no means innocent either. But, at the end of the day, this is one of the world’s richest people extracting revenge on a media outlet that pissed him off.

I am going to pick out my favorite pieces from Dave’s post – but I encourage you to go over and read the post in full.

One of the biggest mistakes rich people make is to try to live larger than a single human being can. A mathematical impossibility. You can buy a big house, but you can only sleep in one bedroom at a time. You can own twenty fantastic cars, airplanes and yachts, but you can only be in one at a time.

And it’s even worse than it appears — the struggle to live more than one life will fail, and it will make you feel like a failure, just as you felt before you made the money! So being rich does not mean success if your goal is to achieve immortal super-human-ness.

You can see that horrific struggle in Peter Thiel’s actions and statements. He says he’s going to live forever, and so will today’s college grads. And I assume in the back of his mind he’s also going to solve the problem of just getting one body to use. He will persevere and find a way to sleep in his San Francisco mansion and his New York penthouse at the same time. But here’s the problem — even if he achieves these goals, and of course he won’t — he still won’t be happy.

I can say this with some certainty because I’ve been down the road he’s on, and I got off. And I just watched. Watched as the super-rich of my generation got old and their arteries hardened. They got used to talking to servants, and having their asses kissed at all times, and never having to listen to anyone tell them they’re full of shit. I’m a few years older than Thiel, and if he had seen what I have seen, he wouldn’t be so happy about living forever.

I think we all need a struggle, I think that’s where our creativity comes from. We need something that feels unattainable, but actually is not. But the struggle to rise above our humanity, that’s not going to happen for any of us. And the desire to have it robs your very human life of any value.

Joe had it right. Live a gentle human-size life. Go for a walk in your middle-class neighborhood and run into a friend of a friend and share what you see, and influence their life for the better. That’s the kind of thing a human can do. And it is, imho, where happiness comes from.

Wonderfully deep.

Thank you, Dave, for your generosity.

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Big Bang vs. The Drip Part II

I wrote about the idea of the big bang vs. the drip the other day.

…we greatly over-estimate the effects of the big bang versus the drip. We love thinking of the big product launch, the epic road trip with friends, the huge award, the incredibly viral post, the prestigious letter of admission and the all-important round of funding. However, as a close friend put it, it isn’t the big decisions that change things. It is the collection of many many small decisions.

Great companies, strong relationships and people of character are built with consistent daily effort.

The timing of that post couldn’t have been better as I had a nice “big bang” event to illustrate the difference. I shared the “Leadership in 1 page” post on LinkedIn Publishing and it went viral. I love LinkedIn publishing for the occasional post as it can reach a lot of people. I thought this post, given it was a synthesis of many years of work, deserved that opportunity. As I write this, the post is closing in on 100,000 views with a proportional number of likes, shares and comments.

While I do love the fact that the learning reached 100,000 people, if one of my objectives was to broaden this blog’s reach (for new readers, it hardly ever is :-)), that post did very little. There are too many big bang events out there. Doing another one just adds to the noise. But, on the other hand, if we take a moment to talk about the drip, that post wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for the effort that went into understand these ideas over the years. Nearly every idea on that post has been blogged about here – that was just a synthesis. The daily drip of effort or slow burn is incredibly powerful.

This isn’t just a marketing lesson. I was amidst a long conversation with a friend yesterday about building worthwhile habits in our life. The lesson? Go for the slow burn. Don’t expect a big bang event that will suddenly transform your life into the ideal one. Instead, focus on one habit at a time and aim for gradual, continuous improvement.

I said this last time and will say again – in the final analysis, the big moments may be worthy of a place on the highlight reel. But, it is the constant drip of effort that will determine how long the highlight reel is.. and, perhaps most importantly, how happy we are when we look back and take stock.

The destination matters – but much lesser than we think. The journey, on the other hand, matters a lot more than we think. And, the journey is all about the drip, the slow burn.

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