Category: Everything else

Appreciating gravity

There was a moment in my 15 minute meditation routine this morning when Andy reminded me to appreciate gravity. A part of the exercise involves being aware of the weight of the body on the chair and the weight of the legs on the floor. And, of course, that wouldn’t be possible without gravity.

I thought the idea of appreciating gravity was symbolic of many a good thing in life. Gravity, to me, is one of those things that does its job every single day and, yet, is conspicuous by its absence from our attention. We take it for granted.

There are so many things and people in our lives that are exactly like gravity. An example that comes straight to mind is the human body. Every part of this incredible system just does its job. We only realize and appreciate this when we fall sick. How about appreciating it every day while we’re healthy?

It is also incredibly pertinent when it comes to appreciating people. So many companies and teams take their people for granted – especially those silent warriors who plug away at what needs to be done with unerring consistency. Often, true performers function like gravity. While they’re around, we never realize the impact they’re making simply because we take it for granted. If they weren’t around, these things would happen, wouldn’t they?

Let today be gravity appreciation day then. As we move through the day, let’s think about the many forces, things, and people we take for granted.. and appreciate them. This isn’t so much about them. This is just about us building this habit – to observe what is really going on, to notice efforts that might otherwise go unnoticed and to appreciate the good things.

For, when we learn to be appreciative, we learn to be thankful. And, when we learn to be thankful, we learn to be happy.

The only sure-fire way to get fit

Spend time with people fitter than you.

Too often, we look for quick fix solutions like diets and intense bursts of fitness focus. The simplest way to solve this in the long run is to simply make sure you consistently spend time with people who care about fitness. It won’t be long before you mimic their fitness regimes and find yourself making more time to get fit.

We’re hugely influenced by the company we keep. So, if you want to get smarter/wiser/better, choose company that is smarter/wiser/better.

We are no more than the average of the five people we spend most of our time with.

The nature of competition

Competition is a funny beast. We all engage with it at nearly every stage of our lives – as kids in school, as employees in the workplace, as companies in the market place, and so on.

There are lots of theories around what it really takes to be competitive. I think the challenge with competition comes down to one core idea – what helps you compete in the short run is not what’s going to help in the long run.

And, understanding this idea is precisely what innovators and creators get right. They abhor the idea of playing in the rat race. Instead, they focus on creating the next thing and starting with a blank slate. It doesn’t always work. But, when it does, it is pretty magical.

This has a couple of interesting implications in our own lives –
1. It is okay to compete for something in the short term. But, pouring all your energy and resources into a short term competition is counter productive. You might win the proverbial battle but will lose the war.

2. That said, if you can avoid short term competition, do it. The best way to compete in the long run is to actually not engage in any short term competition. And, you soon realize that the only worthwhile competitor in the really long run is yourself.

3. The beauty about competing with yourself is that you soon realize there is nothing to be gained by viewing people around you as competition. In fact, the only lens with which to look at people (or organizations) around you is whether they are potential partners/collaborators or not.

And, that brings us to the final idea – how do you effectively compete with yourself? By starting on a journey of continuous improvement. The only measure of progress that matters is that you’re solving different kinds of problems this year than you were last year. And, the only score that matters is whether you’re better today than you were yesterday.

Influence and concern

Great books gift us with frameworks that give us ways to make sense of the world. Stephen Covey’s book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, attained legendary status because he managed to weave in a collection of great frameworks to help us think about productivity and life.

(Source: ExperienceLifeFully)

Great frameworks are beautiful in their simplicity. And, there are few simpler than the idea that we all have a circle of influence and a circle of concern. The circle of influence is simply a collection of everything we influence (e.g. our response to situations) vs. the circle of concern which is a collection of everything we don’t influence. And, the way of those who are proactive is to spend time within their circle of influence.

I’ve found an interesting truth in dealing with the circle of influence idea – the more time you spend within it, the more it expands. And, the more it expands, the more you realize that you can have a go at most problems you care about by just focusing on what you can do about them. You also realize very quickly as to where your effort is best spent depending on how much of the action feels within your control.

This is what the smartest people and companies do. As a growing company, for instance, there are many many things outside your control – competition and regulation are two simple examples. It can get overwhelming thinking about all the things you don’t control. So, focus fully on what you control. It is similar in our personal lives – there’s no point focusing on all the external stimuli that make up our day. It has to start with us – our actions and our responses.

Simple idea. Powerful implications.

The bigger accident superstition

I have a little superstition that someone (I think it might be my mom) once passed on to me. I was told that every time something bad happens, it is a gift because it is a sign that something much worse has been averted.

So, when I damaged my computer keyboard 2 weeks ago by spilling water all over it, my immediate reaction was to thank the heavens that it was only my keyboard. According to my bigger accident belief, it was a small accident that was far better than something worse, i.e, spending $200 to replace my keyboard vs. having to replace my entire laptop.

This little belief goes a long way in easing many a painful situation by simply transforming it. While I naturally think about what needs to be done to fix it, the pain of a situation is immediately replaced by a sense of relief that it wasn’t any worse. That sense of relief is accompanied by a third person’s perspective – I realize very quickly that most of my problems are simply first world problems. They may be painful but, in the big scheme of things, all is well.

And, when you learn to see misfortunes as temporary and, thanks to this weird little belief, even positive, I have found that you appreciate the bumps and bends in the road. They’re just a sign that all is well.

As they say, a bend in the road isn’t an end in the road… unless you fail to take a turn.

PS: Thanks mom (or whoever that good Samaritan was) for sharing that idea.

Making your own mistakes

A member of this community and wiser friend wrote in with a lovely reflection with her takeaways on the post on celebrating ourselves. One of her reflections was around making a conscious effort to make her own mistakes, living her life the way she wanted to live and not living a life others wanted her to live.

And, to that end, she shared this quote from ‘The Remains of the Day’ by Kazuo Ishiguro. The book is about a butler who served a Nazi master and is about how his extreme loyalty to his master cost him dearly. The quote –

“Lord Darlington wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t a bad man at all. And at least he had the privilege of being able to say at the end of his life that he made his own mistakes. His lordship was a courageous man. He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”

A keeper.

Lean operations in real life – MBA Learnings

In the past week, we’ve been deconstructing the idea of “Lean operations” in our Operations Management classes. Lean, for the uninitiated, is a way of operations pioneered by Toyota’s legendary founder Taiichi Ono. It was simply called the “Toyota Production System” till academics from the west re-branded it as “lean.”

Lean embraces the idea of “kaizen” or continuous improvement. The process behind Lean improvement is illustrated by the image below –

Photo credit – Handsongroup.com

The concept illustrated here is that having large amounts of inventory can hide the issues in the system. The best way to understand and fix problems is to gradually lower the inventory level. As soon as we do that, we start bringing problems to light and can begin the process of continuous improvement. It is critical that we don’t bring the water down all at once as it is impossible to fix everything together. In fact, yesterday’s solution is, very often, today’s problem. So, it has to be one at a time and it has to be continuous.

The beauty about learning Operations Management is that every learning has a direct application in our daily lives. There was an interesting article on 99U.com titled “Don’t work harder, work faster” – inspired by social media consultant, author, investor and speaker Gary Vaynerchuk. This is Gary talking about the idea of working faster –

“I always tell people to start working harder, to hustle. I truly believe that people could watch an hour less of Scandal and instead do some f****** work. But there’s another variable that I don’t talk about enough: be much faster in the hours you’re already in. Train yourself to do a little bit more in each hour than you normally would. Every day add something, and get it all done. The first few days you may not get it all done, but keep adding on, and you’ll get there. It’s training for a marathon. It takes time, but once you’re done, you’ll see that you’re doing much more in a day because you’re moving faster.”

That’s lean operations in action. Even though I am nowhere close to as prolific as Gary, that’s been my experience with thinking about a learning every day too. Over these years, it’s been a gradual process of thinking about ideas like productivity and making small tweaks that have all added up over time. I feel myself getting through larger volumes of work than I ever thought possible a few years back and, yet, seem to be able to make time for sleep, food, exercise, read and even meditate for 15 minutes. This was in complete contrast to my life just three years ago – I’d barely manage 7 hours of rest, exercise half the amount I do now and never find time/space to meditate.

Small improvements over a long period of time add up. That’s what makes Lean and the idea of “kaizen” really powerful. It isn’t a one shot “to do” list item though. It is like taking a bath – you need to take one every day.

Lean is a way of life.

Knowledge work and connection work

In today’s world, most of us in non-industrialized jobs have two kinds of work – knowledge work and connection work. These kinds of work require different sets of tools –

Knowledge work – where thinking is the main action. The requirements here are an ability to think, an ability to facilitate creative thought when working in groups and an ability to synthesize.
Common tools: White boards, pen and paper, meetings (if you are facilitating knowledge work in groups)

Connection work – where connection is the main action. The requirements here are an ability to build relationships, organize groups of people and be available, responsive, and open to making all sorts of connections.
Common tools: Email, meetings, Skype and other video tools

An executive probably has a 30-70 split between knowledge work and connection work as most of her time is spent executing strategic plans. A venture capitalist probably has a 20-80 split as a lot of his time is spent meeting either prospective entrepreneurs or teams at his portfolio companies. An analyst, on the other hand, probably has an 80-20 split. You’ll probably see a similar split for a young researcher who will probably need to spend 90% of her time on research and 10% on connection.

The trend, however, is that as you age and, arguably, do work that has more impact, the proportion of connection work in your life increases. Leadership, if I were to generalize, is probably 25% knowledge work and 75% connection work. The knowledge work piece is critical because it makes sure you’re thinking, prioritizing and working on the right things. But, it is in connecting with and moving people where you get things done and create impact.

There are 3 important takeaways here –
1. It is important to understand the nature of our jobs and the degree of knowledge and connection required. This can be a wonderful way to to gauge fit (some of us are more comfortable with knowledge over connection for example) but is also critical to understand what will make you successful.

2. While connection work requires us to be connected, knowledge work requires us to be disconnected. So, it is important that we do both kinds of work justice. Too often, we spend way too much time connected while barely moving the needle on the connection activities we actually need to get done (hello snapchat!).

3. It is critical we master the tools required to get both kinds of work done. We’ll definitely need both and there’s no point complaining about emails and meetings (more on these another day) – they will remain as critical tools as long as we have a connection-based economy. And, I’d argue that the connection economy is here to stay.

Nap clarity

Every time I have a problem that gnaws at me, I find myself taking a quick nap. And, very often, I wake up with absolute clarity on what needs to be done next.

I remember a post from Fred Wilson on ‘subconscious information processing‘ a few years ago when he spoke about a lesson he’d learnt from his father about starting on projects as early as possible. In Fred’s words –

“He explained that I should start working on a project as soon as it was assigned. An hour or so would do fine, he told me. He told me to come back to the project every day for at least a little bit and make progress on it slowly over time. I asked him why that was better than cramming at the very end (as I was doing during the conversation).

He explained that once your brain starts working on a problem, it doesn’t stop. If you get your mind wrapped around a problem with a fair bit of time left to solve it, the brain will solve the problem subconsciously over time and one day you’ll sit down to do some more work on it and the answer will be right in front of you.

I’ve taken that approach with every big problem I’ve faced ever since. I used this technique to get through high school, college, and business school. I’ve used this technique to develop a career in investing and technology. I’ve even used this technique to deal with our own parenting challenges.”

I’ve begun to appreciate this concept since I read this on Fred’s blog 4 years back. It is true and it works.

The reason it works is because our brain processes information when we give it time and space. This process can’t be forced. All we can do is create space and wait. And, sleep/rest is a wonderful way to create space. To me, it also speaks to the importance of getting more than our fair share of sleep. It is when we get past our deep sleep phase / the minimum required for us to feel rested that the magic really happens.

And, it is magic – let’s make no mistake about it.

Celebrating ourselves and those around us

We had a lovely tribute to the friend I wrote about on Saturday. At the end of the hour in which many of us recalled lovely memories and celebrated his life, I was left with a niggling question – how many of us let each other know how much we appreciated each other and care? How many of us appreciate ourselves and what we have?

Many of us often spend too long being hard on ourselves for every mistake we make and discount every nice thing we do. We do the same for people around us – too often we just kill relationships with high expectations and unnecessary negativity. And, we also mess with our incredible bodies – eating poorly, sleeping less than we need, and never exercising our body and mind.

Do we always need a shock or horrible outcome to do justice to our lives?

If we feel we do (and that’s okay as long as we accept it), perhaps a better way to approach it would be to write down 3 things we’re thankful for every morning and 3 things we’d do today if we knew it was our last day. Think about it, be intentional and don’t let life happen to you.

What we have is a gift. And, it is entirely up to us to use it well. Let us be excellent to ourselves and each other.

And, I thought I’d begin with you today – thank you for reading these notes, thank you for sharing them as you do, and thank you for writing in every once a while. To be connected with you through a combination of these words, the ether and a few differently shaped devices means more to me than you can imagine. Have a great day and week.