A Learning a Day

Our learning shows up in our doing.

Put differently, how we do things is our learning in action. If we don’t do it, we haven’t learnt it.

And, while learning and doing have this important relationship, the doing is not where the learning happens. Instead, the learning happens in the spaces between our actions.

In those spaces, we reflect, think, synthesize, and resolve to make the small changes for the next time we take action.

Often, when we design learning experiences, we over-optimize on the doing or the more academic study that we sometimes call learning. Both are important. Theory is important. Practice is also important.

But, to learn effectively, it is equally important to design those spaces in between as part of the learning process.

That’s where the magic of learning happens.

A friend shared the “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” quote in a recent conversation.

The quote does a great job speaking to the importance of reframing challenges.

What it doesn’t do, however, is set the right expectations.

Life doesn’t give us those proverbial lemons occasionally.

If we’re seeking to do something meaningful with our time, we’ll get them all the time. The presence of lemons from life is just a sign that we’re headed in the right direction.

The obstacle is the way.

I’m interrupting normal programming today with a request for help from readers in the US.

Is there any chance you might know someone who might know someone who works at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)?

I ask because we’d really appreciate the opportunity to speak to a human at USCIS about the current timelines for a visa extension for an H4/dependent visa holder. Our hearts sank when we realized the timelines had gone from 3.5-4.5 months when we applied in March this year to 21 months (the extension is for 36 months).

For the uninitiated, this means my wife (and our family in many ways) –
– cannot re-enter the country if she were to travel to visit our parents abroad in case of an emergency
– needs to be at the DMV every 8 weeks to get the next 8 week extension of her driving license
– cannot hold a job (despite the best efforts of a kind boss who tried extending her employment with 3 months of unpaid leave, endless uncertainty on your work authorization makes employment impossible)

We’re hoping to understand if there is any foreseeable end to this limbo state.

We’ve received training from the immigration system in dealing with uncertainty over the years. But, this 8+ month bout of uncertainty with everything else going on in the world has been… challenging.

I know it is probably a long shot. But, any help here would be much appreciated.

Thank you for reading this far.

Our World in Data had a great piece on the impact of “learning curves”/”experience curves” in the production of electricity from renewable sources.

Fossil fuel costs are driven by the cost of fuel and the operating costs of the plant. The key cost in a renewable plant on the other hand is the cost of the technology (e.g. the solar cell).

The moment we talk about the cost of technology, however, we get into the realm of learning curves. As installation and adoption of technology grows, we become more efficient. For an analogy, think of the impact of Moore’s law for semiconductors.

That, in turn, leads to a graph that looks like this. Solar has become the cheapest form of electricity and we aren’t done yet.

This graph doesn’t yet solve all our problems. In areas where the weather is volatile, we still have to factor in costs of storage. But, again, storage technology also follows the experience curve. So, even if storage is expensive now, things will look very different in a decade.

There’s a lot to love about renewable energy outside of the impact on its planet. Solar and Wind powered electricity are also the safest sources of energy by a distance.

Thanks to experience curves, adopting renewable energy around the world is well on its way to becoming the obvious choice.

And that’s fantastic.

There are understandable negative connotations to the term “wearing blinders.” The dictionary definition is – “to be able only to see things one way and unwilling or unable to consider other possibilities”

Being narrow minded and obstinate is not helpful or constructive as a general rule.

But, in the spirit of considering other possibilities, I have been mulling another definition of wearing blinders – “to ignore the world around us and focus only on the path ahead of us.”

Wearing blinders 2.0 – if you will.

I’ve found this way of thinking about wearing blinders particularly helpful in approaching social media. If you’re finding utility on your favorite social platform, that’s fantastic.

Just remember to wear blinders, compare yourself to no one, and focus on the path ahead.

“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted.

I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship.

I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”

| John Roberts, US Supreme Court Justice at a High school commencement address.

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A wish that is unusual, important, and powerful – all at once.

I started reading Debt by David Graeber yesterday. I am still making my way through the second chapter and I am already mind blown.

In the first chapter, he made me questions my pre-conceived notions about debt. And, in the half of second chapter so far, he’s begun methodically taking apart the story we’ve been told about money evolving from the barter system.

After years of thinking about barter as the origin of money, I’ve begun to appreciate the flaws in this explanation brought to light by years of rigorous anthropological study.

Again, mind blown.

A decade ago, I remember reading a note about reading in a Robin Sharma book (ha – very meta) that resonated. The idea (paraphrased) was – “Somewhere out there is a book that will change your life. You just don’t know which. So, keep reading”

A decade later, the only quibble I have with this quote is that it grossly underestimates the impact great books can have on our lives.

Books have changed my life multiple times over the years. And they have done so at a frequency that has been unmatched by any other source of learning.

A few years ago, Correlation Ventures shared a chart that showed the distribution of US venture capital returns with data between 2004-13.

65% of venture capital investments either went bankrupt or returned less money than what was invested. An additional 25% gave a 1-5x return on investment.

The hits came from the remaining 10%. 6% returned 5-10x. 2.5% returned 10-20x and 1.5% returned 20x+.

Home runs, in essence, happen <5% of the time. But, they drive the bulk of venture capital returns.

I like thinking of this graph because this is a good way to think about projects in our careers too. A vast majority of things may either not work out as well as we hoped or work out just fine.

But, assuming we’re learning/developing our skills and making thoughtful bets, we’ll give ourselves the opportunity to hit the occasional home run.

So, don’t get discouraged if things are going well right now. You never know if a good day is a good day anyway.

All it takes is for a home run or two to work out… in time.

I came close to getting scammed today. The whole episode was dumb and embarrassing.

I got a text saying my Apple ID was being used for a payment in an Apple Store and that I should call a number to sort it out. Apple support asked me to install the support/Teamviewer app to help me solve the problem. Embarrassingly, I said yes.

To their credit, they said the right things here. We kept going for three extra minutes until they tried convincing me to buy an Apple gift card so they could remove an unauthorized device from their server that I wasn’t able to see on my phone.

My honest response to myself after some frantic password updates after the call was – What the fuck*? How did I get so fooled? How did it take me so long to catch on?

In retrospect, it was a combination of things. It always is a combination.

I have been working away at upgrading my passwords. I was getting close to the end of this multi-week project and knew my Apple ID password hadn’t been updated. Confirmation bias.

I was in the midst of doing something else at a store. That led me to miss a few tell-tale signs.

I attempted to triage this while taking care of that something else. In that process, I missed more tell-tale signs. When the hell did Apple have a security support number? Don’t I always get alerts when my Apple ID is being accessed?

I finally caught on. But, I’m still cringing at how naïve I was. No amount of acknowledging this was embarrassing will be good enough for the next couple of days.

Scammers succeed because they focus on areas that we tend to be sensitive about – credit cards, taxes, identity theft, etc. But, the signs are nearly always there – text messages/weird sounding voicemails, poor grammar, Nigerian or Indian guys (sadly), weird procedures, etc.

When you’re dealing with suspicions of fraud, pay attention to these signs and stay safe. At the very least, I hope you’re smarter than I was in this instance.

I, on the other hand, will be focused on the words of wisdom from the wise Rafiki – “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.”

There’s no running from this.

Here’s to learning from it.

*I rarely use expletives on this blog. Writing about this scolding to myself, however, did feel appropriate. Sorry if it offended you!

Before I make a purchase*, I’ve learnt to ask myself the question – “Do I want it or need it?”

Wants are fleeting and rarely lead to purchase satisfaction after the fact.

Needs, on the other hand, have high return-on-investment.

Differentiating between our wants and needs has the potential to step change our post-purchase satisfaction and happiness.

It certainly has done that for me.

*This question tends to be most helpful for purchases on the internet because of how easy it is to part with your money. :-)