A Learning a Day

We introduce ourselves all the time – especially when we meet people for the first time. These introductions can be pretty high stakes because many folks make their minds about us from our introduction. This is especially so if you are presenting to executives and investors who are used to be making quick judgments about people.

So, here are 3 tips that help with delivering great introductions.

1. Start with why. Most self introductions end up beginning and ending with what we do. But, what we did is rarely as interesting as understanding why we did what. And, a great way to set that up is to start with what matters to you and tie the rest of the story to those themes. Even a simple start like – “I enjoy solving different kinds of problems” can go a long way in helping people understand how you make decisions.

So, given this, my ideal structure would be –

• Start with why
• Explain your professional path in a way that ties back to starting with why
• Depending on context, add a few personal notes – hobbies, partners, etc.

The beauty about starting with the why aside is that it doesn’t just add purpose to why you did what you did. If the context is professional, telling people what drives you is a beautiful way to add a nice touch of personality to your introduction.

2. Practice delivering your introduction within 3 minutes – ideally 2.5 minutes. I think a general sweet spot time for great introductions is between 2 and 3 minutes. Any longer and you better be Steve Jobs-esque engaging. I’ve added a time limit here because it is vital you write your introduction out once and practice it. Great introductions take a ton of practice.

3. Test and iterate. Every time you introduce yourself, take a mental note of the feedback you see from the introduction. Are people excited to talk to you? Are their eyes glazing over? Do you radiate a certain energy when you do it?

Our self introduction goes from good to great over time and it is on us to be conscious every time we deliver it.

We often describe any variation to our original plans “unexpected.”

But, is it?

Obstacles always show up and plans always change. Any journey worth taking comes with bumps you didn’t know about and twists, turns and re-routing that you didn’t imagine.

Perhaps, instead, we should only described a plan working out with absolutely no variation as unexpected.

Imagine what that would do to our mental state, stress levels and perspective.

I started 2017 with a post on my theme for the new year – engagement.

From that post – I believe engagement is the answer to the debates around managing energy versus managing time. As with most important things, it isn’t an either/or. And, I also believe engagement is a principle that a good life is anchored around. And, as with all life principles, it is very hard to consistently live it. Also, I think of engagement and consciousness (the ability to be aware and to choose) as sister concepts. They share the same core.

Engaging on engagement is easier said than done, of course. So, I broke it down to 3 sub themes – health, information and seeking to understand and then to be understood. And, I committed to a collection of processes at the beginning of the year.

But, change doesn’t happen with commitment alone. Change happens when you follow that commitment with consistent re-commitment. I have daily check points with myself. But, I found a half year review of this to be both fascinating and useful. Here’s what I found –

1. Health: Some aspects had gone really well. I had made some very good diet changes, was doing a much better job working out my whole body, and was consciously standing more and walking more through the day. But, my exercise volume had dipped post parenthood and a few other projects. So, I needed to do a better job here. Overall, however, I’d say this was positive.
2. Information: Aspects that had worked well included a much better use of email filters, almost no email reading in bed, cutting a bunch of news feeds that were more noise than signal and starting the “Notes by Ada” project to synthesize my thinking around technology. But, on the flip side, I hadn’t done a good job in “deep reading” (books), was still checking my phone far too often as a default action and was a bit last minute in the creation of “Notes by Ada.” I felt I needed to do a much better job here as it felt like 3 steps forward and 2.9 steps back.
3. Seek to understand and then to be understood: This was the most nebulous sub theme of the three as it isn’t that easy to judge. However, I ask myself how I’m doing with this (along with the other 2) every day. And, I had begun to perceive progress. I was more aware of when I interrupted folks in conversation and was doing a better job modulating my energy in meetings. I didn’t expect change in six months as this is a longer term construction project. Positive progress with an awareness that there’s a long way to go.

This half year review was a breath of fresh air as it injected much needed energy and purpose. I think we all tend to overweight the negatives. And, before I started this review, I thought I’d gone backward on 2 of my 3 objectives. But, the review revealed a lot more nuance – bunch of things going well, a few improvements required – and also made me realize that I’d made a lot more progress than I thought.

I’ve made a fair few changes since that aim to chip away at the areas I need to do better. But, more than ever, I realize how we frequently overestimate what we can get done in a day and underestimate what we can get done over the long haul – especially when we chip away at things, one small action at a time.

This is the age of the hustle. It is easier than ever to hustle. We always have access to the people we want to reach – via email and social networks. If you want to send someone an email a day to remind them of something that will help you, you can.

To hustle is also glorified. Isn’t that what the gritty entrepreneur and the storied networker does? The pursuit of this kinds of hustle abhors patience and diffuses the tension of waiting by taking action. Do something, anything. Bucket obvious mistakes under learning and “iterate.”

There are three problems with this approach.

First, mistakes we could and should have avoided with some thought are not signs of us learning. They point to stupidity.

Second, the tension of waiting and responding (instead of replying) is the tension that helps us grow. We sacrifice growth and wisdom when we sacrifice that tension.

And, finally, it should be obvious that this is the kind of hustle that only works in the short run.

Don’t glorify action. Action isn’t great. It is just, well, action. We make progress by learning when to act.

And, sometimes, as a result, the best thing to do is to just wait.

If every discussion around success included questions that probed how we measure it and the trade-offs involved, there would be fewer discussions. It is hard to isolate cause and effect in an issue as complex as success – however we define it.

So, in a world where publishers and advertisers make their money off your attention, it makes sense that everyone skips the nuance. So, we see articles within 500 words or less that tell you –

• 3 things that successful do in the morning
• 1 trait that all successful entrepreneurs have
• 1 trait that explains Elon Musk’s success

and so on.

This could also be a playbook for any content you create. Pick an interesting subject, strip away all the nuance, pick a pretty picture, choose a catchy title, share it all over social media – and, voilà, with a bit of luck, you’ve gotten yourself a winner.

But, is that really winning?

Such narratives are generally unhelpful and often plain dangerous. But, that aside, what of us? Why do we write?

Writing can be many things. It can be a medium with which we drive change. It can feed our soul. With every piece of content we share, we decide whether we want to raise the standard of discussion or lower it. And, we do all of this by putting a piece of ourselves out there.

Some might say that we owe it to ourselves to keep the nuance and discuss those hairy, complex issues.

Others will say you ought to just shoot for the clicks and the temporarily popularity.

As always, our choice.

Life is always challenging and often difficult. It doesn’t matter who you are. Affluent people have some aspects of life easier than others. But, as long as you do everything that humans do, you’re going to experience challenges and difficulties.

The big question, then, is – what do we do? Or, more specifically, do we react or respond?

When we take responsibility for our lives, we learn that there’s a space between what happens to us and what we do about it. That space between stimulus and response is where wisdom and maturity lie. Maturity and our ability to respond to situations, not just react to them, go together. Maturity and this ability to respond bring perspective. And, perspective, in turn, changes how we see these challenges and difficulties.

I’ve often wondered if there’s a shortcut to perspective.

There isn’t, of course. Not in the way we think of shortcuts – life doesn’t deal with narrow alleyways.

But, keeping a sense of humor is a trait I’ve found particularly helpful in ensuring perspective. Humor has a magical ability to bring perspective to any situation.

I am not naturally pre-disposed to humor as I grew up taking things very seriously. But, years of perspective and being surrounded by a couple of people who looked for the humor in the situation has slowly changed me. I’ve realized over the years that we all take our thoughts too damn seriously. Nearly everything that happens to us isn’t a matter of life and death.

So, we should relax, find reasons to smile and, in that process, get perspective.

I still don’t naturally find humor in most situation. But, I’ve begun looking for it. That’s been a game changer and I’m hoping I continue to do that.

When we hear someone was involved in something with a bad outcome, our default question tends to be – “What did he do?”

Our default assumption is that what someone did caused the bad outcome.

But, more often than not, it is how we do things, not what we do, that causes issues. Bad performance is more often a result of questionable attitude than questionable skill.

When in doubt, look at the “how.”

Just as you are getting out of bed, consider spending an extra 2 minutes doing the following –

1. What are you seeking to accomplish today – at work and in life? (this generally involves a visual)
2. What is one learning you’d like to keep in mind as you go through the day?
3. What are you thankful for?

Most folks love the extra couple of minutes in bed (thank you, snooze button). Hopefully, this adds value to those extra minutes.

We are the questions we ask. And, a quick 2 minute exercise to ask these questions, or others that you find energizing, can go a long way in getting the day started right.