A Learning a Day

“If come from inside you, always the right one” | Mr. Miyagi, referring to decisions that come from listening to ourselves.

The quieter we become, the more we’re able to listen to the answers that emerge within.

I work on the jobs marketplace and the jobseeker experience on LinkedIn.

In a labor market like the one today, there’s definitely a lot of frustration flying around.

There’s no doubt we have a lot of work to do and a responsibility to our users to make things better. And, given my role, I’m at the receiving end of some of that feedback and frustration.

Every once a while, I get thoughtful and considerate feedback. It is so lovely when people do that.

Often, though, they’re worded in a way that is intended to hurt.

I’ve learnt two lessons over time –

(1) Remove the emotion and answer the question/comment. When I first received these notes, I used to feel the emotion surge as I tried to keep my cool. I’ve gotten better at removing the emotion. It isn’t personal and it is sometimes easy to lose that perspective.

I do my best to help outline the challenges (especially with requests that aren’t realistic) and set expectations. And, of course, if it is offensive, I remind myself that I can choose not to respond.

(2) The feedback is a privilege. I would have given a lot a few years ago to get to work on a problem like this. The feedback is just a reminder of the work that lies ahead to make things better.

That again is a reminder to remove the emotion, acknowledge the privilege, and just try to be of help.

It is, of course, a lesson that is relevant in other scenarios as well. It is good to be able to remove the emotion and just answer the question.

I hope to get better at doing so over time.

When you learn to play the guitar, you know to expect multiple cuts and calluses in your fingers.

Lifting weights, on the other hand, means dealing with soreness.

Public speaking means learning to deal with stage fright.

Pain in the learning process is required to help our bodies and minds adapt to new challenges.

Many say they want to accelerate their learning curve. The real question is if they’re willing to lean into the inevitable pain that comes with that.

If you’re expecting every person you work with to agree with your decisions or to like you along the way, it is highly likely you won’t get much done.

This doesn’t mean you can get away being a jerk for long. There’s a balance – too often though, we get caught up in our desire for affiliation. It is nice to be liked.

But that’s not the job.

The job is about getting the important things done. Ideally in a way that brings the people that matter along for the most part.

That in turn often means choosing to be the kind of person who is respected for sound judgment.

Everything else is gravy in the long run.

A decade ago, I made it a point to read 2 books per month. I was curious about many topics and I’m glad I indulged my curiosity in that phase.

In this current phase, I am reading significantly fewer books but I’m spending more time attempting to change my habits based on the books I read.

2025 might just go down as the year when I attempted to change my life based on what I learnt from “Good Energy,” “Built to Move,” and “Outlive.”

If I manage to do that, it’ll go down as a successful year. If I don’t, I’ll plan to read them again and try again in 2026.

Changing our measure of success changes our approach.

I find myself often wishing for a battery indicator – like the ones on a phone – I can look at for the people around me. Especially for myself.

First, the context. I was tired on two separate occasions recently.

One of these days was with family and I was noticeably withdrawn. An extra hour of sleep would have transformed that morning.

I was even asked – “Everything okay? Tired?” And I said “yes – all okay.” Some combination of ego and lack of self awareness meant that I didn’t admit to my tiredness.

The other day was at work. I was wiped out and every minor disagreement hit me a lot harder. I saw a couple of issues and felt my heart sink. And I ended a perfectly normal day feeling beat down.

In both cases, if there was a simple battery indicator I could have looked at, I would have seen the indicator point to the fact that I’d gone into battery saver mode. I needed a recharge to reset – that recharge is usually just sleep. In rare cases, it comes down to food or other factors.

Low battery states impact everything – our ability to be resilient, to be optimistic, and to keep perspective.

The more awareness we have of them, the better.

Perhaps I should just begin by imagining a battery indicator and keep checking in on the charge level.

Nearly two decades ago, someone I know was reflecting on a discussion where a person spoke up a couple of times with minimal signal.

This friend shared the quote – “Better to be silent and be thought of as a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

That idea has stuck with me – perhaps due to its beautiful combination of wit and wisdom. I still think of it every time I’m in a similar situation.

Both when observing others as well as when I’m at risk of doing the same myself.

Every day, I see or read some fascinating prediction about where the world is heading.

Many of these predictions are based on some fact – the impact of AI on entry level jobs, impact of political uncertainty, etc.

But the range of these is mind boggling. There are many predicting widespread unemployment in the next five years, others who are concerned about AI’s impact on our ability to think, others who believe we’re headed for a major social-economic crisis, a few worried about AI taking over and destroying humanity, others worried about the impact of a changing global order, and so on.

The one thing I remind myself when I see these predictions is – nobody knows.

Or more accurately, I say to myself – nobody fucking knows.

We are dealing with more systemic change all at once than anyone can comprehend. The second and third order effects in a complex system create conditions where changes are happening so fast that it is hard to know what to respond to.

One thing is for certain – there’s no point overreacting to every high confidence prediction.

Nobody knows.

One of the more impactful changes we can make in our lives is to both notice and be grateful for near misses.

As these happen more often than we realize, we’re guaranteed to see an order of magnitude increase in the gratitude we experience.

The process of building good habits is like initiating a long download on spotty wifi.

Progress feels incredibly slow, often frustrating. And all it takes is for one glitch and the download has to start from scratch.

Hard to build, easy to mess up.