A Learning a Day

“Why is it that only those who have never fought in a battle… are so eager to be in one?” – Yoshi Toranaga

Poignant.

A metronome is a device that provides an audible click or sound that simulates a beat.

The metronome, in and of itself, is boring. It just produces a steady click… click… click … at some pre-assigned interval.

But metronomes are often indispensable to musicians. Many musicians practice with a metronome to hone their ability to keep a steady tempo. So do dancers. And athletes among others.

Important foundational investments are often like the metronome – they might seem boring to the uninitiated.

But they’re a key step to our ability to create something special.

One of the more fascinating stories in Matt Ridley’s “How Innovation Works” was about the humble potato.

Potatoes were initially banned in countries like England because clergyman didn’t believe they were fit to be eaten as they were not mentioned in the Bible.

That wasn’t all – potatoes had to overcome other prejudices. For example, there was a prevailing belief at the time that vegetables had an effect on the body based on how they looked. For example, walnuts look like the brain – so they were presumably good for the brain.

Potatoes, however, looked like a finger with leprosy, and thus there was a belief they might cause leprosy. As a result of such beliefs, the potato spread faster in India and China in the 1600s vs. continental Europe and North America.

It took over 200 years for these prejudices to be dropped. Even after that, it took a lot of marketing for potatoes to catch up in countries like France. For example, it took one passionate potato lover to embark on what was effectively “influencer marketing” with the queen Marie Antoinette. This marketing campaign also included stunts like planting potatoes in the outskirts of Paris and having armed guards patrol it in the morning to spark curiosity.

Eventually, the potato was adopted and there was no turning back… but this story serves as a powerful reminder of the power of prejudice and limiting beliefs.

It isn’t a story limited to the 1600s either. We can simply pick any politicized issue today – vaccines, electric vehicles, nuclear power, and so on. The same dynamics are still at play.

History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme.

One marker for our level of emotional intelligence is the speed with which we differentiate between those who care about us and those who pretend to care about us while their interests are aligned with ours.

This is particularly challenging because folks in the pretend group can be savvy social operators with high emotional awareness themselves.

In those cases, the only real identifier is a gap between what they say and what they do. While it is hard to spot that gap in the short run, it almost always shows itself in the long run.

The higher our emotional intelligence lever, the sooner we spot these gaps.

I grew up a very impatient person. It showed in everything I did. I used to rush to the end of a detailed math problem and miss a word or two that had the clue to unlock the right answer.

“Careless mistake” was the refrain that followed me through those years.

In truth, “careless” was not the right descriptor. Impatient was. I wanted fast progress. If fast progress wasn’t possible, the result was frustration. A lot of it.

In many ways, writing every day on this blog has been the therapy I needed to overcome this proclivity. I debated using the term “unhealthy” to describe it. Like all things in life, impatience is useful in moderation. But I tended to overdo it.

Writing every day for over sixteen years has helped me make friends with patience and progress. I had no other choice. I sought confidence and learning. There were no quick fixes to get to these outcomes. And then again, do you ever “get to them”? You just keep working on them for the rest of your life.

Perhaps it is that long-term view that changed my relationship with patience. Here’s an example.

I was on an exercise routine that involved a swim in the evening through the summer. As fall arrived, it was time to change it up and go back to exercising in the morning.

In the first week of this switch, I wasn’t able to get to exercise in time. I hadn’t budgeted for it and my morning work priority list wasn’t done. So I just made do with a 5 minute workout.

I realized that the sweet spot to get that 30 minute workout was to get going at 645am. I still couldn’t do it in the next week. So I managed 10 minute workouts.

Last week, I got it up to 20 minute workouts.

If I had to guess, I think I’ll be at the 30 minute mark this week or the next.

Now, I could have easily admonished myself for poor prioritization. I know how important it is to exercise. Why am I over-indexing on work? Etc.

But this is where taking a long-term view and making friends with patience and progress has made a difference. There’s no point getting frustrated and over-correcting.

Best to take the first step, then the next, and so on.

Patience.

And progress.

There’s a friend I’ve been catching up with on a roughly yearly cadence. That sort of cadence is fascinating because life just 2 or 3 catch ups ago looked and felt wildly different.

This friend reminded me of problems that were top of mind “just 3 calls ago.” I’d have taken the problems I have right now in a heartbeat.

That’s not to say life is always up and to the right. But that we often just take for granted the many good things that come our way and look to the next horizon.

We almost always pay no attention to small bits of progress we make every day.

And yet, they compound over time as long as we keep plugging away.

The combined area of our rear view mirrors is much smaller than the windshield for good reason. We can’t drive if we’re focused on the rear view mirror.

But it’s important to look back from time to time and acknowledge the many gifts that have come our way.

A team from MIT shared a breakthrough recently – a solar-powered desalination prototype that is showing great promise.

There are 2 interesting nuggets from the article –

(1) No batteries or grid connectivity: The system can quickly react to subtle changes in sunlight. So it maximizes the utility of solar energy, producing large quantities of clean water despite variations in sunlight throughout the day.

The engineers tested a community-scale prototype on groundwater wells in New Mexico over six months, working in variable weather conditions and water types. The system harnessed on average over 94 percent of the electrical energy generated from the system’s solar panels to produce up to 5,000 liters of water per day despite large swings in weather and available sunlight.

(2) Brackish groundwater. The system is geared toward desalinating brackish groundwater — a salty source of water that is found in underground reservoirs and is more prevalent than fresh groundwater resources.

“The majority of the population actually lives far enough from the coast, that seawater desalination could never reach them. They consequently rely heavily on groundwater, especially in remote, low-income regions. And unfortunately, this groundwater is becoming more and more saline due to climate change,” says Jonathan Bessette, MIT PhD student in mechanical engineering. “This technology could bring sustainable, affordable clean water to underreached places around the world.”

I’m rooting for their success.

When we’re trying to make change happen, emotion trumps logic.

And momentum trumps emotion.

An object in motion has a way of staying in motion.

When in doubt, solve for momentum.

“It is often easier to fight for our principles than it is to live by them.”

Words are wind.

I had the opportunity to observe a friend deal with some potentially sticky social situations recently. There were two fascinating things about their responses –

(1) When the responses weren’t what they wanted to hear, they just moved onto trying something else. No drama.

(2) When I asked this friend if they felt hurt or annoyed by the unpleasantness, they shrugged. The secret to their temperament was not taking it personally. They just focused on what they wanted out of the situation and ignored everything else.

There’s a simple idea I shared recently from Mark Manson’s book that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently – We all walk around giving too many f*cks. We let far too many things bother us – none of this is going to matter when we look back years from now. Leading a good life is about learning to give a f*ck about the few things that matter.

This friend’s temperament and behavior was a great illustration of this idea.

I found it inspiring.