A Learning a Day

We spoke to a doctor about a stomach ache recently. He said the stomach aches that seem scary are the ones that come quickly and feel intense.

But, ironically, those are the harmless ones. They’re just our body’s reaction to something it didn’t like.

The worrisome aches are the ones that slowly grow in intensity. They often have more serious underlying causes.

Lots of parallels to problems we face in this life.

(1) I will only go to meetings where my absence might/will be missed. As a result, I will let the people who will be missed have their space at the (sometimes virtual) table.

(2) I will use all the newly minted spare time to ship work that matters… and, where necessary, that will ensure I will be missed in the meetings I absolutely need to go to.

The goal is impact, not growing my high profile meeting count.

“It is not hard to identify a thief. It is the one who believes everyone else steals.” | Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

Profound.

I sometimes think of the contrast between two homes we’ve lived in.

The first set of owners invested in the best. Nearly every decision they made was one that either maintained or raised the standards of the home.

The second set consistently went for the cheap option.

Now, and this is the interesting part, the contrast between the homes on any one dimension wasn’t massive. Yes, the floors or the sliding doors could have been a lot better. Neither one on its own was a deal breaker.

But when you put them all together, the difference was staggering.

Standards – first we make them, then they make us.

One way to measure if we’re stuck in our comfort zone is to look at all the projects we’re betting on for the next 6 months and ask ourselves – what percentage of these are optimization projects with guaranteed outcomes?

If we’re pushing ourselves, more than 50% of what we’re betting on will have unknown risks/rewards.

An idea whose wisdom I’ve come to appreciate more as time passes – “Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.”

Keep perspective. Keep plugging away.

The default mental model many of us have with new habits is to brute force our way in. That means committing to doing it starting tomorrow and then never breaking the streak.

This is a complete fine strategy.

Until we do break the streak for a few days. Then we do it again. And it gets harder and harder to summon the willpower to take the brute force approach each time.

An alternative approach I’ve come to appreciate is to approach new habits with a lot of patience. Try to start tomorrow. But if you miss, let that miss sink in.

If it is a habit we care about (if we don’t, it won’t last anyway), each miss will get us thinking about the system we need to get things on track. And it’ll increase our intrinsic motivation to do so.

This “pull” approach to forming habits takes a lot longer to take off.

But once it does, it has a way of staying airborne a lot longer.

When we receive feedback, it is tempting to look for ways to respond. Do something, say something, etc.

Often, the most effective thing to do is to simply let it marinate.

Sit with it, let it soak, and see how things feel after a period of time.

That feeling is often different from our initial response/reaction. The time and distance from the stimulus often gives us the space to be constructive and figure out what we want to learn from it.

Two characteristics of conversations about new or undiscussed ideas among great partners –

(1) Nobody cares about interruptions. Respect is both assumed and ever-present.

(2) Every new idea is an opportunity to build. It may either refute a previous point or build on it – but the keyword is opportunity. Nobody cares about holding back – why would you do that with people you trust? Nobody cares about who suggested the idea either. Again, why would you do that with people you trust? The conversation is often both the means to the end and the end itself. Winning is playing.

Few conversations are truly great – in that you feel the respect, trust, and energy flow. And few people – those great partners – manage to consistently deliver on great conversations.

Cherish them, we must.

“Always be clear about what game you’re playing” is an idea that’s been top of mind over the past couple of years. I keep a page in my OneNote book titled “The Game I’m Playing” and update it every 6 months.

The goal of the page is to remind myself of my approach to key decisions – career, personal wealth, etc. It is a simple and periodic way to recommit to playing long-term games.

I think it is important to be clear-headed about this because it is easy to be distracted by others who’re playing different – often short-term – games.

To that end, I came across a thought-provoking post by Kyle Harrison, a venture capitalist about games in investing and building companies. The whole post is worth reading in full as it touches on a variety of topics (including the hype around AI companies) – it has a great conclusion.

In the world of building and investing in companies, there are a LOT of different games at play. The only way to avoid finding yourself playing a stupider game is to look around and understand the games that everyone else is playing. And adjust accordingly.

I think the conclusion applies well beyond building and investing in companies. It applies to careers and to life as a whole.

Know what game you’re playing. Calibrate with the games you see around you to make sure you’re avoid playing stupid games.