Discover great authors from HEY World

See you 3/17/23

It’s almost impossible to hold yourself or someone else accountable for something that wasn’t clearly specified to begin with. It’s like trying to latch on to air. I’m taking a break from daily writing and could tell you I’ll be back in a bit or I’ll see you later. The problem with a bit and later is that they could be any day. And any...

Are you even in the arena?

There are critics, and there are doers. There are observers, and there are players. In a speech delivered to 25,000-some listeners in Paris shortly after his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt was very clear in his position about which one carries more meaning: “ “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong m...

your boredom doesn't need curing

Our ability to remain preoccupied at all times is at an all-time high. We listen to podcasts on our commutes. We stare intently at our phones at all hours of the day. On the surface, being able to access news feeds and consume content from virtually anywhere and at any time sounds like something to rejoice about — a true cure for bored...

Identity check

In this mock product management interview, I admire the interviewee taking a step back to reflect on whether the product idea he’s thinking of even aligns with the identity of the company before moving forward. Is this the kind of thing we would want to build? This identity check strikes me as a useful thing for individuals to do as we...

The importance of admitting you were wrong

Someone I know admitted they were wrong about something they were previously very bullish about. I respected this gesture greatly because it’s not always an easy thing to do and it was an obvious sign that they were solving for something bigger than themselves. When we’re solving for something bigger than ourselves, we allow our best w...

A way to do something

Don’t confuse a way to do something for the way to do something. A way to do something is a viable path among many. When there’s truly only one way to do something, then it’s the way — the only way. Most of the things we do are just a way to do something. There are often options to do things differently, but none of them are accessible...

Anticipate requirements

“Anticipate the requirements. That’s how you get to great. If you wait for someone to ask, it’s too late.” This is easily one of the best pieces of advice I received from a former colleague who previously served as a Marine Corps officer, then as a leader at Sun Microsystems, and now as an operator of his own company. A common thread a...

learn to stay with the problem longer

The inability to sit and work on a challenging problem for any meaningful amount of time is one of the greatest barriers to progress. When a challenge reaches a level of difficulty that we are not used to, it’s not unusual to flinch as a first instinct and go into pain avoidance mode: You jump over to a less challenging problem of less...

where is the maze?

In his recent article critiquing Google’s current ailments, Praveen Seshadri said of the organization: “As Deepak Malhotra put it in his excellent business fable, at some point the problem is no longer that the mouse is in a maze. The problem is that ‘the maze is in the mouse.’” In this analogy: we (people or the institutions comprised...

sushi apprenticeship

A famous (or perhaps infamous depending on who you talk to) requirement of those who apprentice under the world-renown sushi chef Jiro Ono, is that they must prepare rice for two or three years before moving on to the next stage of their training. To many, this might seem like overkill. Three years is a lot of time, surely this could b...

Do fewer things.

I used to equate being effective with doing a lot of things. Now it seems clear that these two things actually tend to work against each other. If you think about it, it should be no surprise that having a lot of projects or commitments going on at once makes it hard to produce anything meaningful. It’s akin to trying to spin a bunch o...

this is 29

My first impression of the High-Speed Rail in Taiwan is how smooth it is. So smooth that it’s hard to believe that it’s moving at a blazing 185 miles per hour — yet, it is. When I arrived at my destination, all I could think as the train doors started to open was: “wow, here already?” Yeah, already. This is what 29 feels like; it arriv...

What are you gonna do about it?

Ideas do not matter. What you or someone does with them matters a lot. You could have the most profound, cerebral insight into exactly how something can be solved or made better but it would be utterly meaningless if your instinct is to resume business as usual — to keep scrolling on your phone or to continue with whatever you original...

A helpful sense of doubt

The most impressive things I’ve seen come from some of the most humble people I’ve met. When their work is complimented, their response is usually akin to “it’s alright I guess.” They’re completely serious. It’s not an act, it’s not fake humility. A part of them is proud of their work — at least proud enough to share it. But another pa...

What works today may not work tomorrow

Just because something works today does not mean it will work tomorrow. When we say something works, what we often mean to say is it works for now. Meaning: it may not work forever. It’s perfectly possible that the future may require something very different. In time, you may have to abandon some things or maybe everything in order to ...

What do you make of it?

The world’s opinions on what a “good” or well-lived life is are more ubiquitous than ever. They’re in the books you read, the videos you watch, the social media feeds you consume, etc. When we encounter these opinions, it’s not unusual to want to try them for size. If someone says a “good” life is waking up at 5 AM every day, some samp...

One non-negotiable thing

Even the most perfectly planned days are susceptible to being derailed by the arising of unexpected responsibilities, or by an underestimation of just how long something was going to take (see: Hofstadter’s law). You do what you can but you can’t do it all (most days at least). So what should one do? Two things. Firstly, accept that so...

Beware of tools becoming pillars

In his book Ignore Everybody, Hugh Macleod writes: “meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me…” Fancy tools, Macleod contends, “just gi...

Don't let convenience be your master

I have an action item on my to-do list that has been on my to-do list every day since Monday. It’s not work-related, it’s something personal and important…at least that’s what I’m telling myself. But then again, what’s that saying? Oh right: actions speak louder than words. Here’s what happened Monday through Wednesday: As I wrapped up...

I don't know. What do you think?

The fear of being wrong encourages us to defer to others in all important matters and say some silly combination of “yes”, “totally”, “100%”, and “I don’t know, what do you think?” In some cases, you’re rewarded because if they’re right then you’re right by proxy… kind of? But that’s not really a good reason to live out your days as an...

Your joy is yours.

I recently learned about some upsetting news. For the rest of the day, I apparently remained visibly and audibly upset as evidenced by the countless inquiries into my well-being from peers that I’m grateful to have in my life. At some fortuitous point during the unfolding of my disappointment that day, I asked myself: why? Not why as i...

The importance of going it alone

A willingness to be alone is vital if you want to learn about yourself, but it can also be one of the hardest things for someone to do. I’m not just talking about being alone in the physical sense, but also the sense of aloneness and friction that one may feel upon realizing that they possess an unpopular opinion. In his book The Art S...

You've got a nanosecond to do it

The most prolific people I know don’t think they have much time. The least prolific people I know think that they have plenty of time. When it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of time, you end up doing more things today. When it feels like there’s a ton of time, you end up doing more things tomorrow (or worse, never). One of my favorite...

Start before you know who you are

My favorite rule from Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist is rule #2: “Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.” It’s sage wisdom that’s worth adopting sooner rather than later. Because it’s only when you start trying stuff, that you actually begin to learn about yourself. When you try something and hate it, you've le...

Who cares what the think?

It’s the night of high school prom. The lights turn off, different-colored strobe lights begin firing, and the DJ starts blasting music. The vibes are epic. I thought about dancing, I wanted to dance. Alas, I remained on the sidelines while all the cool kids began making their way to the dance floor. I was so paralyzed by worries about...

re: the last time you do something

A television show I watched last night featured a couple experiencing their last day on Earth together. They knew it would be their last day — that it would be the last time they’d see the sunrise, share a meal, walk by each other’s side, hug, etc. As you might imagine, the knowledge that they were living their last day led to the kind...

What is the next useful thing to do?

You don’t need to have everything figured out. In fact, attempting to come up with a plan that feels perfect is often what stops us from starting at all which is rather tragic. If you’re stuck or you don’t know where to start, just focus your attention on repeatedly responding to one question: “what is the next useful thing that I can ...

Who are you in the next moment?

If you’re happy at this moment, you’re inclined to be happy in the next. If you’re upset at this moment, you’re inclined to be upset in the next. This bias for continuity is so strong that it’s easy to forget that, on some level, how we show up in each moment is a choice. If you like how you’re showing up now — if it’s helpful — you ca...

So you want to be a comedian

Whenever I watch a comedy show, I always find it particularly fascinating to think about what it must’ve taken for the comedian to be on that stage. As light-hearted a profession as it may seem, it’s not exactly for the faint of heart. For every comedian you see on stage, there are hundreds if not thousands of aspiring performers who d...

How fascinating

Failures can be opportunities to learn if we let them. Operative word: let. Conductor, and co-author (alongside his partner, Rosamund) of The Art of Possibility, Ben Zander, suggests we respond to failure with two words to get us in a learning state of mind: “how fascinating!” In an interview with Typeform, Zander explains his reasonin...

Cook

There’s a film that came out recently featuring a character that loves cooking. He basically talks about cooking in the film every chance he gets, using terms that only true connoisseurs of the craft would know — or so it seemed. About an hour into the film, there’s a climactic scene where he is asked to demonstrate his cooking in fron...

Take the lunch

I used to skip lunch. The prospect of squeezing an extra hour of productivity into the day was too good to pass up. So much can be done in an hour! (Or so I thought) Project work, responding to messages, getting organized… let’s go! Boy was I in for a rude awakening though, because it turns out that this idyllic picture of a hyperfocus...

What is stopping you?

Every time you utter the words “I wish I could…” or “if only…”, you should immediately follow up with the question: “what is actually stopping me?” “I wish I could start this awesome thing today…” What is stopping you from doing it today? “If only I could be better at…” What is stopping you from starting now and getting better? Of all ...

This is not a dress rehearsal

Time does not wait — it’s constantly marching forward, slowly but surely advancing you from your youth to adulthood, and eventually old age. The implications of all the decisions you make or do not make along the way are yours to carry. Time has zero sympathies for regret, there are no do-overs. Your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and so on happen...

Perspective

The following excerpt — a rather sobering and fantastically sarcastic one, I might add — from Johnny Truant’s short essay The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You gave me a palpable shift in perspective last night: “You’d think we’re never going to die, the way we cower and second-guess and fret over each little action. We act...

Conquering internal resistance

One of my favorite ideas is Steven Pressfield’s concept of resistance — a catch-all term that applies to anything that stops us from taking action. What I find particularly fascinating are the many forms in which resistance presents itself internally in the form of fear, self-doubt, and procrastination. In many cases, it is not unusual...

Life is happening right now

Imagine someone sitting at a table every day, hunched down, toiling away as she assembles components to build the machine of her dreams. She isn’t certain how much time she will have to build the machine, so she tirelessly attempts to extract as much productivity as possible from each moment. Every time one part of the machine is finis...

Yet

Adding the word “yet” to any critique offers an important perspective. It’s not that you’re not good, it’s that you’re not good yet. It’s not that you can’t play this instrument, it’s that you can’t play this instrument yet. The first statement is resigned to the present, the second is excited and optimistic about the person you can be...

Rest

Unlike a phone that you can reliably plug in and charge back up to 100% every night, your energy is going to vary from day to day. Some days you’ll be at 100%, other days you’ll be a 70%. If you haven’t experienced it yet, there are bound to be days where you feel close to 0%. Sometimes you can explain it, other times you can’t. Life h...

Purpose alters scale

The scale you use to assess challenges naturally changes when you have a clear purpose in mind. A challenge by itself can seem intimidating and insurmountable. However, against the backdrop of a higher purpose — something Bigger Than You, in service of something or someone — this same challenge can become significantly smaller. Not eas...

Finding purpose

In a recent episode of the Huberman Lab podcast, Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and instructor at Stanford, asked Jocko Willink, an author, podcaster, and retired United States Navy Officer who is widely admired for his exceptional level of self-discipline, “what motivates you?” Jocko began his response by speaking fondly of his...

Behind-the-curtain work

In his book Expert Secrets, Russel Brunson shares a sobering quote from his friend Garret about the reality of being a beginner: “ “No matter what you do, in the beginning it’s going to suck, because you suck. But you’ll get better, and you’ll suck less. And as you keep doing this, eventually you’ll suck so little that… you’ll actually...

Motivation is unreliable

Motivation is amazing fuel for action, but it is notoriously unreliable. Some days, especially early on, you will be pumped to do something and will be able to leverage that energy to act. On other days you will feel quite the opposite; you will be totally uninterested in taking action. We’re talking about the pursuit of the same goal ...

Spotting weeds

To be “lost in the weeds” is to be so caught up in minor detail as to completely miss the point. Imagine two people getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum. One person spends this opportunity scanning the painting while admiring da Vinci’s creation; the other person spends their opportunity le...

Not enough time

We’ve all experienced what it is like to not have enough time. You start the day with a seemingly endless list of things to do, you do as many of them as you can on top of all the unexpected things that life happens to throw at you, and — before you know it — it’s time for bed. You could be the most efficient person in the world and it...

Aspirations versus goals

Unlike goals, aspirations are not measurable and therefore they are objectively unobtainable. You cannot hold yourself accountable for something that you haven’t figured out how to clearly recognize or measure. Despite this, we often confidently speak of aspirations when asked about goals and — to our detriment — leave it at that. I wa...

Beginning again

Every moment is an opportunity to begin again. If you just got off a frustrating call, nothing is compelling you to carry that frustration over to the next completely-unrelated thing that you do. If you just witnessed someone attempt to steal a package from your front door — as I did about an hour ago— nothing is compelling you to spen...

Honoring our time together

As a sort of out-of-the-blue thought experiment, I wrote a letter to someone close to my heart that passed away several years ago. Going into the exercise, I expected to have a ton of things to say and within these words, I figured, I might learn a thing or two about how I can best cherish the time with the people I’m lucky to still ha...

Could doesn't matter

While at a modern art exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago a few months ago, I noticed a number of visitors looking at a particular work of art and remarking to the company next to them: “I totally could’ve done that.” And all I could think to myself in those moments were, “yeah, but you didn’t.” These visitors in question were prob...

Costco at peak hours

While at Costco during peak hours yesterday, I noticed a couple getting separated. One partner was beginning to make their way across the store while the other stayed frozen in position, shouting from an increasingly long distance: “I’ll come over when there’s an opening!” A few shoppers around him chuckled. The partner who had already...

What will get you there

Over the last few months, I’ve heard multiple friends and colleagues say some variation of this phrase: “what got you here will not get you there.” I think this is a powerful message because it tells you that if you want to be something more than what you are today, you have to be willing to be extraordinary. And to be extraordinary is...

In sight, in mind, acted on

It’s important to maintain line-of-sight when it comes to pursuing goals. In practice, it works like this: If your goal is to stop excessive spending so you can save money, look at your checking account and credit usage every day. If your goal is to read 10 books in a year, put a post-it note with 10 boxes on your desk titled “This Yea...

Don't forget about everything before you finally

Oliver Burkeman has this concept of a “when-I-finally” mindset which describes “the sense that real fulfillment, or even real life itself, hasn’t quite arrived yet so that the present experience is merely something to get through, en route to something better.” To paint a more eloquent picture of just how silly this mindset is, Burkema...

Unable vs unwilling

When you draw the conclusion that something cannot happen, be very clear: is it because you’re unable or unwilling? If you’re unable, it means that external factors out of your control are holding you back. Is what it is. If you’re unwilling, it means you’re capable of doing something but you’re choosing not to do it — maybe you’re tir...

Technical Completion, Busyness, and Quality Movement

What is the value of the thing you’re doing right now or of the thing you are planning to do? Given just how limited your time really is, this is easily one of the most important questions you can spend time answering clearly. Three concepts that have helped me address this question are Technical Completion, Busyness, and Quality Movem...

Resetting

Unexpected setbacks are part of life. Even the luckiest person on the planet is likely to experience setbacks on some regular cadence. When they arise, they bring the risk of destabilizing your attention and hindering your ability to accomplish what you set out to do on a given day. These setbacks can present themselves in the form of ...

Focus on Today

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been toying around with different mental models to keep me focused on the aspects of life I value the most. My current model that I try to review daily has three components: Pillars, Milestones, and Daily Action. Pillars represent broad categories of activity you want to be a part of your life, for e...

Change

What you desire to do in the moment is not always in service of your long-term interests or values. Consider exercise as an example: someone may have the desire to be healthier and understand that exercise supports this goal, yet they may also have a long-standing preference to sit at their desk all day that is difficult to stray away ...

Your Second Reserve

I used to work with a personal trainer who would sometimes have me finish a workout with an exercise performed until I could not do any more repetitions. After stopping during one of these “finisher” exercises (leg press in case you’re curious), my trainer asked me: “why’d you stop?” “What do you mean? I performed until failure as the ...

Specificity & Adherence

Over the years, I’ve had several friends (including myself) pursue weight loss goals. The two characteristics that distinguished the friends who met their goals versus those who did not are Specificity and Adherence. Specificity meaning their goals were much more specific than simply: “I want to lose weight.” Instead, they set a measur...

Trade-offs

I found the following excerpt from Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler’s book Dollars and Sense pretty eye-opening: “ “A few years ago, Dan and a research assistant went to a Toyota dealership and asked people what they would give up if they purchased a new car. Almost no one had an answer. None of the shoppers had spent any significant time ...

Present You or Future You, Still You

Programs that foot the bill for a large purchase for you today in exchange for a monthly payment are fascinating. These programs — better known as Buy Now Pay Later or BNPL — feel a little bit like cheating or magic. What do you mean I can pick up this $600 TV today, even though I can’t afford it? With no initial payment due, no less. ...

Trajectory

Personal growth, production, and consumption are the result of the choices you make multiplied by how often you make them on average. If you read about 10 pages in any given reading session and in any given year you choose to read about 10 times, then you can expect to have read about 100 pages within the next 365 days. You can invert ...

Trajectory

Personal growth, production, and consumption are the result of the choices you make multiplied by how often you make them on average. If you read about 10 pages in any given reading session and in any given year you choose to read about 10 times, then you can expect to have read about 100 pages within the next 365 days. You can invert ...

Actual importance

The litmus test for whether something is actually important to you is simple: you’re doing what you claim matters. You’re writing, you’re working on a project, you’re setting time aside to be with someone you care about. It does not matter how important you think or claim something is — if you are not actively taking action or planning...

Be a source of light

You can be a source of light for people and that’s kind of incredible. No grandiose gestures are required —a simple “how are you?”, a hug, or even a smile from a distance will do. If you could make someone’s day even just 1% brighter with simple gestures like these, why wouldn’t you? In addition to being an act of goodwill, by choosing...

The thing versus the thought of it

When I started learning piano, I envisioned most of my time being spent playing piano pieces spectacularly like many of the pianists I admired did on stage. Within my first lesson though, I was quickly humbled after learning what actually goes on behind the curtain — intense, deliberate practice sessions often focused on small sections...

Key point or footnote?

Inspired by chapter 1 of Matthew Dick’s book, Someday is Today. A lot of seemingly difficult decisions in life can be resolved by asking yourself: what’s the key point and what’s the footnote? Consider a time-sensitive project that requires an all-nighter to complete as an example. Do you stay up all night or do you go to bed? You care...

Conditions for starting

The conditions we require to start are often idealistic. In a Perfect World, many of us would like at least three things to be true before we start: • enough time in the day • seemingly enough resources to start • and ample energy to give Unless you’re among a truly lucky minority, the number of days in which these conditions are true ...

Life beyond comfort's edge

There’s a YouTube channel titled Yes Theory that has a beautiful and compelling tagline: “We believe life’s greatest moments and deepest connections exist outside of your comfort zone.” If you reflect on some of the most meaningful moments of your life, I think you’ll probably find this to be true in many cases. Nevertheless, the pursu...

Pursuit

People love tracking progress. About 1 million people show up at Times Square in New York to count down the last 10 seconds of the year. On the news this morning, there was a banner showing the Super Bowl countdown — it read “55 days until the big game”. And perhaps as you begin to approach the end of a project you’ve been working tire...

Early iterations

Early iterations usually suck. Your first steps were not smooth. The first thing you built probably wasn’t that great. Your early attempts at anything, for that matter, probably didn’t seem ideal. This is less of an indication of your ability to become good at something and more of a right of passage. When you try to improve your abili...

Anticipated regret

Some decisions can feel like a tug of war between the brain and the heart. The brain representing the utmost rational side of you; the heart representing the more passionate, risk-taking side of you. It seems that neither side is right all the time, which makes choosing between the two all the more challenging. Here’s a simple question...

Next time

Most of us carry out our lives with the assumption that there will be a next time: We live like there will be a tomorrow, We engage with our friends and family like we will see them again, We bid farewell to some of our most beloved spots on the planet with every intention of returning. This seems like a perfectly rational mindset to h...

Persistence in practice

Persistence, by definition, is the act of continuing in spite of difficulty. The idea of persistence and persisting in practice are two very different things. The idea of persistence is easy to get on board with because it’s sufficiently removed from reality and any actual difficulty. It’s simple enough to imagine a scenario (from your...

Time horizon and attention

Where you pay your attention and energy is largely determined by your sense of time horizon. Take road rage for example: If someone cuts you off on the road, your initial reaction may be to indulge in a bout of anger and frustration — cycling through any number of thoughts about the offending driver’s reckless incompetence. In a practi...

If not now, when?

In practice, “later” often means “never”. If not now, it’s imperative to be specific about when. A broad stretch of time like “next month” is hardly helpful. Something more specific like “tomorrow at 3 PM” is better. If someone is relying on you to do whatever you’re planning to do, it’s worth raising the social stakes by telling them ...

Decide

I made a difficult decision yesterday. Before deciding, I spent three days meticulously weighing each option — helplessly trying to predict the outcome of each one, hoping that one decision would emerge as the obviously right one to make. No such thing happened, though (if only life were always that convenient). I made a decision not n...

When does a setback expire?

When an unexpected setback happens, it’s natural to point to the setback and reduce the expectations you hold for yourself at first. At what point, though, should you ban yourself from pointing at that setback? I don’t have a precise answer, but surely it has to be at some point. At some point, enough time should have elapsed for you t...

Doing less

Almost everyone I talk to about priorities likes to speak about them in 3s. “My top three things are…” It’s an interesting idiosyncrasy that I never fully understood. It’s as if focusing on 4 or more things means you’re spreading yourself too thin, and focusing on 2 or fewer things means you’re not doing as much as you could be doing. ...

Conquer the moment

While on a challenging hike today, I questioned whether I wanted to finish it several times. To help myself overcome the temptation to turn back, I framed each moment as a choice to pick between becoming one of two versions of myself: The version that pushes a little further, or the version that recedes (and ultimately turns around) — ...

Baby baby steps

Energy to do things ebbs and flows. Sometimes you’ll be able to sprint toward a goal, other times you’ll barely want to crawl. When the friction to do anything is at its highest think baby-baby steps — ask yourself, “what’s the smallest unit of progress I can make?” Your answer will probably seem trivial — maybe it’s entering a sentenc...

Repetitions in reserve

“Repetitions in reserve” (RIR), is an emerging strength training concept that involves estimating how many times you can perform an exercise until you fail. Training programs incorporating this concept will typically involve training until you have 1–3 reps in reserve — a sweet spot for ensuring you push yourself enough to become stron...

the first criticism and its echoes

The first instance of self-criticism can be useful. If it is constructive, it can be a call to learn from your mistakes and be better. The first criticism can empower you. Every echo — that is to say the subsequent criticisms that exist merely to beratingly remind you of the same mistake — are needless. The more you entertain them, the...

Notes on shipping

Start before you are ready; you will never be 100% ready. Ship before it’s perfect; it will never be perfect. The pursuit of Readiness and Perfection does not help you achieve better outcomes, it stops you from shipping and learning a single anything. Failure itself is hardly the issue; it’s withholding your work so as to never even ha...

No title

There is a big difference between the idea of courage and being courageous. It is one thing to think to yourself, “I’m going to do this thing — I’ve got to do it.” That seems to be the relatively easy part. It’s another, far more challenging thing entirely to be moments away from executing a pivotal decision or action only to find your...

Courage

There is a big difference between the idea of courage and being courageous. It is one thing to think to yourself, “I’m going to do this thing — I’ve got to do it.” Declaring an intent to do something courageous seems to be the relatively easy part. It’s another, far more challenging thing entirely to be moments away from executing a pi...

This could be gone tomorrow

Every time I visit my hometown, I go through three phases: 1. Delight spurred by the rediscovery of local people, places, and things that I have missed. 2. Habituation — a diminishing of delight as I get used to everything and start taking it for granted. 3. Sentimentality — a combination of nostalgia, delight, and sadness that emerges...

really?

What is obvious now was not always obvious then. In the late 18th century, a German doctor, Franz Joseph Gall, posited a theory that the measurements of different parts of the skull were directly related to the different mental capabilities of an individual. This evolved into a discipline, known as phrenology, and went on to enjoy popu...

You are in a game of pinball

The purpose of pinball is to keep playing. There is no final level and there is no maximum score. If you beat your high score, that’s awesome but you don’t win. You play another round to see if you can do better. If you don’t beat your high score, that’s fine but that’s not a total loss. You play another round to see if you can do bett...

No title

In a moment of self-awareness this week, I realized that I am the kind of person who could do 9 out of 10 things right but still find myself panicking about the 1 thing that went wrong. If you ever experience disproportionate responses like this, then it can be helpful to counterbalance your reaction with the question, “what went well?...

Let it go

Even if you’re perfectly justified in feeling anxious or frustrated with a problem, you’re not under any obligation to hold on to those feelings when they arise. It’s possible to acknowledge that you will get to a problem when you can and, in the meantime, let it go instead of allowing it to sabotage your moment-to-moment experience. L...

earnestly try

Telling yourself “I couldn’t possibly do that” before you even try is one of the most absurd, self-defeating things you can do. It’s like picking a random spot in the sky and saying, “I think the limit is here.” You don’t know. Until you try, you can’t know. Instead of drawing some wildly unscientific conclusion, be open to the possibi...

Win the day

Short-term wins are important if not essential to sustaining the pursuit of long-term goals. Here’s a simple short-term win you can repeatedly pursue: be better than yesterday. Specifically, aim to acquire the knowledge, skills, or courage that allows you to accomplish something today that you were not ready to accomplish yesterday. Tw...

People are humans

People are humans. The People part is exceedingly obvious — it’s the person you’re exchanging with in front of you, at the other end of the line, or in front of the other screen. The Human part can be less obvious if not completely missed in some circumstances — it’s the inherent imperfection, fallibility, and inconsistency that every ...

No title

Someone on LinkedIn described one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs they’ve ever had, writing “I wanted to quit 1000 times, but I got it done and it was amazing”. Really hard problems are two-sided: On the one hand, they are usually immensely rewarding once you’ve solved them. On the other hand, they can be so complex, ambiguo...

Passing the baton

Part of proficient problem-solving is knowing when to directly involve yourself and when to pass the problem to someone else. The variables domain knowledge, skillset, and bandwidth will help you make this determination. When you have a combination of these factors that is well suited to the problem (you’ll know), then it makes sense t...

You can.

Every challenge you take on is based on some conviction that you’re capable of overcoming it. The words “I can do this” not only give you permission to start, but in many cases it also serves as a vital source of endurance and grit to help you get through the trenches. The second you start walking back your conviction with words like m...

Misspent energy

A quick way to flag misspent energy is to ask yourself if you’d still be okay with doing what you’re doing on the last day of your life. Would you still want to be angry at the driver in front of you that is going slower than you’d like? Would you still torment yourself over a frustrating situation you cannot control? Would you still r...

No title

No one wants to make the wrong decision. So to help us feel like we’re about to make the right one, we explore counterfactuals: We ask ourselves over and over again across all kinds of conceivable alternative scenarios, “what if I do this instead of that?” The only problem with this approach is that there’s a near-infinite number of co...

The shadows

Consider this scenario from author and podcaster Russ Roberts: Your friend loses their keys and proceeds to search under a streetlight for them. You ask your friend, “are you sure you lost them here”? Your friend responds, “no, but this spot is the brightest so…” To assume that the answer you are looking for lies within the information...

Certainty

Stanford Professor Ron Howard used to ask students to assign every exam response with the probability they thought they were right. If you got a question right and assigned a high probability to it, you’d be rewarded with more points. If you got a question wrong and you assigned a high probability to it, you’d be penalized by losing mo...

Stains

The moment a stain is created, it begins to react with the fabric, dyes, finishes, and atmosphere. If you clean it right away, it’s generally very easy to address. If you wait, the stain has time to ‘set’ through the reactions mentioned and as a result, becomes substantially more difficult to address. You’re not dropping everything to ...

Busyness

Being busy can often feel useful, but it’s a poor measure of progress. You can be busy and make no progress. You can be busy and make a lot of progress. Same energy requirements yet drastically different outcomes. Anchor yourself with two questions first: what am I actually trying to accomplish? What things — actions, conversations, qu...

Stumbling uphill

You can put a magnifying glass on a mistake or setback and interpret it as progress totally lost, but that isn’t always the case. When you’re ready and if you’re open to it, a setback can forge you in a way that serves you in the future. This isn’t to glamorize setbacks, they are often frustrating to say the least and should be avoided...

The second arrow

There’s a Buddhist parable that describes how one can get struck by not one, but two arrows when an unfortunate event happens. The first arrow is the event itself — it’s the project you’ve poured your heart and soul into suddenly getting cancelled, it’s finding out that someone you love has a terminal illness, it’s the sudden recogniti...

Do Date

Seeking information and guidance is useful up to a point. At first, it’s well-intentioned: you look for information to make an informed decision. Sounds reasonable. Eventually, it becomes a stalling tactic: you seek information because it allows you to justify postponing a decision or action. I just need more information, that’s all. I...

Improvisation

You can plan for what you know, but you can’t plan for the curveballs that are inevitably thrown at you. Being able to follow a plan is half of what is needed to take a day in stride; the ability to respond without preparation to a plan being derailed or diverted is the other. There is no degree, course, or instruction manual that will...

Right now will never happen again

I learned today that a friend I lost touch with passed away a few years ago. She was a kind, brilliant, clever, and beautiful soul. For the last few years, it was simply a matter of having lost touch with someone I believed was out in the world. We’ll catch each other again. I’m sure she’s living her best life. In thoughts like these, ...

Completionism

Completionism treats every commitment like a kind of legally-binding agreement. It abides by one simple rule: if you committed to something at some point, then you’ll do it. On paper, this sounds fantastic—inspiring even—and you might be thinking that perhaps we should all be completionists! But this perspective discounts one fundament...

Avoid the middle

Either choose to care or to be indifferent. It’s easier to manage your energy if you can clearly draw a line between what you are and are not committed to. At all costs avoid the middle, where you teeter endlessly between being in and being out. The middle is what saps the most energy and, among the people around you, creates the most ...

Dance instead

There are actions that you know you’ll be glad you did like changing jobs, reconnecting with an old friend, or saying something you’ve been holding back. And then there’s what the author Steven Pressfield calls resistance — the forces in life that stop you from doing those things. Resistance comes in many forms like fear of failure, fe...

Maybe that's the way we do it

“Maybe that’s the way we do it, I don’t know.” Somebody made this remark about an ambitious project earlier this week and I love it because it speaks to the essence of what it means to figure something out. You can hypothesize all day about how you should accomplish something, but you won’t know anything for sure until you try. To make...

the last time

There will be the last time for everything on this planet. There will be the last time you speak with your parent; The last time you will see the ocean; The last time you will work on a project you care about; You’ll rarely know when these last times occur…. So for your sake and the sake of the people around you — just in case: Treat e...

Freeing yourself of inconsequential stuff

Given enough time, almost everything becomes irrelevant. The heated argument you had with a friend? That might matter in a week. But in a decade — unlikely. That embarrassing moment at work? Same deal. It’s useful to come up with some kind of threshold — a length of time that you use to measure whether something is inconsequential to y...

Freeing yourself from inconsequential stuff

Given enough time, almost everything becomes irrelevant. The heated argument you had with a friend? That might matter in a week. But in a decade — unlikely. That embarrassing moment at work? Same deal. It’s useful to come up with some kind of threshold — a length of time that you use to measure whether something is inconsequential to y...

What to do

No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to ascertain what the perfect next steps to take are — assuming such a thing even exists. When you ask “what should I do?”, the imperative is to evolve to “here’s what I need to do” in short order. When you seek opinions, the imperative is to evolve to a point where you stop seeking guidance ...

Connected by kindness

Your actions rarely happen in a vacuum. On any given day, there’s a good chance that you will have the opportunity to speak, act, or respond in a way that makes someone’s day brighter. That’s the power you wield. When you make someone’s day brighter, you also feel good. Kindness also has a way of begetting kindness, so never underestim...

Reinforce before lost

On the last day of junior year, one of my professors advised the class to make a habit of writing down every piece of wisdom we picked up in life. Thanks to his advice, I now have nearly a decade of notes. Here are 6 from the last 48 hours. 1. Unless you’re writing an academic paper, always start with the lede. 2. Spend runway (time, a...

Do before you're ready

Readiness is a dangerously elusive idea. It’s kind of like declaring, “I’ll get to that someday (when I’m ready)” And for many people, someday ends up being never which is beyond is terrifying. You can spare yourself days, months, years, decades — maybe even a lifetime — of unnecessary waiting by just resolving to do do whatever you’ve...

Anything but complaining

I spoke to 10 customer-support agents today in an attempt to get my internet service set up. It was a frustrating situation, so my first instinct was to complain a lot. But then it occurred to me: to what end? Unless there’s hope that complaining will resolve a problem — and indeed sometimes this is the case — complaining is generally ...

Where does the permission come from?

Over the weekend I bought a small 8 oz cup designed by the Belgian artist Helen B with the words “f*ck it” printed on it. The collectively candid, free-spirited, and abrasive nature of the text was immediately attractive — I guess that probably says a thing or two about my personality. I also liked the dramatic scene that came to mind ...

The gravity of failing

I used to be a fan of the phrase: “You either fail or you learn.” But I recently discarded the mindset for two reasons: 1. It’s possible to win and learn. We probably should. 2. We do, in fact, fail and sometimes it sucks. And that’s okay. There is actually research that suggests that negative experiences can enrich our lives by adding...

What next?

A highly respected vascular surgeon that I used to work with described his thought process during surgery in the following manner: I’ll try this first, and if this happens, then I’ll do that. If that happens, then I’ll do this. His talk was basically a long and mesmerizing series of ‘if-then’ statements. Given the high-stakes nature of...

Declarations and doubt

It’s normal to occasionally doubt your abilities. We do this because we care deeply about doing well, and we care about the outcome — nothing to be ashamed about. If we were careless people, we wouldn’t have cause to doubt. When you find yourself questioning your abilities, countering with declarative statements can have a surprisingly...

Progressive overload

Progressive overload is the process of increasing the amount of resistance or work volume of an exercise to force your body to adapt. This is how the body gets stronger. There are diminishing returns though: while pushing yourself is essential, pushing yourself to failure or total exhaustion actually works against you by making you exc...

Compete with yesterday

Comparing your life with someone else’s is an exhausting and perilous exercise. Despite how tempting it can be, it rarely feels good or helps to indulge. Comparing the day’s performance with yesterday’s, however, is a much more fruitful activity and an overall better driver of progress. When you make yesterday the sole competition, the...

It is what it is

Whenever I complained to my dad about certain problems growing up, he’d either offer a potential solution or issue the stoic response: “it is what it is.” Those five words often felt uncomfortably complacent to me — what do you mean it is what it is? Some combination of teenage angst, naivete, and foolhardy optimism made the idea of a ...

A toast to the things that didn't happen

About an hour ago a vehicle from oncoming traffic swerved in front of me — if I had slammed my brakes a moment later, we probably would’ve collided. My immediate response was anger towards the other driver — how could they be so negligent? Who taught them how to drive? It took me a solid 10 minutes of ruminating and fuming before reali...

don't start with sheer effort

No quantity of effort will be useful if it’s spent working on the wrong problem. Just putting in the effort, it turns out, is about 1/3 of what matters. A good place to start is critically evaluating and picking the right problem that is best suited to your goal, which can then compound that by picking the highest-leverage supporting a...

Chaos is an invitation to...

If you’ve ever experienced the phenomenon that is an exponentially growing to-do list, then you’re probably familiar with the feelings of unwieldiness and chaos that it imparts. Two sobering points: 1. You’re human, which means you’re probably not going to get everything done in one sitting and that’s okay because… 2. The Pareto Princi...

Tell and show

I recently wrote about some research from Wharton Professor, Dr. Katy Milkman, that suggests telling people what you’re going to do can be an effective way to ensure that you do something. When we raise the stakes — in this case by introducing social consequences — we’re more likely to act. That’s the power of telling. It is important,...

Wanting what you already have

So much of life can be characterized by the pursuit of closing the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Whatever it is that makes our inner machinery behave in this goal-oriented fashion is both awesome and cumbersome depending on which angle you view it from. On the one end, being goal-oriented means you’re often trying t...

optimizing for the shortest path

There are multiple paths to completing most objectives. Whether it’s making a point clear to someone, learning a subject, or solving a problem — there exists arguably a maximally efficient way to do it, a minimally efficient way to do it, and gradients in between. It seems reasonable to suggest that one way to become significantly more...

beliefs and resilience

I woke up at 3 AM this morning to the sound of Billie Jean (only Ukulele, listen here to see what it’s so catchy and good) blasting in my head. That’s right, I imagined it. Why or how — I have no idea. Definitely a first for me. But the adrenaline rush was real, I admittedly didn’t mind the experience at the time, and there was no way ...

Find meaning

If you’re going to have to confront life’s challenges one way or another, you might as well find a way to make it a meaningful experience. You can find meaning in a variety of ways: you can look for lessons to learn, you can look for humor, and you can look for ways to leverage the situation to open up a new opportunity. You may not be...

The importance of stakes

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. In other words — work tends to take exactly how long you give yourself to do it. Merely being aware of this law sometimes isn’t enough to get things done faster, though. For example, you might impose a personal deadline of one week to accomplish som...

Insight, leverage, action, and feedback

Becoming more effective at anything — whether it’s becoming a better learner, a better employee, or a better musician — is driven by four interdependent factors: insight, leverage, action, and feedback. Insight is the keen recognition of what needs to be done to accomplish a goal. Leverage is correctly identifying the subset of all ava...

Always more to do

The idea of doing just one more thing is a trap. There’s always more you could do. Could you respond to that Slack message? Sure. Easy. Could you solve this small problem with a project at work? Probably. But it’s impossible to set boundaries this way, because you’ll always be teased with the prospect of cramming just a little bit more...

Playing a different game

In the culinary world, receiving a Michelin Star is a massive accolade. Which is why many were taken aback in 2017 when the chef of Le Suquet in South France, Sébastien Bras, pleaded for Michelin to take back the 3-star rating that his restaurant was awarded. Bras’ reasoning for giving up the widely sought-after award was simple: it wa...

Rotten Tomatoes

A lot of people see Rotten Tomatoes as a kind of purveyor of truth — at least when it comes to how good (or bad) a movie is. It’s not unusual for me to tell a friend about a movie and have them ask me, “what did it get on Rotten?” It’s effectively the same as asking, “how good did this small group of people — critics — decide this movi...

volume

I had my blood drawn at the Mayo Clinic earlier this week and it was probably the most efficient blood draw I’ve ever had. Everything from how the technician sanitized my arm, located the vein, inserted the needle, removed the needle, and bandaged the area afterward was characterized by a precise notchiness — a sense of extreme efficie...

laugh often

I went down a rabbit hole last night reading research about the benefits of laughter. It turns out I didn’t have to and instead could’ve just read Mayo Clinic’s summary of the benefits of laughter on their website where they cite short-term benefits like increased endorphins, relaxed muscles, and a dampening of the body’s stress respon...

rote knowledge versus reason

Being able to repeat a set of facts or procedures is not the same as being able to explain why a set of facts or procedures exist or continue to exist. This is the difference between rote knowledge and reason. Both can be effective, but reason has greater potential to be useful in the long run. The telephone directory business, Yellow ...

a reminder from today's false alarm

I tried to reach out to a family member today that is normally very responsive and didn’t hear from them. Being the worrier / overreactor that I sometimes am, I freaked out and feared the worst. Thankfully, I eventually heard back. False alarm. My mind was at peace once and all was right with the world once again. In my reflection on t...

the stuff you can't control

Worrying about what you cannot control doesn’t give you more control, it just gives you more worries to sweat about — sometimes literally. A key facet of resiliency is being able to recognize and avoid the stuff that unnecessarily takes up your energy. As a general rule of thumb, if it’s within your control then it may be worth some co...

no ordinary plant

My friend gave me a Philodendron Birkin plant a few months ago to put in my apartment. Initially, I was enamored by the beauty of its lush green leaves filled with white stripes, but over time I became used to seeing it sit by the window and eventually my fascination with it dampened. It became an ordinary plant — an ornament in my apa...

finding the time

There’s a fairytale that we often tell ourselves: That someday our to-do lists and responsibilities will lighten up enough and provide us with the perfect vacancy in our schedule to do what’s important to us. The thing is, there will always be more to do and there will always be responsibilities to tend to. The challenge of getting to ...

taking care of yourself

In certain circumstances, you may try to justify putting your well-being in second place. You may think, “I have no time” or “too much is at stake”. The price of burning yourself out can sometimes feel worth it in these circumstances, yet it almost never is. Time might be tight, and a lot might be at stake — all that can be true. But n...

Aloha 'Oe

In May, I discovered Elvis’ rendition of the song ‘Aloha ‘Oe’, written by Queen Liliuokalani. If you’ve never heard of it, I recommend giving it a listen — it’s beautiful. In fact, there are many beautiful renditions of the song out there. The purported backstory of the song is that Liluokalani started composing it after watching Col. ...

you are not your thoughts

When you find yourself entangled by a distressing thought, it can be helpful to describe that thought by saying: “I notice I am having the thought of…” The idea — formally known as defusion — is that by attempting to notice your thoughts instead of identifying with them, you can change how you relate to them. You put yourself in a posi...

commitment devices

If you’ve ever tried to adopt a new habit, then you’re probably familiar with how hard behavior change can be. In her book How to Change, Dr. Katy Milkman introduces “hard” and “soft” commitments as practical, research-supported tools for getting us to adopt a desired behavior. A “hard” commitment device involves what Milkman describes...

internal vs external commitment

An external commitment is when we are accountable to or for someone else. An internal commitment is when we are accountable to ourselves. External commitments involve a specific output that someone is expecting. Internal commitments involve a specific output that you are expecting. External commitments are generally powerful because so...

It didn't have to exist

The beautiful trees in your favorite park didn’t have to exist. Your favorite food spot didn’t have to exist. Your most cherished friendships didn’t have to exist. but they do. It’s easy for your sense of awe to fizzle out after something has been around for awhile, it happens to all of us. But you can quickly summon it back in full fo...

reacting vs anticipating

Reacting is waiting for something to become a problem; anticipating is seeing the potential problem before it has a chance to exert any material effect. Addressing just what’s in front of you is usually easiest in the short term — especially when it feels like you have a lot in front of you. But the price is more headaches down the roa...

Stress is...

In a 2020 researcher paper titled Stress, Mindsets, and Success in Navy SEALS Special Warfare Training, authors Eric Smith, Dr. Michael Young, and Dr. Alia Crum write, “Following 174 Navy SEALs candidates, we find that, even in this extreme setting, stress-is-enhancing mindsets predict greater persistence through training, faster obsta...

everything is gonna...

In his song Three Little Birds, Bob Marley sings about three birds perched at his doorstep that sing to him, “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ’cause every little thing gonna be alright.’ Whenever the world feels chaotic, I gravitate towards this song — not because it’s some magic wand that can wave away my woes but because, between the inst...

moments of discord

Every situation where you have free agency yet are choosing to not do the thing you think you should do is an invitation to become more self-aware. When you’re tired and lying down but thoughts about how you should be taking care of something else keep circling your mind — maybe your body telling you that it needs to rest if you want t...

"It won't work"

People like to declare certain things won’t work like it’s some incontrovertible truth. In a 1995 Newsweek article titled “Why the Web Won’t Be Nirvana”, Clifford Stoll wrote, ‘Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent te...

okay, what next?

The best problem solvers and builders I know seem to be effective in part because the half-life of their negative reaction to setbacks — to bad news — is impressively short. While they do sometimes get upset (they are human after all), they manage to still focus the vast majority of their energy on how to approach their goals given the...

What needs to change?

The question “what needs to change?” is a slightly different question from “what needs to happen?” in that it encourages you to specifically audit what is already happening and evaluate if it’s helping or harming your progress. When we ask ourselves if anything needs to change, we recognize that just because something is routine or a c...

fulfillment

I’ve long held this belief that fulfilling work is supposed to always be gleeful — that it’s always fun, easy-going, and difficult but not too difficult… just the right amount. Over time though, I’ve come to realize that this perceived relationship between fulfillment and glee is pretty spurious and, if anything, quite harmful to assum...

enough

There will always be one more thing. One more message you could respond to, one more problem you could solve, one more meeting you could have. It’s impossible to be satisfied with your efforts if the goal is to accomplish everything in a world where there will always be one more thing you could do. One of the most underrated skills a p...

the dilemma of a finite being

Realizing that I can’t possibly fit all the things I want to do in one lifetime has been one of the most frustrating, humbling, and empowering realizations I’ve had lately. The hard truth that comes with what Oliver Burkeman calls being a ‘finite being’ is that there are always going to be more things worth doing than there is time to ...

exactly where you need to be

Workouts are uncomfortable by design. The idea of participating in a session filled with arduous movements and breathlessness isn’t exactly something most people would be eager to do. But, it’s exactly the kind of experience that’s required to trigger adaptations in the body that lead to stronger mental and physical well-being. This is...

what distraction could mean

A summary of thoughts based on Oliver Burkeman’s talk, ‘How Distraction Works’, from the Waking Up App. Distraction is often positioned as an obnoxious thief — as something that takes us away from the important matters of life like our relationships and our work. But if you really pay close attention to what’s going on in the moments l...

how will I respond?

There are two ways to respond to a setback: You can engage in repetitive negative thoughts about the event — what is commonly referred to as negative rumination. Or you can spend time figuring out how you’re going to respond to the situation. Rumination doesn’t have a clear end; identifying how to respond does. Rumination doesn’t bring...

consistent to a fault

I love Alan Watts’ quote, “you are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago” because it highlights a commonly held belief that doesn’t seem to be commonly recognized. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the same person you were five minutes ago, or a day ago, or a week ago. But there’s also nothing compu...

what works for you

At some point in the last decade or so (maybe even before that), the internet lost its mind over the fact that Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day and came to the conclusion that this habit was somehow a crucial part of success.* For whatever reason, this observation and all these articles have managed to overshadow the fact...

do cool shit

On my way to meet some friends at a bar in San Francisco about 5 years ago, I saw this neon sign hanging at a nearby storefront that said: “do cool shit”. “Oh, how befitting”, I thought. After all, I was in the land of high technology and cutting-edge innovation (at least for some period of time). I also remember interpreting the delig...

whether tomorrow comes or not

From a probilistic perspective, there’s a good chance you’re going to make it to tomorrow if you’re in reasonably good health. A really good chance. But that doesn’t discount the fact that we will all have our last day on this planet at some point and we’ll rarely know when that day is. There’s this caricature of a person living like t...

failure dynamics

In a 2019 paper published in Nature titled‘Quantifying the dynamics of failure across science, startups, and security’, Dr. Yian Yin and colleagues conducted a large-scale statistical analysis that revealed two major indicators of success: The first indicator was the amount of time between consecutive failed attempts — teams who failed...

the compassionate critic

There’s this notion of an intolerant and scathing inner critic that we’re taught to silence for our own well-being. In general, I agree — but I also wonder, is there not a more compassionate version of this critic that we can invoke for our benefit? Is there not a version of our inner critic that can say (to oneself), “Hey, you made a ...

our dwellings shape us

While browsing through a furniture store this weekend, I saw a Winston Churchill quote on the wall that said “we shape our dwellings, and afterward, our dwellings shape us.” In his New York Times Best Seller, Atomic Habits, James Clear reaffirms as much, writing that “… motivation (and even talent) is often overrated. In many cases, en...

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne was considered an avant-garde painter in the 19th century. His style was characterized by heavy brush strokes, skewed perspectives, and vibrant colors — a far cry from the conventional and widely-accepted techniques of his time. Society’s rejection of Cézanne’s artistry came in many forms: His submissions to The Salon, an ...

don't boil the ocean

A phrase my previous manager and now mentor used to say to focus the team was ‘don’t boil the ocean.’ His point is that meaningful work isn’t achieved by trying to solve everything a once. In fact, attempting to do that — attempting to boil the ocean — leads to very little progress if any. Instead, it’s infinitely more effective to foc...

am I focused on the right things?

Worrying about whether you’re focusing on the right things or not can either help you or stall you. Can be it useful to have some idea or hypothesis that what you’re doing is going to lead to something meaningful? Sure. But at some point, there’s going to be a tradeoff where you’re much better off doing something than debating whether ...

you're allowed to be here

As a kid, I saw the minimization of oneself — blending in — as a virtue. Despite being an avid photographer for the last decade, I never did self-portraits in part because of this mindset which led me to conclude that they were distasteful, too vain. Whatever that actually means 🙂. Yesterday I decided to challenge this long-held belief...

one punt a day

Strive for one punt a day. Some days you’re going to feel amazing and the ball will go far. On other days it will be a struggle to even show up, and the ball will hardly move. This is okay because 9 times out of 10 consistency will take you further than sporadic intensity. The progress you make from day to day might be tough to notice....

default to kindness

I feel like I’ve witnessed more callus and harmful human interactions in the last several days than I have in the last year. Name-calling, shaming, shouting — online and offline. While we can’t change the behavior of those around us, we can always choose how to respond. Choosing to be kind and compassionate may not subdue all the confl...

performance

My piano teacher once shared with me what it was like to watch a former champion of The International Chopin Piano Competition prepare for their performance. For 6–8 hours each day in the week leading up to the competition, the competitor would pick apart different sections of music from their repertoire — playing each section in what ...

crazy ideas

In his 112-page manifesto titled Do the Work, Steven Pressfield writes “when an idea pops into our head and we think, ‘No, this is too crazy,’… that’s the idea we want.” A perfectly reasonable person might ask the perfectly reasonable question: “why on Earth would someone pursue an idea so crazy that most people wouldn’t bother giving ...

practical questions versus curiosities

A few years ago during an interview with a marketing executive at a medical device company, she asked me: ‘what product color sells the most? Is it green? Is it blue? What about purple?’ Using my background in data analysis I proposed how we could find out, but before I could finish she leaned toward me and whispered: “it doesn’t actua...

what's the problem really?

The problem isn’t how to build a model, it’s figuring out how to keep your customers happier so they’re less likely to churn. The problem isn’t poor prioritization or a cluttered calendar, it’s figuring out how to achieve a result or level of performance that you aren’t achieving yet. The quickest way to become stuck is by confusing a ...

attention

agitation isn’t always a negative trait; acceptance isn’t always a positive trait. the kind of person willing to move mountains to make a change isn’t going to be the one comfortable sitting still — it will always be the one who physically can’t. your restlessness may not be something to contend with, but rather something to leverage.

attention

the value of your attention depends on where you spend it. the number of things that compete for your attention at any given moment is constantly growing: you can pay attention to the phone in your pocket, the e-mail in your inbox, the friend who is calling you right now, the book in front of you, the to-do item in your checklist, etc....

a few things at most

In an investor panel that I recently attended, every panelist emphasized two pieces of advice on succeeding in an endeavor: 1. Don’t try to do all everything at once: when you have 20 things to do, figure out how to pick 10; from 10 figure out how to pick 1 or 2. 2. Picking what to do can be painful: in an ideal world, 1 thing will sti...

you can figure it out (really)

Marie Forleo wrote a great book titled ‘everything is figureoutable’. I love the title because it captures the punchline of the book perfectly: However intimidating or confusing something might be, you can figure it out. When you can approach a problem with full confidence in your ability to find a way forward, you’ve already won half ...

foresight

We have some foresight. We can think about and anticipate some problems and address them. We can’t, however, anticipate everything. Trying to do the latter is easily one of the top reasons why a) we take too long to try something or b) worse — we never try at all. When you try to know everything, you will think your way out of doing an...

decide and act quickly

It’s good to be back. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect this last month, and will be making some decisions about what and where my content will be moving forward. Updates coming soon. In the meantime, here is today’s Daily Spark on June 15th — as promised. — It’s hard to know if you’re making the best possible choice. We don’t make dec...

taking 30

I’m going to spend the next 30 days away from writing. Instead, I will use the space I normally hold for writing to do some much-needed reflection on foundational questions like: how do I want to put myself out in the world? what do I want to express? where do I want to express it? and does writing have to be it, or are there other out...

why?

how well we understand something is predicated, at least in part, on our ability to ask good questions about it. basic, but foundational questions like: 1. why is this interesting? 2. if it seems like a problem: why is this a problem? 3. of the things that seem true, why do they seem true? 4. of the things that seem false, why do they ...

the point

On the last day of one of my classes in college, the professor offered the class some life advice by way of his own life story: He had a law career that, by many accounts, was very successful. He was on track to become a partner at his firm, he was very well compensated, and he was well-respected amongst his colleagues. But one day, in...

New Day's Resolutions

It’s more useful to think of a New Year’s resolution as 365 daily resolutions. In many cases, the first slip-up in the pursuit of a goal can feel like a pass-fail situation. And when we think we’ve failed for good, it’s very hard to get back up. Think about it this way: if your goal is to grow your knowledge by reading daily, how many ...

resilience

A colleague that I’ll never forget working with was known amongst his peers for his exceptional work ethic, levity, and joy. He always worked hard but never took himself too seriously. He would fail spectacularly in one moment and then reflect, laugh, and learn the next moment. During stressful times when many colleagues were feeling o...

slack

In 2008, John Cook shared a powerful example of queuing theory: If you have one bank teller, an average of 5.8 customers per hour, and an average of 10 minutes required to serve each customer, customers will have to wait almost five hours — an entire afternoon — before being served. What happens if you add two tellers? Cook explains, ‘...

the forest

One of my favorite adages is “see the forest for the trees.” The ‘trees’ are the finer details, the ‘forest’ is the big picture — what all those details amount to. This adage seems useful for thinking about how we spend our time. The ‘trees’ are the individual activities we engage in — the people we meet, the books we read, the work we...

have fun

In his 2008 TedX Talk, Dr. Stuart Brown astutely pointed out that The New York Times Magazine’s cover story from earlier that year, titled ‘Why Do We Play?’, portrayed several kids engaging in different types of play. Conspicuously missing from the cover were adults. Being playful and being an adult are often portrayed as either-or. To...

You can always choose to add kindness

You may not be able to control what others do, but you can always choose to add kindness to the world instead of hate. You can choose compassion instead of disdain — remembering that everyone is fighting their own battles. You can choose constructive words instead of callous criticism. You can choose to raise others up in earnest inste...

jumping at shadows

Every Scary Thing you avoid doing is guaranteed to stay scary. Every Scary Thing you choose to go through, for the most part, simultaneously becomes more rewarding and less scary. When you struggle, you learn; when you learn, you adapt. All of this is possible provided that take the most important step: you take a leap — you start.

important reminders for rough days

The definition of your best effort can fluctuate on a daily basis. Some days you will accomplish everything (or almost everything) you set out to do. On other days, you might find yourself struggling for any number of reasons. In both cases you are doing what you can — in other words, you’re doing ‘your best’ for that day. On days that...

glass balls

While going over the priorities for a project I was working on in a previous role, my coworker asked me: “which of these priorities are glass balls?” Unfamiliar with the term, I asked him to elaborate. He explained to me that ‘glass balls’ is a term he and his peers had used in the Marine Corps to identify what priorities they couldn’t...

let it go

A couple of years ago, I was complaining to a family member about a frustrating situation that I couldn’t get over. About halfway through my complaining, this family member played “Let It Go” from the Disney film Frozen and we both burst into laughter. All jokes aside, the exchange offered a valuable lesson that I try to be mindful of ...

Your second life

About a year ago I came across this quote from the Chinese Philosopher, Confucious, that sent chills down my spine: “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.” It’s easy enough to utter the words, “I have one life”, and a much more difficult task to fully appreciate the implications of that statement. B...

not lukewarm

When you decide to work, strive to achieve the kind of intensity that can only be made possible with 100% of your attention and energy. When you decide to take a break, have the discipline to come to a screeching halt so that you can recover and conserve your energy. To waver between these two modes where you are neither working at you...

the rise and all of importance

It’s easy to overestimate the importance of a problem when it strikes which is why some problems can feel like the end of the world when you’re faced with them. It’s also easy to underestimate how quickly problems stop mattering given enough time, which is why we often don’t realize just how insignificant certain problems are until lat...

you're allowed to make mistakes

Consider for a moment what it would mean to be forbidden to make a mistake. Would that actually stop you from making mistakes? No, because you’re human. Would the mistake you make be totally in vain? No, because there’s almost certainly a lesson to be learned that will help you perform better in the future. The idea of not being allowe...

verse jumping

In the film Everything Everywhere All At Once, the lead character is able to unlock her potential by accessing different versions of herself from different universes. In order to gain access to these different universes, she must envision the version of herself that she wants to become and then do something that she wouldn’t normally d...

always wish others well

For someone that you have an uncomplicated and positive relationship with, it’s probably the easiest and most intuitive for you to want to wish them well. There’s nothing controversial about that. Conversely, for someone that you have an upsetting and difficult relationship with, wishing them well might be among the last things you wan...

give your attention a break

Take this moment as an opportunity to interrupt your regularly scheduled information consumption. Instead, try sitting in silence for just one minute. Sit with your thoughts. In the same way your body needs to recover after a workout, so too does your attention after a day of attempting to stay laser-focused from one task to the next.

stop chasing after the future

Some activities feel like stepping stones to some future state that seems better. A difficult conversation with a friend or coworker might feel like something to “get over with” so that you can arrive at a resolution. During a tough work week, Monday through Friday might feel like days to “get over with” so that you can arrive at the w...

acceptance

The desire for a situation to be different has a way of making us feel conflicting things: On the one hand, this desire can be an excellent source of motivation and energy. On the other hand, it can be an overwhelming source of angst and frustration — especially when certain things are out of our control. In the case of the second set ...

do what you can

In his book The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient, William Irvine says “do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.” Some days you’ll have an abundance of resources; other days you won’t. Some days you’ll feel like you’re in a good spot; other days you might feel crappy. So...

a beautiful, ordinary power

I started this post with acts of kindness in mind — marveling at how being kind to people in our lives can leave a tremendously positive impact. At first, I called it a ‘superpower’ because what else do you call an awesome ability? But then it occurred to me that kindness can’t be a superpower because that would mean it’s reserved for ...

dolce far niente

Dolce far niente is an Italian phrase that directly translates to “sweet doing nothing.” Depending on which dictionary you reference, you’ll find other translations like “pleasing inactivity” or, my favorite, “pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness”. You get the gist: dolce far niente is about doing nothing while having a good time. ...

when?

One of the most important questions anyone can answer is: “when?” More specifically, when will you do the thing that you’re wanting and thinking about doing? If you’re not careful, you can spend months, years — a lifetime even — stuck wanting, thinking, and preparing, but never actually making something real. So, for reality’s sake, fo...

the moment

Everyone wants to wait for The Moment. The Moment when the timing is just right. When everything makes crystal clear sense. When there are no inconveniences in the way. When we’re 100% ready. And as long as The Moment isn’t here, we allow ourselves to conveniently, comfortably, and confidently say “oh today’s not a good day, but for su...

a reminder

You get one life. But you already know that. The relationships you cultivate and the impact you make will likely matter more than anything else in the long run. But you already know that. Doing is often more helpful than thinking about doing. But you already know that. … you already know these things, but sometimes you forget. So maybe...

making space for important stuff

In his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman presents a sobering reality when he writes, “the problem with trying to make time for everything that feels important — or just enough for what feels important — is that you definitely never will.” Meaning: trying to Do It All is an impossible proposition. In...

untitled story

Periodically throughout life, we’re asked by our peers the strangely existential question: “who do you want to be?” When my college counselor asked me this question during my freshman year, I felt for the first time an enormous pressure to have an answer. I responded with gusto, “a neuroscientist!” (spoiler: I dropped out of the progra...

be willing to look like a fool

It’s not so much doing something that’s meaningful to you and receiving some judgment for it that’s tragic. It’s deciding to do nothing at all for fear of what people will think. Fear of judgment is easily one of the most powerful deterrents to trying and learning new things. The trick to getting past this fear isn’t to meticulously pl...

bearing the how

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche The ability to take on challenges, and to be resilient and persistent often boils down to being able clearly to answer one question: why are you doing what you’re doing? A pursuit with an aim is infinitely more resourceful than a pursuit without one.

who are you building for?

Today Canadian-Chinese actor Simu Liu posted ‘Happy April 12th’ on social media. April 12th of this year is the 10th anniversary of the day that Liu was laid off from his accounting job at the prestigious consulting firm, Deloitte, which ultimately sent him down another path filled with confusion, ‘figuring it out’, soul-searching, amb...

choices

The choices we make in life can sometimes feel like a balancing act between what we wish to do and what others expect us to do. When these wishes and expectations are in alignment, there’s no issue. But when we find ourselves pulling away from who we are in favor of becoming the image other people have for us, the tension and eventual ...

context, for better or worse

Have you ever taken a trip, gone to a concert, or participated in something that you don’t usually do, and walked away having a new perspective? It could be a new perspective about the meaning of life (deep, I know), goals, values, work, relationships — anything. Have you also noticed that when you return to your normal routine, one of...

a solution better than willpower

It’s much easier to remove a sugary desert from your pantry than to resist eating it every time you enter your kitchen. It’s much easier to delete a social media app than to consciously remind yourself to avoid using it every time you unlock your phone. It’s much easier to permanently alter your environment than to tip-toe around it li...

pay attention to what you pay attention to

Your emotional experience is closely tied to what you focus on. If 90% of your attention is focused on a mistake you made at work that you feel embarrassed about, guess what? You probably won’t feel great. On the other hand, if 90% of your attention is focused on your kid’s soccer game and how happy they appear to be while playing, gue...

quality distractions

Cheap Distractions are things we generally know are distractions. Despite how glued our eyeballs may be to these things at times, there’s very little controversy around how much of an unwanted timesuck things like social media, Netflix, and YouTube can be. Then there’s Quality Distractions, the better-dressed sibling of Cheap Distracti...

posture

The advice my grandfather gave me most frequently was "keep your back straight." My initial reaction: "that's kind of strange and unexpected." But then I thought about it some more… there are a few ways to think about posture. There's having an upright posture in terms of how you communicate — the kind that speaks with sincerity and ho...

What's a good day?

“How’s your day?” “Good" Good. What’s a good day anyway? Is it when you finish a project? Is it when you get a promotion? Is it when you make a sale? Maybe. But is it also not a good day if you’re alive and get to be in the game for another day? If your loved ones are well? If you have a roof over your head? Most days — even the ones t...

say thank you

Say thank you. Even if you can’t see it, it makes a world of difference when people know their efforts are appreciated. The net gain in happiness, fulfillment, and humanity from just 2 seconds of effort — if that — is insanely good.

the courage to be disliked

The Courage to be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi is one of the best books… that I’ve yet to read. Because the punchline (at least one of them) is in the title. When you live to please others, they can run your life. Lifetimes have been spent doing this. And when someone happens to not like you, it’s easy to wonder if ther...

Big Deals versus Small Deals

Big Deals matter in years and decades; Small Deals matter in days and months. That’s it. Time horizon is everything. For your sanity, don’t treat a Small Deal like a Big Deal. For your happiness, don’t treat a Big Deal like a Small Deal.

thought acceptance

Trying to suppress a thought hardly works. Case: don’t think about a flower. Point: I’m willing to wager you thought about a flower, if only for a flicker of a moment. Suppressing actually just reinforces. As an alternative strategy, try acceptance the next time you’re experiencing difficult thoughts with this phrase: “I’m noticing I’m...

two sides to every challenge

There are two sides to every challenge. Side one: this stinks! Side two: this is a learning opportunity. Side one: this is hopelessly confusing. Side two: I bet I can find a way forward. Side one: this will drain me. Side two: I will emerge from this stronger and more capable. Which side do you think fares better in the end? Perspectiv...

One Big Thing

Yesterday, I came across a document of ‘Big Lessons’ written by Shaan Puri. In it, he introduces a helpful concept that he calls ‘One Big Thing’ or ‘OBT’ for short, which is inspired by Gary Keller’s book “The ONE Thing.” The concept is powerful and straightforward: identify the one highest impact thing you can do each day. And once yo...

you can't tip-toe across a chasm

A chasm is the gap that separates where you right now are from where you know you need to be. The space between your thoughts and you clicking the ‘submit’ button for an application to your dream company is a chasm. The space between your desire to tell someone what’s on your mind and you mustering the courage and telling them is a cha...

The First Step

The same activities that are good for growth can also stall it. Planning can be good, but it’s possible to over-plan. Research can be good, but it’s possible to over-research. Thinking can be good, but it’s possible to over-think. At some point, these activities stop serving their purpose and instead become an excuse not to take The Fi...

be not coy, but use your time

One of my favorite poems is To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick, which is essentially an ode to the importance of making the most of your time: Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher ...

not today, rabbit hole!

One of my biggest strengths is also one of my biggest weaknesses: once my curiosity is firmly set on something, I can shut everything out and focus on just that. Tunnel vision at its finest. When the ‘something’ in question is a high-priority project at work or in my personal life, it’s a huge strength. When the ‘something’ is trying t...

self-contracting

Self-contracts are a sacred agreement that you agree to be bound to once you make them with yourself. Unlike aspirations, the terms are firm and non-negotiable once the contract is set. Accountability & self-contracting are mutually reinforcing. By keeping an honest count of when you succeed and fail to maintain your commitments, the m...

recognizing failure

On a scale of 1 to 7, 1 meaning extremely poor performance and seven meaning extremely good performance, I averaged a two this week on an area of my life that is important to me. This isn’t the best news in the world, but it’s also not the worst. In fact, recognizing when you or your team are falling short of your goals is an incredibl...

dancing queen

While on a walk the other day, I was listening to ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba. About 10 seconds into the song, I was reminded of one of the last memories of my dad where he was, well, dancing to ‘Dancing Queen’ as it was blasting from my phone’s speaker. Looking back, it’s not memories of projects or jobs that I hold closest to my heart — ...

progress is in the details

One of the things that I admire about many of the Formula 1 team driver’s reactions to this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix is how specific their comments were with respect to what they needed to work on to perform better. Lewis Hamilton identified rear downforce and straight-line speed as areas of improvement for his team. Valtteri Botta...

setting intent

Most of the time, my schedule is dictated by a list of activities that I think will have the most impact on my priorities. Something that I recently added to the list is a note on what my intent will be for each activity. For example, one of my tasks was to meet with a friend. The intent that I wrote down was “be 100% present .” Becaus...

a few thoughts on weakness

‘Weakness’ does not have to be bad or shameful. ‘Weakness’ can also mean ‘opportunity for improvement.’ Acknowledging and embracing weaknesses allows you to openly & efficiently work on improving, which helps build credibility & trust with the people around you. Masking and rejecting weaknesses have the exact opposite effect. If the id...

Accountability ≠ beating yourself up

Let’s say you fell short of your goal today — maybe you were aiming to finish a project, but because of distractions and unexpected challenges, you only got 50% of it done. There are a couple of ways that you could respond: You could berate yourself, saying something like, “why am I a failure?” Or you could be compassionate and constru...

progressive overload & growth

Progressive overload is a term used in athletic training that refers to gradually increasing the amount of intensity in your strength routine to grow stronger. The key to progressive overload is not to increase the intensity by too little or too much as both cases result in your body failing to grow and, in the case of increasing the i...

compete with yesterday

When my team was figuring out how to measure the success of our business in my first job, a lot of managers would frequently reference the book Moneyball. Moneyball covers how the Oakland Athletics baseball team and their general manager, Billy Beane, used rigorous data analysis to boil down how they contracted new players to just two ...

Toto Wolff

One of the things that I admire about Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (8-time winner of the F1 constructor's championship), is his ruthless attention to growing in all aspects of his life. Here are some principles & accompanying quotes from Wolff that I think offer a good glimpse into his mindset: Do not ...

you don't need a reason

The conditions you can come up with for your happiness are a dime a dozen: “I’ll be happy when this stressful project wraps up.” “I’ll be happy when I get this new job.” “I’ll be happy when this problem is resolved.” Alternatively, you can also resolve to be happy now. That’s it, that’s the punchline: you know what it’s like to be at y...

reinventing

Tim Ferris has this great quote, “In a world where nobody really knows anything, you have incredible freedom to continually reinvent yourself and forge new paths, no matter how strange. Embrace your weird self. There is no one right answer… only better questions.” For the most part, you’re not obligated to be the same person you were y...

failure dynamics

In 2019 Dr. Yian Yin and colleagues published a paper titled “Quantifying the dynamics of failure across science, startups, and security” in Nature, one of the most prestigious academic journals out there. In the paper, Yin and his team analyzed massive data sets capturing the successes and failures of different institutions to see if ...

your future self

The person who procrastinates today is the same person who will eventually need to scramble to finish their work last minute. The person who has a few too many drinks tonight is the same person who has will have to endure a hangover. The person who impulsively buys something that they cannot afford today is the same person who will eve...

your strongest excuse

Your strongest excuse is a compelling story about your limitations that you are willing to get on board with at the expense of your own growth. Your strongest excuse is so convincing that it will say “you can’t possibly do that”, and you agree. Repeatedly. Any strong excuse can be thwarted by putting your resolution into 3 words: “Actu...

today with fervor

While on a walk this afternoon, I saw an 80- or 90-year-old sitting on a chair facing a pond. For whatever reason, the scene was a poignant reminder of the aging process and the somber prognosis that it presents: Over time, we have less energy. Over time, our minds become less sharp. Over time, moving around becomes more difficult. And...

you were whole before you started

Some days you will feel unstoppable; other days you will want to stop. Some days you will have clarity; other days will feel lost. Some days you will take steps forward; other days you will take steps back. When your journey stretches you, sometimes the most meaningful source of solace and resilience is the resolve to love yourself no ...

hormesis

When you exercise, your body endures several forms of stress — thermal, metabolic, hypoxic, oxidative, and mechanical. But it’s not all bad, of course. These stressors actually activate pathways in the body that help it adapt to withstand greater stress in the future. This process of being exposed to stress, adapting, and becoming more...

How can I help?

Every notion of meaningful contribution, community, progress, and success is predicated on being able to clearly and precisely answer three questions: 1. Who am I aiming to serve?* 2. What’s the solvable problem? 3. How can I effectively help? Everything else is a distant — even misleading at times — proxy. *Sometimes the answer is you!

Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses — better known as Grandma Moses — lived quite an eclectic and illustrious life. By the age of 12, she went to work for a nearby farm. At 27, she relocated with her newly wedded husband, Thomas, to start a farm and raise children. Over the years, Moses dabbled in painting, producing her first work on a piece of...

playing & spectating

Players routinely build, fail, and learn; spectators watch. Players have a stake in the outcome; spectators do not. Players create opportunities; spectators do not. Despite how it might sound, there’s nothing inherently good or bad about being a player. Whether it makes sense to be a player or not depends on where you are relative to t...

believing is...

In a 2011 study led by Dr. Alia Crum, participants were given a milkshake that was around 380 calories on two separate occasions. On one occasion, participants were told that they would be consuming a 620-calorie ‘indulgent’ shake. On the other occasion, participants were told that they would be consuming a 140-calorie, ‘sensible’ milk...

your barbaric yawp

In the 1989 film Dead Poet’s Society, there’s a scene where an English teacher, John Keating (played by Robin Williams), asks his student, Todd Anderson (played by Ethan Hawke), to read aloud a poem that he was supposed to have prepared before class. Todd, a somewhat nervous and self-conscious student, informs Mr. Keating while avoidin...

is this belief serving you?

While beliefs don’t always immediately alter circumstances, they do profoundly influence how you experience and respond to a situation. It’s one thing to see a challenging project as dreadful, and another thing entirely to see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s one thing to see a debate as a battle that you must win, and anot...

Ukraine

Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has left over 100,000 in counting children, fathers, mothers, friends, coworkers — fellow humans — stranded and without essential resources. As of this writing, there are reports of over 130 civilian casualties since Thursday’s invasion. The degree of suffering and growing need for humanitarian aid...

originality

Charlie Munger has a famous quote, “mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.” Another way of translating his words is: “copying what most do will give you the results that most get — average results.” Average, by the way, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Average is actually a good starting point. In the early stages of learning...

singing your songs

Henry David Thoreau is credited with writing his book Walden: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with songs left in them.” Here’s the thing, he never actually said that. Thoreau actually wrote, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” While what he wrote does resonate, I find that what he is falsely...

can or can't

Every new challenge puts you at the same fork: Either you think you can or you think you can’t. In the case of can, you generate the confidence to try in spite of fear. And in trying, you create the opportunity to conquer the challenge or, at the very least, learn something valuable. In the case of can’t, you walk away from both of the...

prioritize with your actions

Declaring that something is a priority doesn’t make it a priority. You can say a project, goal, or relationship is important to you, but if you’re hardly spending time on it, then the reality is that it’s not as important as you’d have yourself believe. Priorities are made with actions, not words.

everyone is figuring life out

Everyone is in a perpetual process of figuring their life out. Even the most seemingly well-put-together (whatever that means) individuals remain in a mode figuring life out — ever curious, and ever in search of challenge and meaning. This is important background because so many social circles and institutions will purport to know what...

attention and direct experience

Today’s post is my third on the development of personal philosophy — a short phrase or sentence that performance psychologist Michael Gervais suggests we establish to help prevent our fear of other peoples’ thoughts (FOPO) from removing your attention from the beliefs, talents, and values that empower us to thrive in the world. If you ...

incubation

Earlier this week, I wrote about incorporating the Pomodoro Technique into my daily routine. For those not familiar, the spirit of the Pomodoro Technique is very simple: it’s the incorporation of time-bound periods of work followed by time-bound breaks. That’s it. In my case, I performed 25-minute chunks of work followed by 5-minute br...

this is 28

New Year's Day and birthdays are unique in that they tend to make the short-lived, blink-of-an-eye nature of a human life span especially salient for me — more so than the changing of the seasons or any other day of the year. You only get to ring in the New Year with friends so many times and, if you make it far enough, that pool of fr...

theory of constraints

The Theory of Constraints is a problem-solving methodology that involves identifying and addressing the biggest limiting factor getting in the way of progress. It is a pragmatic theory at heart, implying that you’re much better off focusing on solving one piece of a problem than several pieces at once. You can apply the theory to your ...

learning

Though we may experience joy and desire while entertaining the idea of learning new things, the experience of learning itself often imparts a contrasting experience filled with unpleasant feelings like frustration or agitation. To experience these emotions are not a signal that you’re falling short in the learning process. Quite the op...

breaks & movement

On the recommendation of a friend, I spent the day working in 25-minute blocks followed by 5-minute breaks and a 10-minute walk every 2 hours. Some of you may be more familiar with the name of this approach — The Pomodoro Technique — which Francesco Cirillo developed in the 1980s. Additionally, based on the advice of Dr. Andrew Huberma...

leave room for doubt

The most creative and brilliant problem solvers that I know have one thing in common: they presume to know the least. They possess a kind of insoluble doubt about their understanding of the world. Not the sort of doubt that is debilitating, but rather the kind that offers a seemingly inextinguishable drive to seek knowledge and new way...

courage & vulnerability

I’ve done some more thinking on my Personal Philosophy statement — a short phrase or sentence that performance psychologist Michael Gervais suggests we establish to help prevent our fear of other peoples’ thoughts (FOPO) from removing your attention from the beliefs, talents, and values that empower us to thrive in the world. The words...

No title

My brother texted me the other day about an acronym that I hadn’t heard of before: FOPO or Fear of Other Peoples’ Opinions.* According to Dr. Michael Gervais — a high-performance psychologist who has trained the likes of Olympians, athletes of other sports, and musicians — not only is FOPO a real thing, but it “has become an irrational...

No title

When I reviewed my resting heart rate stats from last night (yes, I like to track these things), I noticed a weird gap in the report where my health tracker wasn’t reporting any heart rate data. Though this was obviously hardware and/or software malfunction, the reporting error did make me wonder for a fleeting moment: what if my heart...

play

The most brilliant people that I know of have at least five traits in common: they are quick to break rules that don’t make sense, they never take themselves too seriously, they are excellent at finding humor in life, they treat life as one big experimental sandbox, and — the topic of today’s post — they make time to play. Dr. Stuart B...

you adapt

I injured my wrist pretty badly yesterday. The story isn’t particularly remarkable. In fact, it’s rather embarrassing and lame: while I was tossing vegetables in a pan, I heard a snap come from my wrist, and then BAM! my wrist locked up and became inflamed to the size of a golf ball. My immediate response was to lament the implications...

eat the cake

When we feel good and bad about the implications of our actions, we call the act a “guilty pleasure.” The term “guilty pleasure” implies this constant, often-exhausting state of emotional tug-of-war, where we never quite feel completely guilty because part of us enjoys what we’re doing, and we never quite feel completely joyful because...

some days

The range of experiences you can have depending on the circumstances that life presents you with on any given day is truly remarkable. Some days you might get a lot of work done and feel accomplished; other days you might struggle to lift even a finger. Some days your mind might feel resilient; other days you might feel overwhelmed and...

treat others as you would an old friend

Today’s Daily Spark is a thought experiment. Begin by spending a few moments thinking about your oldest and most cherished friendships. Consider the kindness and warmness that is brought to these friendships and the exceptional sense of happiness and joy that is shared. Now try to think of a specific person in your life that you may no...

finite & infinite play

In his book Finite & Infinite Games, James Carse describes two kinds of players in life: “finite players (who) play within boundaries (and) infinite players (who) play with boundaries.” The concepts and contributions of infinite play in our culture cannot be understated. In her book Rebel Talent, Harvard Business School Professor Franc...

this is not a dress rehearsal

As far as you know, you don’t get to hop on the ride again. No do-overs. This moment doesn’t come again; this day doesn’t come again. This is it. So, yeah, still do all the things you care about. But don’t take yourself too seriously — have fun. Do what you need to do. Say what you need to say. Take the thoughts and the idiosyncrasies ...

take the step you can see

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charles Mackesy Trying to foreshadow every detail of the path ahead of you is a dizzying, paralyzing, and impossible proposition. In the same way that a climber ascending a new mountain can’t possibly anticipate every challenge on the way up, there will be many obstacles (a.k.a. learning oppo...

deliberate effort

In one of my most memorable piano lessons, my teacher sat in the back corner of the room and asked me to practice as if she weren't there. For the next five minutes, I played the same 4–to 5 lines of music repeatedly. Curious about my approach, my teacher asked me: "what's going through your mind as you replay these lines?" My honest a...

wishes for the new year

Today is the eve of the lunar new year. As a kid, my favorite part of the new-year tradition was receiving red envelopes filled with money that I would invariably spend on Pokemon cards. Yes, I am slightly ashamed to admit this. As an adult, I’ve come to better recognize and appreciate what the gifting of red envelopes symbolizes: a ge...

permission to do nothing

The guilt that comes from feeling inactive is a real thing. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I should be doing more,” then you know what I’m talking about. From my experience, I can certainly attest to it. Here’s a crazy thought, thought: Choosing to do nothing doesn’t mean you’re giving up on your goals or yourself. Choosing to do...

permission to do nothing

The guilt that comes from feeling inactive is a real thing. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I should be doing more,” then you know what I’m talking about. From my experience, I can certainly attest to it. Here’s a crazy thought, thought: Choosing to do nothing doesn’t mean you’re giving up on your goals or yourself. Choosing to do...

wear a bandana!

In an experiment conducted by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, students were asked to sing “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey in front of strangers. Some students were asked just to sing the song, while other students were asked to put on a bandana — something that many admitted made them feel uncomfortable — before sin...

there will always be work to do

Do you ever get anxious by the sight of growing or incomplete to-do lists? Have you ever found yourself at a dinner with friends or on vacation feeling overwhelmed with thoughts about unsolved problems and work left to do? If your answer is yes, here are a few ideas that might be helpful to keep in mind: Firstly, you are definitely not...

figuring it out

Whether you revel in the process of figuring things out or are intimidated by it, here are some operating principles that will help facilitate the process. Ask for help According to Dr. Wayne Baker, Professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, most people are willing to help, but most people don’t ask for what the...

Did I solve your problem?

At the end of every customer service interaction, Amazon customers are asked the same question: "Did I solve your problem?" Screenshot from a chat with an Amazon Customer Service bot a few weeks ago This question captures the heart of what customer service is intended to do — solve problems — and allows customers to provide a pass-or-f...

growth lifecycle

To grow is to have your comfort zone expanded. Your comfort zone expands any time you perturb the edges of it by participating in situations that are challenging and at least somewhat unfamiliar. Sometimes you’ll actively do this on your own; other times life will force it upon you. Either way, by definition, the experience will be unc...

risk & possibility

Maybe you’re not inclined to try something because you’re not comfortable risking failure. Maybe you’re not inclined to speak up because you’re not comfortable risking your reputation. Maybe you’re not inclined to take a new job because you’re not comfortable risking the current set of opportunities your job affords you for the potenti...

are you interested or committed?

The notion of ‘committed’ and ‘interested’ are abstract and nuanced concepts that defy precise definition yet contain distinct qualities that are generally understood. Commitment involves a vested interest. It’s mandatory, not optional. It asks that one regularly show up — even when it’s not convenient. Interest is exhibited before any...

There's a problem and

It’s easy to acknowledge that a problem exists: Our users are churning. This business process is broken. Our partnership isn’t as successful as we thought it would be. The thing is, merely saying “there’s a problem” doesn’t bring you any closer to a solution. It’s a declarative statement with zero momentum. You can effectively say thes...

imagine failure to potentiate success

Contrary to popular advice, visualizing success is a poor predictor of success (Oettingen & Mayer, 2002; Oettingen & Wadden, 1991). To investigate why this might be the case, Dr. Heather Kappes and Dr. Gabriele Oettingen ran a series of studies that compared the energy levels of participants who visualized positive, neutral, and negati...

exchanging 'and' for 'but'

“But” is the quickest way to introduce resistance and get stuck in your mind. I’m working on a project, but there’s a roadblock. I’m looking forward to the weekend, but I have this challenge at work is on my mind. I’m on vacation, but it’s raining. By saying ‘but’, Rosamund Zander suggests in her book The Art of Possibility that “you m...

impossible versus undiscovered

““The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” — Clarke’s second law” There’s a profound difference between impossible and undiscovered. Impossible means it can’t happen. Undiscovered means it hasn’t happened yet. The default for undiscovered things is to masquerade a...

when will you decide?

“You will never be 100% ready.” That’s the sage advice that my first boss gave me that has proven to be true time and time again. Most decisions involve some level of risk that cannot be completely accounted for: Pivoting into a new career does not guarantee that you will thrive. Taking a new job does not guarantee that all of your exp...

inward and outward validation

Some things make total sense to validate outward: If you’re working on a project for a client, then it makes sense that the client should be the one to validate whether or not your work meets expectations. If you’re trying to sell a product, then it makes sense to let the market validate its commercial viability — after all, it’s of li...

What's the one thing you should ship today?

It’s normal to sometimes be overwhelmed by the amount of information and potential courses of action in front of you. Having just started a new job recently and experiencing this right now, I’ve started to pose a question to myself every morning to help anchor the day’s activities: “what’s the one thing I should ship today?”. This isn’...

leaning into a stretch

A trainer I used to work with would often tell me when I was stretching to “take a deep breath and lean into to the stretch.” If you’ve ever made a point to stretch before, you might imagine that this command is somewhat counterintuitive — namely, because leaning into a stretch is, at least at first, very uncomfortable. The rationale, ...

mental models for maximum impact

In his short 2-year tenure as the United States’ first-ever Chief Data Scientist, DJ Patil generated an impressive list of accomplishments, including establishing nearly 40 Chief Data Officer roles across several government departments and programs, and launching the Data-Driven Justice Initiative, Precision Medicine Initiative, and Ca...

What are the essential parts of the problem?

During my first Data Science project seven years ago, I was so eager to produce something that I spent night and day putting together a dashboard only to discover that I had to return to the drawing board because I didn’t provide answers to the questions my stakeholders had. Building a dashboard wasn’t the most important thing for me t...

one foot in front of the other

The idea of running a marathon can be more intimidating than the idea of running a mile. The idea of writing an entire novel can be more intimidating than the idea of writing a chapter. In general, the broader the scope, the more intimidating the journey can feel. The more intimidating the journey feels, the more effort that’s required...

You don't have to be on all the time

In April 2021, author Samuel Pollen posted a humorous tweet about the difference between European and American work culture that went viral: Part of why his tweet is so funny and liked is probably because there are some traces of truth to his words that some people can relate to. Is anybody actually on-call while in kidney surgery? No....

load shedding & goal sacrificing

On January 15th, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina, was cut short when the plane struck a flock of birds resulting in the plane losing all engine power. Thanks to the expertise and split-second decision-making by the plane’s captain, Chelsey Sullenberger (who also goes by “Sully”), he successf...

communicate outcomes

Consider the famous question posed by Dr. George Berkeley in the 1600s: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Think about that for a moment and now consider a variation of this question tailored to the workplace: if a positive outcome happens and no customer is around to witness it, did the ...

a better way to wait

Waiting has always been a quintessential part of the Disney Park experience. Whether getting on a ride or grabbing food, you usually have to wait close to an hour in a physical line, if not longer. The price to experience the park’s amenities isn’t just temporal; the limitations a customer agrees to by waiting in a physical line also r...

leaping

You leap when you don’t feel 100% ready, but decide to take on a new project or job anyways. You leap when you’re afraid that your question will sound stupid, but ask it anyways. You leap when you are anxious about how others will judge you, but voice your opinion anyways. The decision to leap is not made in spite of uncertainty or dis...

Work as play

““Don’t make a distinction between work and play, regard everything that you’re doing as play. And don't think for one moment that you’ve got to be serious.” — Alan Watts ” The concepts of Work and Play are popularly conceived as mutually exclusive activities. Play is often synonymized with fun and joy. Play isn’t done in exchange for ...

Change is your invention

Repost from January 1, 2020 The New Year begins today (Gregorian calendar), and again on February 12th (lunar calendar), and again on April 14th (Sinhalese tradition) — the list goes on. We inventedthe symbolic day of new beginnings. If you commit to making an important change today, it’s not the New Year that is giving you permission ...

multiple new beginnings

The idea of declaring a new beginning — a Fresh Start — as a way of increasing the odds of successfully adopting positive changes in your life actually has some solid footing in the field of psychology. In a 2014 study titled “The Fresh Start Effect,” Dr. Hengchen Dai, her doctoral advisor Dr. Katy Milkman, and Dr. Jason Riis found tha...

stale routines

Some activities lose their justification over time without anyone realizing it (or at least saying anything about it). Certain recurring meetings persist for no apparent reason. We participate in some paradigms not out of any kind of conviction that they’re still relevant, but because they’re familiar, they’re comfortable — they’re the...

the exception

As I wandered across a shopping center this past Black Friday, two notable remarks seemed to dominate the air regardless of what shop I was in: “You should buy that, that’s on sale!” and “don’t bother, that’s always on sale.” The thing about exceptionalism is that it’s not enough to claim to be different; there actually has to be a dis...

contentment without condition

You probably don’t have to look very far before finding past examples where you’ve implemented a variation of the following logic in your mind: once this event happens, then I’ll be content. Once this project is finished, then I’ll be happy. Once I get this new job, then I’ll be relieved. Is there no a version of reality where you can ...

No title

James Dyson produced 5,127 prototypes before arriving at his first bagless vacuum cleaner, the DC01. Sara Blakely reportedly looked at hundreds of prototypes — let’s say 300 for the sake of argument — before arriving at the original Spanx. It’s interesting to wonder what might’ve compelled Dyson and Blakely to stay the course instead o...

Looking out for your future self

When you do something that prepares you well for the future, it's your future self that reaps the benefits. By that same token, when you do something that does not prepare you well for the future, it's your future self that has to deal with the consequences. The person that decides to procrastinate on a project is the same person that ...

starting or its alternative

There are several reasons why you might hesitate to start: The odds of succeeding are low. It’s uncomfortable. People will judge. There’s one particularly compelling reason why you might hesitate to stop: Stopping effort means an ending of possibility. The promise of making an effort is the opportunity to enter a world of non-zero prob...

The story you tell yourself

Your project runs into a roadblock that will result in significant delays. Maybe you tell yourself that you’re the unluckiest person in the world; maybe you tell yourself that this is the perfect opportunity to learn. You receive a disappointing review for a product you’re selling. Maybe you cast a strong shadow doubt by telling yourse...

Today

You didn’t have to exist, but you do. You didn’t have to make it to this day, but you did. Getting to exist and to experience anything at all is a highly improbable event — a miracle. Consider holding this perspective as the backdrop for your upcoming activities — you may find that it helps dwarf the day’s woes and accentuate the day’s...

Making time

In his book, First Things First, Stephen Covey shares a parable that has since become widely popular: A teacher shows up to class with big rocks, pebbles, a bag of sand, and a glass jar and asks his students if everything can fit into the jar. At first the students foolishly try to put the pebbles and the sand in first, only to realize...

Arriving verus being

I spent about four hours on and off the phone with my new internet service provider this afternoon to get my service set up. After about an hour into the setup process, perhaps unsurprisingly, I became frustrated by how long things were taking. I began to narrate in my head, “this is ridiculous; I can’t wait to do something else and re...

Start today

With the Gregorian new year coming up, many friends, family, and colleagues have begun to ask what is probably among the most frequently asked questions in the month of December: “what are your new year’s resolutions?” Having a resolve to change in positive ways is always good — so good in fact that it begs the question: why relegate c...

It can wait

Yesterday, my colleague sent an e-mail to my team encouraging everyone to spend the next couple of weeks resting. His final remark was: “Pretty much everything can wait 2 weeks.” He’s right. Some things can’t wait. A whole lot of things actually can (certainly 2 weeks). Knowing when to not have a sense of urgency is just as important a...

A note on matters that you cannot control

A friend of mine was recently notified that the completion of his future home would be delayed for another two months. His response to the news, which by the way, bore several inconvenient financial and logistical implications, was rather calm, composed, and wise. He said, “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to spend...

Rethinking your relationship with productivity

The concept of productivity is a very strange one. On the one hand, the prospect of attending to more things that you value each day can be enticing. On the other hand, the pursuit of getting more done can also be a daunting one that becomes inadvertently riddled with self-criticisms about why you can’t seem to accomplish more, feeling...

Yes, you can.

The foundation on top of which every step forward, every achievement, and every lesson learned exists can be characterized in one word: belief. Specifically: 1. The belief in your ability to figure things out — to get unstuck — when things do not go according to plan. 2. The belief in your ability to learn and apply new knowledge. 3. T...

There will always be work to do

The prospect of getting everything done can present an enticing albeit unrealistic narrative. You might think to yourself: Ifonly you could have zero new messages in your inbox… Ifonly you could conclude the day with a checkmark next to every single line item in your to-do list… Then you could finally feel like you’re on top of things....

You happened

One of the most profound yet underacknowledged aspects of your existence is the fact that you exist at all. English philosopher Douglas Harding talks about having “sheer gratitude for having occurred,” remarking that “you know, it’s the very last thing, isn’t it: we feel so grateful for having happened. You know, you needn’t have happe...

Choices

Last year, I heard an interesting metaphor from clinical psychologist Michael Yapko that has stuck with me ever since: He talks about two types of people: some who fall into a ditch and work hard to dig their way out, and some who fall into a ditch and start to decorate it. Yapko suggests that much of life is about walking a fine line ...

Want? Be.

The artist Cleo Wade has a beautifully succinct poem: You want love? Be love. You want light? Be light. There’s a wonderful kernel of truth in her words that points to the importance of embodying the kind of environment we wish to create. If you want kindness, be kind. If you want compassion, be compassionate. If you want positivity, b...

What you've got

It's my last week in Bloomington, Indiana before I relocate, and it's been a very rich and insightful experience to say the least. The knowledge that I would soon leave town has managed to punctuate virtually every experience imaginable: The coffee I drank from my favorite coffee shop tasted just a little bit sweeter. Instead of feelin...

Invest in good process

““The process bears the fruit” — Sir James Dyson” Rupi Kaur published her poetry on Tumblr and eventually Instagram for two years before self-publishing Milk & Honey in 2014. Beeple produced a picture every day for fourteen years before selling his “Everyday — The First 5000 Days” non-fungible token (NFT) for $69 million dollars. Arnol...

Staying with the problem long enough

““It’s not that I’m so smart, It’s just that I stay with problems longer.” — Albert Einstein” Around 1978, James Dyson came up with the idea of using cyclonic separation to build a better vacuum. Dyson would go on to build not a handful, not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of vacuum prototypes — 5,127 to be exact — over the span of...

Start with the smallest measurable step

A common pitfall when trying to adopt a new habit is sinking all of your energy into your efforts, only to find yourself burnt out and unmotivated a few days later. In the same way the laws of physics prevent a vehicle from instantly going from 0 to 60 MPH, there seem to be aspects of our biology that prevent us (or at least make it re...

What if there were no problems to solve?

During some of his meditations on the Waking Up app, Sam Harris poses the following questions: “what if there were no problems to solve? What would that experience be like?” I’ve asked myself these questions while dealing with some particularly stressful problems, including a personal health scare last March and when I was figuring out...

No do-overs

Credit: Liz & Mollie The only direction that change can be enacted on is the future. Recognizing and accepting this truth can serve as a kind of liberation, permitting you to relinquish persistent thoughts about past events, things you could have said differently, or done differently. In gently letting go of these thoughts, you open up...

One thing at a time

The American Psychological Association has a page dedicated to the topic of multitasking. The main takeaway: it’s not the productivity hack that many think it is. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Frequently switching tasks takes time and energy, it makes you more prone to error, and it results in less productivity. It’s a lose-lose-lo...

Resetting

It’s Monday morning, you’re in a meeting, and your colleague says something that you think is inappropriate and frustrating. What do you do next? You could ramp up your frustration, perhaps initiating some internal commentary along the lines of “wow, I can’t imagine a worse start to the week. This is unbelievable.” If you do this, you ...

Until it's not

Imagine the first time you tried to swim and all the things you had to figure out, like floating, paddling, and moving from one position in the pool to another. Most likely, it wasn’t an easy experience. However, for those who keep up with swimming, it eventually becomes second-nature — like breathing. The thing about taking on swimmin...

Will this affect the outcome?

While traveling last week, I quickly became anxious after discovering that my flight was delayed and that I might miss my bus to my final destination as a result. The consequence of missing the bus would be another 2-hour wait for the next bus — something I was not looking forward to. This anxious response persisted for quite some time...

Maintaining your position

Every time I watch Shark Tank, I’m always intrigued by the level of tenacity that the Sharks have with some of their offers. For example, in Season 11, Episode 22, Robert Herjavec offered $100,000 in exchange for a 35% stake in Tough Apparel. Though the founders attempted to counter a couple of times, Robert reaffirmed that he would no...

Courage

Imagine the opportunity cost if everyone waited until they were 100% ready before… Having a difficult conversation. Taking on a new role or project. Moving across the country or globe. We’d have far fewer meaningful conversations, take on far fewer impactful projects, and would seldom be inclined to see what the rest of the world has t...

The world probably isn't ending

Next time you feel your emotional state ramping up in response to a stressful or challenging situation: 1. Acknowledge and accept your current state — you’re human. 2. Ask yourself: “Will life go on? Will I be okay? Can I find a way forward” In the vast majority of instances, the answer is yes, yes, and yes. Given enough time, most Big...

Time and effort

The importance of most things tends to follow a time-based function: Some things tend to increase in importance over time, like relationships or high-impact projects. Other things tend to decrease in importance over time, like a one-off heated disagreement with a colleague or a bad customer experience with a company. In general, the ti...

This is it

Being aware of the quality of your attention at any given moment is one of the most important things you can do for your well-being. You can be anxious about a situation that you cannot control or choose to pay attention to something you can control. You can be frustrated by something that doesn’t go as planned, or you can accept what’...

Reasons are easier to follow than rules

Instructions are often more effective when complemented with context. You could just instruct your sales team — much to their perplexion — to revise a sales strategy that by anyone's account is currently working well. Or you could also explain that there is upcoming legislation in your sector that will require an entirely new way of en...

You can figure it out

““Everything is figureoutable” — Marie Forleo” When faced with a challenging situation, you can develop one of two kinds of thoughts: You can develop thoughts that weigh you down — thoughts about how frustrating or seemingly untenable the problem is. Or you can develop thoughts that empower you — thoughts about your ability to find a s...

The purpose of knowledge

You don’t learn woodworking for its own sake; you learn it so you can build a table or a chair. You don’t learn how to code for the sake of coding; you learn to code so you can solve engineering problems. The purpose of knowledge is realized not when you harbor it, but when you find a place to it. Find a problem you care about, then pu...

Prediction error and delight

There’s a concept in neuroscience called “reward prediction error” that describes a phenomenon where dopamine — a neurotransmitter that plays a role in how we experience pleasure — is increased when a reward exceeds expectations, stays at baseline when rewards meet expectations, and is depressed when rewards fall below expectations. In...

Deferring

If an employee is feeling anxious about a project, then it’s probably worth addressing their concerns quickly for the sake of their well-being. If there’s a task that’s been taking up space in the back of your mind that you want to get out of the way, then it’s valuable to take care of the task right away, if only to give you some peac...

Lead with curiosity

It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to not fully understand something. In both cases, you’re given the opportunity to update your understanding of the world and do better work as a result. An Ego that persuades you otherwise will deprive you of these opportunities, and even leave feelings of frustration in its wake. Leading with curiosity...

Who invented this?

““Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” — Steve Jobs” Everything that you know to be conventional was unconventional at so...

One step at a time

When a friend of mine was trying to quit a bad habit, she would go from being highly motivated to highly discouraged during moments of relapse. When a colleague was eagerly trying to secure a new job, he would occasionally find himself discouraged after reflecting on how many applications he’d submitted. When I was working to acquire n...

All plans are provisional

Though we intend for every business plan to be effective, some flop. Though we intend for every new feature in an app to be helpful, some have the opposite effect. Though we intend for a sales call to bring us closer to closing on a sale, some end with the prospect walking away. All plans are provisional. Most important to understand a...

The Completionist, Hasty Mover, and Goldilocks

The Completionist prioritizes accomplishing every task they’re given — irrespective of how important the tasks are. The Hasty Mover prioritizes speed at all costs — downstream consequences be damned. The Goldilocks prioritizes sufficiency — taking on the tasks that matter and dropping the ones that don’t; aiming to move quickly but not...

What's your default?

The behaviors and attitudes we default to can make all the difference in our well-being and the well-being of others — both in and outside of work. What works may vary from person to person, but in general it’s more helpful to: Lead with curiosity instead of frustration. Be kind instead of vengeful or spiteful. Be compassionate instead...

And then what?

A good way to spot a rash decision is to pose the following question at least a few times: “and then what?”. When faced with a time-sensitive decision or a flood of new information, it’s easy to want to make a spur-of-the-moment decision: To commit before assessing if you have the time and energy. To enthusiastically jump into a partne...

Tell the truth

In his book “Lying”, Sam Harris makes a compelling case for why we should always strive to tell the truth. Here are three takeaways and some supporting quotes from the book that I think are relevant to consider at work and, frankly, all other aspects of life. 1. It is simpler to tell the truth ““Honesty is a gift we can give to others....

Work hard to play hard

The first time I heard “work hard, play hard” was when a couple of friends were describing the ethos of their respective fraternities — one comprising of dedicated business students, another comprising of ambitious pre-med students looking to become the future of medicine. My initial reaction to this description is a feeling of excitem...

Relevant detail oriented

Some details matter more than others: What your team is meeting about probably matters more than how long or how often you’re meeting. A well-written communication probably matters more than whether you pick Georgia or Times New Roman typeface. Showing up to the gym regularly probably matters more than the handful of days out of the ye...

So what?

On the first day of my 11th-grade English class, my teacher wrote in large letters on the dry-erase board “SO WHAT?” and proceeded to lecture us on how answering that question was the single most crucial skill that we could develop for our careers. Every writing assignment we submitted was evaluated using the same criteria: 1) did we c...

Leaps are really just...

Becoming a successful marathon runner starts with being able to run a solid mile. Becoming a strong powerlifter starts with learning the basic mechanics of each powerlifting movement. Becoming an effective project manager starts with learning the basic project management principles and applying them to progressively more complex projec...

Unsubscribing from helpful thoughts

Some thoughts are helpful: The belief that you can grow — i.e. growth mindset a la Carol Dweck— is helpful. The belief that the challenge in front of you and your team is solvable is probably helpful. There’s another class of thoughts, however, that are inconvertibly unhelpful: Worries about a situation that is out of your control — pr...

Is this really a problem?

The belief that there is a problem tends is usually followed by a resource-intensive effort to either solve or mitigate the problem. A project that feels like it’s on the cusp of failing might trigger several mitigating behaviors from the team, including reaching out to the project sponsor and revising project plans. A negotiation that...

Is this worth my energy?

Virtually everything requires some energy from us in the form of time, effort, and emotion. Your hobbies require energy. Your personal and professional relationships require energy. Your projects require energy. At some point, everyone is humbled by the fact that their energy isn’t an infinite trove from which they can draw. When we am...

The problem versus your thoughts about it

On some level, problems are immutable: A broken faucet is a broken faucet. A challenging professional relationship is a challenging professional relationship. An underperforming quarter is an underperforming quarter. On the other hand, you have a great deal of freedom when it comes to the thoughts you use to frame a problem — both in t...

Stopgap solutions

Every winter, a pothole develops on the road I take to get to the grocery store. Every spring, someone reports the pothole to the city, and the pothole gets fixed. This has been going on for as long as I can remember. If you consider how much it costs to patch a pothole (likely cheaper) vs. repaving the section of road that the pothole...

Managing your energy

Every day we give away our limited energy in the form of time, effort, and emotion. You might give some energy to work. You might give some energy to family and friends. You might give some energy to side projects. Ideally, you — or anyone for that matter — are doing two things: 1. You’re giving your energy to the things that you value...

You do you (but be flexible)

Some people do their best work in the morning; others work better in the afternoon or even late evening. Some people prefer a narrow scope of work; others prefer more flexibility in their approach. Some people prefer to only check Slack and e-mail during certain times of day; others need to have their messaging applications on at all t...

First things first

Activity doesn’t equal productivity. What you do and what order you do it in matters. Here are two simple heuristics to help determine both: To determine what, consult your values: what do you care about the most really? To determine order, consult time: what will matter in the long run? Prioritize those things first. None of this is e...

Ideas don't have departments

““Ideas don’t have departments” — Matt Sheley, Global Senior Manager, Customer Experience @ Cook Medical” It’s important to be good at coding if you’re a software engineer. It’s important to be good at analysis if you’re a data analyst. It’s important to be good at selling if you’re a sales rep. Being able to perform well within the co...

Stopping rules

““One of the biggest mistakes business people make is staying in something too long. A stopping rule helps you get out of that.” — Dr. Kathleen Eisenhardt” Starting can be difficult. Stopping can be even more difficult. At what point do you decide to disengage from a project? At what point do you stop pursuing a lead? Moreover, it can ...

Stopping rules

““One of the biggest mistakes business people make is staying in something too long. A stopping rule helps you get out of that.” — Dr. Kathleen Eisenhardt” Starting can be difficult. Stopping can be even more difficult. At what point do you decide to disengage from a project? At what point do you stop pursuing a lead? Moreover, it can ...

False starts

In March of 2016, the idea of consistently writing excited me so much that I declared my intent to do so on Medium: Subject: Starting on Medium Body (snippet): From now until the end of June (at the very least), I am fully committing to publishing at least 1 piece of content each week. Content having to do with the process of figuring ...

Effective communication

Know your goal. Know your audience. Use 6th-grade language. State your most important points first. Keep it simple.

Change blindness

“The problem is you want to see the change happen now” That’s the sage advice that a director gave our team when we express frustration overseeing just a few people adopt a solution we’d just launched. Change comes in many forms: Sometimes it’s easily observable, like a light bulb turning on and off. Other times change happens so gradu...

Allocating commitment

Effectively allocating your commitments, like many things, is a skill. You can do it poorly and reap suboptimal benefits, or you can do it effectively and reap maximal benefits. There are at least a couple schools of thought on how to think about commitment: 1. Commitment as a spectrum: you can be 90% committed to this one project, 25%...

Smell the roses

If you’re alive, if you have a roof over your head, if you have food and water, if you have friends and family who you love and love you back, if you have all or any combinations of these things: congratulations, you’ve already won the lottery multiple times over. By all means, keep pursuing your goals, but don’t deprive yourself of sa...

Listen more, talk less, be decisive

Listening more enables you to maximize the inflow of information. Talking less gives you the processing power to parse the information and understand what’s going on. High information inflow and comprehension enable you to be more confident and decisive about what course of action to take next. Listen more, talk less, make (better) dec...

Permission to fail

The fear of failure can sometimes function like a paralytic that stops you from taking action. A possibly effective way to subdue your fear of failure is to give yourself permission to fail at the outset. Permission to fail shouldn’t be confused with the expectation of failure or a reduction of effort — it simply acknowledges that some...

Do, delegate, drop

Here is a simple heuristic to determine what to do, delegate, and drop: If it will matter in the long run and you’re the best person to do it, do. If it will matter in the long run but you’re not the best person to do it, delegate. If it does not matter in the long run, drop it (as fast as you can). You might be wondering: what does it...

Will this matter in...

The feeling that there are a million things to do yet not enough time to do them can be both overwhelming and even paralyzing at times. An effective way to address this experience is by adding the dimension of time: Try going through the list of things you feel like you need to accomplish and ask yourself the following about each item:...

Just noticeable difference

In printing, resolution is described as dots per inch or DPI. For text documents, 150 DPI is usually good enough. For customer-facing documents like posters and brochures where image quality is a priority, it’s normal to double the DPI up to 300. In use cases where even higher resolution images are needed, the DPI doubles again to 600....

The Harris Poll

Recent findings published by American market research and analytics company, The Harris Poll, revealed that one-third of Americans realized during the pandemic that they were mentally and emotionally stronger than they originally thought. Along with new-found strength, were other encouraging themes such as a heightened sense of gratitu...

Tomorrow's worries

5 days before a vacation with friends was set to conclude, I remember speaking with one of my friends about what time we should head to the airport when the trip is over. Another friend who overheard our discussion remarked: “it’s too early to be spending time worrying about this, let’s figure it out in a few days.” As someone who like...

Failure as fuel

Every failure is an opportunity to learn. Every lesson learned is a moment of growth. Every time you grow, you increase your chance of succeeding in whatever it is you’re pursuing. Failure, when leveraged, is merely a synonym for growth. Having said that… Some days, you will be able to champion failure and get value from it. Other days...

Stepping away from the problem

Feeling stuck? Step away from the problem. Running out of ideas? Step away from the problem. Exhausted and frustrated? Step away from the problem. There’s plenty of research in favor of stepping away from a problem, relaxing your attention, and allowing the mind to wander. Some key benefits include increased creativity, enhanced learni...

Where more ≠ more

In a factory, your output is directly proportional to your input. More time = more widgets. This is not true for knowledge work: More time awake does not always equal more productivity — in fact, it can lead to the opposite. More effort does not always equal more results — again, it can lead to quite the opposite. Jerry Lee posted a po...

Work small, create value, iterate

Change at any scale can be hard. Here are three practices to help manage it: 1. Work small: break down big changes into small, well-defined steps. 2. Create value: make it clear to each stakeholder how the proposed changes map to their values. The more value they see, the stronger the advocate they’ll be for changing. 3. Iterate with f...

Kuai Kuai

Last April, BBC wrote about how my favorite Taiwanese snack, Kuai Kuai (乖乖), became a cultural phenomenon. Kuai Kuai, which translates to “behave” or “good behavior” in both Mandarin and Taiwanese, isn’t just popular for how good it tastes. Packages of the beloved corn snack are also thought to be powerful good luck charms that ensure ...

You are always learning

When something doesn’t work: that’s new information about what isn’t effective, what to try differently, and what not to do next time. When something does work: that’s new information about what is effective, what to pursue further, and what may be worth trying again. Success, or “failure” — unexpected or as planned — each observation ...

What' the best that could happen?

When you ask yourself “what’s the worst that could happen?”, your mind skews towards fear. When you ask yourself “what’s the best that could happen?”, your mind skews towards possibility. Before making a pivotal decision, seek to have the full balance of both perspectives. Don’t just fear the worst; be equally intrigued by what’s possi...

Take off your shoes

A colleague I used to work with had a reputation of asking three questions at the beginning of every meeting: 1. “How are you doing?” He was very good at reading people and if he sensed that you were giving a canned response, he’d immediately follow up with: “How are you doing really?” 2. “What do you need to be successful?” 3. “How ca...

Keep moving forward

Change happens over time, not in a day. Celebrate the good days. Be kind to yourself on the rough days. Don’t over-index on either, and remember these 3 words: keep moving forward. In the long run, consistency > intensity.

Glass half...

The glass-half-full versus glass-half-empty analogy is great because it succinctly highlights your ability to choose how you react and respond to a situation. Put another way: at any given moment, your life is like a mad lib or a blinking cursor with empty white space waiting for you to dictate. The difference between a problem and an ...

"Can't" and its alternatives

“Can’t” isn’t inherently bad. Sometimes we are sufficiently preoccupied and we can’t — or better yet, won’t — do something. That’s okay — even preferable when we’re trying to manage our workloads and hold the space we need in order to thrive mentally and at work. Other times, “can’t” is a conclusion we hastily jump to: “We can’t get th...

Audit your energy

Several months ago I audited where I was allocating my energy. The whole exercise presented a humbling reminder that energy is a finite asset that can either be diligently invested or clumsily thrown away. A few activities where I have thrown away my energy include: 1. Complaining 2. Checking things more than twice (the first check off...

Don't wait for next time

When I was at a beach in San Diego a few weeks ago, my brother asked me if I wanted to go into the ocean. Thought I knew I would enjoy it, I had this strange — almost reflexive — feeling of reluctance. I told him “next time”. Immediately after I said that it occurred to me that eventually there will be a time when I say those exact wor...

This, not that

Every day is punctuated with moments where you can decide how to respond. Every response is an implicit assertion that this (the response you chose) is more valuable than that (the response(s) you didn’t choose). For example: When a mistake is made, you can choose grace, not punishment. When you or a teammate is having a difficult time...

You can find out

When I started working 5 years ago, I would shudder in the face of questions that I didn’t have an immediate answer to. In my mind, not have the answer at the ready was synonymous with failure. I’d have toxic, counterproductive thoughts like: “Why can’t you be more prepared?” “You should know better.” In hindsight, I suspect that comin...

Worrying

Worrying can be a good thing. Yes, you read that correctly: a good thing. When you worry, you tend to pay extra attention. You plan more carefully. You double (or even triple) check your work. In situations that are under your control, all of this extra effort is capable of making the difference between an exceptional outcome and one t...

Striving Mindset

A striving mindset is process-driven instead of output-driven. It prizes the race over the finish line, the incline over the peak, the journey over the destination. Stanford Neuroscientist, Dr. Andrew Huberman, recently shared on his latest podcast that framing our pursuit of things as a reward in and of itself leads to the release of ...

How much do you need to understand?

One of the many traits I admired about my dad was his relentless desire to understand why things were the way that they were. As a software engineer, he would rather pour over documentation to solve his coding problems than copy and paste StackOverflow code that he didn’t fully understand. When I needed his tutelage for math assignment...

We are not finished

“We can be very proud of our achievements last week in Malaysia, but there is no room for complacency”. Those were the words that Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, told his team after winning their second race in a row in the 2014 Formula 1 Championship Season. It’s hard not to feel some ambivalence when seeing these two st...

One of those days

Every so often, you’re going to have one of those days. One of those days where you struggle to focus, where your energy feels lower than usual, where you can’t seem to muster up the right words no matter how hard you try, where the one thing that you thought was going to go well doesn’t. Sometimes you’re going to know why you’re havin...

Be kind to yourself

You are not synonymous with your mistakes. You are not the typo on your cover letter. You are not the innocuous rounding error on your finance report. You are not the delay in your project plan. You’re human, which means you’re going to occasionally make mistakes. It’s okay — everyone does. As you continue to try your best, remember to...

Pause first

Early in my career, I had a glorified sense of productivity. I was surrounded by buzz words and phrases like hustle, get shi* done, and Just Do It. Gary V. was the man (any Crushing It! fans out there?). Suffice it to say though, I had the misguided belief that the most valuable thing to do was to take action and move as quickly as pos...

Do you think or do you know?

Many critical actions are preceded by debate — they start with utterances of “I think” or one of its many variations including “maybe”, “I wonder if”, and “I guess”. At some point though, when action needs to be taken, the tone shifts with the use of powerful declarative statements like “yes”, “no”, “this is”, “this is not”, “we will”,...

Clarity

In order for a team or organization to effectively move towards a specific goal, there must first be a shared understanding of the answers to the following questions: 1. Who or what does the work serve? (Mission) 2. Why do we approach our work in the way that we do? (Operating Philosophy + Values) 3. How can we be better? (Learning & C...

How much of your time is this worth?

Not all things are equally worthy of your time. For example, most would agree that spending 10 minutes fuming about a mistake a driver made on the road is not as useful or meaningful as spending 10 minutes catching up with a friend or working on a project you really care about. In a perfect world, we would always be judicious about whe...

The first domino

Sometimes actions are part of a distinct chain reaction: A charity coordinator launches a campaign to solicit donations, your friend finds this campaign compelling and, in addition to donating, goes out of her way to tell you about it. You donate and share the campaign as well. Suffice it to say, the campaign succeeded in part because ...

In all things...

I’ve written about kindness several times on my blog (here, here, and here) for a couple of reasons: 1. There are so many compelling reasons to resolve to be kind in all aspects of life and work. 2. Kindness is not a box that we check, but rather something we choose to actively imbue in our behaviors, interactions, and policies. It can...

Productively channeling your energy

Productively channeling your energy is an underrated and under-discussed skill. Despite on the surface sounding like some woo-woo bit of pseudoscience, the idea of productively channeling your energy simply refers to focusing your attention on activities and topics that are useful for achieving the outcomes you care about. Many of us c...

Give yourself 24 hours

Everyone is susceptible to having challenging days: Days where you feel emotionally overwhelmed. Days where you feel undersupported. Days where your confidence in yourself, or your work is called into question. On days like these, when your defenses are down, it’s easy to find yourself ruminating in a land of counterproductive thoughts...

How to gather

Meetings at work can be a fulfilling and productive experience provided we are mindful of a few things: 1. It makes sense to meet — that is to say a) the problem that the team is meeting on is timely and b) meeting would be more productive than other modes of communication like e-mail and Slack. 2. The purpose of the meeting is made cl...

The Hyundai Kona N

The auto manufacturer, Hyundai, is coming out with a new crossover vehicle, the Kona N. The N in Kona N bears particular significance — only Hyundai’s most sporty cars have N at the end of their name (you can read more about it here). An exciting feature that the Kona N will come with is a mode called “N Grin Shift”, which gives you 10...

The nemesis of creativity

When Indiana University’s (IU) Kelley School of Business built their online MBA program, they actively avoided comparing themselves to other programs. In the eyes of the program development team, comparison would threaten their ability to produce something truly innovative. The challenge with making comparisons is that it often brings ...

The prerequisite to doing

“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Too often, this is the response that’s given when conventional activities are put into question. This is not a good response, and it lacks any comprehension about why we do what we do. Here’s a thought: the prerequisite to participating in any activity — any tradition — is a demonstrated u...

Surfing

While at the beach in San Diego last week, I became obsessed with watching how surfers handled wiping out. For the more experienced surfers, there would always appear to be a moment at the end of each wave where they knew they were going to wipeout. And instead of fighting the inevitable, they allowed their bodies to gently fall from t...

How to fall in love with the problem

In 2016, my manager (and now mentor) wrote “fall in love with the problem, not the solution” on a post-it note and promptly placed it just below the keyboard on my laptop that I’d just received from the IT department. I was an infant in the world of professional work with a challenge-me attitude and a lot of energy to give. Putting tha...

"We" versus "I"

The terms “we” and “I” perform two important and complementary functions: Everything relating to the outcomes your team is driving towards should be described with we. We implies unity of effort; it implies that “we’re in this together to achieve a common goal”. Everything relating to the specific actions that need to be taken to get t...

Moving metal barricades

Last Friday evening I had the privilege of getting to see John Williams conduct some of his most famous pieces at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The event was packed — every single seat of the 17,500-seat venue appeared to be occupied. As you can imagine, the process of getting to and from the venue was rather cu...

Open conversations

In April, The Journal of Controversial Ideas released its first issue. Like any academic journal, it undergoes rigorous peer review. Unlike other academic journals, it allows authors to publish under an alias. The creation of the journal is driven by two motivations: 1) To protect academics who might otherwise be cancelled, demoted, or...

Do one hard thing eveyday

There are plenty of things that we dread doing at the outset, but later end up being grateful we did them: Preparing for a marathon. Getting a new degree. Switching careers. This is the wisdom of hindsight — we generally only fully appreciate this phenomenon looking back. I’ve come up with a new motto to leverage this wisdom: do one ha...

Forcing functions

A forcing function is something that aligns short term incentives with longterm goals. Some forcing functions work — but only in a very narrow sense: A football coach imposing a penalty for anyone who shows up late to practice is a forcing function that encourages team members to show up on time. The team shows up on time every morning...

The Fresh Start Effect

In 2014, Dr. Hengchen Dai, her doctoral advisor Dr. Katy Milkman, and Dr. Jason Riis published a study called “The Fresh Start Effect”. The main finding of the study was that specific dates — birthdays, new semesters, new years, etc — empowered people to more effectively set and achieve new goals. Sometimes change can be hard, and in t...

The world is probably not on fire

Most incidents appear far more severe in the moment than they do in hindsight: Your quarterly sales are underperforming (how am I going to recover this?). A valued team member leaves to go to another company (how are we ever going to function?). Your product receives a negative review (how did we get so out of touch?). Any combination ...

What will you not do?

Knowing what you want to do and what you don’t want to do go hand-in-hand when it comes to focusing your energy and spending your time in the wisest manner possible. Despite this, attention seems to be disproportionately paid towards the former: What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to study in college? What problem...

Uncertainty

We rarely know exactly what we’re doing. And this is a good thing: Uncertainty gives you permission to ask “what if”, to tinker, to wonder, and to wander — all activities that have paved the way for valuable discoveries like penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, and x-rays. There’s no need to purport to know what you’re doing; instead ha...

Reserve your judgment

The next time someone doesn’t show up to a meeting, or someone doesn’t respond in what you think is a timely manner, or someone seems frustrated, angered, or unenthusiastic, Do yourself and that person a favor: pause your judgment and seek to understand first. People’s lives are complex and we rarely know the full extent of what they m...

Consistency

Many outcomes are the byproduct of accumulation rather than defining moments or activities. There isn’t a specific moment where you become healthy; you achieve a healthy status through the cumulative effects of consistently eating well and exercising. There isn’t a specific moment where you build a thriving company culture; you achieve...

Your worth

Your worth is not determined by the approval of others. Your worth is not determined by your education. Your worth is not determined by your salary. Your worth is not determined by what company you work for. Your worth is not determined by how many likes or impressions you get on social. Your worth is not determined by your relationshi...

Be kind

Be kind. You can be kind anywhere: at home, at work, among friends, and among strangers. It’s not hard, and it will make the people around you feel better, which will make you feel better. Resolve to be kind, make it your default — it’s a virtuous cycle worth being a part of.

You will never be 100% ready

I’ve always been enamored and conflicted by Nike’s slogan: “just do it”. On the one hand, I admire the simplicity and conviction that emanates from the three words. On the other hand, it always felt a bit rash: What do you mean just do it? What if I’m not ready? What if now isn’t a good time? What if I need more information? Recently I...

What matters

The act of meeting is not as important as what you’re meeting for. More important than a product is the problem it is intended to solve. “Keeping things moving” and “hustling” doesn’t mean anything if it’s not clear what end you’re moving and working towards. Progress is best measured in the form of meaningful outcomes; not in the widg...

It's the going that's good

One of my all-time favorite classes in college was a course taught by a professor from the Kelley School of Business. On paper, the course was about negotiation tactics. In reality, it was a series of lessons on how to live a good life. The professor who taught the course was the perfect role model for such a subject: 1. He was very in...

It's possible

It’s possible to acknowledge other people’s opinions without being beholden to them. It’s possible to go on vacation, never check your e-mail, and have your job and projects intact when you return. It’s possible to have productive discussions about points of disagreement. It’s possible to be compassionate towards everyone (yes, everyon...

Routinization, then intensity

I started taking a software engineering course two weeks ago — this is my 4th or 5th attempt to acquire new software engineering skills. The Launch School has a useful graphic that breaks down the experience of learning a new skill into 3 phases: 1. Exploratory phase: you experience initial high — you’re very eager to begin learning. O...

7.1e-9

The universe is about 14 billion years old. Your life as a percentage of the universe’s existence is approximately 7.1e-9, or .0000000071%. Life is short. In the grand scheme of things it represents a mere spec — if that — in time. There is no time to waste. There’s barely any time at all. So: Be honest about what you want. Be mindful ...

You don't have to fill the space

Don’t have anything to say? Don’t say anything. Don’t have enough content to fill the full duration of the meeting? Adjourn early. A more controversial one: had an intense day and burnt out by 4PM? You’re better off leaving — it’s unlikely that the next hour is going to yield anything fruitful. The reason we feel obligated to fill spac...

Toxic positivity

Over the last year or so, many of my friends, family, and colleagues have heard the following remarks at work: “Why can’t you be more positive? “ “Can you show your face please?” And my favorite: “why aren’t you smiling more?” There’s this strange phenomenon going on where some companies and team members expect their employees and team...

The spec

For routine work, the spec is clear: When you build a house, you know how much concrete, steel, wood, and stone are needed. When you build a car, there’s no uncertainty about how much raw material, screws, and welding are required to build a it. We’ve built houses and cars before; they’re predictable processes. For innovative work, the...

What's in it for us?

“What’s in it for me?” is unidirectional. It exclusively spotlights your wants and needs without considering what drives the people and organizations you work with. It implies that only your incentives are relevant — though this is seldom true. “What’s in it for us?” is multidirectional. It spotlights everyone’s wants and needs and mak...

Lake Michigan

I took a trip to Milwaukee this weekend and stayed by Lake Michigan. I didn’t check my e-mail, I didn’t check Slack, and for the first time in 240 days I didn’t think about what to write for the Daily Spark (I’d pre-written / pre-recorded everything in advance). I went out of my way to suspend many of my typical activities — in other w...

Permission to explore

I don’t know doesn’t generate any momentum. I want to know does. It sets the sails for exploration and learning. It’s shorthand for “I don’t know yet, but I am going to find out”. The difference in wording may be subtle, but the difference in implication & underlying intent is vast. Instead of declaring something non-committal like “I ...

Getting your feet wet

Anytime you’re about to go into a cold body of water, there’s this idea of getting your feet wet to make the process of adapting to the temperature difference more gradual and graceful. It’s such a salient and relatable concept that it’s become popular as analogy for handling transitions in any context. If you want to be a writer, gett...

Adaptation

The process of adaptation is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences to undergo: The first stage of adaptation is often a struggle: You’re exposed to brand new situations and problems that you don’t yet know how to best respond to. Everything feels ambiguous and uncertain. At times, your confidence is question — you ask y...

You might be wrong

You might be wrong and that’s okay. You should try anyways, because then you’ll know: You’ll know if it works (or kinda works). You’ll know if it doesn’t work. With each new attempt comes new observations. With each new observation, your intuitions will subtly shift — you’ll be slightly wiser, sharper, and more capable. Double down on ...

Tools are tools

I made a YouTube video a couple of weeks ago. I’m not proficient at capturing and cutting footage yet, so naturally I looked to other YouTube channels to try to understand how other content creators organize their content. One of the most intriguing observations I came across was in the comments section of many of the videos I was watc...

Ship

We do not have unlimited time to make things. The market is constantly shifting and evolving. The process of creating anything useful is therefore time-bound exercise. Things need to happen. So give yourself or your team a set of time to make something and when that time expires, commit to sharing it. It doesn’t have to be perfect; in ...

There's no right way to do it

For thousands of years up until the late 19th century, it was common medical practice to withdraw blood from a patient to prevent or treat illness. Of course, we’ve since learned that this way of treating patients doesn’t work the way we thought it did. Just over a decade ago, the primary way to share content with the world was through...

What's the solvable problem?

What’s the solvable problem? That is always the first question to answer. Without a solvable problem, all the conversations you’re having about widgets, features, functions, and any other semblance of a solution is premature and at risk of being irrelevant.

Just start

Just start. It will be clunky at first because you’re figuring things out (that never really stops). You will learn a lot along the way. You will feel the full spectrum of emotions: from doubt, to excitement, to frustration, to fulfillment. If you can feel it, you’re going to feel it. When you commit to a consistent process, your work ...

Finite moments

Your relationships are made of finite moments. Your health span is made of finite moments. Your ability to travel is made of finite moments. Your ability to put in a full day’s effort into the things you care about is made of finite moments. Everything in this life — including life itself — is made up of finite moments. The idea that a...

There is no shame in resting

I was raised in an environment where I was encouraged to always be productive. Whenever I was caught idling, I was promptly instructed to do ‘better’ things with my time — like studying or reading. This mindset comes from a place of good intentions, and in some ways I’m grateful that it was ingrained in me. That said, I also have come ...

Ideal versus adequate solutions

The value of your efforts to solve a problem depends on what stage you’re at in developing a solution: All the effort you put in to get to an adequate solution that you and your team can live with is the most valuable. Any additional effort after that spent making a more ideal to generate marginal gains is valuable, just not as much as...

Space

It can be helpful to think of your life as a finite space that routinely needs tending to in order to best manage your time, attention, energy, and ultimately your wellbeing. To engage with something is to grant it space: The problems you try to solve take up space. The relationships you engage in take up space. Your hopes, worries, as...

Acceptance

Acceptance is acknowledging present circumstances & the implications — good and bad — that they bring. Acceptance is having compassion and love for the individuals we surround ourselves with. Acceptance is having compassion and love for yourself. Acceptance is recognizing problems instead of denying them. Acceptance can be difficult — ...

What do you want to do?

During my freshman year when my counselor asked me what I wanted to do in the future, I promptly responded with “I don’t know.” Meanwhile, all my other peers at the time seemed to know exactly what they wanted to be: a software engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, a musician, etc. “I don’t know” wasn’t a simple declaration — for me it also fe...

Assume Positive Intent

We rely on a variety of information including body language, tone, and the words used to understand what someone is trying to communicate to us. In an era where we’re communicating more asynchronously than ever, we’re often deprived of one or more of these inputs, which puts us at greater risk of misunderstanding what’s being communica...

Honesty

Being willing to have honest conversations with our friends, family, and colleagues is vital to the development of more resilient, meaningful, and deeper relationships. These kinds of conversations are also notoriously unpleasant — at least at first. In fact, they’re so unpleasant that we often go to great lengths to avoid them: Teams ...

Ownership

Ownership is when you say that’s my problem and commit to to overseeing all of the activity that needs to happen to address it. Ownership is when you accept responsibility over the outcome. Ownership is when you do not default to converting problems into excuses or, worse, into other people’s problems. Ownership is when you continue to...

Above all else

Regardless of the community you’re a part of, the team you’re on, or the company you work for: love yourself, love others, and be kind. Practice these 3 things above all else. Because in the long run you will find that nothing is more important.

There's no switch for that

You can’t turn off anxiety. You can’t turn on passion. You can’t turn on a good culture. I often hear others suggesting to their peers and teams that they should just resolve to be less anxious, to be more passionate, or to be more cohesive as a team…as if these things could be altered at the flip of a switch. Sorry, but there’s no swi...

How things should be

In the 1847 Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis implemented a mandatory hand washing policy for anyone who worked with him in the Vienna General Hospital based on his theory that washing hands could dramatically reduce infection risk and mortality within his ward. Much to Dr. Semmelweis’ excitement, the mortality rate in the hospital’...

Anticipate requirements

After graduating high school, I took a gap year and waited tables at a Chinese restaurant called Chow Bar. During lunch time Monday through Friday, without fail, every single one of the 64 seats in the restaurants would be filled with patrons — many of which were students and instructors from the law school across the street. Most days...

226

227 days ago, I finished The Practice by Seth Godin. 226 days ago, started publishing on LinkedIn everyday and haven’t looked back. Godin describes the practice as something “we pursue for its own sake and not because we want anything guaranteed in return…it’s a path defined by resilience and generosity. It’s outward focused, but not d...

You don't need permission anymore

My friend Sondra Jenzer started posting on LinkedIn at the beginning of the year about her thoughts around love, compassion and a human-centered society. She’s since made positive impressions on 100s if not 1000s of members of the LinkedIn community and beyond. Another recent connection, Dr. Xuan Wang-Wolf began to fill the gap in AAPI...

Try first

I didn’t think I’d like writing until I tried publishing some blog posts. I didn’t think I’d like editing videos until I tried making videos. I didn’t think I’d like Data Science until I took my first semester of courses. Now I write every da=y, make YouTube videos, and interact with data scientists every day in my job. Don’t dismiss a...

The right effort

I was obsessed with productivity when I started working. Eager to assimilate as quickly as possible into the world of work, I would generally take on whatever task was put in front of me (the idea of “bandwidth” was not yet a concept to me). One of the directors I worked with would routinely caution me not to work too much in the eveni...

Lead with curiosity

There is a difference between the pursuit of how versus the pursuit of what. It’s difference between learning to code and building an app. It’s the difference between learning video editing and making a film. It’s the difference between learning to run and becoming physically fit. In most cases it’s really hard to continue learning the...

Whose problem is it?

““Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Suess” Yesterday when I arrived to my hotel that I booked through Expedia a month in advance, the attendant at the counter informed me that she did not have any rooms available for me. There was no forewarning about this issue; I was sho...

Problem debt

You have problem debt anytime you have an unsolved problem that could be solved now. And like debt, problems left unsolved over a period of time begin to incur interest in the form of necessary fixed costs, unmet goals, and headaches. The bigger the problem, the greater the interest. So why, then, would anybody sabotage themselves and ...

What others think

When you note the opinions of others, you are acknowledging them and are free to incorporate their input into your work/life in whatever way you believe is appropriate. When you are beholden to the opinions of others, you treat the opinions of others as a responsibility — as something you are obligated to respond to. In situations wher...

It's not the medium's fault

Top 3 activities that can increase productivity: 1. E-mails 2. Meetings 3. Phone calls Top 3 activities that can reduce productivity: 1. E-mails 2. Meetings 3. Phone calls The medium doesn’t matter nearly as much as the context, preparation, and purpose you put around it.

Today is a miracle

Today is a miracle. You’re not owed today; you’re lucky to woken up this morning and been welcomed by it. Today is the only day you’re guaranteed to have. Tomorrow and every conceivable moment in the future on the other hand, however certain they may feel, are never guaranteed. It’s important to full embrace today and to treat it as if...

Agency Dilemma

In economic theory, there’s a famous dilemma known as the agency dilemma (also known the principal-agent problem). The agency dilemma describes a situation in which the interests of the principal (the owner of an operation who enlists an agent) and the agent (someone empowered by the principal to act on behalf of the principal) are in ...

Picking the right things

Merely doing things isn’t enough to create the best chance for making progress. Doing many things isn’t enough to create the best chance for making progress. Doing the right things however — going out of your way to focus on the things things with the greatest chance of creating impact — does offer you and your team the best chance of ...

Reframing

There are often multiple ways to describe your situation, and some ways are more helpful than others. Maybe you’re a failure or maybe you simply made a mistake — everyone makes them — and you move on. Maybe you have to do something or maybe you get to do something. Maybe the current state of your project is a total mess or maybe the cu...

Keep pushing forward

In 2014 Virgin Galactic tragically lost a test pilot to a crash and continued to be “[plagued with] technical problems”. It wouldn’t be until 5 years later that Virgin would be able to achieve its second successful test flight, but even then the ambitious spaceline was still experiencing major structural integrity issues that would go ...

Your best

Sometimes your best will be getting one thing done. Sometimes your best will be waking up at bright an early, having a remarkably productive day, and coming back home with plenty of energy to boot. Sometimes your best will be staying in bed all day and doing nothing. Your “best” isn’t always going to be the same with each day. After al...

Be less passionate

In their book, No Hard Feelings, Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy make a suggestion that is somewhat off-putting on the surface: “be less passionate about your job”. To help clarify where they’re coming from, they emphasize that “be less passionate about work’ doesn’t mean ‘Don’t care about work.’ It means: Care more about yourself. ...

Becoming

Want to be a photographer? Photograph more. Want to be a writer? Write more. Want to be a runner? Run more. There is rarely a precise moment where we become anything. The key to becoming something it to start doing it — whether it’s photographing to become a photographer, writing to become a writer, running to become a runner, or somet...

Fail more often

““If I’m working hard, I’m wrong almost every single day — sometimes several times a day.” — Seth Godin ” We seldom get things right for the first time. If you look at most of the success stories (learning to ride a bike, building a product, etc) follow several steps that look like this: 1. Try, fail, learn. 2. Apply learnings, try, fa...

Why we market

When 4-year-old nephew was trying to float on his back for the first time at the at the pool yesterday, I noticed that he was terrified of getting his ears wet. After seeing the dread on his face as the back of his head started to approach the water, I told him: “when the water touches your ears, it’s going to tickle!” He smiled instan...

How do you know?

If you’re not specific about the parameters for assessing the work, you run the risk of you and your team being able to generating false assessments about it: The biggest warning sign that such an assessment is being created are two words: “I think” “I think we’re headed in the right direction.” “I think the solution is working.” “I th...

Fine Print, Dark Patterns, and A Better Way

In the early 20th century, some businesses started adopting the practice of using small text, also known as fine print, to concealing important terms of agreement with the understanding that very few are inclined to read tiny text. In 2010, London-based UX designer Harry Brignull coined the term dark patternsto describe user interfaces...

Consistency > intensity

Training in the gym 15 minutes every day is more beneficial for your health across a wide range of measures than doing an intense workout one day out of the year. Learning how to code over a period of 6 months will result in more information retention than if you’d stayed up all weekend to do a crash course in coding. Talking with your...

What do you get to do?

There are things we feel like we have to do. And then there are things we feel like we get to do. Things we have to do — kind of dreadful. Things we get to do — exciting! Have and get are interchangeable in many circumstances. Maybe you feel you have to get a report done this week. But is it possible that it’s something you get to do w...

When the problem is the problem

A distinct possibility that is seldom considered: perhaps the lack of progress isn’t a sign of insufficient effort or poor coordination, but a sign that you’re focusing on the wrong problem or set of problems. The failure of Sony’s e-reader wasn’t for a lack of good hardware be design, but rather a lack of infrastructure to support the...

Focus

Last week I wrote about my team engaging in a 36-hour surge effort to complete 1 mission-critical deliverable. One of the things I learned from that experience is that the idea of focus having two important dimensions. In one sense, focus has to do with your ability to pay attention to the task you’ve set out to do. In another sense, f...

Listen first

The feeling of not being heard is a non-starter in any context: work, friends, relationships, etc. It’s important to listen first. When people feel heard, they feel better. When people feel heard, you get better adoption for the plans being proposed. When people feel heard, you enable better outcomes. Sheer ambition isn’t enough; you c...

Posturing

Trying to be something you are not is exhausting. If you don’t feel like you have enough information to develop an opinion about a problem, it’s okay to say “I don’t know” while you gather the information you need. Your professional stature doesn’t depend on you having all the answers at a moments notice. If you’re struggling, it’s oka...

What other people think

Caring requires a lot of mental energy and resources. Caring is a choice. Ask yourself: what things are are worth choosing to careabout? What things are worthy of your finite mental and emotional energy to? Family? Well worth it. Friendships? Well worth it. Important problems? Well worth it. What other people think? Not worth it at all...

Resting

Imagine you’re at what feels like an important stage in a project and you’re feeling borderline burnt out. What do you do? Do you take time off or do keep getting after the work? If your gut is telling you to take time off, congratulations — you get it. The rest of this post isn’t for you. If you’re like most Americans and your first t...

36 hours and 1 important thing

36 hours ago my team received a major assignment. Major in the sense completing it would result in significant progress in our work. If you asked me 36 hours ago how long I thought it was going to take for us complete this major assignment, I’d offer an estimation of 1.5 to 2 weeks. The problem is we didn’t have 1.5 to 2 weeks — the as...

The Expediency Fallacy

It feels good to get things done quickly. But it doesn’t mean we should try to do everything quickly. When you finish a deliverable on Friday, that’s one less thing to worry about the following week. When you get an answer to your boss today instead of tomorrow, it makes you look effective. But what if your deliverable is riddled with ...

Being a don't-know-it-all

Not knowing enough isn’t the main problem. No one can have all the answers at all times — it’s an impossibility. It’s a debilitating belief. Instead, accept that you don’t have all the answers — that no one does. Not having the answer is simply a your cue to put in the rigor to find it assuming the problem you’re trying to solve is wor...

It's not enough to be right

““It’s not enough to be right, you also have to be effective” — Cyril deGrasse Tyson” Your product might be capable of saving a company millions of dollars, but that doesn’t matter if the company doesn’t see value in the product first. Your forecast might be spot-on, but that doesn’t matter if the people who can benefit from your forec...

"Finally" vs "yet another"

Not all well-intended actions are received as well-intended actions. When you create a new initiative, a new meeting, or a new project try reading the room first. Is there a sense of dread or disappointment? Does it feel like yet another activity? Or is there a sense of relief? A sense that something is finally being done? Figure out w...

Acting on behalf of tomorrow

What kind of person do you want to be in the future? Where in the world would you be, what kinds of things would you be doing, what kinds of problems would you be solving? What kind of world do you want to be in in the future? What problems would be solved? What things would change? Thinking exclusively in 24-hour sprints — “here’s wha...

No title

Routine is a two-sided coin. When actions become routine, it means you no longer have to think about doing them. They’re effortless. This virtue of effortlessness is also a downside in its own right because it creates the risk of you defaulting to routines not because they make sense or serve your goals in any meaningful way, but becau...

Pay it forward, don't keep count

“People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve. Always pay it forward. And don’t keep count.” — Naval Ravikant Cooperation, compassion, and generosity breeds cooperation, compassion, and generosity. Hate and animosity breed hate and animosity. There is...

Subtext

The idea of subtext is that words and actions are sometimes driven by unstated motivations. Thanks to millions of years of evolution, subtext isn’t exactly rocket science — in most cases people are able to infer it. For example, when someone reaches out on LinkedIn with a canned business proposal about how they can build a website for ...

a beautiful mess

It’s easy to look at the list of problems you’re experiencing at work, with your projects, and within your personal & professional relationships and declare with some frustration: what a mess. When faced with a slew of problems, your first reflex or wish may be to be relieved of all of them. Then everything will be great. A life entire...

Going at bat

The term “going at bat” originates in baseball and refers to situations where someone substitutes for another batter. The term has since taken on a broader definition and is used to describe situations where support is offered to someone (or something). Friends routinely go at bat for one another by offering social support during diffi...

Arriving

It’s easy to spend all of your time focusing on the next thing: The next job. The next project. The next vacation. And while you’re waiting for the next thing, you might also be tempted to withhold any sense of relief until then with once-then logic: Once I get the next job, then I’ll be happier. Once the next project get started, then...

Good taste

Having good taste is about being able to tell the difference between good and bad work. Being able to tell if a song will be a hit or not is good taste. Being able to tell if a book is a Pulitzer candidate or not is good taste. Starting something new, like a new career, a YouTube channel, or a blog, and saying to yourself “this could b...

A better way to gauge effort

It’s easy to think of effort in terms of its immediate implications: Oh that’s going to take me a day. I can do that in 5 minutes. That’ll take months. But that’s not’s really the best way to gauge effort. Consider this example: If you forego the process of editing & refining you could probably piece together a newsletter for your cust...

Baby steps

If you’re new to running and try to run a marathon, it’s unlikely that you will have the stamina and strength to complete it. Better to make sure you can run a mile (or less) first. If you’re trying to develop new software, it’s unlikely that integrating a million intriguing features are going to culminate into a cohesive product. Bett...

You're human

Not every day is going to be a home run. Not every project is going to proceed effortlessly. Not every encounter with your family, friends, and colleagues will be delightful. When bad days happen, when challenges arise, when contentious interactions occur, it’s easy to default to being frustrated with yourself. When you are frustrated,...

Try again tomorrow

Sometimes things go well; sometimes they don’t (welcome to being human). Some days you will make great progress on your projects; other days you will run into one frustrating roadblock after another. Some days you will be bursting with joy & energy; other days you will feel exhausted. Some days you will have the best interactions with ...

No, not right now

Very few things, short of a building literally being on fire, require your immediate attention. Despite this, it can be easy to fall into the trap of false urgency — seeing every e-mail, every meeting, every item on your task list as a matter of life and death. When you view work this way, your entire day can feel like one exhausting g...

The discipline of pursuing novelty

Try new things. Visit a city you’ve never been to. Take a different route to work. Learn a new language. Switch careers. Not because you necessarily have to. We rarely have to try new things. But because you can. Because you’re curious. Because you’re capable of changing and thriving. Because trying new things enables you to learn and ...

Even the safest options fail

Murphy’s law is a popular adage that states that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. It’s important to minimize risk, but even the lowest-risk options are susceptible to failure. When things go according to plan, celebrate. When things don’t go according to plan, learn. Don’t fall into the trap of despair; remember: even the s...

Be kind

It’s possible to direct your focus towards the well-being of others, and in doing so cultivating a sense of fulfillment and happiness for yourself. This isn’t some woo-woo, new-agey take on life. This idea also passes the sniff test in the academic realm as well (here’s a great article with links to research papers: https://theconversa...

Make a call (don't overthink it)

The only way to close the distance between where you are and the goals you have set, is to make a call on what actions you will take to propel you forward. To prevent overthinking and over-worrying about the process of making a call, try to remember the following: Don’t worry about not having all the information you need — it’s rare to...

Do differently, see differently

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein Routines can be great — they provide order & sanity to our lives. On the other hand, because routines do such a good job of keeping our lives in order they also inadvertently discourage the exploration of other wa...

One thing

When you’re thinking about how to improve a certain aspect of your life — perhaps it’s a project you’re working on, a habit you’re trying to develop, or a relationship you’re wanting to grow — thinking about all the actions you can take can be overwhelming. Instead, just ask yourself: “what’s one thing that I realistically can do to mo...

Delight

“Delight, noun: great pleasure. ” We all know what it’s like to be delighted: It’s the feeling you get when you receive a gift that you were not expecting, Or when a customer service representative not only solves your problem, but offers unexpected value like a discount code or free product to compensate for your troubles and time. Th...

Be specific

The term ‘success’ alone is essentially a blank canvas waiting to be given meaning. It is only when you define what it means to succeed that you are able to reliably recognize whether or not you’re coming into contact with the goals & outcomes you care about. An important way to define success is the use of metrics — a standard of meas...

No problem

In one of my favorite guided meditations by Sam Harris from the Waking Up app, he poses the following questions: “what if there were no problems to solve right now? How would it feel?” If you spend a few moments thinking about these two questions, it’s possible to find yourself invoking the feeling of being care-free and calm despite w...

Failure and thriving

Even if you don’t get the job offer, you’ve gained valuable experience through the interview process. When your code doesn’t work, you improve your ability to debug when you fix it. Every time you try something and it does not go as expected, your understanding of how things work gets updated and you generally walk out of the situation...

What's the solvable problem?

Before you start thinking about solutions, before you schedule a meeting, before you respond to an e-mail, before you check the next item off your to-do list, Ask yourself: What’s the solvable problem? This is an important question to ask because not all effort is created equal. Hard work on the wrong things leaves you stuck; hard work...

Bad days

Every so often, you’re going to have a bad day. Everyone does. A day where you’re feeling exceptionally tired, a day where your mind doesn’t feel like it’s totally there, a day where you it feels like you’re having to face more problems than usual, a day where you’re struggling. A helpful thing you can do on days like these is to recog...

Do your thing

Bay Area artist FNNCH makes a living selling drawings of honey bears & La Croix cans. Alissa, whose instagram handle is friedriceart, makes a living making art out of — you guessed it — rice. Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, makes a living by sharing his analyses of the strategy and business side of technology. The internet has democratiz...

Focus on other people

““By simply shifting my focus to another person, which is what compassion does, my own pain was much less intense. This is how compassion works even at the physical level.” — The 14th Dalai Lama, The Book of Joy” Caring for others — being compassionate — is one of the most valuable things you can do because the benefits flow both ways:...

The best time to build a machine

A machine is a set of mechanisms that allow for something to work effectively and efficiently. Every successful operation needs a good machine long-term: A machine to ensure that you’re at the right meetings with the right people do accomplish the work you set out to do. (mechanisms: a clearly defined vision, synchronized calendars, we...

Starting

There’s the feeling that you’re starting something, and then there’s actually starting something. The difference is important. Scheduling a meeting to talk about doing something isn’t starting. Thinking about doing something isn’t starting. Here’s a rule of thumb: if the work only exists in your mind, you have not started yet. Seth God...

The main thing

““To succeed, always remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” — Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits” There’s a lot of areas of work that you’re interested, and then there’s the main thing — the one, non-negotiable area of work that you are committed to pursuing no matter what. The main thing could b...

Focus in practice

At any given moment, there’s probably at least 100 different things worth doing, but you can’t do all of them. And if you try to do them all, you end up accomplishing nothing despite putting in what feels like a lot of hard work. The only path forward for accomplishing anything is having the discipline as an individual, as a team — as ...

Cultivating joy & happiness

““Just as athletes do specific things to get themselves into “the zone,” high performers consciously cultivate joy.” — Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits ” A study done by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego found that when someone become happy, the people around them have a greater chan...

Uncommon sense

““When you’re onto something great, it won’t feel like revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense.” — Derek Sivers in Anything You Want” An uncommonly held idea isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Seat belts were uncommon. Sanitizing hands before a surgical procedure was uncommon. Even the written word was at one point was uncommon. Not only...

Hard work ≠ value delivered

You create value whenever you deliver something useful or important. The amount of value you create is the product of 1) how effective your solution is and 2) how important the problem that you’re solving is. When you deliver effective solutions, you are generating value. When you solve high priority problems, you are generating value....

Reframing Stress

Stress is debilitating…at least that’s what pop culture would have you believe. Three powerful studies on the topic of stress demonstrated that 1) stress doesn’t have to be debilitating and 2) when you frame stress as something that can enhance performance you end up responding better mentally and physically to stressful situations. Ho...

Take the break.

At multiple points in your life, you are going to feel overwhelmed: Sometimes it will be work related, other times it will have to do with your personal affairs. In either case, it’s important to understand that you cannot be effective in any sense of the word if you are not feeling well. Despite this, it can be all to easy to fall int...

Leverage

Leverage is the maximization of something’s value by utilizing it to solve more problems. You’ve found leverage whenever you look at something that exists and realize “I can use that to make something better” When you team up with others, you leverage each others’ capabilities to achieve something that no party alone could have realist...

Upgrade limiting factors for your sanity

A limiting factor is any aspect of an operation that fundamentally limits its ability to sustainably grow. For example, if you’re managing the progress of all of your projects in your head, your limiting factor is your memory which probably isn’t perfect if you’re like most people. If you’re earning an active income whereby compensatio...

Progressive overload & adaptation

Every realization that you can do more than what was previously thought to be possible is the result of playing at the boundaries. Boundaries are simply what you currently know to be possible. Before Sifan Hassan’s record-breaking 4:12.33 mile in 2019, the boundary was Svetlana Masterkova’s 4:12.56 mile record that was established in 1...

Think Big, Work Small

Inspired by John Cutler’s writings on Think Big, Work Small: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-452-think-big-work-small-part It’s normal to want to visualize your goals in their loftiest and most exciting forms: A writer might look forward to their first novel. A start-up with an encouraging business model might look forward to grea...

It's weird of things don't break

““[Space X] is a test program, we expect [the rockets] to explode. It’s weird if [the rockets] don’t explode, frankly. You have to run things close to the edge.” — Elon Musk ” It’s normal for things break or fail in the process of trying to produce great work. Achieving greater heights in any field is the result of being deeply curious...

You're probably more lucky than you think

It’s important to be grateful. The research supporting practicing gratitude is pretty compelling, but that’s not the main reason to be grateful. No, the main reason to be grateful is because there are likely many profound aspects of your existence that you’ve come to take for granted and stopped noticing. And when you’re able to stop t...

Quality time

In a factory production line, time has a fixed value where a certain amount of time reliably guarantees a certain number of widgets produced. In work where knowledge is the primary capital (think engineers, designers, and writers), the relationship between time and output isn’t so straight forward. For example, it’s possible to spend a...

What's your story?

A few years ago someone opened their door into my car and made a dent about the size of a dime. It drove me nuts. Then one day I decided to see the dent an endearing dimple. It hasn’t bothered me since. Was that a strange perspective to adopt? Sure. Was it effective though? 100%. I think it’s hilarious whenever I see the ‘dimple’ now. ...

Groove formation

Grooves are formed through a process of repetition over a long period of time. The tracks that begin to form in the dirt after a vehicle takes the same path over, and over, and over again is an example of groove formation. Once the tracks become more clear, it becomes the obvious path for a vehicle to take with no deliberation required...

The stretch

Resolving to run 1 extra mile more than what you comfortably did during your last run is the stretch. The piece of content that you produce on the day where you didn’t feel like writing at all is the stretch. The new and at times intimidating responsibilities that you take on at work is the stretch. Growth doesn’t happen when you’re do...

Starbucks doesn't sell coffee

Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee, they sell the Aroma, the Ritual, the Study Room, the First Date, and the Gathering Place. Apple doesn’t sell computers, they sell Creativity. Nike doesn’t sell shoes, they sell Athleticism and Bravery (Just Do It). The widget is half the work. Creating an exciting culture that others love and find joy in ...

W.O.O.P. your way forward

New York University professors Dr. Gabriele Oettingen and Dr. Peter Gollwitzer developed a mental strategy called WOOP* (Wish, Outcome, Ostacle, Plan) that has been shown through over 20 years of research to help people change to healthier habits, improve social behavior, and improve academic performance. The best part? It only takes 5...

(in)tolerance dynamics

Tolerance according to Oxford Languages is the ability or willingness to accept or endure something. When it comes to the question of whether it’s ultimately good or bad to be more tolerant or intolerant, the answer is it depends: If you’re wanting to debate ideas in order to arrive at a good solution, then it helps to be at least init...

Never apologize for these things

An urge to apologize in certain situations does not necessarily mean that it makes sense to apologize. An apology implies that you have committed an offense against someone. In situations where you’re late for a meeting, you drop the ball on a commitment, or you do or say something that causes harm to someone, it makes perfect sense to...

All roads begin from "how?"

When it comes to… cutting through pontification & discussions headed nowhere (which probably happens more than we care to admit), getting a project moving, answering any number of important and difficult questions, creating a valuable change, getting from here to a very important there, you need only ask one thing: how? How will we beg...

Do what makes sense.

When you speak up for ideas that you believe in, you are not being a burden. When you learn that you are wrong and decide to change your mind, you are not being weak or fickle. When you choose to be transparent by communicating important information that others happen to not like, you are not being rude. In all these cases you are simp...

Intellectual bravery

The process of learning about and appreciating the world is guided by two principles: 1. The free and fair exchange of ideas 2. The free and fair consideration of ideas Free meaning there are minimal barriers. Fair meaning the exchange and consideration of ideas is driven by genuine motivates as opposed to ulterior or malevolent ones. ...

Bigfoot, unicorns, and guarantees

The idea of a guarantee is a myth. When you apply for a job, you don’t know that you’ll get it. When you start a marketing campaign, you don’t know that it’ll get traction. When you ask for a favor, you don’t know know that someone will agree to it. But you apply for the job, build the marketing campaign, and ask for the favor anyways....

Personal Space Ethic

Workplace culture in America has historically had some serious issues with the notion of personal space, rest, recovery, and wellbeing. Take vacations as a good example: There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that taking vacations has positive implications on your happiness, success rate, likelihood of promotion (yep!), and stress level...

The joy of missing out

The logic behind the fear of missing out (FOMO) is that if you don’t participate in all things, you risk missing out on potentially meaningful life experiences. This mindset seems fairly well-intended on the surface — the pursuit of getting the most fulfillment and experience out of life sounds like a worthy endeavor… until you realize...

You cannot please everyone

For every piece of art, some will find it beautiful and others won’t. For every food dish, some will people find it delicious and others won’t care for it. For every speech, some will think it was brilliant and others will feel that they’ve heard much better elsewhere. For everything that’s ever been put out into the world, it’s always...

No.

Saying ‘no’ is about communicating what your values are, and what you will and will not tolerate on the basis of these values. Saying ‘no’ is about protecting your energy and making sure that it only goes to the things that truly matter. Saying ‘no’ is about respecting your life and being a good steward of its most precious resources: ...

The wheel is overrated

SMART, a startup founded in 2020, revealed an airless bicycle tire based on NASA technology in March this year. This tire in question doesn’t require inflation and can champion all kinds of terrain with its unique ability to return to shape at a molecular level without losing its structural integrity over time. In other words, yes, the...

Don't forget to laugh!

Sometimes we take life too seriously: We react to certain issues at work as if they were life-and-death situations. We give our to-do lists 100% of our attention and forget about the million other aspects of life that are worth paying attention. We book large portions of the work week with back-to-back meetings as if we were machines t...

Ask anyways

“The way to increase curiosity is to remove the obstacles” — Angela Duckworth, Author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Being deeply curious is key to better understanding and appreciating anything in life. The way you exercise deep curiosity is by routinely asking questions that help light the way to understanding — inclu...

I don't know, but I'm figuring it out

I don’t know really what I’m doing: I feel like I am figuring out my career. I feel like I am figuring how to live a meaningful life. I feel like I am figuring out my relationships with other people. I am figuring out this daily practice that I’ve got going called the ‘Daily Spark’. You name it, I’m figuring it out. And that’s great be...

A letter to 80-year-old me

Dear 80-year-old me, It will be a long time before we meet, which I think makes writing this letter about my deepest wishes for you all the more valuable. Also, I hope you’re actually 80 when you read this. As you know all too well, no one is guaranteed a long life — if you find yourself needing to read this sooner because your time ha...

Duct tape etiquette

Duct tape can be a great tool for things like holding a package together during transit or temporarily plugging a leaky pipe. On the other hand, we generally don’t use duct tape to stand up our households or to hold our cars together because there is an understanding that in the long run duct tape solutions tend to fall apart and reint...

A toast to my 'failures'

Dear ‘failures’, You really upset me when I first met you. I mean really upset: frustration, anger, sadness, powerlessness, and all. But as time went on, I had the opportunity to process: the subsiding of the initial storm of emotions gave me space to wonder openly about how I might be able understand you differently. The first thing I...

Perfect decision-making is a myth

When faced with multiple options, we often go to great lengths to make sure we make the right decision: We conduct an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). We consider opportunity cost: what is the balance of sacrifices and gains for each option? We seek advice from our gut to understand which option fee...

Determining life in the next moment

In 1999 Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris conducted a study that asked participants to watch a video of two teams passing around a basketball. The specific task was to count how many times people on the white team — designed by white shirts — passed a basketball (Fig. 1). Fig 1. What’s surprising about this study is that almost hal...

Life is not a journey

British Philosopher Alan Watts uses dance and music as analogies for life: Unlike traffic where the goal is to get from A to B as quickly as possible, we don’t aim to get to a certain point in the room when we’re dancing. We simply dance to dance. Watts applies the same reasoning to music: the point of a composition isn’t to get to the...

Your work is an evolving synonym

In the early 16th century Mercury was the go-to treatment for syphilis. Several centuries and plenty of research demonstrating Mercury’s toxic properties later, Mercury is now the antithesis of health. In July 2015 the healthcare startup Theranos was valued at $10 billion and poised to revolutionize blood testing. By March 2018, after ...

The condition for happiness

““The punch line of life really is that you can’t become happy, you can only be happy” — Sam Harris, Neuroscientist” You are probably familiar with what it’s like to think if only: I would happy if only I got that job. I would be able to relax if only I solved this particular problem. I would be at peace if only my colleague and I saw ...

It's okay to not be okay

It’s important to understand that we all have bad days and that it’s okay: Sometimes your projects will get hit with major road blocks. It’s okay. Sometimes you will have frustrating encounters with a friend, colleague or customer. It’s okay. Sometimes you will feel completely overwhelmed. It’s okay. Life happens. It’s important that w...

The practicality of empowerment

The rationale for empowering ourselves and others is the belief that we are able to act in a way that feels more aligned with our values and principles when equipped with the right combination of mindset and permission. Some common ways to go about offering or receiving empowerment include: conversations, writing and reading books with...

You are free to reinvent

You really are free to reinvent at a moment’s notice: You can choose to change your tone, say sorry, or back away moments after entering a heated argument. You can choose to acknowledge your mistakes moments after reflexively defending them. You can choose to speak up moments after determining that it might be better to be silent. Unde...

Be proud of your ruckus

Everyone has a unique perspective, which means that some of the ideas you choose to speak up about will inevitably be met with opposition. You might mistakenly see this opposition as problematic and think that subduing your voice is the best course of action: Never mind, let’s just do it your way. Alternatively, you can remind yourself...

Begin everyday understanding this

Until you woke up this morning, there was really no guarantee that you would make it to today. You made it. Pause to celebrate that for a moment. You will not get this day again and there is no guarantee that you will have tomorrow. With this in mind, try to focus your finite energy on the activities and people that give you meaning to...

Protect your energy

Clinical Psychologist Dr. Jenny Wang gave an insightful talk yesterday about the importance of protecting our energy. I think her points are especially relevant given that many members of our community are being stretched physically and emotionally in the wake of the pandemic, the suffering in the AAPI community with the rise in hate c...

The superpower you can't turn off

We’re all connected. Humor me for a minute: This notion often gets dismissed because it sounds new-agey (in a bad way) and also comes across as a bit of a platitude. Understandable. But here is why it’s completely true in a practical sense: The words and actions we exchange have the power to alter: To alter how we think. To alter how w...

Our garden

As you think about the work environment, the home, and the community you wish for yourself and others, consider a garden by analogy: When cared for, a garden can be a beautiful and diverse arrangement of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers — the kind that, in addition to being serene, is capable of fulfilling our need for food and e...

The long game = short game + short game + short game

Most things worth doing require your participation in what feels like a long game: Switching careers involves years spent acquiring new skills, and countless job applications and interviews. Getting a Ph. D. involves years of course work, research, publications, going to conferences, and writing a dissertation. Qualifying for the olymp...

Towards a place worth being

A place worth being is exactly how it sounds: it’s the place you prefer to be because it provides any number of important qualities like meaning, joy, and fulfillment. If you look back at the jobs you have had, the locations you have traveled, and the people you have engaged with, you will find that you probably already know much of wh...

Forward with Compassion

Last week was difficult to say the least with the shooting in Atlanta that left 8 dead and created ripples of suffering, sadness, and frustration within the community. For all the contention and debate though, especially at the political level, about what to label these violent acts or the precise mechanisms driving them, I do not thin...

Her.

“Her.” That was the response of Atlanta Spa shooting victim Hyun Jung Grant’s son, Randy Park, when ABC’s Juju Chang asked what he missed the most about her. It wasn’t just one specific aspect of his mother that he felt the absence of, it was the totality of her existence — every exchange, every mannerism, every facet — that is now gon...

The elephant and why your voice matters

The Elephant Whether it is about community, home, or the work place — we all have our fair share of elephants: Issues of enormous importance and implications that need discussing but are not discussed for reasons that run the gamut: fear of social repercussion and judgment, the desire to avoid controversy, or the belief that your voice...

Progress

First, some alignment: Oxford Languages defines ‘progress’ as ‘forward or onward movement towards a destination.’ The undertones of forward, onward, and destination are this: it’s about getting to an a place that is both decidedly better and important. As you endeavor to make progress — to move towards a better an important place — con...

Need a break? It's okay and here is why.

Need a break? Take one; it’s okay. If you already operate in a culture where this is the mindset, that is wonderful. However if you’re in an environment that normalizes the ideas of sleepless 24/7 hustling, then maybe it’s worth repeating this a few more times: it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to take a b...

Activation

Activation is the moment you publish the blog post you’ve been meaning to write. Activation is moment you schedule a date with the person you’ve been meaning to ask out. Activation is the moment you say ‘yes’ to the things you’ve been meaning to include in your life and ‘no’ to the things you’ve been meaning to remove from it. We all h...

The spirit is solution-agnostic

With any endeavor there is: 1. The spirit of the problem: what you’re trying to accomplish in general terms (e.g. helping people feel better) 2. The orthodoxy: specific solutions widely accepted as ways to address the problem today (e.g. introducing unlimited PTO policies in the workplace) 3. The novelty: potential solutions that chall...

What makes something worth doing?

What makes something worth doing? Consider running a marathon by analogy: Would you a run a marathon without a finish line that required you to run endlessly? Would you run a marathon that did away with the entire 26.2 miles and merely required you to step over a line? If the answer is no, then there are at least two elements that make...

Attention is all you have

““How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages — but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out.” — Sam Harris, Neuroscientist” Whether you notice the progress your team has mad...

"Invert, always invert"

To solve forward is to try to directly figure out how to achieve the result you’re looking for. To solve backward is to try to solve for the opposite what you’re trying to achieve. If you are like most people, you have been solving problems forward: To make customers happier, you think about ways to that might make them happy. If you’r...

A recipe for possibility: ship, listen, repeat

The tire company that could In 1895 brothers Édouard and André Michelin leveraged their rubber company to create one of the first air-filled tires for what they expected to be a rapidly growing automobile market. Unfortunately the next 5 years would reveal a market moving at much slower pace than expected. Rather than sit on their hand...

The problem with solving problems

At first, “we solved this problem” feels good. It represents a hard-earned conclusion to a lot of effort. It gives us permission to unload our shoulders after a long journey. The first time it seems harmless. However, we are in peril every time afterwords when we say “we’ve already solved that”. Solved says we’ve done the very best we ...