The more things change…“Cease to hope and you will cease to fear. (Hope and fear) are bound up with one another… widely different… the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to… both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety…. Wild animals run from the dangers they actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come. A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present.” - Seneca
I find a tremendous amount of healing in trying to imagine at least one unbelievable thing every day. Every now and then the mind needs to go out and play.
A birthday marks a yearly milestone. Long term objective that matters because a group of people created and enforced a behavior around acknowledging the milestone. A vanity metric. What if we thought about birthdays at the margin? Every single day we can take incremental action to make ourselves and our world better with the resources available. If we use our time and energy wisely, we can end our day believing we left the world slightly better than where we left it. Should we wake up the next morning, we get another chance to make that incremental improvement. We celebrate that opportunity — a marginal birthday. I would rather go from measuring that I survived 365 days to measuring how I used the 24 hours I had available to leave the world slightly better — a true KPI. I’m all for a marginal birthday.
Historically, I dread this time of year. I don’t particularly enjoy my birthday, and I don’t particularly enjoy receiving birthday greetings. I do appreciate that others might receive some utility from wishing and greeting me a happy birthday. Perhaps they believe their message is a bright spot in my day. I do appreciate that someone thought about me. Some people enjoy being thought about it. But for me, the value of acknowledging that I am not 365 calendar days older than I was before creates little to no value. I could say that about every day — every calendar day is 365 days from the same time last year. So what’s my problem? Nothing. This is a time of year for me when I need to necessarily chill. I need to retreat to myself for a bit — recover and restore my energy, spend more time in reflection, and not go out of my way to exert. Almost like re-birthing myself into my next 365 day cycle.
Learn how to do financial reporting! It’s something I suck at (for now!), and it’s not the work I typically do. Every transaction matters! Every single one. Everything, in some way, becomes accounted for now or in the future. A useful idea at or outside of work.Ability to create and keep trust and deploy compassion are forms of undervalued human capital. That’s not an entirely new idea — so many people talk about “soft skills.” I don’t think there’s anything soft about trust — it’s hard work. What you see is not all there is.
Music, like most works of innovations, is iterative. One way to define culture is a set of norms and behaviors defined and enforced by a group. There are groups, of people, who have created music cultures — such as the multi-dimensional jazz. Jazz gets passed down from generation to generation through media and education. That’s one dimension — depth.Jazz also gets moved across the globe. The people of the world have made the form theirs. That’s another dimension — breadth. When our ideas and our work spread, those who receive value from our work will desire to make it their own. They will desire for our work to assimilate into or complement their culture. It’s easy to spread an idea. It’s better when those that interact with our work, make it their own. Inspiration from “5 Minutes That will Make You Love South African Jazz” via Tyler Cowen.
Getting upset over spilled milk.… and everything that is its equivalent.
When people used to dress up for job interviews, they would “dress for success.” Shoes, power outfits, and all of the accessories required to signal to the interviewer that you “deserved” the role. Now most interviews are done digitally. It’s rare that I hear about people having in-person interviews — unless applying local. Culturally, how do we signal in a digital world? Our interviewer is not aware that we might be wearing shorts underneath our well-spec’d tops. They might not know that we have sneakers on instead of nice shoes. Our interviewer might be dressed the same. How we signal changes. We must demonstrate who we are through our words and how we engage in a 2D space that is the “Zoom” interview. 2D connection comes from investing more time to get know people before the questions start. Spending more time learning about how people spend their time on the weekends. Spending more time working on creative problems to solve. The level and quality of the expression of our humanity increases (perhaps exponentially) in proportion to the amount technology integrates with our lives.
From Henry Oliver, author of “Second Act”:
Five ways to talent spot late bloomers1. Look for people who have been successful in the past.2. Look for people with secret lives.3. Look for the people who don’t fit in.4. Look for loners and those who are happy to change their context.5. Put up a beacon.🧵— Henry Oliver (@HenryEOliver) May 29, 2024
Sometimes….The amount of temperance and methodicalness ought to increase proportionate to the amount of reactivity someone wants you to express.Example:Action: Highly reactive person comes to you and demands your immediate attention and action. Reaction: You demonstrate more temperance and more method as you seek to understand what’s happening and what’s being asked of you. Note of CautionSituational awareness and context matter. If someone is yelling to run because there’s a fire in the building, that’s not the moment to stop and wonder.