Here we are, the final post of 2020—and what a year it has been.
Thank you for reading, for your thoughtful replies, for telling me when I got things wrong, for the recommendations, for the positivity, and for the vulnerability. My year has been richer due to the daily dialogue we’ve shared.
As we bid farewell to 2020, and look with hope and expectation towards 2021, I wish you and your families health, lots of laughter, and courage for the year to come.
See you next year 😉
I recently came across this insane video of Golden State Warriors basketball player, Stephen Curry, not missing a single 3-point shot for 5 straight minutes.
That’s over 100 shots without missing, and a level of consistency that’s astounding.
Of course, the 5-minutes itself are impressive, but it really got me thinking about the thousands of hours Curry put in to get to that level.
It’s a great example of how consistent and persistent practise can, over time, lead to world class results.
Where are you turning up consistently? And where do you want to develop consistency?
Last year I wrote a post titled ‘Predicting the 2020s’, where I collated predictions from other writers for what the 2020s would bring.
It should come as no surprise that none of them anticipated 2020.
Back then I didn’t have the courage to make my own predictions. However, given the craziness of 2020, I’ve realised predictions are just best guesses, and we shouldn’t place too much weight on any of them. Feeling more lighthearted about the matter, I’ve decided to pen down 3 predictions for 2021 and share them here.
1. The COVID-19 vaccine rollout will be swift and effective, but it will highlight and exacerbate global inequality.
I think a large percentage of the global population (40-50%) will be vaccinated by the end of 2021, but this will be heavily weighted (60-70%) in developed markets. This estimate is loosely based on Goldman Sachs’ latest forecast.
The latest Duke University data on vaccine pre-orders has wealthy nations like Canada, the US, and the UK, and the EU hedging their bets and ordering between 2-6x the required doses from the various front-running manufacturers, in the hopes that a combination of those vaccines will be enough to inoculate their entire populations. This is in stark contrast to countries like Bangladesh and El Salvador who have only ordered enough doses to cover 10-15% of their populations.
As developed nations quickly return to normal, and as poorer nations lag, I fear the health, education, corruption, and economic indicators between countries in these categories will continue to widen.
2. Travel will surge back, but testing and health passports will become the new norm.
After a year of being homebound, many families that had consistent income throughout the pandemic—and thus higher levels of savings—will return to travelling enmasse.
However, I think the above will happen in lockstep with drastic increases in testing as well as health passports. In order to travel, you’ll require a test beforehand, or you’ll be required to show proof of a valid vaccination. I think measures like this will be in place across much of the globe by mid-2021.
3. Work From… will be a grey area
The choice to Work-from-Home or Work-from-Office will never again be binary.
2020 has proven many industries and companies are capable of thriving even when their employees are working from home.
We also know that going back to the office won’t happen in one fell swoop, and that it will likely start with “a few days a week”.
A mixture of a few days in the office and a few days at home each week will likely become the new normal. Employees will come to expect it, employers will comply, and there will be a Work-from-Home grey area that persists over the coming year and decade.
Let me know if you disagree with any of the above, and if you have your own predictions.
And then, let’s see what happens!
As we approach the New Year, many of us are in a period of rest, self-reflection, and planning for the year ahead.
I recently had the privilege of talking with reader and fellow blogger, Barry Demp, from The Quotable Coach, who has been blogging for over 10 years.
One of the books Barry mentioned was ‘Your Best Year Yet’ by Jinny Ditzler. The essence of the book is 10 questions to help you think about the upcoming year, and to use them to make it your best year yet.
The 10 Questions:
Questions 1 and 2 are based on fact—what went well last year, and what went poorly?
Questions 3 and 4 are reflections on 1 and 2, forcing us to learn from our successes and failures.
Questions 5-6 are ‘Who am I?’ type questions. These are great to review on an annual basis, and perhaps even more important to think about following a tumultuous 2020.
Questions 7-9 are aspirational questions, helping us paint a picture of where we want to be in 1 year’s time.
And finally, question 10 is about tactics. What will you do to achieve your 2021 goals?
Here’s hoping a few of those questions can help you in your own reflections on 2020, and goal setting for 2021!
We’ll never be completely prepared, have gained enough experience, have enough money, or have total confidence in how the game will play out.
So when an opportunity arises, start before you know everything.
There is magic in adding a splash of naïveté and unbridled earnestness to your life’s cocktail.
Continuing on with my Obama musings, I watched a recent interview of his where he was asked, “What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?”
I loved his answer.
He said most people focus on who they want to be: President, CEO, Parent, Athlete, etc.
But most don’t know what those roles actually entail.
Instead, we should focus our attention on what we want to do: write stories, build software, care for others, make people laugh, etc.
Titles don’t guarantee we will find delight in our work, so why not simply focus on doing work that make us feel most alive?
Maru and I had an AirBnb booked for the Christmas break. We were excited to form a small Christmas bubble with some good friends and head up to the Lake District for a few days.
However, with the new COVID strain and the Tier 4 lockdowns I mentioned in a recent post, we were faced with a decision: to cancel or push ahead?
Local optimisation says, “You’re being as safe as possible. You’re hiring a car and not using public transport. You’ll be making your own meals and not eating out. You’re limiting your interactions to 2 other people. You’re unlikely to get caught.”
Global optimisation says, “Yeah, but if you break the rules, and everyone else does the same, the disease will inevitably continue to spread throughout the country. So, stay at home, because we all need to do our part.”
So we decided to cancel our trip, settle in for a cozy London Christmas, and defer travel until it’s safe to do so.
This experience got me thinking about how we’re faced with Local vs. Global optimisation problems almost every day—albeit on different scales:
There will always be a local optimum and a global optimum. It’s up to you to decide.
For my readers who celebrate Christmas, I’m sure this year’s celebration looks different to the norm.
In most cases, there’ll be people missing from the table, and more time spent on Zoom.
And although I’m at risk of sounding trite, it’s no coincidence that the simplest ideas and exercises are often the most helpful, so here’s my challenge to you: take a look around you today, notice what’s different, notice what’s good, and tell someone about it.
For me, it’s spending Christmas with Maru for the first time in 7 years. We agreed that until we got married we’d still spend the holidays with our families in Argentina and New Zealand, but being with her is something I’m grateful for.
It’s my first London Christmas—meaning a roast indoors rather than a BBQ near the beach. I can deal with a cold Christmas!
It’s also my first time making ginger bread cookies.
There’s always something, we just need to look for it.
Merry Christmas!
At 30 hours in length, and only covering the first term of his presidency, I was worried Obama’s book, A Promised Land, would be a little slow for my liking. I was wrong. I loved it.
Here are 3 of my takeaways:
1. I was more interested in his ‘normal life’ than his ‘presidential life’. Everyone has seen the suave, eloquent, and charismatic Obama. The speeches, the interviews, and the campaign rallies. But it’s rare to get a peak behind the presidential curtain; only Obama can grant permission to that part of his life. I especially enjoyed reading about his relationship with Michelle, and how she kept him grounded. One morning in 2009, when Obama learned he’d won the Nobel Peace Prize, he woke Michelle to tell her the news. She said, “That’s wonderful, honey,” before rolling over and going back to sleep.
I also loved reading about the games of pool he’d play with White House Assistant Chef, Sam Kass, the cigarettes he’d secretly smoke after a long day, the little league basketball games he coached for daughter, Sasha, and the games of basketball with old friends.
It made the president feel human.
2. There’s never a clean solution. This isn’t unique to Obama or the US Presidency, but Obama’s story helped me better understand the nature of wicked problems—or problems that don’t have any clear solution.
Every foreign or domestic problem that landed on Obama’s desk was riddled with complex trade-offs and risks. The Global Financial Crisis, the Deep Water Horizon oil spill, Obamacare, and the assassination of Osama bin Laden are just a few that come to mind.
If it hits the President’s desk, it’s already almost insolvable. It taught me that these problems come with the territory.
3. His rise was meteoric, and the timing was extremely lucky.
In 2000, Obama couldn’t even get a ticket to the Democratic National Convention. And that same year, he lost the Democratic primary race for Illinois’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives by a margin of two to one.
However, 4 years later, he’d be introducing John Kerry at the same event he couldn’t get tickets to just a few years earlier, and a few months he went on to win a seat in the U.S. Senate.
4 years after that, in 2008, he’d be accepting the Democratic Nomination, and would go on to win the Presidency.
His rise was so quick and surprising considering the experience of the candidates he was up against. However, following 8 years of the Bush Administration, Obama’s message of Hope resonated. He was the right person, at the right time, to lead a great country.
I’m looking forward to Part 2!
Last month, I wrote about taking on the 10,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge—where I’d try and complete 10,000 Kettlebell Swings in 1 month.
I finished the challenge earlier this week, and here are some of my results and reflections.
What did I do?
Why did I take on this challenge?
Where did I start?
Where did I finish?
I was really happy with the increases in efficiency. The workout became easier, the knots in my back were gone after 2 weeks, and my flexibility improved. I can now touch my toes without bending my knees—which is massive progress for me!
I did end up eating more during the challenge. Turns out swinging a lump of iron around each day increases the appetite, so I consumed 300-500 calories more each day—resulting in no change to my overall weight.
Finally, I’m sold on kettlebells. The ability to workout from home, the quality of the workouts, and the many exercise variations have provided me with a lot of strength training headroom to grow into.
London is back in lockdown.
This time due to a new variant of the coronavirus which could be up to 70% more transmissible. It was identified because the county of Kent, despite being in the highest level of lockdown, was not seeing a decline in case numbers.
And so last night, Boris Johnson, the UK’s Prime Minister, delivered a surprise address announcing London and the South East of the UK will enter a new level of lockdown called Tier 4. Under Tier 4, Christmas plans are off the table, travel is prohibited, and all non-essential retail stores must close.
Many of us are frustrated with how the government has handled its communication of the pandemic. For example, take a look at the names of the UK’s tiering system in the diagram below.
Medium, High, Very High, and Tier Four, just don’t make sense.
When trying to organise 66 million people, the names we choose are important. They need to be simple and clear, but there has been vagueness and confusion from the government at every stage of this pandemic.
Although I’m unlikely to ever be in the situation where I’m responsible for 66 million people, there’s definitely a lesson here—courtesy of the UK government—on how not to name something.
Last month, I tried to cancel my subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Much to my surprise, there was no option for me to cancel online.
I then found out that if you’re a WSJ subscriber, and you live outside of California, Maine, or Vermont, you have to call the Journal’s customer service centre to cancel your subscription.
California, Maine, and Vermont, on the other hand, have consumer protection laws where businesses must provide an online option for users to cancel their subscription.
I can’t understand the WSJ’s logic here.
Making money off a complicated cancellation process is a short term play—highly unlikely to result in long term brand loyalty, trust, or shareholder value.
The inverse of this—giving your customers the ability to walk away at any point in time, and retaining them because your product is excellent—is the kind of long term game I’d rather play.
The no-reply@company.com email address irks me to no end.
It’s a megaphone. A one-way communication device.
And by choosing it, a company says, “I’ve got something to say to you, but I don’t care—or want to hear—what you’ve got to say to me.”
A help@company.com email address, on the other hand, is an invitation.
It’s a telephone. A two-way conversation.
Whether you’re building a product, a service, an experience, or a process, is it a megaphone or a telephone?
Yesterday was the first time I dipped into my ‘Emergency’ folder.
I have 2 weeks of blog posts that are 80-90% finished, and they sit in a folder called ‘Emergency’.
These posts give me peace of mind that if I can’t muster the energy to write a post, I won’t break my blogging streak.
Yesterday, I sat down at 23:45 to write my post, but I felt drained and depleted.
So for the very first time, I dipped into my Emergency stash, took a post I drafted back in 2019, edited 3-4 sentences for clarity, and posted it.
Until yesterday, I was proud that I hadn’t yet used any of these posts. In the back of my mind, I told myself the tale that I’d feel rotten if I ever did.
This may sound over the top, but this process helped me learn about self-compassion and preparation.
There is a reason why I set up the Emergency folder in the first place: I knew someday there’d be rain, and that I’d be ready for it.
A woodsman was once asked, “What would you do if you had just five minutes to chop down a tree?”
“I would spend the first two and a half minutes sharpening my axe,” he answered.
Many mistakes stem from jumping hastily into solution mode without investing time to deeply understand the problem.
It’s hard to pause, map out the symptoms, understand its root cause, identify potential solutions, and then prioritise those solutions based on cost, speed, and quality.
It’s hard because the above takes time, and it often feels easier to just jump into building the solution.
This is one of the “take the stairs, and eat more veggies” insights—straightforward strategies for success that are often disregarded as being too simple and boring. But investing into these habits pay compounding dividends in the long run.