Archives for February 2020

I was shocked to read today that BP’s new CEO, Bernard Looney, has pledged that BP will achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

This is an unprecedented move by one of the world’s 5 major oil companies (BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Total).

It’s an acknowledgement—from one of the biggest voices on the matter, no less—that global oil production will fall in the future.

BP will need to balance the pressure to switch to cleaner energy and shareholders’ requests healthy dividends.

In 2019 alone, BP paid out $8.4 billion in dividends to shareholders. Inevitably, a large chunk of future earnings will need to be retained to make this ambitious transition by 2050.

This is a welcome piece of news!

I liked this campaign from Heathrow airport.

Heathrow is colossal. It’s five sprawling terminals greet and bid farewell to over 80 million passengers each year.

A sustainability effort for a site of this scale is no small task.

What I like about this campaign is how they celebrate their wins (e.g., the switch to renewable energy), but also acknowledge they still have a journey ahead (e.g., the switch to low carbon construction).

Being open about areas for improvement is the first step towards a transformed Heathrow. In fact, it’s the first step towards transformation for any individual, team, project, or organisation.

I had a flight booked for this weekend, but it was cancelled due to Storm Ciara. It was rescheduled for 30 hours later when calmer weather was expected over the Atlantic.

Although inconvenient, I tried to let it remind me that no matter how well we prepare, things outside our control will inevitably come up.

The growth all happens in how we choose to respond.

Most of us known Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a Hollywood action superstar, but not everyone knows how he first made a name for himself.

Back when he was a performing wrestler with the World Wrestling Entertainment, he did one thing that set him apart from others: he referred to himself in the third person.

Sentences like “The Rock is back,” or “If you smell what The Rock is cooking?” sound weird, but they legitimised his character. And the crowds loved it. They loved his confidence.

What’s the bigger lesson here?

I’ve got a number of friends who’ve started their own projects, like a band or a business. And It makes me smile when they stop referring to their project as their “side hustle” or “hobby,” and call it by its name.

When we give something a name, and begin to call it by that name, magic happens.

Whether it’s a train station, a highway, or a long line, there’s always someone willing to push in front; trying to get ahead at someone else’s expense.

But to what end?

Moving at pace through highway lanes has more risks than benefits.

Nor does getting flustered by the train station’s slow foot traffic save any meaningful amount of time.

I often blog about the concept of compounding, which is loosely defined as the sum of marginal benefits accrued through consistent action over time. The point here is that some marginal benefits just aren’t worth pursuing.

Each of us, each day, gets to decide where we draw that line.

You can build a product, and ask people to do things your way.

Or you can build where there is the least friction.

Either way, the market still decides if your product lives or dies.

I’ve recently been reading ‘From Third World to First’, by Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew.

When Singapore broke away from Malaysia in 1965 to become an independent nation, Lee had 3 big questions to answer.

1. How do we establish Singapore as a legitimate nation?
2. How do we protect Singapore?
3. How does Singapore make money?

These are big questions.

What I learnt from them is that no matter the size of the challenge, we can boil down complex challenges to a few critical questions.

If we answer these questions well, we get a chance at turning up tomorrow.

If we don’t, there may not be a tomorrow.

Most of us aren’t starting republics, but this concept holds true for any hobby, self-improvement goal, or venture that we choose to pursue.

When we look at our challenges in the cold light of day, there are only ever a few things that matter.

The art and science of choosing what to focus on is a great skill to invest in.

You can’t write clearly, without first thinking clearly.

But thinking is a messy process; especially when kept in our heads. So writing helps us clarify our thoughts.

This is one of the reasons why I started daily and public writing.

I doubt I’ll get to the point where I’d dare call myself a clear thinker or writer (I probably wouldn’t trust anyone who boasted of that, anyway), but my aspiration is to inch toward becoming better at these skills through consistent effort over time.

And for me, that begins with turning up each day.

If you want to improve your flexibility, stretching every day for 10 minutes is better than a yoga session once per week.

Although it takes the same amount of time, the body responds better to consistency.

This concept extends to our minds, attitudes, and habits.

Practising flexibility, patience, openness, courage, and kindness every day adds up over time.

Brute force rarely works.

When Alex Honnold summited El Capitan, there was little fanfare. He sat in silence with the mountain and a few close friends.

El Capitan, a vertical rock face in California’s Yosemite National Park, is revered as one of the toughest climbs in the world. On average, it takes the world’s best climbers 4-6 days to summit.

Alex Honnold did it in 3 hours, without ropes or a harness.

This is called free soloing. One mistake, and it’s death.

Jimmy Chin’s film, Free Solo, is a remarkable, Oscar-winning film following Honnold’s successful climb up El Capitan.

Honnold’s preparation and climb are sights to behold, however, it’s his calm reaction to his success that surprised me most. He had just pulled off a never-before-seen feat of human strength and endurance, and yet he celebrated quietly.

Honnold sets a great example, that even at the highest levels of performance, there is still room for grace, humility, and an obsessive focus on becoming the best you can be.

The New York Times recently produced an extraordinary piece of journalism called ‘The Jungle Prince’.

You can either listen to the 3-part podcast, or read it.

It seeks to uncover the story of the deposed royal family of Oudh, who lived in a ruined palace, that sat in a forest in the heart of New Delhi. The twists, turns, and myths surrounding the family—and how they came to live there—are astonishing.

I won’t give anything else away, but what stands out is the investment the New York Times makes in this kind of journalism.

It’d be difficult to find another publishing organisation with the patience, money, and talent to pull off a multi-year investigation to produce three 30-minute podcast episodes.

In a world full of fast-food media, this is well worth the time.

H/T Dan for the recommendation

In 1984, the mean starting salary of a University of Virginia Communications graduate was $55,000; an unheard of sum at the time.

The reason: they included the salary of a recently drafted NBA player in their calculations.

The outlier skewed the average, and the median salary was never published.

It’s a funny—but important—lesson in picking the right metric.

After all, metrics are just guides to help us understand what’s really going on. Pick the wrong one, and it’s easy to fall into poor decisions.

You’re likely to have heard someone say, “Coca-cola tastes better in a glass bottle,” followed by those around the table nodding in agreement.

But the liquid in the bottle is the same. It’s just the packaging that’s different.

So what is it about the glass bottle? Could the distinctive klink be nostalgic? Does its cold touch remind us of hot summer afternoons?

In a world where many focus only on the content, there’s a lot to gain by remembering there’s magic in the packaging.

What we say is influenced by how we say it.

How we react and respond to others is amplified or nullified by our facial expression and body language.

Who we are—and how we’re perceived—is built on the energy we bring each day.

I love this quote from British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, from his essay, ‘How to Grow Old‘. He wrote it at the age of 81, and then went on to live for another 16 years.

The best way to overcome the fear of death—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.

An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.

The person who, in old age, can see life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he or she cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome.

I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

What I love about it is its applicability to all of us, regardless of the stage of life we’re in.

I also love that Russell wrote it in the latter stages of his life. It feels like his words are imbued with eight decades worth of experience, wisdom, learning, and perspective.