Archives for March 2021

When I was 11 years old, I went swimming at Muriwai—a New Zealand beach notorious for its strong riptides.

Since I was a child, my Dad warned me about west coast beaches—their currents being stronger and more unpredictable than their eastern equivalent.

But Dad wasn’t there that day, and I was young, naive, and complacent—having fun with 30 friends from my church’s youth group.

My friend Miles and I swam out into the waves, laughing and joking with each other. However, within 5 minutes, I realised I could no longer touch the sandy bottom. Miles couldn’t either.

We decided to swim back to shore, but after another 5 minutes, we were pulling further and further away from the beach.

I’d taken swimming lessons all my life, and up until this point, I had full confidence we’d make it back to the beach. But I remember hearing my voice quiver as I said to Miles we were getting further away.

One thing I’m grateful for about growing up in New Zealand is the water safety training most children get through school or private lessons. Living near the beach, and spending a lot of time in the water makes this a necessity.

At this point, the training kicked in, I raised and waved my hand as a call for help. In hindsight, I should’ve started earlier, as I was already tired from the swimming and treading water.

A surfer, about 50 metres away, saw us and started paddling over. Seeing him pull up and his calm voice saying, “Grab on to my board, and hold on,” gave me instant relief. It took him 5 minutes to paddle back to shore, the board providing buoyancy and an ability to slice over the surface of the water; something Miles and I couldn’t do on our own.

When we finally arrived back to the beach, the surfer made sure Miles and I were okay, and I remember the joy of feeling the sand under my feet again.

I was completely shaken. In the space of a few minutes, I’d gone from playing to my life being at risk. I remember feeling shame, as the scenario my Dad had warned me about had played out word for word, except Miles and I were lucky the surfer saw us.

Since this day, I have carried with me a deeper respect and healthy fear of the water. I know that when in Mother Nature, before we have time to think, things can change for the worse.

When I got home and told Dad what had happened, he was furious; beyond anything I’d seen before. I also discovered that day, in seeing the anguish in his reaction, how deep a father’s love can go.

You can’t hold a cubic centimetre. Nor can you grasp an hour. You can’t touch money either—the physical thing you may be thinking of is cash, but it’s not money.

These are called abstractions. They are concepts that help us make sense of and operate in our world. We’re the only animal capable of developing, understanding, and thinking in abstractions. And although we can’t see or touch them, they’re extremely powerful tools that help us better organise society.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about these abstractions is they exist only because we all agree to believe in them.

I recently asked a senior colleague for some advice on how to handle a tricky problem.

We only booked a 15 minute meeting, so after I gave them the context they asked, “so, do you want some coaching—where I ask you questions and you figure out the answers—or do you want tactics?”

“Well, the purist in me wants the coaching, but we’ve only got 10 minutes left, so let’s go with tactics,” I replied.

I learnt two things that day:

1. Most people are quick to offer tactics—the “this is how you should do it” advice. Few take the coaching approach. And almost no one gives you the option. It gave me a new way to think about offering advice and support to others I work with.
2. In this situation, I don’t regret asking for tactics because there was no time for coaching. But if time permits, it’s better to opt for coaching—the lessons stick around longer when you’ve worked for them.

I’m thrilled with my recent discovery of the BBC radio show ‘In Our Time’.

Host, Melvin Bragg, has been interviewing historical experts since 1998 on a vast range of topics.

During my morning workouts for the past couple weeks, I’ve listened to everything from Alexander the Great, to Seneca, to China’s Cultural Revolution, to the history of gin and coffee, to Tutankhamun, to Emperor Nero, to Sun Tzu, to the Mayan Civilisation.

The 40 minute episodes are high signal because the guest are usually 3-4 top academics on the subject. Melvin is a little brash and pointy, and that also makes it comical and enjoyable.

If you’re into history, you’ll find it a treat!

In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted.

To give you a sense of its scale, it was 100x the size of the Mount Vesuvius eruption that wiped out the city of Pompeii in AD 79.

Tambora flung sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere which oxidised to form tiny sulphate aerosols that covered the earth. Sunlight couldn’t get through, and global temperatures lowered by 0.4-0.7 degrees Celsius. This led to widespread agricultural disaster and major food shortages.

So how does this relate to Frankenstein?

Mary Shelley and her family, disappointed by the gloomy “year without a summer”, opted to pass the time indoors. They read German ghost stories to each other, and when they ran out of material, they started to make up their own stories.

Out of that dark and uncharacteristic summer, came an uncharacteristic tale of a human corpse re-animated—one that still influences pop culture til this day.

There is no deeper lesson or idea here, I just enjoyed learning about how a natural disaster on one side of the planet could lead to a story that has captured our imagination for more than 200 years. And I thought you might like it too.

The hedonic treadmill is “the tendency for humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.”

Studies show that positive life events, such as securing that promotion, getting married, or even winning the lottery, will make us feel great for a period, but we generally return back to a stable “set point” that we maintain throughout our lives.

Although the highs don’t last, the same can be said for the lows.

The loss of a job, the ending of a friendship, or even serious physical accidents, although extremely painful at the time, usually leave us temporarily unhappy.

That which we long for, and that which we fear, may not be all they’re built up to be inside our minds. There is something liberating in that.

Athens established the world’s first democracy in 507 BC. It ended less than 50 years later when it transitioned to an aristocracy under the rule of Pericles in 460 BC.

Democracy then took a break for almost 2,000 years before England passed the The Bill of Rights in 1689, which called for regular parliaments, free elections, and limited powers of the monarch.

Although smaller democracies were started in the intervening period (Iceland and San Marino, for example), it was a long time between the end of Greek democracy and democracy’s adoption by a global super power.

It’s a fascinating reminder that demokratia, or “rule by the people”, was not always around, and how it’s something we must persistently and consistently respect and cherish.

Ambivalence.

It comes from the latin ambi ‘on both sides’, and valere ‘be worth’.

Few important decisions are straight forward. Us humans crave simplicity, binary options, no-brainer trade-offs, but the world is rarely that simple.

There is always nuance, complexity, and second and third order consequences—consequences that appear down the road as a side effect of our original decision.

On both sides of any complex problem, though, there is worth.

Instead of grasping and clawing for an answer, perhaps we should sleep on it and embrace ambivalence. Perhaps it will give us the time and space to see with greater clarity.

If you use the word “draft” you could be talking about the first version of a piece of writing, being conscripted to war, the cool breeze that just entered the room, the act of pulling something along, or how deep a boat sits in the water.

When we’re working on hard problems—and we’re the ones closest to the detail—of course we know which draft we’re talking about, but others may not.

Giving them the right context may be the difference between them sensing a cool breeze or thinking they’re going to war.

There are no pathways back to where you came from. But there are many possible pathways that lay ahead.

Inspired today by this image from Tim Urban from Wait But Why.

Change is hard.

It’s easy for families, teams, communities, and countries to get comfortable in the inertia. And once inertia is normal, it’s really hard to shake things up.

But change is also like a muscle: when it’s worked it can become stronger, flexible, and supple.

Progress isn’t built on seismic movements, but rather small, consistent, deliberate changing, tweaking, and crafting.

Imagine you’re at an archery range. It’s an open field, a board is set up about 20 metres away, and the circular target with its red bullseye is in clear view.

Before you let the first arrow loose, the instructor lays out the rules. You learn how to use the bow correctly, how to place and draw back the arrow, you learn how to check around you to make sure you aren’t in anyone’s way.

Once the explanation is over, everything else fades, and you zero in on that red circle in the distance.

But there is one more check you need to do: you need to know what’s behind the target.

Is there a person, animal, or object you could possibly hit? Is someone walking out to collect an arrow they previously shot? Is there an open space for a missed arrow to land safely?

It’s easy to focus only on the target, and forget about the possible consequences if we miss. And in the real world—where things are complex and interdependent—the consequences can be severe when we strive hard to hit a target.

We can work so much we forget to cherish our loved ones. We can win deals that are profitable in the short term, but expose us to risk in the long term. We can hit all our targets but have our teams burnout along the way.

For those of us who love a bullseye and a measurable target, we should remember to think about what’s behind the target.

Culture takes a long time to build. But it can be broken in a moment.

It can take years to grow a team and work together effectively. But a bad egg can change the atmosphere and derail the group in no time.

Relationships and families are built on years of care, trust, and respect. But a hot temper and harsh words can leave scars that don’t go away.

Friendship are often built on years of shared experience and mutual support. But loose lips can break the bonds of trust in a moment.

Almost everything that matters in life takes time to build. Being aware of how easily those things can be broken can serve as inspiration for how we act today.

Charles Townes, Nobel laureate and the inventor of the laser, often told this story:

A rabbit and a beaver are sitting together and admiring the Hoover Dam.

The rabbit asks, “Did you build it?”

The beaver turns to the rabbit and says, “No, but it was based on an idea of mine.”

Ideas are dime a dozen.

Execution is everything.

When I entered the kitchen this morning, I was greeted with a small chirp every minute or so.

I checked the fire alarm, but there was no flashing light or sound.

The chirping continued.

I then stood on a chair, looked atop the kitchen cabinet, and found the source of the noise: the carbon monoxide detector.

I made a mental note to buy another one (carbon monoxide detectors are single-use; being battery-replaceable would put them at greater risk of malfunctioning due to human error). In the meantime, I tried to turn the chirping off. I pressed all the buttons, I tried to open up the device to find a switch, but I had no luck.

So I immediately ordered another and took the current one downstairs to the trash.

As I was walking back upstairs, I realised the manufacturer had created a foolproof system.

Their goal is to keep people safe, and that means having a functioning carbon monoxide detector in every home, and minimising the time a home doesn’t have one when a replacement is required.

The constant chirping meant I wanted to dispose of the device immediately. It didn’t feel right to throw the device away without purchasing a new one first, as I felt I’d be putting Maru and I at risk.

By building in an unavoidable, unstoppable chirping, the foolproof system achieved two things: 1) it stopped me from procrastinating to buy another carbon monoxide detector, and 2) it prevented me from forgetting altogether.

When something is important, build foolproof systems to ensure you never forget.