Archives for 2022

With respect to good habits and life principles, pick reminding over relearning.

Relearning is making the same mistakes and feeling the pain all over again.

Reminding is small actions to ensure the we keep the habit, or stick to the principle.

One example that’s been impactful for me is ‘Mind follows body’.

If I wake up, push past the inertia, and exercise first thing in the morning, my mind is much better prepared for the day ahead. I feel more alert, confident, and able to handle the volatility or challenges that come my way.

The easy part is believing in the principle. The hard part is putting it into practise everyday.

And on days where I don’t feel like it, I tell myself: reminding is a lot easier than relearning.

I love liking songs on Spotify. When you tap on that little heart icon, it immediately saves your songs in your ‘Liked Songs’ playlist. This allows me to create a powerful chronology of songs.

I’ve saved about 1,000 songs since early 2017, and when I scroll back through this date-ordered list I can identify periods, themes, and motifs in my listening. There’s the country phase, the a capella and musical theatre era, and the 70s period; all of it interspersed with a healthy mix of pop.

Each song I save adds to my musical story. It’s a fingerprint, a record, a set of breadcrumbs in the forest that can transport me back to moments, emotions, and periods in my life.

That’s special, and it’s something I look forward to continuing for years to come.

I was out on a walk earlier today when I heard a cacophony down the road.

Looking ahead, I saw it was a food delivery rider with a boom box on his bike. I couldn’t make out what he was blasting, but he was dancing and jiving to it without a care.

As he passed, I looked at pedestrians around me. All had big smiles on their face as they too enjoyed seeing the dancing cyclist on his joyride.

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, if you’re doing it with heart and personality it’ll rub off on others and help them have a better day too.

When Conan O’Brien wrapped up his final appearance on The Tonight Show, his parting message was about cynicism.

“I’m asking this particularly of young people that watch: please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favourite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

What’s missed is the context within which O’Brien shares these words.

He’s at the end of a 22-year relationship with NBC. Only 7 months earlier they moved him from ‘The Late Show’ to ‘The Tonight Show’, where he took the reins from Jay Leno, and held the primetime slot: directly after the late night local news.

However, due to poor ratings, NBC wanted to reshuffle the programming order and move O’Brien later in the evening. O’Brien refused, citing it would ruin the long and rich tradition of ‘The Tonight Show’ (it started back in 1954!).

O’Brien had every reason to be cynical, bitter, and despondent. Yet he chose to encourage the exact opposite. It’s the context that make his message all the more resonant.

The Formula 1 season is back, and I have to admit: it’s more than a phase.

I’ve watched most races within the past two years, Maru and I are going to the British Grand Prix later this year, and my family even got me a driving experience at the famous Silverstone Grand Prix track for my 30th birthday.

In the Formula 1 community, I’m what you’d call a “Neutral Fan”, meaning I don’t support a specific driver or team.

Instead, there are a handful of drivers and teams that I like seeing do well. And because that “handful” is about half the grid, I rarely disappointed.

This is in stark contrast to fans who are loyal to one driver. I even know folks who switch off the race if their driver crashes or has a bad start.

It’s a juxtaposition of density and volatility.

I spread my support, so I’m broadly happy with the result of most races.

Others concentrate their support, risking massive highs and painful lows on how their driver performs.

It’s comfortable to sit on the sidelines and be non-committal, but something tells me there’s more heart, soul, and fun when you go all in.

I’m also sure it applies to a lot more than Formula 1.

I’m a big fan of Unnecessary Inventions.

Matty spends his days making exactly that: unnecessary inventions—tools and machines that you don’t need, but they’re hilarious and immensely creative.

With all the talk and concern around rising inflation rates, I took a leaf out of Matty’s book and created the ’Tooth Fairy Inflation Calculator’. Here’s my pitch!

---

“Are you a parent? Are your kid’s teeth falling out? With inflation rates rising, how do you know what amount to put under their pillow?

Don’t let your kid fleece you! Get rid of the guess work, and use this Tooth Fairy Inflation Calculator today!

Simply pick your country, input the year you got money from the tooth fairy, and type in how much you received. The calculator will automatically tell you the inflation-adjusted amount you should be giving your kid.

Don’t spoil your kid. Instead, give them what you got, but adjust it.”

---

It’s a very basic hack I threw together in 30 mins. But I had fun finding the data set and exploring the different variables and scenarios! Let me know your thoughts, and share it with others if you like it!

About 3 years ago I read a post from Seth Godin which set me off on this daily blogging journey. It was called ‘The first 1,000 are the most difficult’.

It was also Seth’s 2016 interview with Tim Ferris, where he calls his daily blog “one of the top five career investments he’s ever made,” that convinced me to start.

It’s a great listen; start at minute 33 if you want to skip to the section on blogging. And I’d recommend sticking around at least until the story about Stephen King’s pencil!

And so, after seeing Seth advocate so strongly for daily blogging, I decided to give it a go. And, you guessed it, today marks my 1,000th post!

There’s was no shiny revelation, or striking epiphany, today. I’ve been believer for a long while now.

But I’m more convinced than ever that there is magic in turning up every day, noticing what’s going on around you, and sharing it in the most thoughtful and generous way possible.

Thanks, Seth! And here’s to the next 1,000!

I enjoy getting James Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter each week. It’s pithy, and always helps me see a situation or topic in a new light.

Today I came across one of last year’s editions, and this ‘Three steps to exceptional results’ stood out to me:

1) Do less. Stop dividing your attention.

2) Do it right now. Once you have identified the essential, go fast. Maintain a bias toward action.

3) Do it the right way. Acting quickly doesn’t mean acting carelessly. Get to work right away, but keep working on it until it’s right.

I like how each point builds upon the last, and how the steps become more impactful when executed sequentially.

Fewer things. Start now. And take great care to do it right.

It happens every year shortly after the UK’s Daylight Savings Time kicks in.

I’ll be out on a walk after 6pm and realise it isn’t dark anymore. I’ll notice there are flowers in bloom among the trees. Spring is arriving!

I’ll then make a beeline to the pharmacy to pick up hay fever tablets.

I spent enough years thinking “I’ll wait until the allergies arrive” to know that my body and spring don’t get on. And with some simple preventative steps, I can avoid weeks of discomfort.

Although the example may feel trivial, the lesson is plain to see because of the direct cause and effect relationship between pollen and allergies.

Being a few steps ahead makes a big difference. Especially when the problem space is complex, nebulous, and where a direct relationship between variables hasn’t been established.

By proactively getting ahead of the problem, we can avoid headaches down the line.

Developer Simon Sarris asks a simple, but challenging, question:

“If you know what you want, why are you waiting?”

And if there are many reasons, what’s the simplest next step you can take?

Russell recommended I read Oliver Burkeman’s column ‘the eight secrets to a fairly fulfilled life’.

This was the final edition of Burkeman’s ‘This column will change your life’ that ran weekly from 2006 to 2020.

The purpose of this final column was to give the stage to the principles that came up over and over again during the column’s 14-year run.

I had heard of Burkeman, but I hadn’t read anything of his before. I connected immediately with his style: both tongue-in-cheek and earnest, but also piercing with clarity.

A few of the eight “secrets” resonated deeply.

There will always be too much to do – and this realisation is liberating.
My takeaway: Don’t beat yourself up for this one. Most of modern life feels like a constant learning, and relearning, of this lesson.

When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness.
My takeaway: Us humans are bad at predicting what will make us happy. So we should choose that which will help us grow the most.

The capacity to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower.
My takeaway: How many of life’s greatest ambitions are set aside due to the avoidance of “tolerable levels of unpleasantness?” Chilling.

The future will never provide the reassurance you seek from it.
My takeaway: Stop trying to control what you can’t.

I’m looking forward to poking through a few more of Burkeman’s columns. Thanks again for the recommendation, Russell!

I’m a big fan of consistency. A few examples of previous posts on the subject can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

To be clear, I’m talking about consistency in one’s level of effort and application (e.g., exercising daily), not rigidity in one’s thinking (e.g., an unwillingness to change opinion).

The problem with consistency is it’s hard to measure in any short term time horizon. This is because meaningful progress is often non-linear, where change happens slowly over many years.

So when I see an example of remarkable consistency, and it’s summarised in a bite-sized format, I feel compelled to share it.

Simone Mulas is a hyper-realistic portrait artist, and the 1-minute video below shows how he improved from the age of 9 through to 31. The fruits of his years of painstaking practise are summarised so well and is so inspiring, I don’t need to add anything else. Enjoy!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Simone Mulas (@slim_draw)

If there’s an issue with the video embed for those who subscribe by email, you can find the video here.

I was recently recommended this fascinating paper which outlines how the practice of deliberately disagreeing with yourself can lead to better decisions.

Here are the core ideas behind the the study:

1. Making good decisions relies upon our ability to make sound estimates of unknown quantities
2. Typically, the aggregate estimates of a group outperform the estimate of an individual (e.g., diverse teams usually perform better than homogenous teams)
3. However, the same benefit can be seen when we aggregate multiple estimates from the same person
4. Here’s what the study recommends: “combine people’s first estimate with their second estimate made from the perspective of someone they often disagree with.”

So next time you’re making a decision, have a go at creating a second estimate from the perspective of someone you often disagree with. Then find the aggregate of those two estimates. It’ll likely outperform your first estimate. And for extra marks, sense check your aggregate estimate with others you trust.

Some of you will have already seen or read about DALL•E 2 in the past 24 hours, but I can’t resist sharing.

DALL•E 2 is an AI system from Open AI that creates realistic images and art from a text input. The model itself is trained against a vast database of text-image pairs.

Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, asked his Twitter followers to submit strings of text and he’d reply with the image generated by DALL•E. The results are nothing short of astounding.

In fact, the more words, the better!

I also found Sam’s reflections interesting to read.

He acknowledges the possibilities: this is perhaps the beginning of a new computer interface trend (i.e., you say something to a machine in natural language, and it does it).

He recognises the danger: the model is already powerful enough to imagine the downsides such as disinformation.

He also reminds us that AI predictions are so difficult to make: 10 years ago we believed AI would replace physical labour, cognitive labour, and only then tackle creative tasks. It seems now that the reverse could be true.

It’s tempting to start with an answer, an opinion, or a possible way forward.

But we risk speaking without the adequate level of context, information, or data.

It’s good to build a habit of leading with questions. Not just any questions though, but ones that get to the heart of the matter, the misalignment, or the motive.

Hold off on answering for a moment. Get curious. Ask better questions.

See what happens.