Dan Cullum

Against all odds.

Contrary to all expectations.

Without a care for “that’s not how we do things around here.”

We find a glimmer of hope.

I’ve recently been using Metacritic to discover and listen to new music.

Metacritic does one thing really well: they aggregate the reviews from all the biggest publications, and calculate a “Metascore” for movies, albums, video games, and TV.

They also have a sound way of removing bias from their scoring. The Metascore is a weighted average that 1) takes all available reviews and converts them to a 100-point scale, and 2) weights each review based on a quality score assigned to each reviewing publication.

For example, a reputable publication like the New York Times would have a higher weighting than a small, city-focused newspaper. They also take into account if the publication has a positivity bias and typically gives good reviews.

I’ve found their All-time Album list to be a fascinating listen.

Perhaps the thing that stands out most is how uncomfortable some of the music makes me feel.

It’s not pleasure listening. There are many songs and albums that don’t follow a traditional Western-pop diet of 4-chords and a slightly-seasoned bridge.

There are piercing sounds, jarring rhythms, and unresolved melodies.

But all the while, it’s clear the artist has something important to say.

It’s music that makes me think, “How did they achieve that sound?” “What did that lyric mean?” “Why did they write this?”

Metacritic is high signal. It’s a great tool to explore new worlds sound, films, and ideas. Have fun out there!

The best way to complain is to make things.

There is never a shortage of complaints, or complainers.

But the world could certainly use a few more builders.

I was never good at skateboarding, and that’s partly because I never learnt the lesson of the Halfpipe.

Funnily enough, this lesson extends well outside of skating.

There comes a time in a budding skateboarder’s life when their friends tell them it’s time to try “dropping in” to a halfpipe—which is when you jump on your skateboard at the top a ramp (pictured below) and roll down into the halfpipe.

Without fail, everyone falls over the first time.

Why?

Our instincts are honed and practised over many years so that when we’re falling forward we automatically want to lean backwards. So when dropping in on a halfpipe, we’re fighting years of practised instinct. The only way to stay on your board is by leaning forward into the drop.

The biggest challenge is not dropping in itself, but overcoming the fear that comes with the first fall, and getting back to up to fight your instincts on the second, third, fourth, and fifth try.

These instincts are also there when we’re sharing art, public speaking, playing music, writing publicly, or starting a business.

Any time we bring something new into the world, our instincts tell us to hide. This can turn into months and years of believing we’re not ready.

But just like dropping in to a halfpipe, our first try is almost always a write-off. What matters is overcoming our instincts and trying again.

I’ve taken the lockdown and social distancing rules seriously. So I’ve mostly stayed within 2 kilometres of our flat for the last couple months.

However, this weekend was this first time since early March that I ventured outside our London borough. I went up to the famous Hampstead Heath with a few colleagues to kick around a football.

It felt like a classic British “almost summer” day. The sun was out and small groups filled the rolling hills, but the wind still whipped a chilly breeze.

I found a moment to lay in the grass and take a long look up at the sky. It helped me feel a little less isolated, a little more connected, and a little more normal.

I’ve been playing in a weekly Trivia League with some friends since lockdown started.

There’s 8-10 of us, and we each take turns being Quiz Master.

Today was my turn, and I thought I’d share my quiz in case you’d like to have a go at answering the questions, use it with your family and friends, or modify it for your own purposes.

How does it work?

1. We use Jeopardy Labs, but structure our questions in the traditional trivia Question —> Answer format, rather than Jeopardy’s Answer —> Question format.
2. There are five categories of questions, and five levels of question difficulty—100 points for the easiest questions, going up to 500 points for the most difficult ones.
3. For incorrect answers, we play -50 points for 100 and 200 point questions, and -100 points for the rest.
4. We all jump on VC, the Quiz Master shares their screen, and when a question is shown, teams send a “!” in the VC’s chat functionality to simulate a buzzer, so we can determine which team gets to answer first.

Have fun out there, and let me know how you get on with the questions!

Today marks 10 years since Maru and I met.

In the decade we’ve spent together, I can’t recall a single boring conversation.

That small fact has me looking forward to—and hoping for—many more decades to come.

Perhaps best-friendship is just that: a relentless and ever-enjoyable stream of conversation and laughter.

Kevin Kelly said in a recently blog post, “Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.”

I love this.

Of course, the value of enthusiasm can’t be quantified, but I love how Kelly uses the 25 IQ points as a way of saying, “A bit of enthusiasm can take you a long way!”

And I’m sure you’ve felt it before. You walk into a room or meeting and there is someone across the table with a genuine and heartfelt enthusiasm for the work they do. It’s inspiring.

Here’s to more enthusiasm!

I came across a great line recently:

“Brevity shows you’re a bad ass.”

Short sentences will do.

Simple words are better.

And there is magic to be found in the re-write of a first draft.

I’m one of those people who sets 8-10 alarms on my phone to make sure I get up on time each morning.

Once I’m up, instead of turning off the alarms one-by-one, I ask Siri to turn them all off in one go.

It won’t come as a surprise to you that I usually say, “Hey Siri, turn off all alarms.”

And the response I received for a long time was, “Okay, disabling all alarms.”

However, at some point in the last year, I noticed Siri’s language become a little more human.

It suddenly became, “Okay, turning off all alarms.”

“Disabling all alarms,” always made me feel like I was talking to a computer, so when it changed to something more natural, it was noticeable.

This “sounding more human” phenomenon doesn’t just apply to computers and artificial intelligence, though.

It’s much nicer talking to people without the crutches of jargon, formality, and stuffiness.

Interacting with humans, in human language, is always feels better.

I’m not a huge football fan, but the German Football League—Bundesliga—returned over the weekend and it sparked an interesting reflection.

Most major football leagues around the world require the players’ names to be at the top of their jerseys so that fans can easily see which player has the ball.

However, the Bundesliga doesn’t have this rule. This has led to 13 of the 18 teams putting the team name at the top of the jersey, and the name of the player below the number.

The logic is straightforward: the team comes before the player, and the team will endure, while players will move on.

It’s a small change, but I bet it has an outsized impact on the attitude of those teams.

Pre-lockdown, I’d go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I’d only do resistance training—either weightlifting or bodyweight exercises.

Despite loving Christopher McDougall’s book, Born to Run, I’ve never liked running. Cardio feels like voluntary pain to me.

So in a time when gyms are closed, and park runs are the most common form of exercise, what is a non-runner to do?

If I’m being honest, I’ve even found it hard to block out half an hour each day for bodyweight exercises at home.

So, being wary of my own psyche, about 6 weeks ago I set up a game for myself that I try and beat every day.

I broke a stick of dried pasta into 10 pieces, each piece representing what I’m calling a ‘micro-set’: A) 10 pull ups, and B) 10 push ups.

The pieces begin their day in the darker container, and when I complete a micro-set, a single piece of dried pasta is moved over to the lighter container.

Each time I walk past my dining room table, it’s a visual reminder of how many micro-sets I’ve done, and how many I’ve got left.

By the end of the day, I aim to have moved all the dried pasta to the lighter container; thus having successfully defeated the Darth Vader and the dark side…

What I find interesting about this method is I wouldn’t be able to do 70-100 pulls up in a typical 30-minute exercise session, but I can achieve it when they’re spread out over the course of a day.

And although it isn’t my normal routine, my hope is that these micro-sets add up over time.

This certainly isn’t the most effective or efficient form of exercising, but it’s working for me, for now, and I’m okay with that.

What are you doing to exercise or stay active during the lockdown?

I’d especially love to hear if you’re doing something slightly weird to help motivate yourself! The games we play to inspire action are fascinating!

With big-chain supermarket supply chains struggling, I’ve looked to smaller subscription services for my weekly groceries.

I’ve been getting an Oddbox delivery for a month now, and I love it.

Each Monday morning, I get a box of fruit and vegetables delivered—enough to last me the week.

But the best part is all the produce falls into one of 4 categories. Each category represents a reason for the produce being discarded by the grower:

• Surplus (we have too much of it)
• Size (it’s too small, or too large)
• Colour (it looks “unnatural” or not what people expect)
• Shape (“this isn’t how a banana is supposed to look”)

Perhaps the thing I like the most about Oddbox is it’s a business model where their success is almost 1:1 correlated with a good outcome for the world.

As their business grows, agricultural waste decreases.

If I ever start a company one day, it’s a goal of mine to structure my business around this type of model.

Amazon is well known for its idiosyncrasies.

And how employees are expected to communicate at the company is one of its most widely talked about idiosyncrasies.

For example, at Amazon, there are no slides or powerpoint presentations, all documents are written in prose. Jeff Bezos believes this forces a clarity of thinking that can be masked if one uses bullet points in slides.

A friend recently shared with me an interesting LinkedIn post titled, ‘Write like an Amazonian’.

What I love about this post is that it crystallises many of the lessons generous bosses have tried to teach me over the years.

It’s not easy to follow these rules, but if you do, your communication in the workplace will be better understood, and better received.

Here are my favourites from ‘Writing like an Amazonian’:

1. Use fewer than 30 words per sentence
2. Replace adjectives with data (e.g., “Sales increased significantly,” becomes “Sales increased by 30%”)
3. Does your writing pass the “so what” test? At the end of your document, has the reader learnt anything that will help them make a better decision?
4. Use subject-verb-object sentences with “doers” and “action”
5. Avoid clutter words and phrases (e.g., “due to the fact that,” becomes “Because”)
6. Avoid jargon and acronyms as much as possible. They exclude newcomers and non-experts
7. Remove weak words like: would, might, should, significantly, and arguably

H/T Dan for sharing the post with me.

As the UK slowly begins to lift its lockdown restrictions, one of the parts I’ve found most enjoyable is meeting friends in the park for (slightly distanced) walks.

It’s the laughter about nothing in particular, grass underneath my toes, and familiar voices (in real life!), that make these simple moments special.

Even the tickle from my hay fever is welcomed.

And when you’re grateful for hay fever, you know something is different.

I’m still unpacking what this means.