Dan Cullum

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.

An former colleague once asked me this question: if you had two identically qualified candidates for a job, how would you determine which one to hire?

They weren’t seeking advice from me, though, they were teaching me about the Communication Superpower Hiring Rule.

When I said I didn’t know, they replied, “Give them a writing task on a complicated topic, and whoever articulates their thoughts in the clearest and simplest way should get the job.”

This rule is simple, but profound.

Its obvious benefit is it helps you hire people who are good communicators—both written and oral.

However, there are other benefits, too!

You can’t write or communicate clearly without first thinking clearly. Someone who can write well, is also likely to think well. And I think we’d all like to hire people who think clearly! (As a personal aside here, this is one of the reasons why I write this blog! I often find my thinking to be muddled, so committing to writing on a daily basis is my way of practising better communication every day).

Finally, writing scales well. A well crafted email is easily understood by all team members. On the other hand, a poorly written one will cause every team member to pause, stop, question, and ask for clarification. Multiply that over tens, hundreds, or thousands of employees, and that’s a lot of wasted time and energy.

Whether hiring is a part of your job, or not, this is an interesting rule to carry with you.

Rohan inspired me to start this blog, and he just hit a big milestone: 12 years of daily blogging.

That’s 4,380 consecutive days of careful thinking, writing, and publishing. His quiet and consistent dedication to publishing every day has enriched my life, and I’m grateful for that.

This milestone reminds me of an article I read recently called, ‘Be So Prolific They Can’t Ignore You’. The purpose of the article is to encourage readers to turn up, produce, and publish. To do it regularly. And to make it a habit.

After 12 years of daily blogging, it’s safe to say that Rohan is truly prolific. I hope he continues for another 12, and for many more!

Congrats, Rohan!

A number of you replied to my recent post, ‘Not a prescription, just a reminder’, sharing your lockdown stories.

I’ve been reflection on a few things from this experience.

Firstly, I’m grateful for your trust. It goes without saying that these replies will always be private, but I also think that’s why I got to hear rich tales of both the joys and challenges of this period.

Secondly, vulnerability begets vulnerability. I’m always nervous before publishing a vulnerable post, but those posts are the ones where people reply saying, “I get it! That’s me, too!”

Don’t worry, I’m not going to over-pivot to these kinds of posts, but I’ve found it reassuring to see that there are shared patterns of feelings and emotions among many of us at this weird time. It makes our socially-distanced world feel a little smaller, closer, and human.

Here’s a question I’ve been pondering: how much of success is attributable to a willingness to sit patiently with the challenge longer than others?

Patience and persistence don’t make up for a lack of talent, but they certainly have a non-trivial role to play in success.

There’s an inverse relationship between scale and connection.

You can have 10,000 friends, but you can’t have a meaningful relationship with more than 150 of them.

This is an idea I’ve thought about often since starting this blog.

If I had 10,000 readers, I’d have some semblance of “scale”, but I also wouldn’t be able to reply—at least thoughtfully—to every email I receive from readers.

“You reply to every email?” I hear someone thinking.

Yeah, I do.

And precisely because it doesn’t scale, and that it doesn’t make sense within any “grow your brand” mental model, is perhaps what makes it special; it’s perhaps what makes the connections real.

My reader count is private, and like many things that are unseen from the public eye, they serve as intrinsic motivators, rather than extrinsic medallions of success.

It’s an honour to hear from you, learn from you, and to have the privilege of sharing a few thoughts and words everyday.

Earlier today, I had my headphones on and was typing away when I heard, “Dan!”

I peered out my third-floor flat’s window to see a cheery-faced couple down below. Some close friends of Maru and I had popped by to say a distanced “Hello!” while on their walk for the day.

I instantly had a flashback to when I was a kid. After Saturday sport and a hearty lunch, I’d usually hear a knock at the front door, and it’d be a collection of the neighbourhood kids asking me to come out and play.

The unannounced knock, the expectation that I’d be free, and the warm fuzzies from simply being asked to join, all make for a rich collection of emotions and memories.

When things were “normal”, we didn’t get this kind of serendipitous visit here in London. The commute was too far to risk travelling only to find your friend wasn’t home. And dinners or hang outs were usually organised weeks in advance.

But when there is little to do—or little time allowed outside—like this lockdown has afforded us, it’s heart-warming to see these moments of connection and serendipity creeping back into our days.

I’ve been a Queen fan since I was 14, and guitarist, Brian May, has been a fount of generosity during this global lockdown.

He’s been releasing “micro-concerts” on his YouTube channel and encourages people at home to play along with him and re-upload them online for others to enjoy.

One of my favourite Queen songs is ‘Hammer to Fall’, and when I saw Brian had posted the guitar parts, I was easily persuaded to join in and create my own cover.

I found another musician on YouTube called Chris Allan who allowed me to use his drum track, I added the bass and the vocals last weekend, and here it is.

For the past 2 months, I haven’t really struggled with Working From Home. I don’t miss my commute, and I rarely struggle to focus.

However, I found the beginning of this week difficult.

I was sleeping poorly. I was feeling lethargic. I felt unstructured. I felt off.

My natural tendency is to break everything down and figure out what’s going wrong. And perhaps my biggest win this week was choosing to not do that.

Instead, I sat on my couch, paused for a minute, and told myself, “Whatever you’re feeling right now is okay. You don’t need to have it all together.”

There is a certain power and liberation that comes with admitting that, and admitting it publicly, too.

With most of us still in lockdown, I’m sure some of you will have had these days, too. The above isn’t a prescription (I wouldn’t do that to you!), but rather a small reminder that if you’re not feeling 100%, you’re not alone.

Adam Grant shares a concept in his excellent book, Give and Take, called the five-minute favour.

He learnt it from Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Adam Rifkin.

The idea is that if someone asks you for a favour that will take you less than 5 minutes to complete—even if you’ve just met that person for the first time—you should do it.

Five minutes isn’t a huge investment, but it could change another person’s life.

A introduction could help someone make a career change. A piece of advice could help someone successfully pivot their business. Or you could just make someone’s day by doing something small and helpful for them.

The five-minute favour is an interesting concept that’s worth experimenting with.

At the beginning of 2019, my team at Bulb had a daunting challenge ahead. We were new to each other, new to the subject matter, and we faced tight timelines.

It was easy to feel stressed and overwhelmed.

I remember finding solace in Anne Lamott’s 4 sentence short story.

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'”

I find it amazing that Anne is able to say more about grit, patience, and perseverance in 4 sentences than a mountain of self-help books.

This story resonated throughout 2019, and it still reminds me on a regular basis to approach every challenge and task day-by-day and step-by-step.

I hope it helps and inspires you, too.

On the musical scale, there are singular notes that have two names.

For example, A# and Bb are the same note, we just call them differently depending upon where we’re coming from—we go from A to A# when moving up the scale, and from B to Bb when moving down the scale.

Although I’m not a fan of categorising everyone as introverts or extroverts—as I think we’re all a bit of both depending on the day, time, or situation—this idea did get me thinking about how we all have different energy levels.

On any given day, that meeting or social gathering that may require “high energy” from me, may only need “low energy” from you.

This has been a helpful reminder for me, particularly at this time when the majority of my interaction with the outside world is over video conference.