It’s okay to start with a bit of guess work on a blank piece of paper. Most new and hard things often don’t have a map to follow.
At some point the guess work needs to turn into an estimate, maybe a plan, or even a commitment. At some point, guess work no longer becomes an excuse.
This makes sense, because when people succeed, they never give call it guess work.
I was recently reminded that when we make a decision we’re simultaneously saying ‘yes’ to one thing, and ‘no’ to everything else.
If we keep this idea in mind when making decisions, all of a sudden the bar for what we spend our time and energy on goes up dramatically.
I had a wonderful time in Prague last weekend with Maru and my in-laws. It’s a city famous for its beauty, and it more than delivered. I loved walking its streets, seeing its historical sights, and visiting its cafes and restaurants.
My two top highlights were (1) a tour on the history of the Jewish Quarter and the Jewish people in Prague, and (2) learning about the life and work of author, Franz Kafka—I loved eating in Cafe Louvre and Cafe Savoy and imagining him talking philosophy, politics, and writing with his friends.
As I’ve written about recently, I’ve been taking photos on film. Here are a few of my favourites of the wonderful Prague.
If you’ve ever played video games, you’re probably used to seeing the message “Game Over”. You’ve tried to beat the level, or a boss, but you either aren’t powerful enough yet, or you’ve yet to nail the mechanics.
But Game Over doesn’t mean your game is actually over, it’s an invite to try again. You weren’t good enough this time, but the game expects you to improve, to overcome, to learn from your errors, and to eventually succeed.
Maybe Game Over isn’t just for video games.
We visited Winston Churchill’s home today, the beautiful Chartwell House and accompanying gardens.
Great care has been taken to leave the house unchanged since Churchill’s death, and the volunteers are eager to share their deep knowledge about the place.
One thing that stood out to me was Churchill loved painting. He picked it up at 40 years old, and painted over 500 canvases.
He once said, “If it weren’t for painting, I could not live; I could not bear the strain of things.”
It was amazing to see this side of the man, and how he leaned so fervently into this creative pursuit at an age when many wouldn’t consider trying.
“Pay in four installments over the next six weeks,” says a buy now, pay later advertisement on the tube.
At the bottom there is the small print: something something about “unregulated credit”.
Nevertheless, the consumer shrugs, buys, and borrows from their next paycheck.
I get frustrated with euphemisms like “unregulated credit”.
I wish the risks of these products were more clearly stated.
Such as, the Financial Conduct Authority does not keep tabs on this business, they’ll likely charge you higher interest rates, their terms may be vague and hard to understand, they may not adhere to responsible lending practises or have a complaints process, you may wind up in a debt trap, suffer anxiety from aggressive collection practises, and your credit score could suffer.
Maybe we’d think differently about buy now, pay later if the ads were a little more honest.
I’m a big fan of any work where someone takes something complicated and makes it simple to understand.
Maybe it’s because I know it’s hard, or because I know it’s valuable, or because I know a lot of care and craft is required to do it.
Whatever the reason, when I see it, I enjoy it. I sometimes deconstruct it. And I try to learn from it.
The US election is in a few days, and understanding the electoral college system isn’t straightforward. So I appreciated this BBC article which breaks down how the system works and what each candidate needs to do to win. If you’re interested in understand it better, it’s worth a read.
There’s clearly thought, care, and craft that’s gone into producing this article, and it’s worth sharing and recognising.
This ain’t a science, but I believe success is closely correlated with one’s ability to tolerate frustration.
Success often—but not always—comes after doing hard things. And hard things are often frustrating. So the more we’re able to tolerate frustration, the more hard things we can handle, the greater the probability of success.
Cherry picking happens when someone chooses and presents the data that best supports their argument.
For example, if someone points to discrete cold weather events as evidence against global warming, whilst ignoring the mountain of scientific evidence of long-term temperature changes, they’re cherry picking.
Cherry picking often isn’t deliberate or malicious either; it is easy to do because we all want to believe the story in our heads.
It takes discipline to (1) avoid cherry picking, and (2) be on the hunt for it when others share their analysis and recommendations.
Sometimes the data speaks, and sometimes it punches you in the face.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the Tesla Vehicle Safety Report.
In Q3 2024, cars running on Tesla’s Autopilot had one crash per 7 million miles travelled vs. the US average of one accident per 670,000 miles travelled. In the most literal sense, Tesla’s Autopilot is an order of magnitude safer than the average.
Looking at my own situation, I have a “normal” second-hand car. It’s ten years old and has no frills; no lane assist, no blindspot signals, and certainly no autopilot.
But given the lifetime risk of dying in an automobile accident is 1 in 93, the next time I buy a car I need to ask myself: what am I willing to pay to reduce my automobile mortality risk by an order of magnitude? Perhaps the Tesla will end up feeling cheap when compared to the peace of mind it provides.
Executive coach, Harvey Goldberg, said that what you tolerate becomes your culture. It becomes the baseline; the standard that everyone accepts.
The idea feels equally applicable from orchestras, to friend groups, to theatre troupes, to the office, and to families.
Someone’s high standards may seem frustrating, but when the situation is reframed around what they’re willing to tolerate or not, those high standards may seem a lot more reasonable.
The draft is the place to try new things, to explore, to make mistakes.
If everything is perfect in the draft, we’re being too conservative.
To get to the good ideas, we need to push through a lot of bad ones.
Poet Jack Grapes has a nice example of why it’s the mechanics that matter in any creative or sporting pursuit.
When he was a boy his father took him to the golf course. Whilst his father played a round, Grapes would have a coaching session. The coach didn’t let Grapes hit a single ball, all they worked on was how to swing a club. Grapes said that if the coach let him hit a ball from the beginning, he’d have worried more about where the ball was going rather than the swing. The ball would distract him from what mattered most.
Once Grapes got the mechanics down pat, it was time to hit a ball, and when he did there was no hook nor slice. Grapes’ shot was straight and true.
Learning the mechanics is an essential part of any discipline worth pursuing.
I’ve done a millennial-in-their-thirties thing and bought a film camera.
The truth is I got bored of the iPhone’s abundance.
Have you ever noticed how when you ask someone to take a photo of your group, say at a restaurant, they take at least 5-10 photos? Repeat this a few times and you can easily end up with close to a thousand photos whilst on a weekend trip. I rarely go back to these photos because there are too many of them.
A film camera forces you to be judicious, to be careful, to be thoughtful, to make decisions about what makes the cut before you take the shot.
There is romance in scarcity.
Phone snatching has become a real problem in London. Balaclava-clad thieves whip around on electric bikes, swipe phones from the hands of pedestrians, and escape at pace. Last year alone there were 11,800 offences accounting for 33% of robberies in the capital. There simply aren’t enough police officers to keep petty crime like this in check, which has led to its rapid growth.
Furthermore, there are stories of people having their bank accounts drained despite having Face identification and two-factor authentication enabled. If a thief has your pin and access to your email and SMS messages, they can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time.
I’m not a cynic, nor do I want to propagate fear around phone snatching, but I’m considering a tightening of my financial security measures. Specifically removing all financial apps from my primary phone that I take with me, and having a secondary phone that stays at home used only for banking services.
The secondary phone is a relatively cheap insurance policy in the event my primary phone is stolen, and it provides an extra layer of defensive friction against anyone trying to access accounts that they find via email.
Do you, or anyone you know, do this? Or do you have a more secure method that you follow?