Dan Cullum

I was in the market for a tradesperson a couple months ago to fix a piece of in-built furniture. I went to Checkatrade and requested a quote.

Within an hour I had received multiple phone calls and messages. I could quickly compare, negotiate and price, and book a date for the job.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, I was just happy to get my problem sorted quickly. But now I realise that their communication speed and willingness to accommodate my schedule revealed a lot about the competitive nature of their market.

People don’t need to take care of the customer as much in markets with few competitors. They’ll win the business anyway. But in competitive markets, the small details make the difference.

There’s no shortage of people willing to give an opinion. They’ll pull out a metaphorical playbook and share what worked for them. They’ll assume that because they found success with one approach, that you’re likely to find the same.

These people are undoubtedly well meaning, and sometimes their advice will be worth its weight in gold, but for many of life’s challenges, there is no perfect playbook.

Your career, hobbies, friendships, and families are a unique blend circumstances, emotions, complexities, and challenges that have never existed in that combination before. That’s special, but also difficult. You’re navigating it for the first time ever.

Sure, we can learn from others, try out their plays, and incorporate the ones that work into ours, but it’s liberating to know there is no perfect playbook. We’re all making it up as we go along.

I love my Garmin. Without pressing a button, it shows me the time, battery, heart rate, temperature, daily steps, and calories burned.

But for proper exercise measurement, in particular heart rate, I ignore my Garmin completely. The optical heart rate sensor reliably outputs garbage data. On an easy run, where I know I’m around 125 beats per minute, my Garmin can display anything from 100-180 beats per minute. It’s categorically useless for any meaningful measurement.

So for cardio I ignore the wrist watch and rely solely on my chest strap heart rate monitor. It’s immensely accurate and adjusts within a second based on changes in intensity.

It baffles me how a device can function so well for some things, but so poorly at others. Because I understand the limitations of the device, I can work around them by using other technology to get the data I need. But I’m sure there are many users out there who believe the garbage data is true, and that really annoys me.

When you open a new board game, nothing makes sense because everything is new. The cards, the terms, the mechanics, and the characters.

You sit with the rule book for a while. You digest. You start piecing together what goes where, and who plays what, and how things work.

Eventually, things click. You get into a groove, you enjoy the game, and you start being competitive. You realise that the confusion and complexity at the beginning was necessary to grasp the depth and richness of the game.

True for board games, and for almost any other worthy pursuit.

Everything new happens at the edges.

It’s technological breakthroughs, new types of art and genres of music, and every feat of strength, will, and mind.

Although the core is safe, known, and predictable, nothing new comes from there.

Life at the edges can be tough though. It’s a risk. Things will go wrong.

That’s why it’s important to play at the edges. When we play, the pressure is off. We allow the weird sound to become a song, the crazy idea to become an app, and the odd anecdote to become a novel.

As we grow up we forget how to play. Perhaps it’s worth adding some play back into our daily lives.

The metrics that are hardest to move are often the ones that matter the most.

Whether it’s revenue, retention, VO2 max, or increasing our max lift in the gym, none of these can be faked.

The way to get the right results is to do the right work consistently over a long period of time.

That’s it.

When a metric is hard to move, it’s more likely to be a reliable signal of the health of the system in question.

We want to avoid junk miles.

That’s when our wheels are spinning, but we’re going nowhere.

Examples are the pointless meeting or admin on a project, the gym session where we’re lifting halfheartedly, or the music practice where we’re only playing the easy songs that we already know.

Our time is valuable, but it’s easy to trick ourselves into thinking that we’re being productive. The danger is that we’re just racking up junk miles without even knowing it.

The Euros have started and I’ve had the evening game on the background.

It’s made me think about how there really is something about the underdog that captures our attention.

Last night, Slovakia stunned Belgium in a dramatic 1-0 win, with two goals disallowed for the Belgian side.

And this evening, the Czech Republic put one goal on Portugal before the Ronaldo-led squad scored two goals late in the game to clinch the win. But for a moment there, a historic win was on the cards.

The crowds, the commentators, the press, and us fans—we all love to see a weaker team win. And sport is a realm where these kinds of upsets happen on a semi-regular basis. It’s one of the things that has us coming back for more year after year.

Say it to the wrong person, and nothing happens.

Say the wrong message, and nothing happens.

Say it at the wrong time, and nothing happens.

There’s an art to finding the right person, and sharing the right message at a time they’re able to process it.

That’s when things happen.

Carefully watch the post-competition interviews of winning athletes, they almost always “complain” about what went wrong, what they could’ve done better, what they missed, and what they’ll aim to fix next time.

They’re never content, even at the top.

This “complaining” is a tactic to avoid becoming complacent; they know that they moment they stop caring or trying, there is a competitor waiting to take their place.

Winner complain. And it’s a good kind of complaining.

I recently I wrote about a few spelling and grammatical mistakes that creeped into some of my posts.

My subtle frustration evident because they were easy mistakes to catch if I had been proofreading aloud.

A kind reader, Emilia, sent me a frank email that said, “I think you should give yourself a break given you write a blog post everyday.” She went on to say that readers likely discern and understand the small mistakes.

I appreciated her perspective. At the end of the day, I’m here for fun, to learn, and to share. I have to trust that’s why others are here too; not for the perfect grammar.

A colleague comes into work once a week with a large tennis bag. He’s clearly just come from the court.

I usually ask, “Did you win?”

However, the other day I paused and thought: why do I ask this question? Is it habit? Conditioning? My competitive nature?

Why don’t I ask: Did you enjoy it? Did you learn something? Where is your game improving?

It’s not about my colleague and tennis, it’s about a general attitude towards work and hobbies. Of course winning matters, but there are often more useful questions to ask.

I had LASIK eye surgery a little over two years ago, and it is pound-for-pound one of the best investments I’ve ever made.

I wore glasses for almost twenty years, and now every day I wake up with excellent vision and have no need for glasses.

I still find myself marvelling at the surgery and how much better it’s made my life. I’m certainly grateful for this one-off investment and its daily dividend.

Okay, so today Google saved me a tonne of time.

I picked up the phone to call a customer service line.

Dread, because I’m expecting to wait.

Sure enough, I was put on hold.

And then I saw a button on my phone’s screen that said ‘Hold for Me’.

When I pressed it, the elevator music stopped, but I could see the call was still connected. There was also a message saying the Google assistant was on hold for me.

After about ten minutes, my phone alerted me that there was someone on the line. I picked up my phone, pressed a button to resume the call, and in seconds I was speaking with a customer service agent.

During the call, the agent needed to put me on hold for a few minutes, and the assistant worked perfectly in a mid-call scenario too.

Today’s experience was a game changer. I’ve lost many hours to companies with poor customer service availability, and this was a huge step towards eliminating that pain.

Google, you crushed it.

I try and avoid last minute trips. Not because I don’t enjoy them; I still do.

But rather when I book trips in advance, the anticipation is part of the fun.

It’s the looking forward to seeing family, trying new foods, and seeing new places. I’m also find that it makes me more grateful for these experiences.