Dan Cullum

I once got pulled over by the police for riding my bike without a helmet. I was thirteen and was spooked by the burly man in uniform.

He asked me why I was riding without a helmet. I had no good answer. He warned me that if he caught me again, he’d give me a fine for $50—which felt like a fortune to me at the time!

From then on, I’ve always worn a helmet.

That’s why it strikes me when I see a huge percentage of Londoners cycling around without helmets. The risk/reward trade-off makes no sense in my mind.

When Maru and I are making decisions, we often find ourselves saying, “Why risk a lot to gain a little?”

There are tonnes of examples of this, but helmet habits are a good example!

Following on from yesterday’s post about uptime—and the more general theme of consistency, which I harp on about all the time—today’s post is about being ready for moments of peak stress.

After absolutely loving my first time at the Silverstone Formula 1 Grand Prix this year, I wanted to buy tickets for next year’s race.

Tickets came on sale last week, but their ticketing website had the resiliency of an inflatable dinghy in the face of a hurricane.

It was decimated.

I spent 6 hours “in the queue” and still didn’t get through to the ticketing website. They also chose this year to introduce “dynamic pricing” to cater for increased demand, meaning by the time I got through to the front of the queue, the prices were almost 30% higher than the original price.

The experience left such a sour taste in my mouth—not to mention the huge hole it would’ve left in my pocket—that I abandoned my cart.

The experience was no longer worth the money.

Silverstone prepare all year for the success of one event. It makes me wonder what’s the point when in the moment of peak stress you let thousands of people down?

Their error shows the value is doing the complete opposite.

My website was down yesterday.

It wouldn’t load.

I couldn’t post.

I jumped on Twitter to find that Bluehost—my web hosting provider—was down.

I calmly went to bed.

I knew Bluehost would sort it.

When you’re one of the best, your customers don’t fret at your first mistake in 3 years.

It’s an important reminder that the moments of peak stress are the ones that stick with our customers most, and that a lot of good work can be undone in an instant.

You can usually find me carrying round a backpack. I don’t like clutter in my pockets.

In addition to the usual suspects—phone, wallet, a book, and keys—I take some extra face masks, in-case-I-need-it medicine, and a pair of sunglasses.

However, over time a few other things end up making their way into my pack: a padlock for the gym lockers, an old copy of The Economist, or a folded sweater hidden at the bottom. I often forget to take these items out.

Eventually I realise I’ve been carrying around dead weight. Taking out those items makes my pack lighter, and makes any subsequent journey a little bit easier.

The backpack is easy to clean out, and the dead weight is noticed quite quickly.

Our minds, habits, and projects, on the other hand, those require a different kind of attention, thought, and care. The dead weight can mount quickly when the additions are imperceptible.

Whenever I buy avocados from the supermarket, Maru stops me from throwing out the pits.

She’s mastered making them sprout, and has populated our flat with avocado plants.

She attempts to germinate about 5-8 at a time, and often can be found giving them away to friends.

She has also started picking up decanters from antique shops to house the pits and their roots whilst the stem and leaves grow.

It’s a proper thing now.

If you want to give it a go, or know someone who would, the avocado vase is a great addition to your mantle piece or a nice gift!

Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia in 1973 and has since grown it into a $3 billion brand.

Earlier this week, he announced, along with his wife and two adult children, the donation of Patagonia to a charitable trust. Any future profits not used to run the business will be dedicated to fighting climate change.

Their website now states: “Earth is now our only shareholder.”

What makes Chouinard’s decision stand out is he’s donating the company. Which is meaningfully different from an individual, like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, donating their personal wealth.

I don’t anticipate this kind of thing happening often, because it requires a phenomenal, privately-held business with a great brand, margins, and shareholder agreement (i.e., 100% ownership) to make such a decision.

Nonetheless, it’s an inspiring move, and one that I’m sure will spur others to take action in their own way.

The moment a new process, system, software, or a plan is put in place, entropy sets in.

Without constant care, things descend into chaos.

But “everything is always broken,” is a liberating realisation.

The joy is in the work of making things better, of “unbreaking” things, of keeping the train on the rails.

I went karting for a team event today. We went to the newly opened Capital Karts here in London.

I was particularly surprised at the location of the circuit: Canary Wharf — London’s financial district. They’re far closer to central London than almost all other karting options. This made it a no brainer for us to choose them because it was easy for many folks in my team to get to and from the event.

I also anticipate they were able to get real estate in such a prominent area because they’ve set up their circuit four stories underground in a repurposed car park. They’ve done great work turning the space into a circuit, and we had a lot of fun slipping and sliding around in their electric karts.

They’re a great example of 1) the importance of choosing a great location, and 2) being creative with space constraints.

Both my personal and work laptops were getting full of cruft. There were apps, processes, installers, and files clogging the system and slowing my machine down.

I put off reimaging both laptops—fearful of the time and hassle, as well as the risk of losing important files.

When I finally got round to doing it, I realised the process is far easier than I anticipated.

Firstly, all my files are now in the cloud. I didn’t have to back up a single thing.

Secondly, Apple makes it really easy to erase all content and reinstall the operating system. The whole process takes about 15 minutes.

I worked with slow and laggy laptops for a long time. Little did I know a quick and painless reimage was all it took to return my machines to fighting fit.

It’s worth understanding if the cure is a lot less painful that you believe it will be.

The UK has been overwhelmed with the sad news of the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

I’ve held back from posting because most of what can, or could, be said has already been covered in newspapers, magazines, and TV shows.

However, I came across one of her quotes that resonated with me, and I felt sharing it was a natural way for me to pay my respects.

“Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.”

The Queen’s role was laced in pomp, ceremony, and duty. Despite this, she implored others to not take things, or themselves, too seriously. I enjoyed seeing this advice in action. For example, her 2012 entrance to the Olympic Games with James Bond, or when she appeared on camera earlier this year with Paddington Bear—hiding a sandwich in her handbag prior to her Jubilee celebrations. In this quote she also acknowledges how easy it is to be wrong, and encourages and attitude of humility and curiosity rather than a know-it-all arrogance.

Here’s to you, Your Majesty! Thank you for a life well lived!

I met up for dinner with my good friend Lucy this past weekend. We were celebrating the completion of her first triathlon.

Lucy was running me through her training plan, and curiously quoted all her distances in miles.

I quizzed her as to why she was using imperial measurements. For context, we’re both Kiwis, so we’re used to the metric system.

She said, “It’s purely psychological. I can run farther when I think about the training being in miles. And when I eventually convert miles to kilometres, I end up completing a significant distance.”

I liked this approach. Sometimes the size of the challenge doesn’t change, but it’s the way we frame it that makes all the difference.

Clarity of thought is often correlated with the amount of time spent alone.

We can work through a tonne of mess with some patience and a pen.

When working on tough problems, its easy for people in a team to have a different understanding of the issues, options, and trade-offs.

Allow no confusion.

Don’t accept it.

Banish it.

When you feel like you don’t get it, or see that someone else in the team is struggling to understand, keep asking questions and being curious until everyone in the room understands.

Too many mistakes are made due to people assuming everyone else knows what is going on.

As our products, services, projects, and companies grow, we assume the people currently working on them are the right ones for the job.

This makes sense, right? They’ve been there from the start. They have the right experience. They’re subject matter experts. They know how to grease the wheels. They have strong conviction for what the future should look like.

Now, I want you to imagine your friend group when you were 7 years old. How many are still close friends today? What about friends from when you were 12? Or 18? Or 25? Or 37?

As we grow and change, so do most of the people who influence, inspire, and motivate us. Sure, there are a select few—best friends, family members, spouses—that remain constant, but the majority end up changing. And that’s a good thing.

This helps give me perspective anytime people move in and out of the orbit of the projects I’m working on. Those moments provide opportunities to reinvent, and to learn.

Apple’s iPhones in recent years have had a notch. It’a the small black cut out at the top of the phone to house the Face ID camera and the speaker for voice calls.

I found the notch weird to begin, but I got used to “not seeing it” after a while.

Apple is set to shake up their design for the iPhone 14. The black notch will now sit within the screen, and it’ll morph into different notifications or widgets. A short GIF of what this will look like can be found here.

It’s a great example of taking a constraint—such as the need to have the Face ID camera and voice call speaker—and building it into the design of the phone so it feels natural. Or even better, so it doesn’t feel like it’s there.

Carte Blanche problems are hard. Constraints can be superpowers if we embrace them.