Dan Cullum

I really liked Seth’s post from today.

Here’s a short excerpt: “We were wrong.” Groups rarely say this. They often (and loudly) state “we are right,” but when the future arrives, and it always does, it’s not surprising that it turns out that many projections and predictions turned out to be wrong.

How much better could our work, relationships, friendships, and projects be if we created a safe space to say, “We were wrong”?

And what if we welcomed it? Celebrated it? Normalised it?

Safe spaces may see more mistakes, but they also see more magic.

I saw a quote on Twitter, I believe incorrectly attributed to Steve Jobs, but it did get me thinking—and that’s the important thing.

“The only button a microwave needs is “+30” seconds.”

Most microwaves are unnecessarily complicated. There are too many buttons, too many options, and my bet is 95% of the functionality is rarely used.

Microwaves aren’t important. But our ideas, projects, products, services, and experiences are.

Why add all the noise when one button does the trick?

I’m about 3 weeks into my half marathon training, and I thought I’d share my programme with you.

I’ve had it vetted by a few trusted friends—all of whom are much more experienced runners than I am.

The plan is deliberately conservative.

My goal is to complete the training programme, and the race, with zero injuries. I’m not concerned with my pace or time.

All my training runs are low intensity, targeting 60% of my max heart rate: which is around 120bpm. I use a Polar H10 synced to my watch to keep track of this during my runs.

I do a short, medium, and a long run each week. And I’m also targeting a 10% increase in distance each week. Being disciplined with small, incremental mileage increases mean that I haven’t yet had a day where I’ve woken up feeling sore.

A half marathon is 21kms, so my goal is to get to the point where I can run 17kms for my long run, and then I’ll be ready to tackle the event.

I’m also trying to get to the end of every run with some gas left in the tank: meaning I could comfortably run another 1-2kms. This rule has helped immensely with recovery and fatigue.

Regarding diet and nutrition, I’ve been low carb for a number of years now, but I’ve now added carbs into my diet; mainly oats and wholegrain rice and bread. I’m keeping protein intake high as I’m still continuing with strength training 3-4 times per week.

Here is a link to my training plan. All numbers are in kilometres.

I really liked this thought from Dee Hock, the founder and former CEO of Visa.

Before we speak or write we should have five things in mind:

1. Ignorance is arrogant, wisdom is humble.
2. Ignorance asserts, wisdom considers.
3. Ignorance demands, wisdom suggests.
4. Ignorance is verbose, wisdom is reticent.
5. Ignorance is pervasive, wisdom is scarce.

It’s a great sense check we can use in our daily conversations, and for when we put pen to paper.

You can start a sentence with ‘and’.

And whoever told you that you can’t, is wrong.

Writing is about what sounds and feels right.

The rules are a helpful guide, but don’t let them suck the soul out of what you have to say.

Since travel opened up last July, I’ve noticed an odd thing in a few of the smaller, tourist towns I’ve passed through.

Some products are sold very close to, or even past, their best before date.

I noticed it with sunscreen in Spain, and a health foods and supplements store in New Zealand.

It makes sense. Many stores in these places missed their usual flow of travellers for almost 18 months. Products bought, and expected to be sold, weren’t. So they sit on shelves until they do.

At the beginning, I complained about the “expired” sunscreen. But as time has passed, I’ve developed a bit of Best Before Leniency.

Everyone has had a tough couple years, especially hospitality and tourism. And given the best before date is only a guide, there’s no need to waste.

This is a small and trivial example, but it did get me thinking more about leniency as a concept. We can choose to be more lenient if we want to, and we can choose to put fewer things into black and white categories. And I wonder if that’d make a difference, for us and for others.

Genuine question: what is the best way to learn how to relax when under pressure to ultimately make better decisions?

There is a lot of theory on decision making, but much less on making good decisions when under pressure. And learning via personal experience (often through mistakes) seems like an inefficient and costly way to learn.

I’d be keen to hear your thoughts!

Since I moved to the UK, a lot of people here have asked me, “How do you find the weather?”

Given talking about the weather is a famous British pastime, I see most of them get excited, expecting me to say something like, “Ooo it’s dreadfully cold and grey, isn’t it?”

But, to their surprise, I usually respond with, “I actually quite like it!”

Yes, it’s cold, and damp, and grey, but at least it’s relatively predictable. And I emphasise “relatively” because I think weather here is more predictable than New Zealand—which is my baseline.

In New Zealand, you can pull your blinds in the morning, the sky will be clear blue, and then 30 minutes later when you arrive at work it can be bucketing down.

Much of life is relative. And if that’s true, then much of life is about understanding our own baselines, and being empathetic to the baselines and relative experiences of others.

I watched Spider-man: No Way Home for the second time last night. I won’t share any spoilers, because it really is a doozy, but I wanted to share a podcast I listened to earlier this week that really put the Spider-man and Marvel Cinematic Universe into perspective: The Spider-man Problem by Planet Money.

Getting Spider-man onto the big screen is really hard. There are competing companies, contracts, and characters that make for one hell of a story.

For example, did you know that Marvel actually sold the exclusive film rights for Spider-man to Sony more than 20 years ago, and Sony have to produce a Spider-man film at least once every 5.75 years or else they lose the rights?

At the core of the story though is a company, Marvel Studios, who are so exceptional at what they do, they’re dragging everyone who works with them to unparalleled heights of success. And the behind the scenes are almost as fascinating—but perhaps not as explosive—as the onscreen action.

Or are you just finding your way?

The difference is huge.

When we’re in the middle of the maze, it’s easy to lose mistake one for the other.

The dead end. The loop. The “I feel like I’ve been here before,” are likely just pitstops on the way to the exit.

“Supposed to…”

“Should’ve done…”

“What if…”

It’s easy to form a habit where these become the default words used to explain the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of our daily lives.

But how many of these are self-imposed thoughts and beliefs?

And how many of them stop us from doing the things that bring us the most joy and fulfilment?

“Advice isn’t one person telling another person what to do, it’s a conversation; a partnership. You’re both just human beings collaborating on the project of being a person.” – John Paul Brammer in Life Kit.

Learning how to be a human, and hopefully a good one, really is the meta project we’re all working on.

It’s the project that our families, careers, friendships, and hobbies all feed into.

And it’s really nice to see it as a collaboration we work on with others, rather than a journey we go on alone.

Rafael Nadal just won his 21st Gland Slam at the Australian Open.

In a stunning 5-hour epic, he bet Daniil Medvedev in the final, and is now 1 Grand Slam ahead of both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

However, following the match, my newsfeeds started to fill up with a lot of “GOAT talk”, and it just doesn’t feel right.

There’s a reason why we don’t speculate about the ending of a movie when we’re in the middle of the action. The story is still unfolding. There are twists and turns that are yet to come.

It’s only with time, distance, and results, that any Greatest of All Time debate can be had.

It’s a treat to watch Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic battle for the honour of being the greatest male tennis player—but the rest of the story still needs to be written.

Exercising. Working out. Training.

There’s as much difference in those words as there is in the following:

Peckish. Hungry. Starving.

So when I tell myself I’m training, I turn up with a different attitude.

The nuance, the words, they matter.

Some days you’ll have 80% to give. Others, you’ll have 120%.

It’s not wrong to have less energy on some days, and an abundance on others.

There’s little value in overpromising, overextending, and overexerting.

On the other hand, there’s a tonne of value in 1) knowing what you have to give, and 2) giving that.