Dan Cullum

When working on complex problems, it’s easy to hide a lack of knowledge or understanding. All you need to do is talk using vague and abstract terms, and avoid specifics.

The true test of someone’s understanding of a subject is their ability to 1) make an assertion, and 2) provide a simple and accurate example.

This applies across any area or discipline.

I’m going to use a facetious example of a lemonade stand to illustrate the point.

Customer research

Bad: Our customers love our lemonade. We’ve got a great reputation in the neighbourhood.

Good: Our customers love our lemonade. We know this because we interviewed 20 recent customers, and 15 of them said they’d recommend us to a friend.

Designing experiences

Bad: We should start a loyalty programme. Everyone loves those.

Good: We should start a loyalty programme. 80% of our customers are weekly buyers, and we could run a buy-5-get-1-free experiment to see if they end up buying more over time.

Disagreeing on ways of working

Bad: Our team is dysfunctional. Even after 2 months of trying different things, we still can’t work well together.

Good: Our team is dysfunctional. 2 months ago, the lemonade makers and lemonade sellers met to identify why we were missing orders. We agreed to implement a checklist system so no orders would be missed, but the lemonade makers haven’t been following the process for the past month.

Reporting financial results.

Bad: Our lemonade stand’s profits increased this week, and we’re doing well on costs.

Good: Our lemonade stand’s profits increased by $10 this week (a 10% improvement on last week), because we renegotiated our lemon supply contract from $0.40 per lemon to $0.30.

Of course, this lemonade stand example is silly, but keep your eyes peeled, and you’ll find examples of this lack of knowledge and understanding all around you.

To truly understand something, and to have greater impact in our work, force yourself to include an example.

There’s no one way to think, to take care of your body, to build a career, or to raise kids.

There is no one way to do most things!

I say most things because sunscreen is non-negotiable.

Many people will share with you their way. A subset will be convinced they’re right and that everyone else is wrong.

Just remember that you’re the one who decides.

Someone else’s success may just be their lottery ticket numbers. Or their failures may just be bad luck.

Bottom line: there is no blueprint, and that is liberating.

Spend all your time in travel, and you won’t have a home.

Spend all your time making acquaintances, and you’ll miss out on true friendship.

Spread your time across the widest possible range of authors, and you’ll miss the lessons of the few master thinkers.

Everywhere means nowhere.

When there is snow, I always go out for a walk.

It’s a rule.

I grew up in Auckland, New Zealand—we don’t get snow there. And it only snows about once a year in London, so it still sparks wonder and joy whenever I see it.

My snow rule also came about due to The Tail End essay by Tim Urban. It’s a mathematical and visual approach to estimating the number of experiences we’re likely to have left.

For example, if I continue to only see snow once per year, statistically speaking, I should only get 50-or-so more snow-filled walks in the park.

I don’t think these are morbid thoughts. If anything, thoughts like this can help us make the most of each day and opportunity.

I’m fascinated by The Line, a concept for a new, sustainable city to be built in Saudi Arabia.

It will be 170kms long, and will have no roads or cars. People will live in smaller communities along the belt, and will have access to everything they need within a 5 minute walk from their home. The communities will be powered by 100% clean energy, and will be connected to each other through underground transport—with the journey from end-to-end only taking 20 minutes.

With construction starting this year, who knows if we’re witnessing the future, science fiction, or a soon-to-be-failed experiment. Regardless, its amazing to see concepts like this being proposed and brought to life.

One of my goals is to work on problems that feel like play to me, but feel like work to others.

The natural energy and joy leads to outcomes that can only be achieved when you love something.

If we spend 40 years of our one life working, it shouldn’t have to be drudgery.

It may be a bit snowflake of me, but hey, it’s an aspiration, not a requirement.

When the work is messy.

When it’s complex.

When it’s confusing.

When it’s hard.

When it’s frustrating.

Don’t hide it from them.

Your team. Your spouse. Your friends.

Trust that they’re strong enough to carry the load with you.

Don’t fear they’ll think less of you or that you’ll drive them away, because when you open up and share the struggle, it has the opposite effect: it brings people together.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Seneca’s Moral Letters.

I have a bad habit of racing through books—flitting between many, and not leaving enough time for the ideas to settle.

As Seneca himself writes, “Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner.“

Instead of racing through all 72 and moving on to the next book, I’ve chosen a handful and have been re-listening to them over and over again.

Letter 1: On Saving Time

Letter 2: On Discursiveness in Reading

Letter 13: On Groundless Fears

Letter 18: On Festivals and Fasting

Given the time I’m spending with Seneca, I may end up blogging in greater depth on him and his letter. There is so much to learn and unpack in a single letter, and I’m sure if you look, you’ll find words that challenge, embolden, inspire, and educate you too.

Bustle does not mean industry.

Movement does not mean progress.

Work does not mean impact.

Most people will be quick to report a long list of things they’ve done—their activity. However, only a few will be able to succinctly describe, quantify, and explain their impact—their outcomes.

Obsessively pursue and report on outcomes, not activity. It’ll set you apart.

“There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”—Seneca, from his letter ‘On Groundless Fears’

When I was a boy my mum would remind me repeatedly that my worries existed almost entirely in my mind.

To prove it, she would ask how many of my fears had become reality. The vast majority of the time, I had little to offer.

This lesson stuck with me due to her patient and persistent repetition. And it’s a lesson I still need to remind myself of regularly.

Although we can’t avoid worrisome thoughts—especially in these times—our first step should be to consider if we’re worrying in the imaginary realm, or if it’s a fear that is grounded in reality.

In early December, I was still sceptical.

We thought we didn’t need a Christmas tree. Perhaps I felt it’d require too much effort, that it was unnecessary, or that maybe I was just too old for it.

But Maru convinced me.

And after a month of having the little pine tree with gold bows and warm LED lights in our lounge, I didn’t want to see it go.

Despite this year’s Christmas and holiday season being anything but normal, our little Christmas tree helped both of us feel alike we were back home with family. That meant a lot to the both of us.

Today we dropped our tree off at our local Christmas Tree Drop-off Point (I didn’t know these existed!), and a little part of me is already looking forward to next year’s.

Here’s to finding joy in the small things, and being open to the possibility of changing from a sceptic into a fan.

I’ve been keeping a daily diary since November.

If this blog captures my learnings and reflections, my diary—in contrast—is an account of “things done”.

I generally pick one thing from the day that I’d like to remember, and I try be as specific as possible. I describe the “what” rather than the “how it made me feel.”

For example, I’ll write about taking a walk in the park and calling a friend. However, I won’t write “it was good,” or “it was fun.” Instead, I describe one specific thing we talked about.

For this project I bought a 5 Year Diary, where each day has space for 1-2 sentences. Just enough space to articulate something memorable.

Looking back on the past few months of writing, I can now vividly remembering days that I would’ve otherwise forgot.

For a task that only takes 1 minute before bed, I’m confident it’ll pay dividends for many years to come.

It’s doesn’t matter if it’s Shakespeare, Chekov, or Machiavelli, it’s going to be hard to understand it on the first reading.

When we come up against a tough read, our instinct is to pause on the difficult words and sentences to try to decipher them.

But this breaks our flow. It stops our momentum.

Another approach is to let go of expectations. If something doesn’t make sense on the first read, move on. Read to get the essence, not to understand it in detail.

Then, once you’re done, read it a second time. This time, allow yourself to pause and digest what you don’t understand.

With a sense of the whole in your mind, you’ll be better prepared to dive into the tough parts on the second run.

At a recent work awards ceremony, there was an award called ‘Jugaad’.

It’s a Hindi word meaning a flexible approach to solve a problem, that uses limited resources in an innovative way.

I love this word, and I love how it describes something we can all understand, but have no equivalent for in the English language.

Here’s to new ways of thinking, new words, and a striving for Jugaad in our work.

1 in 30 people in London are currently infected with coronavirus.

That’s not “have had,” or a measure of cumulative cases, it’s the live case rate.

That number is astonishing, especially when we think back to June 2020 when only 300 new cases were being reported per day in London—a tiny number considering our population of 9 million.

As the days creep by, the numbers change but our day-to-day stays much the same. We still get our groceries, social distance, and limit all non-essential activity.

It’s a striking lesson in how currents can shift dramatically below the surface, but all we may see are ripples on top of the water.

To my London readers in particular, stay safe these next few weeks and months.