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You may be good at it, but will it make you happy?

A good friend recently had the courage to ask me this question when I went to him for advice.

Here’s to friends willing to ask the hard questions.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) wrote an excellent essay titled ‘Hints towards an essay on conversation’. For people wanting to improve their conversational skills, it helpfully outlines a set of errors to avoid.

His most important point: “Nothing is more generally exploded than the folly of talking too much.”

In a day and age where anyone can speak, at any time, on any platform, an ability to show restraint and to only say what is necessary will shine through.

When I was a kid, and whenever there was mouse in the house, my parents would call it a ‘Little Mickey’.

The refusal to call it a mouse, and the act of giving it a name that evoked positive associations for my sister and I, made us less scared of the critter.

Although I strive to embrace reality and “call it like it is,” there is something about playful euphemisms like ‘Little Mickey’ that can re-frame how we experience scary, new, or challenging situations.

And maybe we’ll find that situation isn’t so bad after all; perhaps there’s magic to be found in giving it a new name.

Yesterday, I felt an indescribable sinking feeling in my gut.

I was watching the start of the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix, and in the first lap, Romain Grosjean—a driver for the Haas Team—ran into a barrier at 220kph and at a suspected force of 53G.

Whilst his car ripped in half and exploded into a ball of flames, Grosjean remained inside the car’s Survival Cell—a carbon fibre cocoon designed to protect the driver in the event of a serious crash.

Miraculously, despite the Survival Cell being wedged into the broken barrier, and Grosjean being engulfed in flames for more than 20 seconds, he remained conscious, was able to pull himself out of the wreckage (with the help of the brave medical staff), and walked away with only minor burns on his hands.

An unbelievable outcome considering the circumstances.

Often, “that sinking feeling” is followed by heartache and sadness, but I’m grateful that wasn’t the case today, and that Grosjean will return to his wife and 3 children.

Most of us have a good sense of what the world map looks like.

So I loved seeing this global population density map, created by Twitter user, Alasdair Rae.

Within it, you can see a rough outline of the world map we’re all familiar with, but you also get a sense of the sparseness and density of certain areas of our planet.

Brightly lit India and China were not a surprise, as well as coastal areas being the most densely populated. But Mexico, Central America, Nigeria, and Indonesia featured more prominently than I’d anticipated. And interestingly, the Sahara, the Amazon, and the Arctic also stand out due to their absence on this map.

It’s a fun a re-mapping of our world and it’s people. If there is someone you know who’d enjoy it, share it with them!

H/T to Andrew for the recommendation!

When putting together a puzzle—the literal, jigsaw variety—finding a corner is the most important step. Corners represent certainty; a base upon which the rest of the puzzle can be deduced and built.

When solving a puzzle—the figurative kind—finding a corner, or cornerstone, is essential to working through the rest of the problem. What are the irrefutable facts we’ll use? What are the reliable assumptions that underpin our approach.

In any puzzle, look first for the corners.

P.S. Thanks to Sofi and Kiko for the recent puzzle gift that sparked this post 😉

I recently invested in some kettlebells.

With the gym out of bounds for the moment, and with a significant lack of strength training over the past 8 months, I thought it’d be worth a try to bring the gym home (somewhat).

Kettlebells take some getting used to though. In contrast to barbells, dumbbells, and machines found at the gym, these lumps of iron can be unwieldy and awkward.

So I decided to start simple: the 10,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge.

The challenge is to complete 10,000 kettlebell swings in 1 month. This equates to 20 sessions, each with 500 swings. 2 days on, 1 day rest.

The kettlebell swing is a deceptively effective workout: in addition to strengthening the entire posterior chain, it also serves as a great cardiovascular workout.

I’m 10 days in now (7 sessions, and 3,500 swings) and my body is starting to acclimatise. The aches, ever present in the first few days, are starting to subside, and the overall workout is becoming easier. In addition to the swings, I’ve added a stretching routine, foam rolling, and some jump rope.

Once I get to the end of the challenge, I’ll report back on how it went.

I’m about 3 hours in to Obama’s new book, A Promised Land, and I’m loving it. At 30 hours, it’s a biggie, but his care and devotion with each page is evident.

I’m used to seeing “Presidential Obama”, so reading about his childhood, his years in education, his relationship with Michelle, his experience becoming a dad, and his journey to being the only sitting black Senator in 2004, are wonderful behind-the-scenes insights I’ve read about so far.

I’ll post a reflection on the entire book when I get to the end of it, as there is still a long way to go.

If you’re thinking about reading it, I highly recommend the audiobook. There is something unique about hearing Obama narrate his story. You get a richer understanding of his message and intention through not just his words, but with his every pause, inflection, and change in pace and energy.

Tip: Instead of paying $45 for the audiobook, signing up to a 1 month Audible membership for $8 will get you 1 audiobook credit you can use to buy A Promised Land. The 80% discount is well worth it!

Though the stars in the sky may be bigger, brighter, and hotter than our sun, they’re distant.

Our sun, by comparison, is present, warm, and dependable.

If all the stars in the sky disappeared, the world would still turn. But we can’t live without our sun.

In your life, who is a sun, and who are the stars?

Here are two ideas I’ve been pondering.

The first is from Sam Altman, the former president of start up accelerator Y Combinator.

“When you learn that you can learn anything, you are willing to take on anything. And when you learn that you can win with execution speed alone, you are willing to take on anyone.”

The second is from famed investor, Ray Dalio.

“I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want.”

Powerful ideas in isolation, and potentially even more useful when paired together.

Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, recently posted about a unique “2%”.

Seven Seven Six invests in start ups. And in addition to the investment, they give an additional 2% in cash for the founders’ personal growth and family care.

1% can be spent on anything from therapy, to personal training, to ups killing.

The other 1% can be spent on childcare, or travelling to see a sick relative, or home renovations.

The idea was born from Ohanian’s experience in the early days of Reddit. A few months into starting the company, he learned his mom had terminal brain cancer. At that point, he was 22 years old, a first time CEO, and had just raised his first ever round of funding from investors. He reflects on what it would’ve been like to have had money from his investors set aside to afford the flights back to Baltimore to spend time with his mom.

Seven Seven Six’s approach inspires me. They don’t need to earmark this 2% for personal growth and family care, but they do. Their actions speak loud and clear.

If you enter Navy Seals training, there’s a 75% chance you’ll quit.

When you can’t do another pull-up, when you can’t run another mile, when you can’t hold your breath underwater any longer, all you need to do is walk up to the big brass bell in the centre of the camp, ring it 3 times, put your helmet on the ground, and you’re done.

The bell is a symbol of freedom. It represents a return to civilian life. It’s a reminder you’re only 3 rings away from a warm drink and being able to put your feet up.

However, this is not a post about pushing through the pain and refusing to ring the bell.

On the contrary, I wish we had brass bells in the “real world”.

How often do we see projects, ideas, and plans peter out? How often do ideas lose their spark, and people lose their ambition?

Instead of a slow burn, we’d be better off with brass bells—to cut our losses quickly, admit it wasn’t for us, and move on.

The world watched with a smile when Professor Robert Kelly was famously interrupted by his family whilst on a live BBC broadcast back in 2017. Numerous memes about this charming moment have circled online since, and it feels especially relevant in 2020 now that many are working from home and on video calls all day.

I smiled again today when I saw this Twitter campaign. Kelly is in a familiar setting, speaking to camera, and is interrupted by his kids, a robot vacuum, and a whole crowd of strangers.

In what was—no doubt—an embarrassing moment 3 years ago, Kelly has used it for his benefit. He’s owned his weird, and he’s better for it.

Whilst extensively discussing elections and politics over the past few months, Maru introduced me to a thought experiment called ‘The Veil of Ignorance’.

Imagine if you could re-design society from scratch.

You have the pen, and you decide how everything works. Justice. Wealth distribution. Education. Healthcare. Human rights. All of it.

But there’s a catch.

You must stand behind the Veil of Ignorance.

The veil prevents you from knowing who you’ll be—and what role you’ll play—in this society. It places you in a position where the fair and just decision for all is also your best interest.

Although the Veil of Ignorance is an impossible experiment at a societal level, perhaps we can use it to make fairer decisions in our teams, workplaces, and among our family and friends.

By biweekly, do you mean twice a week? Or once every two weeks?

Or would it be better to say “fortnightly”, meaning once every 14 days.

This is an on-the-nose example, but in situations where our words scale—blog posts, work presentations, project proposals—one rogue word can cause costly confusion.

Any time our words scale, it’s worth putting in the time on word choice.