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Much of our success comes down to how well we can discern the important from the unimportant.

Much of our stress comes down to how well we act on the above.

Richard Feynman, one of the great physicists of the 20th Century, had a simple method for understanding new concepts.

When someone is explaining something: keep creating examples.

When we create examples, we get to test how well we understand a topic. And if the first example doesn’t make sense, create more.

Without examples, we risk only having a superficial understanding; which can lead to poor decisions, and wasted work.

So how does this work in practice?

I used to work at Bulb, a renewable energy company in the UK. Energy is complicated. Kilowatt hours, standing charges, and location-based tariffs can be confusing.

So when I joined the company, I tried to take abstract energy concepts and understand what they meant for a single customer.

For example, instead of thinking about energy consumption fluctuating throughout the year in kilowatt hours, I created the example of a family using more energy in the winter to heat their home, and less energy in the summer when the weather is warmer. Through this method, I developed a better understanding for how energy consumption changes throughout the year.

Give it a try. Next time you need to understand something new, be willing to step out and create many examples.

I discovered this blog post from Paulo Coelho back in 2011, and its lesson is one I reflect on annually.

I hope it inspires you, too.

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A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:

‘Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?’
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.’

Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
‘But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!’

‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.’

‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action’

—Paulo Coelho

I still have fears about daily blogging.

One of those fears is, “What if my posts suffer from a low signal to noise ratio?”

I aspire for all my posts to be 1) helpful to me, and 2) helpful to others, but writing daily creates a risk that these posts are more annoying than useful.

Although I try every day to maximise the amount of signal, and minimise the amount of noise, these posts won’t always reach that standard.

To combat this, I’ve considered shifting to one post per week, but I decided against that for this reason: I want to get better at writing, and the only way to get better at writing is to write. Every day. All the time.

Daily posting also forces me to complete a train of logic from beginning to end. The muscle only gets stronger when it’s under tension. Posting less would degrade this muscle over time.

If you have any thoughts on the signal to noise ratio of this blog, I’d love to hear from you. Especially if you think there is anything I could be doing better, or things I should stop doing.

I always aim to be the hardest person in the room to offend, so all comments are welcome.

Although I write primarily for myself, I like hearing that my posts have helped others learn new things. That’s a huge privilege that I cherish deeply.

Thanks for joining me on the journey.

I once bought a pair of sunglasses and replaced the original lenses with prescription ones.

The problem was the lenses had to be moulded to fit the curved frames. This warped my vision, and I’d get a splitting headache within half an hour of wearing the glasses.

I thought I’d get used to them, but day after day, the headache would return. So I had to stop wearing them.

This experience got me thinking about the lenses we put on every day; knowingly and unknowingly.

The attitude we take out the front door each morning is a lens.

How we interpret unforeseen events and minor inconveniences is a lens.

How we respond to the good things in life—either with gratitude or entitlement—is a lens.

Although we have many lenses, we rarely have headaches to remind us when we’re suffering from warped vision.

So it’s important to take a step back every once in a while and ask ourselves, “Am I viewing the world through lenses that are consistent with who I am, and who want to be?”

When an artist writes an album, they place the songs in a particular order. They have a story to tell, and that story has its own sequence.

When vinyl records were the only option, we listened to albums from beginning to end. Sure, we could skip a song—or start an album in the middle—but it was more cumbersome than it is today.

We don’t start novels in the middle. Nor recipes, plays, movies, or even classes at the gym. So why do we do it with music?

Of course, like most others, I save my favourite songs and shuffle through them on Spotify, but I also listen to albums in their entirety to try and understand why the artist ordered the songs in that way.

I think it gives us listeners a richer insight into their art, talent, and mind.

Yesterday, I wrote about the value of quitting frequently; how it’s healthy to leave some activities incomplete if it means we can focus on more important things.

This reminded me of an idea from author, Bob Goff.

Bob felt his life was filled with clutter. Unimportant things consumed most of his attention. So he decided to declare Thursdays as his quitting day.

Every Thursday, for more than a year, he’d quit something. And he encouraged other people to do the same to declutter their lives.

It could be quitting that unnecessary extra cup of coffee each afternoon.

It could be quitting making excuses about not keeping in touch with close friends.

It could be something insane like quitting chocolate… well, that’s only an insane for some people 😉

We don’t have to go to Bob’s extreme of quitting something every week for a year, but it’s a helpful thought experiment. It challenges us to pause and think about the things that don’t add value to our lives, and that we could eliminate.

When we contemplate quitting these activities, do we feel a sense of liberation? If yes, what’s the worst that could happen if we followed those feelings to a quitting conclusion?

Start more books and movies than you finish.

Try many hobbies, and keep the few that make you feel alive.

Meet many people, but put effort into the friendships that feel most natural.

Try new things, but quit a lot of them too.

Leaving something incomplete isn’t bad if it means you can focus on the most important things.

I was shocked to read today that BP’s new CEO, Bernard Looney, has pledged that BP will achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

This is an unprecedented move by one of the world’s 5 major oil companies (BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Total).

It’s an acknowledgement—from one of the biggest voices on the matter, no less—that global oil production will fall in the future.

BP will need to balance the pressure to switch to cleaner energy and shareholders’ requests healthy dividends.

In 2019 alone, BP paid out $8.4 billion in dividends to shareholders. Inevitably, a large chunk of future earnings will need to be retained to make this ambitious transition by 2050.

This is a welcome piece of news!

I liked this campaign from Heathrow airport.

Heathrow is colossal. It’s five sprawling terminals greet and bid farewell to over 80 million passengers each year.

A sustainability effort for a site of this scale is no small task.

What I like about this campaign is how they celebrate their wins (e.g., the switch to renewable energy), but also acknowledge they still have a journey ahead (e.g., the switch to low carbon construction).

Being open about areas for improvement is the first step towards a transformed Heathrow. In fact, it’s the first step towards transformation for any individual, team, project, or organisation.

I had a flight booked for this weekend, but it was cancelled due to Storm Ciara. It was rescheduled for 30 hours later when calmer weather was expected over the Atlantic.

Although inconvenient, I tried to let it remind me that no matter how well we prepare, things outside our control will inevitably come up.

The growth all happens in how we choose to respond.

Most of us known Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a Hollywood action superstar, but not everyone knows how he first made a name for himself.

Back when he was a performing wrestler with the World Wrestling Entertainment, he did one thing that set him apart from others: he referred to himself in the third person.

Sentences like “The Rock is back,” or “If you smell what The Rock is cooking?” sound weird, but they legitimised his character. And the crowds loved it. They loved his confidence.

What’s the bigger lesson here?

I’ve got a number of friends who’ve started their own projects, like a band or a business. And It makes me smile when they stop referring to their project as their “side hustle” or “hobby,” and call it by its name.

When we give something a name, and begin to call it by that name, magic happens.

Whether it’s a train station, a highway, or a long line, there’s always someone willing to push in front; trying to get ahead at someone else’s expense.

But to what end?

Moving at pace through highway lanes has more risks than benefits.

Nor does getting flustered by the train station’s slow foot traffic save any meaningful amount of time.

I often blog about the concept of compounding, which is loosely defined as the sum of marginal benefits accrued through consistent action over time. The point here is that some marginal benefits just aren’t worth pursuing.

Each of us, each day, gets to decide where we draw that line.

You can build a product, and ask people to do things your way.

Or you can build where there is the least friction.

Either way, the market still decides if your product lives or dies.

I’ve recently been reading ‘From Third World to First’, by Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew.

When Singapore broke away from Malaysia in 1965 to become an independent nation, Lee had 3 big questions to answer.

1. How do we establish Singapore as a legitimate nation?
2. How do we protect Singapore?
3. How does Singapore make money?

These are big questions.

What I learnt from them is that no matter the size of the challenge, we can boil down complex challenges to a few critical questions.

If we answer these questions well, we get a chance at turning up tomorrow.

If we don’t, there may not be a tomorrow.

Most of us aren’t starting republics, but this concept holds true for any hobby, self-improvement goal, or venture that we choose to pursue.

When we look at our challenges in the cold light of day, there are only ever a few things that matter.

The art and science of choosing what to focus on is a great skill to invest in.