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There’s this old nineties film where the head doctor makes his resident doctors spend 72 hours as patients.

Each of them adopts an illness, and eats, sleeps, and dresses like the people they are trained to care for.

It’s Empathy. With a capital E.

Unless we sit in the seat of the people we seek to serve, how can we build products or services that solve their problems?

With each passing hour, there are new reports about the novel coronavirus.

We still know little about this infectious disease, so it’s hard to separate fact from fiction when we’re reading the news.

One thing that helped me improve my understanding was The New York Times’ podcast on the topic. They speak with Donald G. McNeil, who has been writing about epidemics and pandemics for the past 30 years. He puts coronavirus into perspective by comparing it with the seasonal flu, and with historical events like the Spanish flu of 1918.

I’ve also found Worldometer’s live statistics to be an insightful view into the absolute and relative spread of the disease.

To be honest, it feels weird to be writing about coronavirus. But it also feels weird to ignore it. Its potential impact on humanity is undeniable, and one of my daily blogging rules is to notice and write about what’s going on around me. So here I am being true to that rule.

I’m not qualified to have an opinion, but it’s clear that coronavirus has already devastated communities, and is something we should at least be mentally prepared for in the event of a worst case scenario.

The earth doesn’t orbit the sun in 365 days; it takes about 365.25 days.

So every 4 years, we get this day.

It doesn’t come round often, so what could you do to make this day special? What if you did something different for no reason other than you can.

I think the whiteboard is the highest leverage tool in the workplace.

Not the laptop. Not the mobile.

Sure, those items are high leverage—they enable us to work at a pace and scale never before seen—I’m just saying the whiteboard is better.

The whiteboard allows us to experiment; to be creative, daring, wrong, and hopeful. And if we don’t like what we see, it’s gone in a moment.

It’s a home for thinking. A safe place for our answers to germinate. And the more time we can spend thinking—investing in improving our answer—the better.

I went surfing last weekend in Pacifica, California.

Before you imagine me in a double-overhead barrel wave, let me make it clear that I’m still in the beginner leagues.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the water was an almost icy 12 degrees Celsius; or 53 degrees Fahrenheit.

My friend, Matt, and I layered up in thick wetsuits before heading out into the waves.

From the beginning, my hired wetsuit wasn’t fitting well. The zipper running up my spine didn’t feel locked into place.

Then it happened.

A wave caught me off guard, and I got dumped in the whitewash. The force of the water ripped open the zipper on the wetsuit, letting the cold water in. I raced to get close to shore, where I could stand, expel the water, and re-zip my suit. I felt disoriented, and developed a headache soon after. I tried to stay in the water, but quickly decided I’d be better off getting out, getting changed, and getting warm.

A wetsuit isn’t designed to keep you dry. It’s designed to let water in. Your body then heats up the water and keeps you warm.

There’s cold water and negativity everywhere. Sure, we can use some of it to make us better—to inspire us to improve—but too much of it can leave us dangerously disoriented and with a painful headache.

Wetsuits and minds both have zippers, just of different kinds.

When I was at BCG, a partner gave me a piece of advice I’ve used time and again.

When writing a document or presentation, do as much of the “thinking” or “answering” upfront. This could be handwritten notes on paper, ideas on a whiteboard, or a text outline in a document. It doesn’t matter where the information is held, but as long as you’ve done the heavy lifting to get to the answer as early as possible.

What’s the benefit?

It can take a day or more to write a presentation, and developing the answer while writing the presentation requires huge amounts of problem solving stamina and persistence.

On the flip side, when you front load your thinking, the process of writing the presentation is easier. The level of focus and sustained attention required is much lower. As you write your presentation, all you need to do is refer back to your notes, and make small improvements on the answer.

Is this smart, or just being lazy?

However you see it, we’ve all got way too much on our plates. I have found this is a reliable method to help reduce stress and give us structure when we’re preparing presentations.

If you’ve ever had a presentation to write and you’ve just started writing without mapping out the answer first, give this approach a go, and let me know if it works for you!

Last year, I posted about getting my DNA genotyped by 23andMe to understand my ancestry.

My genetic report arrived last month, and I thought I’d share my results and reflections.

Results

My results were as expected. My genetics are a 50/50 split between East Asian and Western European.

The majority of my East Asian genetics come from Guangdong Province in China, which is where the most of my mum’s side of the family lived prior to emigrating to Malaya, not Malaysia.

Similarly, London and the UK feature heavily in my Western European genetics. This seems weirdly fitting now that I live in London.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the results are the Traits section. The report displays a long list of traits that I have a higher likelihood of exhibiting. Most of them were accurate. Some of the more interesting ones are:

• I’m less likely to experience motion sickness ✔
• I’m less likely to have a fear of public speaking ✔
• I’m likely to have thick hair ✔
• I have a 50/50 chance of being able to match musical pitch ✔

Reflections

23andMe was a great experience. I took some saliva samples and within weeks I received a report with my genetic history. That’s impressive.

Coincidentally, a few friends had also done the test around the same time, and we had fun talking about the traits we do and don’t share.

Through this experience, a few questions popped up:

What happens with my data?

This is obvious, but there is only one of me, and only one DNA sequence that matches mine.

Giving 23andMe the right to analyse and store my unique genetic data is a bit of a trip down creepy lane.

Now, clearly, I was okay with giving that information to 23andMe, but it did make me think: imagine if they were acquired by Pfizer or Bayer or Roche?

What happens to my data following an acquisition? Could it be used for anticipating and developing drugs that I’d need in the future? Is that a good thing? Or is that exploitative?

Some would argue I’m being paranoid, but 23andMe are still trying to figure out how to survive as a business and turn a profit. Thus, I don’t think they’re pondering in great detail about data privacy and ethics. Healthy cashflows allow businesses to spend more time on these topics, so I don’t think this line of reasoning is that far fetched.

Which brings me to my second reflection.

How does 23andMe create a long-term, sustainable business?

23andMe don’t have a follow-on product. They are a ‘one and done’ company right now, and I think that’ll hurt them in the long run.

Getting your DNA genotyped is a niche activity. The market—I’d be willing to bet—is a lot smaller than their pitch decks to Venture Capital firms claim.

In fact, soon after receiving my results, I was sent this article detailing the issues with 23andMe’s non-recurring revenue model.

I predict they’ll eventually get bought by one of the big pharma companies (who can use the data), unless they manage to create a product that has recurring revenue.

I’d love to hear if you have any thoughts on the above, particularly if you think I’m completely wrong.

Note: Thank you, again, to my family for the wonderfully nerdy gift 😉

There’s an easy way to get a cheap ad spot during the Super Bowl: buy a slot on a different channel.

But, of course, that’s not how we’re used to thinking about Super Bowl slots.

All that glitters is not gold. And what we think we need, may not be what we want after all.

Frequently reflecting on 1) where we want to go, 2) what we are doing to get there, and 3) checks to ensure we’re not going astray, can save us a lot of headaches.

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?