Our families, teams, companies, and societies only get better when people—like you and I—look at how things are today and feel unsatisfied.
Never being satisfied is the first step to seeing the possibility of what our world could be.
Never being satisfied is a habit for how we should be thinking about and approaching these problems.
Never being satisfied is necessary for progress.
I recently had to use the government digital services from both the United Kingdom and New Zealand to complete some personal admin.
As with anything related to income, taxes, licences, or identity verification, things can be complex. And sometimes, you just need to speak to someone to get things sorted.
The UK’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) had me on the phone for almost an hour without a resolution in sight. I’ve previously blogged about issues I’ve had with HMRC, and it felt like much the same.
New Zealand’s service, on the other hand, was a completely different experience. The customer service desk was up and running at 5am New Zealand time when I called. The agent quickly diagnosed the issue. They then gave me step-by-step instructions to resolve my issue.
Both institutions have the same marketing spiel: to make it safe, easy, and simple to access the government’s digital services.
But the actual product and service experience was night and day.
My lesson and reflection for today: Marketing will fade. So focus on the product, invest in your craft, and let the results speak for themselves.
Whether it’s a speech, a slide deck, a blog post, or an email: the outline stifles creativity.
The outline provides form and structure, but it also doubles as a cage.
The antidote: let the words flow. Don’t worry about the structure. Write without inhibition. Get everything down on paper. Get comfortable with bad ideas, because the the bad ones arrive on time, and the good ones are fashionably late.
After all this, then allow yourself to add some structure.
But until then, ditch the outline.
Note: This post is part of a weekly series called ‘Seneca Sundays’. Each week, I reflect on one of Seneca’s ‘Moral Letters to Lucilius’, and summarise the most practical and useful principles to share with you.
In this letter, Seneca challenges us to rethink our perspective on death.
We all share death’s inevitability. And it has either scared, or still scares, all of us.
However, Seneca’s advice on death isn’t morbid, in fact it helps us to live richer and fuller lives.
Death is a moment. It doesn’t persist.
Death is only worth dreading if it can remain with us, so “death must either not come at all, or else it must come and pass away.”
Seneca says we shouldn’t spend the few precious hours we have dreading the single, final hour. He reinforces this by saying, “No one can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.”
At first, this piece of advice seems odd. If we shouldn’t dread death, why then think about it regularly?
Seneca says, “Rehearse this thought every day, that you may be able to depart from life contentedly… Most people ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.”
This idea reminded me of the Jon Foreman song ‘Learning How to Die’. The pre-chorus is melancholic, where Foreman is stuck in this “wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life”. But as the song transitions into the chorus, it becomes hopeful as the subject—a woman on her deathbed—realises that life’s hardships were simply taking her on a journey to learn how to die in peace.
Seneca rounds out this point by saying no thing can leave us truly happy unless we embrace that we could lose that thing at any moment.
Seneca, as per his custom in each letter, ends with a useful but tangential point: we need little to quench our thirst, fend off hunger, and protect against the cold. These things are actually quite straightforward to attain. We need little to survive.
But rather, “it is the superfluous things for which people sweat, – the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.”
What are the things we’re stressing about today? Is that stress really necessary? Can we recognise if we’re pursuing the necessary or the superfluous?
Here’s something I’ve been pondered a lot recently:
If you don’t have a point of view, you inevitably let someone else make the decisions for you.
Agency. Influence. Potential. Progress.
All of it starts with having a point of view.
When it’s hard, complex, and the answer seems more illusive by the day.
Just remember that everyone else is figuring it out too.
Just remember that we’re all figuring it out.
When in these situations, the best we can do is arm ourselves with questions, ask them one by one, and slowly unravel the knot.
You may be familiar with the saying “mind over matter”: if we believe in our minds that we can do something, we can make it a reality.
But the inverse can also be a path to progress.
Getting out of bed before 6am can help us learn to love early mornings.
Going for that run 3 times a week can reprogram our brain to enjoy exercise.
Giving someone the benefit of the doubt when they’ve made a mistake can build our empathy muscle.
Singing a song or delivering a speech in public can help us overcome our fear of crowds.
Matter over mind: we can use action to rewire our minds.
Back in 2011, when I used Skype every day to chat with Maru whilst we were doing long distance, it was the number one video calling app. It had more than 100 million users, and I assumed its dominance was unassailable.
That same year, Zoom was founded.
Pre-pandemic, Skype had fallen from its lofty heights to a mere 23 million users. This grew to 70 million during the pandemic, but that’s just a rising tide raising all boats.
Zoom, on the other hand, is far outperforming Skype. Zoom doesn’t share user level data, so it’s hard to make an exact comparison, but they grew during the pandemic from 10 million “daily meeting participants” to more than 350 million.
I’ve blogged about it before. Zoom just works. It’s easier to use, has fewer bugs. and 20+ people can appear on a single Zoom screen; that’s something Skype can’t do.
Skype, when acquired by Microsoft in 2011, arguably had a pathway to long-term, global dominance akin to Google’s Search. Yet, an upstart, a minnow, an ant, focused on the product, made it better, easier, and faster. And now, more than 300 million people vote with their feet on a daily basis for Zoom over Skype.
The giant may sit high on the perch. But the giant must never forget the perch can be a precarious place if you’re not looking down at what’s happening below.
H/T to my future father-in-law, Salvador, for this story!
I recently blogged about dogfooding: the practice of company employees using their own products in real-life situations to develop empathy for customers.
Well, yesterday we may have witnessed the greatest dogfooding commitment ever made: Jeff Bezos will be on Blue Orgin’s inaugural human flight into orbit.
I get that Bezos wants to experience space and microgravity, but the very first flight?
If everything goes to plan, though, it’ll be a massive “status” move in Bezos’ favour in the Musk / Bezo race for space dominance.
I give huge kudos to Bezos. His belief, ambition, and courage is astounding. And he’s literally got 100% of his skin in the game on this one.
I’ll definitely be watching the live stream.
I recently came across a great idea shared by Eric Jorgenson on Twitter.
Of course, life isn’t this simple.
Our world is more complex and nuanced.
But the reason why I like this idea is its deliberate simplicity.
It’s a great framework for how to think about growing older: do I want to be someone who laughs more, or less?
And by answering this question with a “yes”, perhaps it allows us to age with a greater willingness to add laughter, and to look for it, in all that we do.
Note: This post is part of a weekly series called ‘Seneca Sundays’. Each week, I reflect on one of Seneca’s ‘Moral Letters to Lucilius’, and summarise the most practical and useful principles to share with you.
A common theme among Seneca’s letters is his encouragement to “withdraw from the world” and focus on philosophy and pursuing virtue.
When applied to a modern context, Seneca is talking about the rat race. It’s a critique on our insatiable appetite for work, long hours, and productivity. It’s a warning against consumerism, and our desire to keep up with everyone else’s expectations.
In this letter, Seneca starts from the assumption that Lucilius already wants to withdraw from the world, and offers numerous ideas on how he can achieve it.
Seneca kicks off by saying that the pressure to pursue wealth is self imposed. And that the ability to bring that desire under control is admirable.
Seneca isn’t saying wealth is bad, or that we should avoid it. He was one of the richest people in Rome after all. His point is rather about our rabid pursuit of wealth, and how it can easily become unhealthy.
It’s easy to want more. To take on more than we can handle. To pursue growth, status, and success. But this path can be dangerous. Like a violent and fickle storm, the pursuit of more can throw us around.
Seneca says when a wise person “sees the dangers, uncertainties, and hazards in which he was formerly tossed about, he will withdraw, – not turning his back to the foe, but falling back little by little to a safe position.”
I think this point is especially relevant to mental health in today’s workplace. I’ve seen brilliant and talented people over the past few years take time off to protect against, or recover, from burnout.
Most simply worked too hard, for too long.
And almost all of them admitted that the gain wasn’t worth the cost.
Seneca then encourages us to be careful about what we take on: “A good man will not waste himself upon mean and discreditable work, or be busy merely for the sake of being busy.” Instead our “perseverance should have an object that is worth while.”
Have you ever met someone who wants success, but doesn’t want to do the work to get there? Seneca comments there are many who “love the reward of their hardships, but curse the hardships themselves.”
He goes on to say we shouldn’t flinch under a burden, but rather wrestle with the task we’ve chosen for ourselves, such as a challenging job or project. We can’t grow unless we’re challenged, which is to say, “No man is brave and earnest if he avoids danger, if his spirit does not grow with the very difficulty of his task.”
Seneca then asks us to look at people who complain, and how many times they’re “lingering of their own free will in a situation which they find hard.” Poignantly, Seneca then comments, “there are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.”
When a person jumps out of a boat, they can’t “swim ashore and take their baggage with them.”
Which is to say, if you want something—whether that be withdrawing from the rat race, as Seneca describes, or something else entirely—we must commit wholeheartedly to that venture.
Even if that means leaving some luxuries behind.
Seneca ends the letter with a thoughtful paradox: “Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.”
When I think of the word ‘decide’, I usually think about ‘choosing’ or ‘selecting’ from a range of options.
However, I recently learnt that the word decide comes from the Latin “to cut off”.
A decision is not about saying ‘yes’ to one thing, it’s really about saying ‘no’ to everything else.
Framing decisions in this way adds gravity and pressure to them. But maybe that weight can help us be a little more careful, considered, and deliberate.
To “pull a punch” in boxing is to throw a punch with less force than what you’re capable of.
Sometimes it’s good to pull a punch. Maybe we’re experimenting with a new exercise routine, entertaining a “coffee chat” with a potential employer, or simply learning something in a foreign domain for the first time.
But for the things that really matter: pull no punches. Leave nothing in the ring.
The hard part, though, is knowing when to pull, and when to commit.
Earlier this year, Nestle executives saw an internal presentation reporting “more than 60% of Nestle’s mainstream food and drinks portfolio could not be considered healthy under a ‘recognised definition of health’.”
When the Financial Times got wind of this document and reported the story, it sparked a reaction: Nestle is now updating its nutrition and health strategy.
KitKat. Milo. Maggi. Nesquik. Smarties. Aero. Milky Bar. Cheerios.
You’ll likely be familiar with many of these brands. All of them unhealthy.
The question I have is why did it take bad press to get Nestle to take action? Why didn’t they proactively acknowledge the problem, and work to find a solution?
I’m grateful for good journalism, and how it brings these issues to light and forces big companies to pivot. I just wish these companies would take more initiative. For all our sakes.
Preferably one. Never more than three. Over a reasonable period of time, say 3 months.
A team or individual can rarely focus, and I mean really focus, on more than one thing at a time.
But if they must, three goals is the limit.
It’s not saying yes to only 1-3 things, it’s really about saying no to everything else.