Dan's Daily

When nature has laid its roots, sometimes it’s better to build around it, rather than try mold it to our view of the world.

Works for trees and boardwalks, and may also work for teams that bring ideas to life.

I turned thirty today!

I’m feeling much less reflective than I thought I’d be at this milestone, but I don’t see that as a bad thing.

Most of all, I feel grateful.

I know how lucky I am to be happy, healthy, and have a home full of love.

I couldn’t ask for more.

The photo of the payphone below brings back a very sweet memory.

In 2011, Maru and I were doing long distance. She was living in Connecticut, and I in New Zealand. We hadn’t seen each other in 4-5 months, I was on a lengthy layover in Miami, and was wanting to call her to say I had arrived safely.

I found a group of payphones, and calls were 25 cents per minute, so I figured we could at least chat for a short while.

I had issues with the first payphone, it took the quarter, but didn’t connect. So I moved to another, and that’s when I found the glitch.

After I inserted the quarter and called Maru, it didn’t prompt me to insert additional coins, nor did it disconnect me. We simply carried on talking for over an hour.

Maru and I were used to Skyping when we had wifi, but there was something special about this moment. Payphones aren’t meant to work like that, but this one did, on that day, for us.

And so whenever I pass through Miami and see them, they always make me smile.

Maru and I are heading to Mexico tomorrow, and I’m really excited. I haven’t been before, and it’s a place I’ve wanted to visit for some time!

I can’t wait to see some sun, eat great food, and spend some time at the beach.

We made a conscious decision to spend all of our time on the Yucatan peninsula, and save traversing the country for a later trip.

I could eat chillis, limes, and Mexican cuisine all day, so if you have any must try foods, send them my way!

I got off a call today, and someone messaged me saying, “You really should change your input mic, those headphones make you sound like a robot.”

The thing is I had been using these headphones all week; and no one said a thing.

I felt like I had broccoli stuck between my teeth.

Curious, I asked around, and most people said something like, “Oh yeah, the sound quality wasn’t great, but I could still understand you.”

Sure, it may have passed the minimum bar, but most of my job is speaking to other people, so I want communication to be as clear as possible.

I learnt two things today: never hesitate to tell someone their audio sucks, and take the same attitude with broccoli between the teeth.

What goes around comes around.

We plan in the calm.

But there’s usually either a headwind or a tailwind.

And if we’re lucky to get some calm, it’s usually in the early hours of the day—or when the work hasn’t really kicked off yet.

Instead of planning for calm, why don’t we expect to tack and jibe. To get where we want to go, we’ll at least need one or the other—or a combination of both.

I’ve been making my way through The Agile Comms Handbook from Giles Turnbull.

And I dig it.

A theme that’s stuck with me has been: communicate as fast as the work moves.

It’s less about speed than it is about building habits within our teams around the what and when we communicate.

Without deliberate practice, I think teams default to secrecy; only sharing when the work is ready.

It takes organisational guts to communicate the work in progress, the first guess, and the best-answer-we-have-right-now version.

It requires deliberate effort to be open with the ideas that have chirp in them, but may not be ready to leave the nest yet.

But when we do, when we post, when we share, when we’re open, when we realise it’s not that bad, magic can happen.

The work always expands to fit the time available — Parkinson’s law

Although I know this rule, I’ve been learning it’s lessons the hard way this week.

The work always expands.

I’ve also learnt it’s OK to set artificial deadlines so you don’t end up burning the candle at both ends.

Maru and I are currently in Miami spending time with her family. We visited some close friends that have a young family—three kids all under the age of six.

The kids were kicking around a football in the backyard. The eldest—a boy of 6 years—launched one that hit his younger sister square in the face.

I’ll be honest, I grimaced.

I saw her eyes started to squint, and she was beginning to tear up, when her father quickly said in a really positive, uplifting, and supportive tone, “No worries! You’re great! You’re OK!”

And immediately, she responded with raised shoulders, and a defiant look on her face that quickly turned to pride. Yes, she was fine!

Her dad’s reaction, one that was quick to praise her for being bold and strong (even if it was a hefty whack), helped her feel better.

The reaction matters.

A mentor encourages me to write a weekly professional reflection each Friday afternoon. He credits it as being one of the key things that has helped him grow and develop as a manager and leader.

I must admit, I have time blocked in my calendar, but usually something urgent comes up—which is a poor excuse, I know.

I’m wondering if any of you do a weekly reflection, and if you do, do you have a simple list of questions that are your go-to’s?

E.g., what went well? What? went poorly? Or what am I going to do differently next week?

Would love to crowdsource ideas from you!

Every few months, I discover a niche online project that really impresses me, so much so that I feel compelled to share it.

My most recent find is The Food Timeline. Lynne Olver, a food history librarian, started this online reference guide in 1999, cataloging and categorising the discovery and evolution of foods and recipes over the past 20,000 years.

I enjoyed scrolling the timeline and getting lost in a food history rabbit hole.

I didn’t know the first versions of ice cream were a type of shaved, flavoured ice first invented in China in 3,000 BC, or that cheesecake has been around since the 1st Century AD, or that food historians don’t really know when and where coconuts originated.

I’m about to go on a trip to the supermarket, and although it’s a run-of-the-mill activity, after hanging out on The Food Timeline, it’s really got me thinking about how far we’ve come.

As a fitting follow on from yesterday’s post, Russell shared this helpful idea with me earlier this week.

The story goes that poet William Stafford—who wrote more than 20,000 poems in his lifetime—was one asked if he ever got writer’s block.

He replied, “No, I’ve never experienced anything like that. I believe that the so-called “writing block” is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance. I can imagine a person beginning to feel that he’s not able to write up to that standard he imagines the world has set for him. But to me that’s surrealistic. The only standard I can rationally have is the standard I’m meeting right now. Of course I can write. Anybody can write. People might think that their product is not worthy of the person they assume they are. But it is.”

Stafford’s advice was simply: lower your standards and keep writing.

As someone who has committed to writing publicly every day, and on the odd occasion feels the “so-called writing block”, it’s a great reminder on a personal level.

It’s an idea that also brings to mind Lynda Barry’s Making Comics: how to draw without expectations about how it should look. And Patricia Ryan Madson’s Improv Wisdom: on how lessons from improv theatre can help us live a more open and joyous life.

The tag line from Madson’s book sums it up well: Don’t prepare, just show up.

My friend Russell published a book, and I got my copy in the mail today!

The title is great: Everything I Know about Life I Learned from PowerPoint.

It’s an ode to that piece of software “we hate to love”.

It starts with how PowerPoint saved Russell’s life. Russell is shy, but PowerPoint enabled him to enjoy being on stage and presenting. This helped him “defeat shyness” and have a successful career in advertising working for the likes of Nike, Honda, Microsoft, and Apple.

He then turns to how PowerPoint is used, powerfully I might add, in almost every corner of the globe. And finally, it ends with “reassurance” on how PowerPoint is actually easy, and shares some advice on how to use it well.

Russell has a way with words, both written and spoken. He never uses jargon, and that’s refreshing. It was a privilege to learn from him when I was working at Bulb, and I’m really looking forward to chuckling away as I digest this book!

Congrats, Russell!

“It is said that the best horses lose when they compete with slower ones and win against better rivals. Undercompensation from the absence of a stressor, absence of challenge, degrades the best of the best.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

This was a nice reminder that there’s a time to sprint, and a time to rest.

But when we sprint, and if we want to grow, we should find the fiercest challenge around. The absence of a stressor is dangerous.

Whenever I’ve tried standing desks, I’ve always ended up giving up due to discomfort.

I get lost in what I’m doing and end up slumping or leaning to one side. This puts excess strain on my hips, and my knees take a hyperextended pounding.

That is until my friend Dave told me about wobble boards.

They are circular pieces of wood with a ball at the bottom. When you stand on the board, you need to keep your legs and core engaged to be able to balance effectively.

I bought one, and now I’m able to “standing desk” all day without pain or discomfort. It’s also great for a fidgeter like me as it’s something for my subconscious to focus on to help me listen more actively in meetings.