Tag: success

How to Use Email

From the Praxis blog.  Amusing note: when originally published, this post probably got more anger and disagreement than any I’ve written.

I don’t care how old-school it may seem to younger people, email remains the dominant form of communication in the business world.  It is absolutely essential that you understand and do it well.  Most young people don’t realize how often they shoot themselves in the foot with poor email use.

Here are ten tips to make you better…

1. Don’t have a ridiculous email address.

Any email address that ends in .edu (unless you’re a professor) or sbcglobal.net, or really almost anything other than Gmail is prone to make you look unprofessional.  Email addresses that use cutesy phrases or words that have nothing to do with your name are annoying.  Yourname@gmail.com or @your own personal or company domain (only if that’s a company you want to be associated with longish term) are best, or the simplest variations thereof.

2. Check it often.

I don’t care how available you are on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever other social platform.  Email is used for business, so check it regularly.  Early in your career, when you need other people more than they need you, it should be checked multiple times a day.  No excuse suffices, not even the common, “My computer crashed”.  Get a new one.  Use a phone.

3. Respond ASAP.

There is no such thing as too quick of a reply to an email.  Again, when you’re at the point in your career when you need people more than they need you it is especially important to respond quickly.  If you’re truly swamped or travelling to a remote jungle with no cell signal or WiFi, email back immediately letting people know when you’ll respond in detail.  Silence is deadly and signals you’re not trustworthy or reliable to get stuff done. Some may disagree, but I think within 24 hours is the target, certainly no more than 48.

4. Don’t use other methods unless you have to.

Never reach out to someone via Facebook message, Tweet, LinkedIn, or other platforms unless you want them to treat it as not that important.  It may be fine for social communiques with your friends, but for business, email people.  The exception is if you have no email address for them.  In this case, it’s fair game but always offer your email address and give them the option to switch the conversation over to email.

5. Don’t call about anything that can be handled over email.

One of the most annoying things in the world for busy business-people is the unnecessary phone call.  If you have a simple question, or a list of ideas, or anything that can be handled via email, use email.  Emails may reveal the need for a phone call to discuss further, but then you can exchange preferred numbers and schedule something.  There are few things worse than an unexpected call from an unrecognized number about something email could have handled.  One of the things that’s worse, however, is getting a text or an email that says, “Hey, can you call me?” only to get on the phone and realize it is a simple question that could have been included in the email.

The only exception to this rule is for people who obviously prefer phone or another method.  Always assume email, but if you email someone two or three times, and each time they respond by calling, texting, or Skyping, try that method first the next time around.  But again, email should be the first and default.

6. Know when to CC.

When someone effects an email introduction between you and another party, CC them in your initial response.  They need to know the loop was closed and the connection made.  They risked social capital on you, so put them at ease that you did your part.  The exception is if they explicitly say something like, “You can take it from here, no need to loop me in.”  In this case, they probably mean they don’t want to be CC’d on a long chain of back and forth with you and your new contact, BUT, they should definitely be informed that you did in fact follow up.  BCC or a separate email to them saying thanks and the connection has been made is in order.

7. Don’t make more than one ask.

Don’t email someone to introduce yourself or your idea for the first time and then ask if they’d be interested in speaking at your event, forwarding an attachment to their friends, talking on the phone, doing a guest blog post, and being part of a brainstorm session all in one email.  They’ll be irritated and are less likely to do any of them.  Boil it down to one ask. If communication is well established, multi-purpose emails may be acceptable, but use with caution.

8. Get to the point.

Easy on the paragraphs, bullet points, attachments, and verbiage.  Avoid special formatting.

9. Follow the lead.

If your correspondent is using shorthand, no salutation, colloquialisms, GIFs, lols or other informal techniques, it’s probably OK for you to do the same.  Never start out this way though, even if writing from a mobile device.  Assume the need for proper punctuation, capitalization, full sentences and good grammar unless it becomes an established norm with your interlocutor.

10. Don’t ask people to email a different address unless absolutely necessary.

This means it’s important to use the email address you want to people to send to when you put contact info on profiles, resumes, business cards and applications.  It will drive people mad to respond to an applicant via the email address listed and get, “Sorry it took me so long to respond, I never check this account.”  This also means you should strive to have only one or two email addresses, and probably ensure they all flow into a single box so nothing is missed.

The Line Between Finding Your Method and Letting Yourself Off the Hook

I listen to a lot of podcasts and read a lot of interviews and articles about the different habits and schedules of successful people.  Some get up at 4:00 AM, some get up at 11:00 AM.  Some work 16 hours in a day, some work two.  Some need people and energy around, some need solitude.  Every one of them is disciplined, but what they discipline themselves to do and how differs tremendously.

The more you learn about habits like this the more pressure you can feel.  I’ve had various phases in life where I felt guilty for not getting up earlier like so many people.  I’ve gotten up at 5 or 6 every day for sometimes long periods.  But honestly, it never helped me.  I feel physically ill early in the morning.  I used to dislike that about myself, but I realized it was only because I had this feeling that I should be more like successful people I know.  Yet none of those people got up early for its own sake.  They did because they found it to be the best schedule for them, given their own rhythm and flow.

It’s hard to shed guilt or pressure to implement the habits of other successful people.  It’s freeing to realize that you have your own methods that work for you, and they might look totally different.  That realization can also be a bit dangerous.  Am I sleeping in because that’s really the best way for me to optimize my day, or am I doing it because I’m lazy or lack the discipline to not drink too much the previous night?

It takes a lot of self-knowledge and self-honesty to find out what works for you and be honest about whether you’re really doing it.  The thing most successful people share in common is not the habits themselves, but how they arrived at them.  Constant seeking of new ideas and information.  Testing out ideas and practices you hear from others.  Being honest about which ones work and then sticking with them.  When you get slack, not pretending you slacked because it didn’t work.  Being honest about which ones don’t work at all and dropping them.

The line between putting unhealthy pressure on yourself based on a desire to imitate others and putting healthy pressure on yourself based on a desire to optimize your life can be a fine one.  Treat it like a game, laugh at yourself, and keep exploring until you find things that work.

The Infantilization of Everyone

Yesterday I saw an article by a teacher in the Bay Area asking NBA MVP Stephan Curry to not visit his school.  The teacher loves Steph’s team and Steph’s game and is happy for his success.  He just doesn’t want him to come visit the kids because he’s afraid the kids will think they can do what Curry has done.  The teacher pointed to Curry’s NBA father and other things he had growing up that helped him better train for a career in basketball than most of these kids will have access to.

The teacher’s concern is not unlike comments and complaints I see every time someone shares a post or article or piece of advice to young people.  Even seemingly simple things like, “Keep your expenses low so you can seize opportunities to do cool stuff even if it doesn’t pay”, or, “Try getting experience before deciding on a career path”, or, “Go after things you really love”,  are met with cries of, “That’s dangerous advice”, and, “Not everyone is privileged like you”, and, “You’re setting people up for failure because that advice doesn’t apply to every situation”.

My question to the teacher and the posers of these objections is the same: who are these people you are so concerned about?

Surely the teacher doesn’t think his students are too stupid to realize that Steph Curry has different physical characteristics than they do.  Surely his pupils aren’t so naive and ignorant of all aspects of the world to think that every person who wants to will be an NBA star.  Who among them will spend all of their time training only to have their life ruined when they discover too late that the Golden State Warriors won’t pay them to play?

And who is going to destroy their own life with no hope of recovery based on a Facebook post?  Who is going to assume every piece of advice they’ve ever heard applies to their every situation?

It’s incredibly demeaning to assume everyone but you is so dumb they must be protected from success stories or inspiration or advice because they’ll be unable to see differences between those giving it and their own lives.  It’s arrogant, unbecoming, and at worst the basis for paternalistic forms of social control.

Kids aren’t dumb.  Neither are poor people.  They know they’re almost certainly not going to be Michael Jordan or Beyoncé or Bill Gates.  Meeting and hearing from successful people – whether “privileged” or not – can be eye-opening, exciting, and challenging.  It can be fun.  Hearing their stories and tips and advice can be useful.

Coddling people and running around policing anyone who talks about their success or says, “You can do great stuff”, or keeping a privilege scorecard doesn’t help anyone.

Being inspired is not dangerous.  Being uninspired is.

The Secret Skill That Beats All the Rest

From the Praxis blog. 

I’m going to tell you a secret. There is a skill you can master which will guarantee everything you do will improve by at least 50%, but probably more like 100%, and more over time.

The best part about this skill is it’s easy. Anyone can obtain it. You don’t need to have any particular natural talent. You don’t need any resources or teachers to master it. Once you have it and it becomes a part of your every operation you will begin to achieve at an accelerating rate. Your success will compound and your reputation will bring you more opportunities.

In the words of Morpheus, “Do you want to know what it is?”

Getting sh*t done.

That’s it. Read it again. Let it sink in.

What does it look like in practice? Responding to emails immediately, and never taking longer than 24 hours to do so. Showing up for everything you’ve said you’d show up for. Finishing everything you’ve said you’d finish and on time. When you say, “I’ll read that book”, or, “I’ll check out that website”, or, “I’ll send my resume”, doing it. Immediately. If you can’t or won’t, don’t say those things. Every time you say you’ll do something and don’t you’ve missed an opportunity to be better than the majority of your peers and build social capital.

In 90% of situations I’d take someone with coherent same-day responses to all communications who always delivers as promised and when promised over someone with mastery over just about any skill I can think of. I’m not alone in this. The desperate need for hard working, reliable people who communicate immediately all the time is off the charts.

If you make people wait for responses or wonder if you’ll ever follow through you’ve cost them, even if only psychologically. People don’t tend to want to work with people who cost them, they want to work with people who they never have to expend any mental energy worrying about. They want to work with people who pleasantly surprise them by over-delivering.

Anyone can be the person who always follows through, always communicates, always delivers, and never leaves anyone hanging or in the dark. It’s only a matter of will and discipline.

Just get stuff done.

Why Not Go Work for an Awesome Company Now?

Many people can’t get paid jobs because they lack experience.  Most will go pay a lot of money to buy a credential in hopes that it gets them access to the jobs, or take a different job.  You could also just see if you can do the job for free as a way to get access.  Apparently, this is a controversial suggestion.

Today I posted the following on Facebook:

Young people: if you have the choice:

Work with awesome people on interesting stuff for no pay

-or-

Work with average people on average stuff for a salary higher than most of your peers

Which would you take?

I suggest the former will pay off 5 or 10 tens more over the short term psychologically and over mid-long term financially as well.

Avoid anything that makes taking the former opportunity more difficult. (Debt, obligation, geographical restrictions, pressure from others, promises you wish you hadn’t made, etc.)

And this:

Imagine your favorite existing company or your dream startup idea. If someone there came to you and said, “We want you to work with us! We just can’t pay you right now.”

Could you do it? Would you?

If you’re 15-25, I’d say a major goal should be to be in a position where you can afford to say yes.

I was baffled by the number of comments and private messages I received from people who passionately disagreed or found these posts dangerous, ignorant, or offensive.  You never know what things will rile people up on the internet.  Didn’t expect this to be one of them!

No, the posts are not anti-work.  No, they are not anti-money or anti-capitalist.  No, they do not claim in any way that everyone should share the same time preference or risk tolerance.  No, they do not imply that working for free is morally or practically better than working for pay.

The posts are making a point about the particular position of young people early in their careers.  They spend tens of thousands of dollars and several years attempting to gain credentials they hope will grant them access to jobs they like and that can sustain them.  My question is, why not just go get that job now?  Work for free if it’s the only way.  Working for free at a great company is probably better than paying to not get paid at a university so that you can hopefully work for enough pay to cover your debt later.  It’s probably more likely to lead to more money and happiness in the long term.

Do it when you’re young and inexperienced your opportunity cost is low and your financial obligations are few.  Invest in yourself by trading pay for great experience if you can.  That’s what many people think they’re doing with school.  What’s different about working instead?  In many cases, it’s better.

But let’s say you’re out of school already.  I think the same question applies.  Ask yourself, if a great opportunity came your way that didn’t have a lot of money with it but it did have a lot of long term promise, would you and could you take it?  You don’t have to in order to be a good person.  It’s your life, not mine.  But if you wish you could but think you can’t because you have a lot of financial or other obligations, the point is to consider ways in which you can reduce those obligations.  Be in a position to take advantage of the best opportunities (measured on all fronts, not just by pay).  The golden handcuffs are real, and they can hurt.  I’ve written before how debt can limit your options, and how lack of income can be an asset.

If at an incredibly young age you already find yourself having to take a job you don’t like because nothing else will cover your expenses, you might try to find ways to reduce the obligations.  I’m not saying don’t work hard.  I’m not saying money doesn’t matter.  I’m not even taking a side on the follow your passion/don’t follow your passion debate.

I think people overestimate the long term value of money early in their career, and underestimate the long term value of time well spent early in their career.  The latter has greater returns.  I’ve talked to many stressed out new employees who are thinking about not taking a job they love because it pays $27,000, instead of the $31,000 they’re making at the job they can tolerate.  I’ve been there myself more than once.  The thing is, in a few years, and certainly in ten years, that extra money will mean little to you, as much as it feels like right now.  But your time and how well you spent it will mean even more, not to mention the network and skills you build along the way.  Odds are that not just in happiness, but in long-term financial rewards, you’ll do better going with the one that is more up your alley vs. a few thousand bucks.

I’ve never worked for free except on side projects and launching my own company.  I’ve never had an internship.  I’ve always been a paperboy or grocery clerk or golf course go-getter or construction worker or something else to earn money.  The sooner I was able to merge my interests with my income the happier I was.  That’s not for everyone.  But I can tell you many of the best decisions I’ve made were saying no to well paying jobs.  I could have been a pharmaceutical rep at age 19 and had a company car, benefits, and starting at $50-60k.  I couldn’t be happier that I picked a series of jobs with a higher ceiling and more in line with the kind of people I wanted to be around and the kind of stuff I really love doing.  That extra $25k in starting salary seemed like a million bucks at the time.  Now it seems like it would have been more than foolish to take it instead of the path I chose.  If you’re doing great work and working hard at it, the financial rewards will come.

I am not preaching dependence.  Far from it.  This is a message of independence.  Don’t just take internship after internship and live with mom and dad until you’re 40.  Heck no.  Don’t be dependent.  Be independent of as many things as possible – debt, promises, other people, and even a certain income level.  That’s the point.  Pick things that take advantage of your strengths even if the pay is low upfront because of what it can be down the road, and because of the fulfillment you’ll get.  Don’t get locked into an income level that your friends think is cool if it limits your options.

Get paid if you can and as much as you can.  But the idea that schooling is the only way to invest in yourself for greater future gains is absurd.  As is the idea that a better salary is always the best long-term payoff.  Why not give up income to gain human capital on the job?

If after all this you still don’t get my point or think I’m somehow against work, or money, or subjective value, or rainbows and hugs and everything lovely, this post is not for you anyway.  If it resonates with you as similar advice and thinking did with me many years ago, take it to heart.

Time and money are both valuable.  One of them you can create more of, the other you can’t.

The Power of the Subconscious

I’ve written before about one of my favorite books, Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation, and what it says about the subconscious mind being the key to scientific discovery, artistic expression, and other eureka moments.  Koestler describes a common process where those trying to solve a problem or create something new consciously wrestle with the ideas so much that they seep into the subconscious.  After some time away (sleeping, a vacation, a walk, other pursuits) the solution emerges from the subconscious into the conscious mind when least expected.

A friend was telling me recently about a similar observation Napoleon Hill made about those who write down and read or recite their goals regularly.  The goals, after being absorbed and repeated over and again, seep into the subconscious.  That’s when the real stuff happens.  The subconscious takes over, works on the goals, heightens your awareness to ideas and opportunities that move you towards them, and sends out a kind of invisible signal to the world that attracts people and things that assist you in the achievement of the goals.

This need not be interpreted as a mystical phenomenon.  How many times, after learning a new word, do you begin to notice that word everywhere?  How many times, after naming a child something unique, do you begin to hear that name regularly?  Once your subconscious has material to work with, it alters your perception and enables you to tune in to the things that best resonate with whatever is bouncing around in there.

This means that, whether or not you’re deliberately putting it to work, your subconscious mind is working.  What is it doing?  What problems is it solving?  What opportunities is it making you attuned to?  In what ways could you put it to work for you more effectively?

Do Whichever One Works for You

Follow your passion, or follow your effort?  Only go after what you love – your calling – or just knuckle down and get good at something?  I sometimes get asked which side of this debate I fall on.  I think that’s the wrong question.

It doesn’t matter which side I fall on, or anyone else.  It only matters what works for you.  Both approaches are true.  Who could disagree with trying to do something you love more than all your other options?  Who could disagree that working hard and mastering something is more likely to bring you the things you want in life than half-assing it?

These approaches are both valid.  They are both good advice.

Take the follow your passion advice.  The difficulty is that it’s really, really hard work to find what you love.  It’s harder work to be honest about what you find.  Harder still to do what it takes to achieve it.

Then take the follow your effort advice.  How to choose where to put the effort?  How to know when the struggle will yield long-term benefit and when it’s just useless suffering?

Both approaches still leave a lot of work to you.  That’s why it doesn’t matter which you pick.  When you hear someone giving one of these pieces of advice and you get excited and feel freed, that’s the one for you.  If you hear it and think it’s a load of BS, that’s not the one for you.  Go with the approach that resonates.

Success as a Discipline

I like to view success as a skill not unlike any other.  I think it can be learned.  If you apply discipline and form good habits you will get better at success.

Perhaps there are elements of heredity or good fortune that might bring a person success or the appearance of it.  But those are less common and tend to be fleeting.  In fact, if you have not learned success as a discipline, even good fortune could end up making you worse off in the long run.

Success is the ability to imagine a desired end and achieve it.  Both components – the imagining and the achieving – are important.  The thing that connects them and ties ideas to outcomes is a willingness to pay the price.  Many people imagine lovely things and get upset or confused when they don’t get them.  But few are realistic about whether or not they actually are willing to do what it takes.

How can you learn the discipline of success?  You learn by doing.  First imagine something you want.  Then think through what it will take to achieve it.  Decide if you’re willing to pay the price and if so, fully commit.  Now begin taking the steps and don’t stop until you achieve it.  That’s it.  Each time you accomplish what you set out to you begin to form a habit and become accustomed to the process of success.  For this reason, as with any other skill, start small.  Think of modest goals and ends that aren’t too far off.  Practice achieving them and you not only get whatever the end was, but you learn how to succeed.  Do it over and over.  Once you’ve mastered success as a discipline, you can apply it to more grand and ambitious ends.

I don’t mean to imply that you can succeed every time you try anything.  Skills don’t work that way.  You can’t master piano playing such that you’ll never make a mistake and you can play anything perfectly the first time.  But we all recognize piano playing as a skill that can be cultivated through discipline and the formation of habits.  Success is the same.  You can teach yourself how to imagine a goal, commit to paying the price, and reach it.

Should You Study the Greats, or Just Improvise?

It’s not uncommon for the most devoted students of personal health, or business startups, or filmmaking, or success more generally to be only moderately successful themselves. We’ve all met people who have read every “7 Ways”, and, “10 Tips” book on the market, yet still haven’t really gotten off the ground personally. So is greatness just too unique and context-dependent for useful road maps?

Most classes and books and seminars on how to succeed are run by those who have succeeded in some field or another. While their track record may be impressive, I always feel a little bit like successful people make up a lot of rules and patterns that helped them succeed in retrospect, and only some of them are real and valuable. If you’re too serious about it, it can make you feel like you can’t succeed unless you follow such rules or have great formmulae in place. In reality, those come later. First comes just doing stuff.

I think most endeavors in real life are more like bike riding than the checkbox tests in schools. If you wanted to be great at cycling, what would you do? Would you start with a seminar on bike riding? Best case, maybe you’d gain 5% of what’s needed from theory and experienced riders – like why a helmet might be a good idea – but you have to get 95% from just doing it.

This doesn’t mean experts and books are useless. Once you are an avid rider, only then do tips and techniques from Lance Armstrong really help you. It’s hard to even know what they’re talking about before that.

A lot of people in business school or getting MBA’s or at entrepreneurship conferences are like an aspiring cyclist spending years studying inside tips for winning the Tour de France and drafting and advanced specialized techniques for hill climbing, etc. before ever getting on a bike. Hop on and ride. A lot. Enter a few small races. Then whip out the books.

You don’t have the master something before studying it, but to really benefit from the insights of experts, you have to know what they’re talking about on a gut level. You have to be doing the stuff they’re teaching.

Glean what you can, but don’t ever let the quest for more knowledge on how to do something get in the way of just doing it.

The Paradox of Survival

People who live the fullest lives have a loose grip on everything. They don’t cling too tightly to relationships, possessions, health or life itself. They are free from mood-controlling fear and worry. They take the prospect of terminal illness or the loss of a job with ease, because they don’t find their solace in their present material position relative to others, but in something deeper and more unshakable.

The ability to let go of things is useful in every arena of life. Let go of your kids rather than lamenting their choice of hobbies, or the fact that they grow and change. Let go of your fear of losing and put yourself into your sport with abandon. Let go of the desperation to be loved or else you are likely scare others away; to be less lovable. Let go of fear of death, and what life you have is richer.

All this freedom found in letting go, yet humans are programmed to seek their own survival above all else and against all odds. Are we to fight our own hard-wiring? And why are humans so universally inspired by stories of fighting cancer, fighting the odds, resisting the inertia of world, not giving up, not letting go? There is something noble and heroic about refusing to roll with the punches.

How can we square these competing approaches? If suffering from a serious sickness, is it best to let go of our fear of pain and death and find our zen, or should we fight the degradation of our bodies with every fiber?

Both.

There is a way to reconcile a loose grip on life with a refusal to let go of our dreams. I haven’t mastered it. Few have. The space between freedom from worry over the vicissitudes of life, and intense focus on how to overcome them, is the place where greatness emerges. I’ve seen it in sports. Think about Michael Jordan playfully taunting his opponent at the free throw line. He was so free from the worry of missing the shot, or of embarrassment that he closed his eyes while shooting – a loose grip on the game. At the same time, he was so focused on dominating the game, being the best, and making the shot. Greatness.

The key is to hold on to what we have and keep climbing the obstacles that impede us to obtain what we want. The key is also to let go of what we have and be free from the fear of not obtaining what we want. Now all you have to do is both at the same time.

Want a Better World? Make a Profit

A few days ago, I noticed a post on Fast Company’s Co.Exist titled, “Is Working on Wall Street Actually the Most Ethical Career Choice?”  The post is about a project called 80,000 hours that is trying to get people to think about how best to spend the average 80,000 hours they will be in a career.

Somewhat refreshingly, the project encourages people to consider going into high-income careers rather than the non-profit world.  It describes the outsized impact you can have by funding several causes vs. working in one.  But the premise remains: to do good, it’s nonprofits that provide the boots on the ground.  You might have to bite the bullet and take a high-paying job so that you can support such efforts, but it’s very clear that aid and charitable organizations are what make the world a better place.

What’s so odd about this perspective is that all the evidence in world history reveals just the opposite.  There has not been a single, massively transformative development driven by charity work.  But millions upon millions have seen the end of poverty, disease and plague; we’ve seen lifespans extended, air and water cleaned, culture, art and beauty preserved and enhanced, and lives saved by profit-seeking enterprises.

Working for profit is, in a free-market, always a win for others.  Profit is a signal.  It reveals when value has been added to society, as measured by the subjective values of those in society.  Resources are purchased for a price.  That price is what the resources are valued at for their next best use.  Profit-seekers then do something to the resources.  They apply ideas, time, other resources and labor.  What comes out the other end is sold.  If consumers willingly pay a price high enough to cover the cost of inputs plus some, profit is made.  What does that profit signify?  It signifies value created.  It shows how much more valuable the resources are after the transformation than before.  It shows, in dollars, how much better off people are because of the enterprise.

Of course dollars are not a perfect measurement of value.  And of course economic value is subjective and changing.  But there is no perfect measurement, and there is none clearer, cleaner, or fairer.  You can ask people what they value, but when they willingly trade their dollars for it, it speaks volumes.  Any uncoerced exchange that generates profit should be hailed as a wonderful benefit to the world.

Sure, you can make a bunch of money so you can give lots away to causes you believe in.  That’s a wonderful thing.  It feels good.  It can help some people in tangible ways that are fulfilling to be a part of.  The truth is, whether you like it or not, you’re doing more good for the world by the activity that makes you the money (so long as it’s not subsidy, tax, or regulation supported) than by the activities you support in giving it away.

I highly recommend this excellent article by F.A. Harper on “The Greatest Economic Charity“.

Never Have a Magnum Opus

In yesterday’s post, I said,

“I’ve also found that viewing a post as the beginning of my own understanding of the topic, rather than my final word or magnum opus, is intellectually enriching and produces a wealth of new ideas down the road.  But more on that later…”

Now is the later.

My son spends hours every day producing artwork.  Sometimes he will go for several days on a single theme: a new super hero or comic book he’s created.  He is lost in the world he creates as he produced dozens and dozens of drawings, each with elaborate back stories.  Inevitably, whatever theme he’s on comes to a sudden and unexpected (for me, anyway) halt.  He gets a new idea, abandons his previous project, and moves right on to the next.

As a father, of course I find his creations delightful and I have a strong urge to capture them as whole works and preserve them.  He asked me once to help him turn his book of 30 different wizards and sorceresses (“Wizopedia”) into a website.  I was excited to help and began digitizing his drawings and typing in his dictated details on each character…for the first two characters.  Then he got bored and abandoned it for new ideas.

At first, I saw this flightiness as a weakness in him.  Perhaps it is to a certain extent and he’ll need to learn to see some things through to completion.  But the more I think on it, the more I see it as a strength, and the more I want to develop the same tendency in myself.  My son is not concerned about an artistic legacy at this point.  He’s not concerned about a shiny, neat and clean completed work to present to the world so he can bask in his accomplishment.  He’s not trying to create his magnum opus.  He creates for the sheer joy of it, and when he doesn’t feel that joy in a particular project, he moves to where he does.

When I think about the most interesting people, who’ve created the most interesting art or analysis, so many of them produced things until the very moment they passed.  Some of the greatest academic minds produce interesting ideas into their 80’s and even 90’s.  Contrariwise, there’s something sad about a person who produced a magnum opus, and then spent the remaining years living on that legacy, protecting it from being misinterpreted, and making sure the world was aware of its brilliance.  It seems perhaps the best thing to do after creating is to let your creation out into the world and, in a sense, walk away from it and start creating something new.

When I think about my life, I try to imagine it as an upward trajectory through time, rather than a great peak followed by a slow decline in my twilight years.  I want my greatest ideas, moments, experiences and creations to be those at the end of my life.  It seems natural that this should be the case, at least until the physical body’s aging prohibits it, as we accumulate more knowledge and perspective through time.  That is, if we don’t stagnate.

Rather than a single epic project, it seems a more interesting and challenging goal to see one’s entire life as a great work.  Let your whole catalog of creations, from beginning to end, be your magnum opus.  Never peak until you die.

Grow Up Slowly

About a year ago, I had lunch with a very successful couple.  The husband had made a great deal of money early in life on a business start-up in a big city.  After running the firm for a time, he sold most of his shares and the family moved to a picturesque rural dwelling.  He spends but a few hours a week involved with his business, and the rest of his time is spent pursuing his passion for music and a great many other things.  His wife is busy pursuing her passions in art and other cultural affairs.

I asked what prompted such a dramatic change at this early phase in life, especially when they could have easily continued with managing the business, or started another.  They said, in complete agreement, “We moved out here because we wanted our kids to grow up slowly.”

I told my wife about the conversation, and those words have stuck with us ever since.  Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of it.  We haven’t fully internalized it, but I know it was important for us to hear and consider while raising our own children.  It’s easy to get stressed when they don’t walk right at the average age for walking, or don’t read or ride a bike or swim as early as your friend’s kids.  It’s easy to try to cram their heads full of practical and theoretical knowledge and get them up to speed quickly.  You imagine what you would be if you had been more learned early on.  Or you simply want them to gain independence quicker so you won’t be as limited as a parent.

These are not necessarily bad desires, but this business about letting them grow up slowly just resonates on a deep level.  There is something beautiful about the naivety of kids; about watching them try things they’re not prepared for; about how unaware they are of just how real the world can be.  When they learn organically, on their own time, it’s amazing to see.  Feeling free to sit back and soak it in as a parent is truly wonderful.

Even as I am trying to learn how to let my kids grow up slowly, I’m beginning to understand the benefits of slow growth for myself.  While reading the fascinating book, How They Succeeded, I came across some interesting words by Alexander Graham Bell.  The author and interviewer asked, “[I]s not hard study often necessary to success?”  Bell replied,

“No; decidedly not. You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them. It is perseverance in the pursuit of studies that is really wanted.”

I’m the first to say that just getting things done is the key to success.  Does an action bias contradict Bell’s words?  I’m not sure that it does.  Perhaps in the realm of action, haste is a great virtue, but in the realm of thought, slow growth is preferred: act fast, think slow.  Not the best slogan, but there’s something to it.

The things we need to get out of the way – certain credentials, experiences, legwork, etc. – just need to be hammered through.  But the really important stuff – our life philosophy, an entrepreneurial venture, a new paradigm, a book – needs to grow slowly with our experience and knowledge.  It needs persistent mental activity, but not forced completion.

Since blogging every day, I have found occasions where I have nothing for the next day’s post.  There are two ways to remedy the problem.  The first is to quickly scan the news feeds, inbox, or bookshelf, come up with something, and type it.  The second is to search for ideas that have been incubating for a long while, often subconsciously.  A drive, walk, or talk with a deep-thinking friend can help me discover nascent ideas I didn’t even realize were under the surface.  Those tend to be better than the posts I think up and crank out on the spot.  I’ve also found that viewing a post as the beginning of my own understanding of the topic, rather than my final word or magnum opus, is intellectually enriching and produces a wealth of new ideas down the road.  But more on that later…

Bell concludes on the topic,

“Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a fevv days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years. A horse is often a grandfather before a boy has attained his full maturity. The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider, and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation, persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”

Rewrite the Present

Humans tend to have a “good ol’ days” bias.  We imagine the past as better than it was.  Over time, events and experiences in our own life that were dull or painful can become funny or wonderful as we recreate them in our memory.  Epochs long before our time are romanticized, like the idea of the noble savage or the simple pleasure of pastoral life.

This bias can be problematic.  We often critique the perceived failures and excesses of the present in comparison to a past that never was and is not possible.  Some hate the fact that most of us buy food from people we don’t know, grown by still others we’ve never met.  They hate it because they think it alienates us from what we eat in some way.  They imagine some past where they would be joyously working a small field to harvest beautiful ready to eat produce that they planted months before with their own hands, far from the grit and concrete of the city and all that shipping and packaging.  They don’t think clearly enough to see the constant festering blisters; the rotten, insect-ridden, small, and unreliable crops; the body odor of their family members sleeping in drafty homes with little privacy, and the unavailability of a varied diet, just to name a few oft forgotten realities.

In this case, a rosy bias towards the past makes us less able to effectively deal with real or perceived problems in the present.  The romance is employed to prove the need for the use of force to stop human progress.  It’s a version of the Nirvana Fallacy.

We could attempt, through mental discipline, to eradicate this tendency in ourselves.  We could look hard and deep at the real past, internalize how rough it was, smash the romantic memories and become hardened realists.  I think this is a bad solution.

The past is no longer a thing that exists.  It is a bundle of ideas we carry in our brains.  It is valuable only to the extent it enhances our present.  A realistic assessment of the trials and travails before can sometimes make the present better and provide valuable knowledge.  Just as often, it offers no value, but only makes us sad. An idealized and romantic past can bring a lot of joy and laughter that enhance our present.  The fact that we recreate the material facts of the past and store mostly the positive is probably a wonderful thing.  Recall the times you felt tremendous sadness, guilt or fear: Imagine carrying a realistic memory of all those compounded experiences around with you all the time.

More problematic than recreating the past is a failure to recreate the present.  The way you perceive life determines the quality of it.  If I think fondly on my childhood because I’m filtering it for the good, why not work on implementing a similar filter for the present?  It’s never possible to be perfectly accurate in our perceptions of the world; we will always have limits and bias in our worldview.  Why not cultivate that bias towards things that bring peace, freedom, and joy?  It’s a little more than making lemonade out of lemons.  It’s a conscious effort to learn from our brain’s natural filtering of the past and trying to implement it in the present.  It’s a discipline.  An optimistic outlook is no less accurate than a pessimistic outlook, but it is more fun.

A good place to start cultivating an optimistic (yet realistic) worldview is at Tough Minded Optimism.