Tag: Work Habits

Age and Your Option Set

I meet a lot of young people who have the skills, interest, maturity, and resources to do right now the very thing they want to be doing in five years.  Almost none of them realize it, or feel free to do it now.  They feel as though they need permission, or need to be in the “normal” age bracket for it to be in their set of options.

I know some coders who have the skill and interest to work for a software startup.  They don’t enjoy school.  They don’t feel it’s making them a better coder.  They have a job offer right now to go work someplace they love.  They even say that the job offer is exactly the kind they want to get in four years when they finish school, and voice disappointment that it came their way too early.  How could it be too early?  The company wants you and you want them, right now, today!

The conveyor belt mindset is so strong in most of us that we are incapable of seeing options in front of us if they aren’t part of the set of options that is supposed to be in front of a 16, 18, or 24 year old.  At 18 your options are among different colleges, internships, summer jobs, or gap year programs.  That’s the norm, and that norm blinds people to the massively larger set of options they actually have.  This blinding is so strong that even when offered something that they hope will be available four years hence, they are unable to see it as a serious, viable option, and they say no to go suffer through something less interesting for four years and untold thousands.

This isn’t just about college.  Our tendency to stick with the age-defined conveyor belt option set society expects is strong throughout life.  I’ve met women who desperately want to stop working and have and raise children, but they feel like they aren’t allowed to until they’ve put in a certain amount of time as a working woman, even though they could afford it today.  I’ve met people who want to play gigs at bars with a band, but they feel that’s the kind of thing an accountant can only do when he retires.

Don’t be blinded by social averages and expectations.  If you want to learn code today, who cares that you’re only 10 and supposed to be doing other things.  If you want to switch careers, who cares that you’re 60 and it’s supposed to be too late for that.  If you have a job offer today that matches what you hope to get after graduation, who cares that you’re only 18.

The conveyor belt sucks.  Get off.  Pave your own path.

The Hunt-to-Meat Ratio and Personal Fulfillment

I was talking with Levi about an article we both came across describing how extreme athletes and entrepreneurs share a brain chemistry that gets a bigger high off of overcoming risky challenges.  The basic idea is that both types of people need that ever ratcheting risk or they become depressed.  This is why entrepreneurs who get a big payday almost always end up launching another venture instead of retiring on an island.  We discussed how plausible this seemed, and in the process hatched the hunt-to-meat ratio.

Hunting is hard and unpredictable.  It requires some practice and training, you may come up empty, or your prey or another predator could turn on you and end it all.  It’s physically and mentally trying, involves lots of patience punctuated by quick bursts of adrenaline-fueled activity, and pre and post hunt analysis.  The assumption is that we hunt because we value the meat.  This is only partially true.  We also hunt because we value the meaning and fulfillment we derive from the hunting experience itself – because of, not despite, the risk.

The thrill-seeker or serial entrepreneur might have a very skewed ratio wherein a much larger percent of their fulfillment comes from the hunt than from the meat that results.  This is all of course arbitrary and from the hip, but I’d say I’m somewhere around 85% hunt, 15% meat, meaning the vast majority of my fulfillment comes from the activity and not so much from the reward at the end.  Levi and some other entrepreneurs I’ve met are probably more like 95-5.

A great many people genuinely believe that they hate work and they’d be happy if they just had wealth without effort.  They believe that their satisfaction ratio is something like 10-90 or 5-95.  They focus only on the meat and hate the hunt.  They end up depressed, and many wrongly conclude that it’s because they need even more meat and less hunt.  They think the ideal life would be 0-100.  This is a tragic misnomer.  Though everyone’s level of fulfillment from leisure and wealth vs. the thrill of a challenge will differ, I suspect it’s hard to be really happy with a percentage of fulfillment that comes from the hunt lower than 50.  A 50-50 hunt-to-meat ratio means you enjoy the challenge of the work in equal proportion to the rewards.  With no struggle at all, we wilt.  Welfare recipients and trust-fund kids alike.

I’m not sure to what extent we have to discover our inherent hunt-to-meat ratio and to what extent we can create it.  Can you learn to get more fulfillment out of work with a different mindset, or does lack of fulfillment simply indicate you still haven’t found the right hunt?  Rather than wishing you didn’t have to hunt at all, I suspect finding your optimal mix and the optimal hunting style that gets you going is more effective.

Gains From a Radically Different Daily Structure

The other day I was in line at a Chipotle in Chicago.  It was around noon on a weekday, so the line was almost out the door.  It took 30 minutes.  It dawned on me just how wasteful and unhappy the whole situation was.  Why should we all wait so long to get food when an hour or two later the cooks and servers would be waiting around with few customers?

The same is true for traffic during rush hour, parking on the weekends, and prices during vacation.  The absurdity of the suffering we all endure and the economic and psychic cost of all this waiting, planning, and crowding is hard to measure.  But it’s real.

It all stems from the same source: the regimentation of life.  Every kid goes to school at the exact same time every day, stays for the same number of hours, leaves at the same time, and has the same days off.  More variation exists in the working world, but not much.  The bulk of producers clock in at roughly the same time every morning, eat lunch in unison, and head home en mass.

The odd thing is none of this is necessary for a growing number, possibly even most of us.  How many jobs require someone to actually be physically present between the hours of 9 and 5?  Why the heck do kids need to sit in clumps of same aged children for identical hours to be forced to study the same things in the same way?  We can work from almost anywhere.  We can learn from almost anywhere.  Most of us have the tools, the freedom of movement, and the resources.  Why don’t we see a diversity of daily schedules?  Why don’t more people treat Tuesday as the weekend?  Why don’t more people do all their errands during the day and their work at night?  Why don’t more people abandon regular offices or classrooms altogether?

There are some benefits the the regimen, but not enough to justify the costs we endure.  These practices continue primarily because of a mindset.  We have status quo bias.  We feel guilt or confusion at the idea of not being present 9-5 at work or 8-3 at school.  It’s an obsession with externally defined roles and goals at the expense of outcomes and value created.  What do we want and need to learn or create or earn?  How and when can we best do it?  Those are the important questions and the answers, if we are honest, would vary widely and look little like the routines most of us subject ourselves to.

Imagine a world where kids freely explored, worked, played, and learned on their own terms and timelines.  Imagine a world where people of all ages worked when and how they worked best.  Imagine a week not punctuated by any regular rush hour or weekend or meal time.  Certainly patterns would emerge and some schedules would be more common than others, but absent our rigid adherence to an outdated schedule, supply and demand would be regulated by the money, time, and headache of peaks and troughs, and the market would smooth out and have smaller ups and downs.

The value of such a shift would be immense.  Think of how many hours people would not be sitting in traffic if few had to show up at the same time to the office or school in the morning.  Think about the hours and money that would not be spent during peak times for flights, hotels, parking lots, and Disney World tickets.  Think of the immense subjective value enhancement by not enduring the throngs.  Little if any of these major gains would show up in GDP measurements.  In fact, it may hurt GDP.  Less spending on the same goods.  Less need for parking structures, etc.

We are seeing a slow but steady move in this direction, which is part of the reason I’ve argued that GDP is a dated and increasingly useless measure of anything valuable.  Let’s speed up the process by asking “Why not?” instead of “Why?” about radical new structures that make us happier.  You let your kids unschool?  Why not.  You work remotely?  Why not.  You take the day off to go to the beach in the middle of the day?  Why not.

It might not be doable for you in any big ways, but I bet there are some stressful patterns in your life that are relics of a bygone era and can be shed with little difficulty.

Your Resume is Boring, Do These Five Things Instead

The resume is supposed to be a relatively quick way for someone to get to know your personal and professional accomplishments, skills, interests, and the potential you have to create value in a given setting.  The thing is, it’s pretty outdated.  In fact, it never worked all that well, evidenced by the fact that most people do not get jobs because of a great resume but because of a personal connection.  Resumes have always been a poor substitute for other, more robust ways to get to know someone.  There just weren’t too many other ways once upon a time.  But things change.

Today we have so many ways to paint a picture of who we are, what we love, and what we can do than we ever did before.  It’s time to stop leaning on a sheet of paper with boring bullet points and begin building better ways for people to see what you’re all about.  When I get resumes now I barely look at them.  A quick scan, then I immediately jump on Google to find the things that give me better signals.  Here are five of them.

1. Create a personal website.

This might sound daunting, but it’s doesn’t have to be.  Go to WordPress, get a domain with your name in it if you can, pick a basic theme, complete an “about” page with a few photos and a bio, and write a few blog posts that update what you care about and what you do.  Update it at least once a month so it doesn’t look dead.  Don’t feel too much pressure if you’re not a great writer.  The content is less important than that you have a site.  Someone who has taken the time and developed the basic skills to set one up has already set themselves well above the crowd.

2. Have a LinkedIn profile

Most young people hate LinkedIn.  So do most of the adults they spend most of their time with – teachers and professors.  But in the professional world outside of academia, LinkedIn is gold.  It is everything your resume is, but far less boring and with several added benefits.  You need to have a profile there.  It can house all your basic experience and skills and other stuff that goes on a resume, but it also has some color, endorsements, and a way for people to see shared connections, what kind of articles you’ve liked, and more.  When you send a resume to someone they are going to look for you on LinkedIn whether you like it or not.  If you’re not there, or if you have a shabby, out of date profile, your stock will drop.

3. Make use of Facebook and other social profiles

Everyone uses at least one social platform.  Most are on Facebook, or Twitter, or Pinterest, or others.  My advice here is controversial but I stand by it.  Make your social media pages publicly viewable.  Look, if you have something really incriminating on there someone could find it anyway if they were motivated enough.  Making your profile public is a good way to keep a check in your mind on what kinds of things you may and may not want to share.  This doesn’t mean your entire Facebook presence needs to become whitewashed of anything personal or fun.  Far from it.  That’s good stuff, even to a potential employer, and a completely polished presence is slightly disconcerting.  But if you’re constantly in name-calling flame wars over political issues on Facebook, for example, that’s probably not good for most jobs and probably not good for you.  Let the world see a little bit of the real you, and let that be a you you’re proud of.  Again, when you send your resume people are going to look for you on social platforms anyway.  They tend to get frustrated when they can see that you exist but can’t view any details without a friend request.  Let them in.  They’ll get a flavor for so much of the richness that a resume simply cannot provide.

4. Review books on Amazon

This is an underutilized gem.  Amazon has a wonderful reviewing community, and reviews you post there under your real name have pretty decent search engine results.  One thing that’s hard to gauge from a static list of activities is a person’s intellectual depth and passion for learning new things.  Curious, interested people are people employers want to hire.  Everyone does a few classes and clubs, but how many people read interesting books and take the time to write a review?  It’s a good practice in general for your writing and thinking skills, and it really gives you an edge in demonstrating your interests and abilities.

5. Build something

Anything.  Outcomes are more valuable than inputs.  Products are more valuable than paper.  Everyone can list activities they’ve done from date X to date Y.  But what did it result in?  What did you create?  The ability to build and “ship” something is rare and valuable.  Most people get stuck thinking about the article they want to write, the app they want to build, the event they want to run, the group they want to launch, or the painting they want to do.  It takes guts, discipline, humility, and grit to actually finish it.  Think of projects you care about that have a tangible, demonstrable result you can put out there for the world to see (another great use of your personal website).  Saying, “I worked here” is so much less powerful than showing, “I built this”.  Showing beats telling, so find more things you can show.

If these sound like interesting ideas but you’re a little overwhelmed, take them one at a time.  And, of course, you can join Praxis where we have one-on-one coaching and an intensive educational experience focused on helping you learn how to do these things and do them well.

5 Reasons to Take a Crappy Job

If you want to be really good at whatever you do I recommend getting some crappy* work experience while you are young.  Mop floors, work a cash register, haul junk, install drywall, dig ditches, clean bathrooms, or some kind of job that has no pre-existing skill requirement.

Let’s not get too romantic.  I don’t look down on people who haven’t ever had a crappy job, nor do I look up to people who don’t like it but have never moved on from one.  Still, there are some take-aways a crappy job provides that are just hard to get any other way.  Here are a few things you’ll gain.

You’ll learn that attitude is everything

Benefits of Bad Jobs
These guys were onto something

There literally is nothing else.  When you’re working a crappy job you can’t expect things to suddenly get more exciting or rewarding on their own.  Without the faintest hope of a fortunate change in external circumstances, you are forced to come to terms with what’s true for every job: attitude trumps everything.  The difference in a good day cutting 2×4 studs and a bad day cutting 2×4 studs is whether or not you begin with a smile and a whistle.  I’m not kidding.  Try not being happy while whistling!  Customers will be rude, things you just swept will get dirty again, it will rain while you’re trying to read the smudged instructions on the rented Ditch-Witch.  Your laughter might be the only thing that saves you.  This lesson will serve you well when you’re doing work that’s not crappy, because then the stakes only get higher and bad days can seem catastrophic if you don’t know how to deal.

You’ll learn to focus on product

Titles and family income and educational attainment and physical beauty don’t mean much on the clean-up crew.  When you’re bagging groceries nobody gives a hoot how good you are at tennis or how many extracurriculars you have.  There is little scope for unearned favor and politicking in a crappy job.  You shut up and produce.  Want a raise?  Get more done.  Make more customers happy.  Be faster than your coworkers.  Never show up late or miss a day.  Work overtime.  It’s too easy in some of the more complex and interesting jobs, many of which are several steps removed from the end customer, to forget what it is that actually generates the money to make the place go.  You can slip into a mindset that overvalues cleverness and social gamesmanship and overlooks value creation.  That won’t happen when you’re stocking shelves or emptying sticky beer bottles into the dump truck.  You want to move up, you’d better create more value.

You’ll learn that you can be great

There are a lot of people who have mastered the techniques of crappy jobs and can really fly through.  There are even some who genuinely love the jobs.  But let’s be honest, most of the people you’ll work with at the landscaping company aren’t the type you’d want to work with later in life.  In crappy jobs the majority of people you’re surrounded by are always looking for the path of least resistance, being sneaky about hours, indulging in fruitless gossip, pilfering snacks from the break room, and sometimes worse.  When the skill bar is low, you get some unsavory characters who come in and out.  The best part about this is that it won’t take you long to realize that, with a little effort, dedication, and basic people skills and integrity, you can rise to the top and be one of the best employees.  This is a good feeling.  I’m convinced that the path to greatness for most people comes not when they suddenly realize how much potential they have, but when they realize how little everyone else seems to try.  Here’s the secret: this doesn’t change when you move from the grocery store to the Fortune 500 company.

You’ll learn what you want to avoid

The Benefits of Crappy Jobs
If only your work days were this glorious

If you’ve always been in the officer’s quarters and never with the enlisted men and women, you won’t know exactly what you’ve got.  In fact, you may even long for the romantic ideal of menial work in your weaker, more stressed out moments.  “If only my biggest concern was the blister on my heel”, you’ll think to yourself, imagining working the chain gang with Cool Hand Luke.  Everyone who has ever worked a crappy job and moved on will laugh at you.  Sure, they can reminisce about it, but they would never trade intellectually engaging, creative work for it.  They see it as what it is, the first rung on a ladder of personal development.  Working a crappy job helps you realize that you’ve got bigger dreams than just earning enough money to live.  It will motivate you to do more, to build your skill, knowledge, and network outside of work so you can jump into something better.

You’ll learn that the worst case isn’t so bad

Yes, this post is about crappy jobs.  Yes, I just said there’s nothing romantic about it and if you work one you’ll probably want out.  All true.  But it’s also true that these jobs aren’t so bad.  You can only really know this if you’ve had one.  This knowledge will come in handy when you are about to launch your startup and you have no idea if it will fail.  Failure will loom as a haunting spectre, crippling you with indecision.  What will happen if I’m wrong and this thing fails?  That’s when the memory of your crappy job will be like a warm blanket.  You’ll smile and realize that the worst case isn’t so bad.  So what if your business fails?  So what if no one will hire you afterwards?  The worst that can happen is you’ll downgrade to a small apartment and mow lawns or ring up customers.  You’ve been there.  It’s not death.  That’s as far as the fall can go.  There’s comfort and courage in that.

*I’m painting with a broad brush here.  I realize that these jobs are not crappy at all to some people.  I do not mean to insult.  I quite enjoyed most of my crappy jobs while they lasted.  My goal is for you to imagine a job that you think would be crappy.  Something you know you don’t want to do for the rest of your life, something that doesn’t require much skill to start with, and something that no one will be impressed by at cocktail hour.

The Two Things That Trump Talent

One of the big secrets in the professional world is that talent is not the most valuable thing to clients, employers, coworkers, and investors.  I’ve written before about a skill that beats talent every time.  I’m going to expand on that a little bit today.  A combination of two traits will win out over a lot of talent.

Hard work and self-esteem.

Hard work is the ability and willingness to do whatever it takes to get things done.  Be the person who never misses a deadline, never drops the ball, never requires additional prompting, never needs to be checked-in on, never induces worry.  It doesn’t mean someone who just  generates a lot of meaningless activity and sweat, and brags about the all-nighters or the amount of effort.  The key here is the word “work”.  The kind of hard work that will beat talent is really hard-won results.  Work needs to mean valuable outcomes, not inputs.  Tangible value created.

Self-esteem is a deep connection with ones own value and meaning, derived from something other than external circumstances or the approval of others.  Those who can win over a room and keep it aren’t the ones who crave attention or approval for their self-worth, or those who naturally have people skills, but those who don’t fear looking foolish or failing because their self-esteem is much deeper than the opinion of others.  They don’t need to win to feel valuable, they want to win and believe they will because they already feel valuable.

These two traits are very connected.  People are a lot less willing to work their butts off if their identity is wrapped up in external validation.  Working hard – really hard – means being vulnerable.  Being a little too cool to break a sweat shields you from potential embarrassment, but rolling up your sleeves and diving in ratchets up the risk of failing, because people may really pity you or think less if you fail when you were trying your hardest.  Those with low self-esteem experience failure as catastrophic, so they rarely work at 100%.

The good news is, unlike some talents or personality traits, hard work and self-esteem can be built.  You can deliberately cultivate and improve on both of them.  The sooner you stop looking at external measures for your sense of worth, the easier it will be to throw yourself into something the results of which may be judged by others.  The sooner you dive in to your work and resolve to consistently produce, the more you’ll gain a sense of worth from your effort and the less you’ll care what others say.  They feed each other.

Stop worrying about how you stack up talent-wise and become unshakable in your self-esteem and unequaled in your hard work.  These two things supersede all the rest, and will result in the rapid accumulation of opportunity, experience, and yes, even other highly valuable talents and skills.

Make a List of the Jobs You’ve Had

The other day I was thinking about the various things I’ve done to earn money, skill, and experience from about age 8 or 9 onward.  I tried to come up with a complete list and found it to be a really fun and enlightening exercise.  It was rather encouraging and exciting to see how little of a pattern there is, and how nothing like a linear path emerged.  I’ve found that at every unknown juncture, worries about a job have been overblown.  I got married very young and returned from my honeymoon with a mortgage to pay and no job.  The thing that has worked best for me is just to keep working, even while looking.  I did every random, laborious job I could, and it always eventually led to more interesting things.

It’s a cool exercise, and has led to some fun stories with the kids. (Kids are always so fascinated by their parents past failures, hardships, and embarrassments).  Give it a try!  Here’s my list, probably missing some, mostly but not perfectly chronological, and with plenty of overlap:

  • Snow shoveler/leaf raker/lawn mower
  • Weekly ‘Flashes’ delivery
  • Babysitter
  • Dog walker
  • Paper delivery (this one continued for years)
  • Construction/excavation grunt (paid in Gatorade and Swiss Cake Rolls)
  • Golf course grounds worker/pro-shop/concessions/grunt/bathroom cleaner
  • Grocery store carryout and shelf stocker
  • House framer/random cut/cleanup guy
  • Telephone and data cable installation (eventually managing field operations)
  • Guitarist/vocalist in various bands (sometimes I even got paid!)
  • Co-founder of international humanitarian nonprofit (unpaid)
  • House flipper (it was pre-2007…everyone was doing it!)
  • English teacher abroad (unpaid)
  • Medical clinic assistant abroad (unpaid)
  • Electrical worker
  • Co-founder and field manager for datacom startup
  • Landscaper (because the above wasn’t making too much money!)
  • Landlord
  • President of taxpayer advocacy group (unpaid)
  • Legislative intern (unpaid for two weeks)
  • Legislative assistant/aid
  • Legislative “Chief of Staff” (“Staff” included me, one other employee, and an intern)
  • Political Science teacher
  • Creator/director of “Students for a Free Economy” program at the Mackinac Center
  • Random marketing/educational consultant (occasional side gigs)
  • Policy Programs Director at IHS
  • Speaker/lecturer (paid and unpaid)
  • Writer (mostly unpaid, but some steady paid gigs)
  • Education Director at IHS
  • Copywriter (side gigs, paid and unpaid)
  • Sales (some commission-based side-work)
  • Major Gifts Officer (fundraising) at IHS
  • Praxis

How I Learned to Get a Lot Done Without Being Busy

I’ve got a confession: I’m not busy.

Yes, I have three kids, I’m running a business, I create and post a new podcast episode once at least once a week, I write 7-10 articles per week, I travel and speak on average twice a month, I’m committed to doing one form of exercise every day and reading a book every week.

Yet I still have plenty of time.  I play with my kids regularly.  We spend most weekends relaxing or hitting the beach and eat dinner together almost every weekday.  I walk outside or meditate with frequency, listen to podcasts, write and play music, watch movies and sports, hang out with my wife, and almost never get less than eight hours of sleep.  I almost always have time for a philosophical chat, NBA or NFL gossip, or to review some marketing copy for a friend.  Most of all, I rarely feel rushed or pressed time-wise.

There is nothing magical about me.  I do not have particularly high aptitudes or abilities, and it’s not always been like this.  Not even close.  There are a few practices and mindsets that allow me to feel like I have plenty of hours each day, and it’s taken me a long time to get consistently good at them.  I attribute more of my happiness and whatever success I’ve had thus far to these traits than to any particular skill or knowledge.

Be really honest

It took me a long, long time to admit that I hate being busy.  From my mid teens to mid-late twenties I was busy nearly every hour of the day.  I slept 5-6 hours a night, spent ridiculous amounts of time and energy juggling activities and in transit between commitments, and had so many side projects and house projects and work projects that I rarely had time to just go for a walk and think or read for more than ten minutes at a time.  I was proud of myself for being able to do so much.  There is something to the fact that the more you do the more you’re able to do, but I was never really at peace with it.  I wanted to be one of those people who live for the rush and never slow down, so I adopted (or rather didn’t resist) that lifestyle.  But it was never me.  The sooner I came to terms with that bit of self-knowledge and stopped feeling bad about it, the easier it became to begin the process of unbusying myself.

I know some people genuinely love being busy and can’t get in the zone without that rushed feeling.  My brother is that type of person.  I used to wish I could keep up, but I’m much happier being the best version of my unique self, instead of a weak version of people like him.  If that’s you, be you.  Do that.  Find out the best hacks and tricks for fulfillment in constant action.  This advice won’t do you much good.  But if it’s not you, be honest about it.

I finally gave myself permission to say it: I hate being busy.  I need lots of free time.  I need chunks of time to speculate and create and play.  Busyness diminished my quality of life.  Dig deep and discover if it works for you or not, and be honest about what you find.

Find people who are better than you

I’m very competitive (some may say also arrogant) and my gut tells me any new thing I do I should be able to do it better than everyone else pretty quickly.  It can be fun and motivating, but it’s a huge time-suck.  Trying to be good at things that aren’t even in my wheelhouse is a recipe for stress.  In fact, I’m not a specialist at anything, and I stopped trying to be.  I do what I have to, but immediately try to find a way to outsource all non-core tasks, whether work related or personal, as quickly as I can.  I used to take pride in mowing my own lawn.  I didn’t enjoy it and that was a few hours each week that I simply did not need to be burning or stressing in anticipation of wasting.  It’s not expensive to outsource small things like that, and the sooner I learned to swallow my pride and do it, the better life became.

Sometimes it doesn’t take money at all.  There are people all around who can do things better than you can.  Find them.  Ask them.  Work with them.  Trade with them.  Don’t do it unless you’re really the only one who can do it.

Be a ruthless minimalist

My motto is ‘delete, shred, destroy’.  I have a strict inbox zero policy.  Every piece of mail, e or physical, I immediately review.  I look for excuses to throw things away rather than reasons to keep them.  I take action immediately.  I pay bills the minute I get them whenever possible, and throw away or delete the envelope.  I take a photo of business lunch receipts, email them to myself, then throw away the paper and delete the photo off my phone all while still waiting in line to get my order.  Every few months I throw away a few old T-shirts, magazines, broken toys, or other odds and ends that accumulate in a house.  I find that handling all the small things as they come leaves me with very few times when I have to plow through giant piles of fluff.  I check emails and texts and Voxer messages all throughout the day, every day, weekend and vacation included (with rare exceptions), because it only takes minutes and it can save the entire first productive hour of the next day.

I block off chunks of time here and there when I need to go into full maker mode and don’t respond to things instantly, but when the inbox is at zero to start with, it’s not too bad to catch up after a few hours off.  I avoid meetings and phone calls whenever an email can handle it.

Never do things you don’t like doing

‘No’ is my favorite word.  It took me a while to learn to say it as much as I do now.  I like people and I like to see them happy and I’m interested in lots of things.  But if I say yes to every cool idea or conversation or project or event that comes my way, I’m a guilt-wracked wreck.  It’s more disrespectful to say yes when you don’t really mean it than to say no.  No is harder in the moment, but it sure does pay off.

If it’s not a big, enthusiastic yes, make it a no.  One of my goals is every day to ask myself what things I’m doing that I don’t like doing.  Identify them.  Then ask how I can begin to work to not do those things any longer.  It’s amazing how many layers of subtle pressure, guilt, manipulation, expectation, and people-pleasing our desires are wrapped up in.  Unwrapping this mess and getting to the core – the real you, with your real, unique desires – is tough work, and requires a lot of ‘no’ along the way.  I don’t think you can get to a peaceful, well-paced, low-stress life by trying to imagine what it would look like and plot a path to it.  In my experience, the only way to come close is to start from the other end.  Identify the pain points one at a time and work to eliminate and preemptively avoid them.  Whatever is left over is the good stuff.

Utilize your subconscious

I think about my work all the time.  In the shower, laying in bed before I fall asleep, while on a walk, in traffic, and almost everywhere else unless I specifically decide to put it on hold.  The advantage to this is that by the time I sit down to get cranking away, the bulk of the hard work is done.  Whether an email response, a presentation, a phone call, a decision about a vendor, or a meeting with an employee, by the time it happens I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it while doing other activities.  The thing that makes this especially effective is the power of the subconscious.  Wrestling with ideas consciously triggers your subconscious mind.  When you are distracted, or sleeping, or too tired to consciously focus on them anymore, they’re still bouncing around in there.  By the time you need to call them to the front of your mind again, often problems get solved and ideas get improved as they spend time doing whatever magic your brain does to them with a little time.

Some people consider it work to think about work.  I don’t.  But regardless, utilizing some down time to tackle work problems mentally, and queuing up your subconscious to tackle them as well, will result in getting things done quicker and better when it’s time to work.

Don’t move too quickly at first

If you love the rush, stick with it.  If you’re not sure yet whether you love the rush, doing too much is better at first than doing too little.  Early in the game if you limit your experiences and opportunities too much you’ll have a very hard time with self-discovery.  Take the plunge early on, err on the side of lots of activities, and each step review which ones make you come alive with the good kind of challenge, and which are just flabby, useless, or worse yet, detrimental to your well-being.  You need some material to work with before you begin chipping away.  I don’t recommend saying no to great opportunities that are open questions when you’re young, and definitely don’t use my advice above as an excuse to avoid things that stretch you.  But if you know from experience you don’t do well with busyness and you’re constantly bogged down with things you hate, begin the process now.  Find ways to open up free time.  Be ruthless.  Your future self will thank you.

What You’ll Be Doing in 20 Years Doesn’t Exist Yet

From Medium.

Imagine telling your parents in 1960 or 1970 that you were going to design video games for a living. Or telling them in the 1980s that you were going to design websites. Or telling them in the 90s that you were going to get paid to create software applications for mobile telephones. Or in the early 2000s that you would be paid to “tweet” 140 character messages.

Chances are, whatever you’ll be doing in 20 years doesn’t yet exist, or at least not in any way you can imagine or describe. Not long ago the idea of work that didn’t require manual labor, or living in a big city, or going to an office was unthinkable. Today it’s ubiquitous.

Innovation keeps moving. That means picking that one clear career destination and forming a perfect path to it is probably unrealistic for an increasing number of people. It’s more important to start with a broad swath of things you’re interested in, get as much knowledge and experience as you can in many areas, and begin to add to the list of things you know you really don’t want to do. Eliminate the bad options. Anything else is fair game.

Do this and develop and refine general, transferable skills like critical thinking, communication, emotional intelligence, and a reputation for hard work, and you will be able to see and seize opportunities. Better yet, you’ll be able to create new ones.

You’ve got to think like an entrepreneur, whether you ever plan to start a business or not.

Ask around. How many people imagined 20 years ago they’d be doing what they do now? Neither will you.

The world can be your oyster. Be ready.

Focus on What You Don’t Want

From the Praxis blog.

It’s really stressful for most young (and old!) people to feel the need to pick the career or job and plot a path to it.  How are you supposed to know yourself so well in the present, and know so much about what’s out there, let alone predict what your future self will want in a future world with unknown possibilities?

Relax.  With rare exception, it’s probably a bad idea to try to pick the one specific thing and try to get there.  You might be better making a list of general categories of activity and creativity that you enjoy, are good at, and/or you see as valuable to get you to some other end (wealth, free time, etc.)  Even that can be daunting.  Here’s an easier approach: focus on what you don’t like and know you want to avoid.

Make a list of all the things you simply can’t stand, are bad at, or see little value in.  Anything not on that list is fair game for experimentation.  Go out and get broad experience with the explicit goal of discovering more stuff you don’t like and adding it to the list.  As that list grows, the arena of what’s fair game narrows.  Any step within that range is a step in the right direction, and each step helps clarify and reduce the possible next steps.  You’ll probably never have it so narrowed that there is only one good next step, and that’s a good thing.

You don’t know what might happen as you and the world change, but the sooner you can figure out where you’re not in the zone, the faster you can start mining in places likely to have a mother lode.

Want to Make Better Decisions? Get Some Skin in the Game

If you follow sports you’ll notice something.  Vegas is better than the experts at predicting outcomes.  You could chalk this up to the wisdom of crowds, but this can’t be the only explanation, because in surveys and polls the crowd doesn’t do very well compared to Vegas either.

The reason Vegas is better on average than individual experts or surveyed masses is because people choose better when they have skin in the game.  It’s one of the reasons democracy is a bad way to determine the policies people want and grocery stores don’t survey their customers to decide how to stock their shelves.  When it’s free, people take different and dumber risks.

This is why my colleague and co-author Zak Slayback wrote recently that you should burn your backup plan.  It’s why some people get neck tattoos.  It’s why Bruce Wayne had to climb without the rope.

Even worse than having no skin in the game is having the opposite.  A cushion large enough to not only catch you if you try and fall, but one that can sustain you even if you don’t try at all.  Economists call this the moral hazard in the world of financial regulation.  When third parties insure against risk, people and institutions make worse decisions.  Think high risk home loans underwritten by banks who knew that taxpayers would be forced to bail them out if it went south.  It applies on the personal level too.  While it’s easy to call inheritors of wealth financially privileged, I think it’s often harder to discover and live a fulfilling life if you’ve got a huge trust fund.  If you don’t have to win, it’s hard to get the motivation to try.

All these examples might be too easy to agree with me on.  Let’s push a little farther.  I think college funds cause the same problem.  When parents put tens of thousands into an account that can only be used for college, young people will fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy and favor going to college much more than they would without that restricted money.  Once they do, they’ll take it less seriously.  As long as parents are satisfied with grades and activities, it doesn’t really matter.  The degree is perceived as free.  The opportunity cost is overlooked.  The diploma at the end is supposed to guarantee a job and an income, and these are supposed to pave the way to find fulfillment.  Plus, if you pick a major that is supposed to give you lots of career options, you get lulled into thinking you have infinite fallback plans.  Sure, you sat in classrooms or goofed around for the first 22 years of your life, but it’s all good. You’ve got that free degree so no matter what you do, you’re set.

Parents see college as an insurance plan against all problems.  They tend not to care much if you’re happy there or finding your groove or learning how the world works, as long as you get a degree.  Tell them you’re bored and restless and opting out to go start a business or pursue a career as an artist and risk giving them a coronary.  They feel more comfortable with you half-assing it through a moral hazard backed mediocrity.

Forget all that.  It’s your life.  Whatever you do, have skin in the game.  If you don’t or can’t in reality, imagine and live as if you did (a poor substitute, but better than nothing).  Find out the actual cost of your education.  Tally up how much of what kind of work it would take to pay for it yourself.  If it was all on you, would you pay and do it?  If not, why are you doing it now?  (Try the same with things like health care if you want a good shock and some insight into why the health care system is so screwed up.)  What are you willing to give up to get the things you want?  If what you think you’ll gain is less than what you’re willing to part with, why do it?

Are you willing to fail?  Are you so passionate about what you’re trying to do that you’ve got to try it out even if it doesn’t work?  What if the degree fails to bring you anything you want.  Will it have been worth it?  If not, why do it?  “Well, I’ve only got another two years, so I might as well have it under my belt.”  Really?  Compared to what?

If you are like most people and you don’t have any single passion or pursuit to throw yourself behind, no worries.  Go the opposite route.  Try a bunch of stuff and build a list of things you know you don’t love doing and want to avoid.  Avoid them.  Don’t do them because they’re low-risk or paid for by someone else.  That’s like the person who spends money they don’t have on clothes they don’t need because they were on sale.  A $100 pair of useless jeans marked down to $50 is not a savings, it’s a waste of $50.  Keep eliminating things that don’t bring you value and everything else is fair game.

I’m not saying it’s never a good idea to take something that someone is offering to pay for.  The point is to not overvalue the “free” part and undervalue the unseen costs.  Not only are there often strings and expectations and the cost of forgone opportunities, often valuable things offered for free aren’t even enjoyable or meaningful to you.  Don’t do them just because other people would call you crazy not to.  And don’t forget one of the biggest dangers of something someone else is paying for, which is the way it reduces your incentive to take it seriously and get the most out of it.

Look at the actions and activities in your life.  Do you have skin in the game?  The bigger and more important they are, the more you want to have skin in the game.  It’ll make you better and more likely to succeed in every way.

This is not an admonition to simply take more and bigger risks, or to alter your risk tolerance.  It’s an admonition to dig down deep and get to know yourself.  Discover your real risk tolerance.  Be honest about what you find, whether it’s more or less than you wish it was.  Make decisions for you, based on your unique assessment of the trade-offs involved.  Don’t suffer through things because, relative to everyone else’s opinion, they are low risk or a good deal or a safe backup plan.  Get some skin in the game.  The games you want to play.  On your terms.

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.