43 Things

This blog post was inspired by a tweet about 38 Things I’ve learned in 38 years by Declin Cashin. Kevin Kelly, the chief editor at Wired Magazine, did something similar with 68 pieces of unsolicited advice

There is something about a good structured list that synergises well with the way my reptilian brain works. The post made me reflect on what my own 43 things might be. So here are my 43 things

Family

1. Free time to yourself is precious when your kids are young. Depending on where you are on the selfless scale, once you divide up the wheel of time between work, homemaker, spouse and kids, there is usually very little time left for self.  I’ve learnt the hard way that you forcibly need to exercise the right to be selfish. If you ignore self, it layers up psychological debt that accrues ultimately needs to be repaid at some point. The interest payments manifest themselves in things like anxiety, stress and numbing. Looking after yourself allows you to better look after others. 

2. Finding that thing that you and your kid both enjoy is priceless, and often it comes at you from a strange place. I never thought I would enjoy rollerblading or looking after a bearded dragon, given they weren’t things I ever did as a kid. If you can’t find that thing you both enjoy, you need to keep exploring until you do. It’s out there somewhere…and it takes time, creativity and space to explore.

3. From the second they are born, your children are slowly leaving you. Minute by minute they slowly reduce their dependence on you until they don’t need you at all. They don’t owe you anything, so don’t ever expect to be repaid for the years of sacrifice.

4. Time spent with your children is precious. When they are older, you will have time but they won’t

7. Be the person you want your child to become.

Slowing down

5. Slowing down to me means trying to exist more in the moment. When I am in the moment, I find my performance at anything from listening to my kids to giving a presentation improves off the charts. In order to get better at that I’ve used a few of the different meditation and mindfulness apps like Calm and Waking Up but find Headspace my go to app for everyday use. 

6. Meditating works. Just to stop and pause and focus on breathing for a few minutes can bring clarity to the static noise that occupies the brain. When a million things seemingly need to be done and the feeling of not achieving enough creeps in, simply sitting and focussing on the breath for a few minutes is an amazing tonic for almost anything.

Money

8. Money is generally far less important than you think. Once you get past the notion of being able to feed your family reliably, money doesn’t really add marginal happiness. You just want the next thing and there is no limit to material possessions that you can have so it is always a zero sum game. The dopamine fix one gets from buying something never lasts long. 

Work

9. If you see behaviour at a workplace that your gut tells you is wrong, chances are it is the tip of something far worse – a toxic culture iceberg. For example, if someone talks behind someone else’s back in front of you, it’s guaranteed that those same people are talking about you as well. It’s hard, but the worst thing you can do is to be part of the problem and do what they do. Bad behaviour at the corporate water cooler is usually symbolic of bigger and much worse cultural problems in an organisation. The best option is usually to leave. Charlie Munger, the great investor, once said “Oh its just so useful dealing with people you can trust and getting all the others the hell out of your life.”  Also from Rolf Dobelli : “Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money – probably a bad idea under any circumstances”

10. Not all corporate work environments are crap. If you have entered that “stale” phase of working in a place where you are going through the motions, are generally miserable, but have grown used to the trappings of a steady wage and a nice bonus…you are in a dangerous place mentally, spiritually and emotionally. You might be convincing yourself that “the grass isn’t always greener”, and on occasion, that is true. However, in my experience, there are a lot of great working environments and I reckon in most circumstances the alternative is usually better. Life is too short to work in a shit job.  Until you experiment, how will you know?

11. There is no point in working with a boss you don’t like or share the same values with. It usually just becomes a miserable exercise for you both, and for which again, life is far too short to waste your time. There are too many opportunities out there in the universe to waste your time dealing with personality conflicts and toxic relationships. The chances of your boss changing are next to zero so chances are it probably won’t ever work out so you either need to make the change yourself or leave. Note : I have never seen the “make the change yourself” option work…ever.

12. Once you break the connection between being in the office and working, life gets easier. Having breakfast, helping the kids get to school, going to the gym and doing focus work at home is a far more productive alternative than rushing to spend 60 hours a week in a corporate office. In fact, the idea of the herds of people getting up early and crushing into a lengthy train commute and going to a soulless office every day is kind of bizarre if you think about it given the advent of remote working and technology such as Zoom, Slack, Teams and the like. Tim Ferriss has some done some great thinking about this in the Four Hour Work Week

13. The flip side of number 7 is that to work flexibly in your life should not mean it impacts others. If there is a planned workshop or an important meeting, you should be present with your whole body. Body language is important. Dialling in (voice only) for a workshop where others are physically present, I think is mostly a waste of time, and if anything is detrimental to an effective meeting. First, you spend the initial 10 minutes sorting out the teleconference (assuming it works) and then anything you do on a whiteboard becomes something you have to repeat later.

14. I think I was given a handout of the Managing your energy not your time HBR article on at least three different occasions during various leadership courses I have attended over the years. I don’t think I ever really understood it nor appreciated the concepts until I was able to jump off the treadmill for a while and disconnect from the habit of working long hours. Since I started working I developed a habit of getting into the office before everyone else and leaving around the same time or later than everyone else. I’m not sure in hindsight whether the volume of hours actually translated to any incremental performance.  Once I developed enough self-awareness to work out that productivity is not linked to hours spent, I realised I could achieve so much more in a great deal less time when I was well-rested focussed. Cal Newport’s Deep Work helped reinforce this mindset.

15. You often hear of people on LinkedIn and other mediums speak of the virtue of going out on your own and breaking away from a 9-5 job. Not everyone can do it, but if you can, I can confirm all the cool things they tell you about it is true. Paradoxically, it is possible to earn more, have more time for family and other interests, do the things you enjoy and are good at, and buffer yourself from the downside of long-lasting office politics. WIN – WIN – WIN – WIN. To pull it off you need to : (1) build a propensity for risk (2) be a relentless networker. (3) develop strong deep work habits and (4) acquire some mastery in a skill that is in demand.

16. If you are a manager of managers, sometimes you are the last line of defense between work being presented up the corporate hierarchy. I liken it to the executive chef who is managing the pass ensuring the food is cooked correctly and presentation perfect by wiping excess gravy off the plate. In the corporate world it is no different. You can’t go to meetings having not read the work your team has done. You need to understand it intimately.

17. 100 coffees in 100 days. A friend of mine once suggested if you find yourself at a loose end work-wise, just target 100 coffees in a hundred days. Networks are amazing things, and I am continually amazed at how people go out of their way to help others. The coffee you have at day three will pay off at day 60.

18. Have a healthy sense of skepticism about any fact or piece of analysis you are given. David Trende taught me this.

Productivity

19. One less decision. Having the same breakfast every day and wearing the same clothes every day results in two fewer decisions you need to make. A healthy breakfast and a consistent work wardrobe make morning routine very easy. Churchill, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are prime exemplars of this.

20. You miss out on nothing once you quit Facebook. If anything, your life gets way better. You stop comparing yourself to everyone else’s amazing lives and just get on with it.

21. What you achieve first thing Monday morning can sometimes set up the week. Drifting into email and social media can often mean you drift through the day. A healthy breakfast, gym, meditate and some writing can mean that you have achieved 4 things and if nothing else happens for that day, you have achieved SOMETHING

22. There is this idea by Malcolm Gladwell that it takes 10000 hours to achieve mastery on any given subject. Similarly, Rolf Dobelli in the Art of the Good Life writes about the secret of persistence. “Our brains love short-term, spasmodic developments. We react exaggeratedly to highs and lows, to rapid changes and jarring news – but continuous changes we barely notice. As a result, we systematically overemphasize doing above not-doing…Perseverance, tenacity and long term thinking are highly yet underrated virtues.

23. Social media is a time killer. Install only functional apps on your phone.

Leadership

24. As a manager, you have to make hard decisions to let people go sometimes, and almost always you underestimate how it impacts them personally. Even though you can perhaps, maybe, rationalise it as the right business decision, the human emotional aspect of it is everlasting.  Chances are that those people will never see you the same way ever again, which is a burden you will carry for a long time.

Wellbeing

25. Recovery never stops. This Tim Ferris interview with Lebron James and Mike Mancias reminded me that you don’t have to be a pro athlete to apply principles of recovery.  Icing my knees is now a part of my post-activity routine, and ensuring I have enough quality and quantity of sleep is key to how productive my day will be.

26. Stillness equates to creativity and solving really hard problems. Ryan Holliday adds to the information overload discussion arguing that it is very difficult to think clearly and be creative if our brains are constantly bombarded with “noise”. Everywhere you look people have headphones in, mobile phones out, social media flicking, email check…the torrent of information bombarding the brain is extreme and relentless. How do we expect to solve anything with the deluge of noise? Only in stillness can we actually solve difficult problems. Just stopping and doing nothing actually works.

27. Read twice (at least). Most self-help practitioners will tell you to read more books to avoid the shallow wading of information that most sources, particularly social media, provides today. Most books, however, are average at best. They either aren’t contextual to the moment in time you are in or the writer and writing simply doesn’t grab you. I agree with Rolf Dobelli – A better way I think is to re-read great books over and over. The content I reckon gets better the second, third and fourth times you take it in.

28. Having struggled with imposter syndrome in the past, the piece of advice that changed things for me was the question – “Who exactly are you trying to imposter?” Once I couldn’t work out who I was trying to imposter, I kind of realised that I can’t be anyone but myself and that has to be good enough. If it isn’t too bad – your loss

29. For the most part, no-one really cares about what you say or what you think. Most people are so caught up in themselves and their own shit to care about what you do and what you think, so not saying or doing something for a reason that you’re worried what other people will say or think is pretty dumb. Easy to say, harder to practice.

30. Relating to 28, confidence is a trait that is the ability to unshackle yourself from imposter syndrome and what people think.

31. If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

Discipline and Mastery

32. Great things take time. Edward Norton is one of my favourite actors. I recently listened to Tim Ferris interview him about his new movie: Motherless Brooklyn. Writing, directing and acting in the movie took him eight years from conception to completion. He was originally inspired by the idea and wrote half the script in the first couple of weeks. However, he then proceeded to develop horrible writer’s block and couldn’t move past it. So the script remained stuck in limbo. He took long breaks, became an aeroplane pilot in the meantime and was offered to give up the rights to the script but he never let it go.  It reminded me of the idea that great things sometimes take a long time to realise. Persistence, belief and hard work over a long time will pay off in the long run.

33. Discipline = Freedom. Discipline is a super power. Jocko Wilink gets up at 4:30am every morning, including weekends, and works out. He then publishes a picture of his watch on socials to prove it. Jocko is an ex Navy Seal and believes in this idea that if the enemy gets up at 5, then he should get up at 4:30. This is similar to the way that NBA players Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and CJ McCollum thought. When CJ was in college he was coached by his parents that it is much better to have a good party when you are rich. So while his peers attended college parties, CJ went the the gym. Outwork your opponent. I wish I had more of this!

34. Remember that you can make a difference every single day. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the world’s great problems such as climate change. Jane Goodall the great environmentalist writes how its the small decisions you make in the sphere of your control that is what is important. Arnold Scharzenegger also has a saying – a little bit of resistance (training) every day.

35. Don’t be good, be great. Michael Lewis said this.

36. Having an abundance mindset is another superpower.

37. Perfect is the enemy of the good.

38. Routine is also a superpower.

39. It is completely irrelevant about what you are not good at.  What matters is what you are good at. Rolf Dobelli and Charlie Munger

40. First rule of marketing is that no-one thinks like you

41. If a man can reduce his needs to zero, he is truly free. Viktor Frankl.

42. Obsession is not necessarily a bad thing.

43. Don’t work too hard. Try to maintain balance. Don’t make work your whole life.