I got kicked out of the only regular poker game I was ever a part of.
The first week I won a few bucks.
The second week, I broke even.
The third week, the betting got serious and there was a lot on the table–maybe as much as $30(!). Realizing that this sort of risk didn't work for me, I turned to the last two people left in a hand and said, "why don't we split the pot three ways?"
In the long run, that might be a good way to go home flush. In real life, it's a totally sensible way to deal with risk.
But at a poker game?
When you sit down at a poker table, you're acting as if. As if you're gambling. And if you don't want to gamble, don't play. That's what they told me and they were right.
The same thing is true when you go to a brainstorming session, or to therapy or even an Ethiopian restaurant.
If you don't want to want to engage with what's on the table, don't sit down.
March 25, 2018
That's because it's incremental. Every time a computer takes over a job we never imagined a computer can do, it happens so gradually that by the time it's complete, we're not the slightest bit amazed.
We now have computers that can play chess, read x-rays, drive down the highway at 55 miles an hour, understand our voice, scan documents for errors, do all traditional banking chores, correct our spelling, plot a route on foot or by plane, find the cheapest airfares and pick a face out of a crowd.
At any time since 1970, if you went to live on a desert island for a decade, you would have been blown away by what happened when you got back. Day by day, though, human-only tasks quietly disappear.
After the replacement, computers do some of these jobs better than we ever could, but, as they're evolving, we take each of these perfections and advancements for granted. It's too gradual to be awe-inspiring.
Our job now, isn't to do our job. It's to find new tasks, human tasks, faster than the computer takes the old ones away. Too often, people are displaced and then give up.
We can still add value, but we need to do it differently, more bravely, and with ever more insight.
[IBM recently asked me to do a talk about the future of AI in customer service.]
March 24, 2018
Some things, like your next job, might happen as the direct result of one meeting. Here I am, here's my resume, okay, you're hired.
But most of the time, that's not the way it works.
You meet someone. You do a small project. You write an article. It leads to another meeting. You do a slightly bigger project for someone else. You make a short film. That leads to a speaking gig. Which leads to an consulting contract. And then you get the gig.
How many hops does the ball take before it lands where you're hoping it will?
If you're walking around with a quid pro quo mindset, giving only enough to get what you need right now, and walking away from anyone or anything that isn't the destination—not only are you eliminating all the possible multi-hop options, you're probably not having as much as fun or contributing as much as you could either.
March 23, 2018
Years ago, most middle class people had a huge, expensive piece of furniture in their living room. It played music and captured radio broadcasts.
The high-end stereo business was the overpinning built on this underpinning. "If you're already going to the expense and trouble of making music at home, why not spend a bit more time and money and have it sound fantastic?"
Of course, most people have solved their music problem, and they didn't need a piece of furniture to do it. The underpinnings that the industry was built on have disappeared.
The same is true for the typical bookstore. "If you're already spending a little bit of time and money reading books to stay informed, why not spend a bit more time and money and be really smart?"
The typical adult isn't relying on books for this sort of information any more, so the upgradeable base is much smaller.
Or consider the fountain pen (overpinning the ballpoint), the fancy vacation house (overpinning the motel replaced by vrbo and airbnb), or the fancy suit (overpinning the cheap suit). It's even true for laser printers and cigarettes.
These luxury categories don't go away as fast as the thing they depended on, because they were never mass items, so it's possible to survive on much less demand. But in order to thrive, the creators of these products need to shift their story, their posture and the value they deliver to their audience.
March 22, 2018
You don't need a peer-reviewed study to know that when people surf the web on their smartphones, they're not going as deep.
We swipe instead of click.
We scan instead of read. Even our personal email…
We get exposure to far more at the surface, but rarely dig in.
As a result, the fine print gets ignored. We go for headlines, not nuance. It's a deluge of gossip and thin promises, not the relatively more immersive experience of the desktop web.
And of course, the web was a surface treatment of a day spent with books and in uninterrupted flow on a single topic.
It's not an accident that blog posts and tweets are getting shorter. We rarely stick around for the long version.
Photokeratitis (snow blindness) happens when there's too much ultraviolet–when the fuel for our eyes comes in too strong and we can't absorb it all. Something similar is happening to each of us, to our entire culture, as a result of the tsunami of noise vying for our attention.
It's possible you can find an edge by going even faster and focusing even more on breadth at the surface. But it's far more satisfying and highly leveraged to go the other way instead. Even if it's just for a few hours a day.
If you care about something, consider taking a moment to slow down and understand it. And if you don't care, no need to even bother with the surface.
March 21, 2018
That's what makes it the beat.
There are other things that stop. That start. That go faster or slower.
But don't worry about the beat. We can't change the beat. The beat continues.
When we're watching it, it continues, and when we're distracted, it continues. Beat by beat, day by day, it continues.
Awareness of our forward motion, of the tick and tock as we move from yesterday to tomorrow… it gives us perspective and patience if we let it. Or it can stress us out. Up to us.
Look, there goes another one.
What will you do with the next one?
March 20, 2018
We know that the default settings determine the behavior of the group. Organ donation, 401k allocations, the typeface on our word processor–the way it's set to act if we don't override it is often the way we act. Because often, we decide it's not worth the effort to change the setting today.
Which means that examining your settings now and then is worth the effort:
Don't speak unless asked vs. don't keep quiet with a suggestion.
Look for the downsides vs. look for the upsides.
Do the minimum vs. do the maximum.
Don't ship until perfect vs. ship and learn.
The benefit of the doubt vs. skepticism.
Trusting vs. wary.
Inquiry vs. sarcasm.
Speed up vs. slow down.
Generous vs. selfish.
We all have defaults. Are yours helping you?
[PS it's definitely not too soon to mark the next altMBA on your calendar. It works. That's why every session we've done has been fully enrolled. Check it out if you can.]
March 19, 2018
In a physical economy in which scarcity is the fundamental driver, eating lunch means someone else gets less.
But in a society where ideas lead to trust and connection and productivity, where working together is better than working apart, where exchange creates value for both sides…
Then the efficient sharing of ideas is its own free lunch.
All of us are smarter than any of us, so the value to all goes up when you share.
March 18, 2018
That's a much more useful way to get feedback than asking if we like it.
We make first impressions and long-term judgments based on the smallest of clues. We scan before we dive in, we see the surface before we experience the substance.
And while the emotions that are created by your work aren't exactly like something else, they rhyme.
It could be your business model, your haircut or the vibrato on your guitar.
"What does this remind you of" opens the door for useful conversations that you can actually do something about. Yes, be original, but no, it's not helpful to be so original that we have no idea what you're doing.
March 17, 2018
The fact that we think the way we speak is normal is the first clue that empathy is quite difficult.
You might also notice how easy it is to notice people who are much worse at driving than you are–but that you almost never recognize someone who's driving better than you are.
March 16, 2018
