I love Zamboni machines.
They’re ungainly, they’re slow but they’re also majestic. Like an elephant for ice hockey.
After each period, when the ice is chopped up by play, the Zamboni rolls out and leaves behind a sheet of perfect ice. Cold, smooth and untouched.
It’s useful to acknowledge that the same service is offered to each of us, every night. We wake up in the morning with a freshly smoothed-over day in front of us.
Our intentions determine our first few moves, the way we’ll engage with today’s ice. And those moves often lead to the next ones, and on and on, until the day is over.
Add up enough clear ice days and the pattern becomes set.
November 8, 2024
There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit.
Happily ever after, a climax at just the right moment, perfect heroes, tension, resolution and a swelling soundtrack. Every element is amplified and things happen right on schedule.
Consume enough media and we may come to believe that our life is carefully scripted, and that we’re stars of a movie someone else is directing.
This distracts us from the truth that real life is more muddled and less scripted. There is no soundtrack. We’re actually signed up for a journey and a slog. Nothing happens ever after. It’ll change, often in a way we don’t expect.
We have no choice but to condense a story when we want to film it. Our real story, on the other hand, cannot be condensed, it can only be lived. Day by day.
November 7, 2024
Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your scorekeeping wisely.
Too much focus on the score can bend us or break us, pushing us to engage with too much focus and without regard for balance.
And our attachment to obvious points strips us of our agency and independence.
If it’s subtle, variable and up to the user, the uncertainty can amplify our insecurity. “Wear festive clothing,” is an unwelcome line on an invitation, because the point system is unclear. How do I fit in? How do I not lose, or even win?
On the other hand, if the points on offer are industrialized, transactional or predictable, it quickly dehumanizes us into profit-seeking automatons. But at scale, this sort of easily communicated metric is common.
The word ‘jerk’ describes what happens to a human who is controlled by an assembly line (or a horse by a whip). A visitor to the first Ford assembly line was amazed at how the stopwatch and the pursuit of humans-as-a-resource mindset was turning people into puppets.
Points and compliance. Choose carefully.
November 6, 2024
There’s the James Bond villian sort of power, based on division, dominance and destruction. This is the short-term power of bullies, trauma and mobs.
And then there’s a more resilient form of power. This is power based on connection, discussion and metrics. A power based in reality over the long term.
Divisive power tears things down. Resilient power builds things up.
Resilient power creates the conditions for the community to produce value over time. Resilient power uses optimism and fairness to create value because participants can see ways they can participate and contribute.
Fear might be for sale, but that doesn’t mean we have to buy it.
Better is possible.
November 5, 2024
Culture has stability. “The way things are around here.”
When we are pushed too far from our norms, life gets stressful.
Some of the people in the systems that used to keep things stable have discovered that they can make a profit or gain an edge by embracing extremism instead.
You might not have thought you’d be spending seven hours a day reading the internet, or most of your free time posting and responding, but that’s what the social media companies have pushed us to do.
And you might not embrace some of the extreme views that we’re exposed to every single day, but the pressure can feel relentless. It feels like we come out just a bit ahead if we go along with the latest angry meme.
It’s worth checking in with ourselves and the people we care about. What are we signing on to and supporting? How are we choosing to spend our precious time? Is it riskier than we’re comfortable with? And mostly, what sort of new world are we endorsing?
It might make sense to choose stability when we can.
November 4, 2024
Principles have a priority.
Isaac Asimov’s three rules of robotics were:
First Law
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
We’d like to think we can honor everything we believe in, every time, but of course, the difficult work of having principles is that we must put some ahead of others.
If one of your principles is, “win at all costs,” then you have no other principles.
It’s a lazy amplifier.
“Very” can modify almost any adjective, but it might not deliver our intended message.
Putting it in front of a positive like “charming” or “kind” or “generous” can make it clear that we mean what we said, but more so.
But, placed in front of a description of otherness, it can push the person we’re describing into a corner. “They have very pointy ears” or “They are very midwestern in their approach to a problem,” communicates that we’re highlighting and objectifying, not celebrating. We often do this when the amplifier isn’t needed or even accurate. It’s a cheap hack to remind people that we’re not like the person we’re talking about.
If you’re saying something nice, it’s helpful to choose a memorable amplifier like “extraordinarily” or “off-the-charts.” Or just enunciate and emphasize your compliment.
If you’re describing someone in a way that labels them, consider why, and leave it out.
If removing an amplifier like ‘very’ makes the message clearer or consistent, why not simply skip it?
Our words tell a story. Even when they’re lazy.
November 3, 2024
If worrying about paying the mortgage gets you motivated to lean hard into the next project, don’t be surprised if that sort of fear arises every time you have hard work to do.
If your goal is to teach the naysayers a lesson, remember that you’ll need to find people who you want to defeat every time you need to do important work.
If you are measuring a false proxy, a metric you say you don’t care about, it’s quite likely you’ll start caring about it.
When we pick our fuel, we pick our companions for the journey ahead.
Choosing to care about what other people care about surrenders your agency. You’ll find that success feels hollow, because it’s their success, not yours. And blaming the false metrics for losing your way is not as useful as simply walking away from them in the first place.
We thrive when we find a goal and a metric that’s resilient and easily replenished. It turns out that making a contribution is something we can do, again and again, and it never gets old.
November 2, 2024
Alas, we probably will.
Recurring scams, hustles and deceptions work because we’re eager to be fooled by them.
Vaporware, false deadlines, fake budgets, unrealistic promises and straight out con jobs persist because at some level, we demand them. Divisive arguments, mob enthusiasm and simple lies work surprising well.
False hope delivers a benefit in the moment, while the reality we have to live with doesn’t arrive for weeks or months.
If you don’t want to get fooled again, think about why you got fooled last time.
November 1, 2024
There’s a huge difference between carrying a stethoscope and being a doctor.
And being a clown requires far more than getting a clown suit.
Entrepreneurs with business cards, slick websites and mission statements are confused. That’s not the hard part.
If the costume puts you in the right frame of mind, that’s great. But the hard part is the important part.
Can you list the parts that matter? (hint: they might be the parts you’re avoiding.)
October 31, 2024
