All in Life
I love actual, physical books. Mostly non-fiction, sometimes fiction as well.
I love not only the content in the books I buy, but I love how it feels in my hand, even how it smells. It’s a rare, almost nonexistent thing now, but I love walking through a bookstore, discovering new and interesting titles across all sorts of genres. That process of discovery is (was) one of the best things ever.
When we let FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) drive our behavior, it’s almost always a path to disaster.
Whether it’s to do with investments (crypto, anyone?), social interactions or work activities, the minute we decide on a course of action because we’re concerned about what might happen if we don’t participate, we’re bound for trouble.
Smartphones are everywhere and the natural temptation is to use it to record all of our important experiences for posterity.
However, as I discuss in today's episode, there's something to be said to, perhaps, put them away and to simply be in the moment.
When I was a 14 year old learning to play the guitar, there was no internet. Which meant that, if you wanted to learn a song, there were only a few ways to do it.
You could try and learn it ‘by ear’; you could have a friend show you how (assuming you had a friend who played guitar and knew the song in question); you could buy a guitar magazine and check out the included sheet music (assuming they transcribed that specific song in that specific issue)…
In today's episode, I tackle my own personal prejudice with the drum machine, specifically via a song from the artist, The Weeknd.
It's a reminder that how we assess value isn't always objective but perhaps colored by years of conditioning, that often turns out to be wrong.
The thing about deadlines is that, if we’re conscientious, we’ll actually work to them.
Which, in general, is a good thing because deadlines ensure that we prioritize our tasks, allocate the needed resources (usually) and get things done with intent.
At the same time, deadlines - if not correctly set - can give us a false sense of security.
Like it or not, mistakes are par for the course.
As much as we’d like a perfect innings, there really isn’t any such thing.
That’s a function of the variability inherent in our environment. Our colleagues will not always act predictably. Competitors don’t always behave the way we’d like them to.
When we listen to songs, they come fully formed - perfect entities in and of themselves. But the fact is that the really great ones can evolve and change over time, because they're driven by something deeper, more meaningful.
That, as I discuss in today's episode, is not that different from us and our lives.
While I’m not a “gamer” in any real sense of the word, there is one that I downloaded on my phone years ago and play when I have some downtime. It’s called Wordscapes and involves rearranging a set of scrambled letters into words in a crossword-like fashion.
I’ve played it enough that I’m now at Level 2,744.
It’s rare that our work appears in its full and complete form at the outset. It’s rare that we have all of our ideas, our concepts, all of our flourishes fully figured out at the start.
More often, it develops over time, through our continued work and effort. Each stage of development either reinforces our core idea and/or allows us to discard those elements that don’t fit.
It was Pablo Picasso who said, “Unless your work gives you trouble, it is no good.”
I know we like to believe that what we do should be effortless and fluid, that that is what makes us “professional”.
But that isn’t the reality of real success - the kind of success that leaves a mark.
Whenever I go to Karachi, I'm amazed by how the city functions and how people go about their daily lives, especially when so much we take for granted in the west, just doesn't exist in the same way over there.
But, as I discuss in today's episode, people get on with things. They live their lives. Because it isn't just about what's around us and the way things are, it's about our own will.
A short (and late) one today given other commitments - but I did want to share something I heard that really resonated with me.
I was watching the HBO show “Ballers” which stars Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) and in Season 5, he talks about how he thinks about living life, making decisions and moving forward.
Seth Godin recently wrote about The Journal of Universal Rejection.
It’s a “journal” that allows you to submit any form of content (“…any and all types of manuscript: poetry, prose, visual art, and research articles”) which it then, without question (and, often, without any review) reject.
Like most folks, I was floored this week when I heard the news that Yvon Chouinard, the 83 year old founder of the outdoor apparel maker, Patagonia, was going to give away his company, instead of selling it or taking it public.
Specifically, ownership of the $3 Billion company (that generates $1 billion in revenues and $100 million in profits every year) would be transferred to a specially designed trust and nonprofit organization…
Our past has a tremendous bearing on where we are today. That's a fact. But if we are to have ambition, if we're to move forward, we need to let it go.
And that begins, as I discuss in today's episode, with us. We need to adjust our mindset to be one of self-control and empowerment. It's begins with us.
Trust is something we all intuitively believe in. We understand that it forms the foundations of each and every relationship we have, in every sphere of life.
We're, therefore, very careful about doling out our trust. It's worth realizing though that trust is a two way street - and that it's as much our responsibility to foster it, as it is the other person's.
When we lose an opportunity (a sale, a promotion, a job offer, etc.), it’s normal - and OK - to feel down, especially if it was something we really wanted. After all, if we’ve really given it everything we had, we’ve made a commitment (emotional and otherwise) which, ultimately, has not been rewarded.
So, we take the lumps.
When those we work or live with are going through challenges, large or small, we’ll often have this desire to solve their problems for them. We want to do what we can to make things easier for them and ensure they remain happy and sailing along smoothly.
This is, of course, completely understandable…
Our lives and ideas and perceptions are made up of all of our collective experiences, pieced together in different ways, sometimes elegantly, often not.
As such, how we view ourselves is, in many ways, an aggregation of these stories. It's important, then, that we focus on and interpret these stories carefully, as I discuss in today's episode.
