Category Archives: inspiration

inspiration

Three cool lessons we can learn from jazz and apply to business

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I just watched a talk given by Google Ventures partner Ken Norton about what we can learn from jazz music and how it is created. Below are the three ideas.

1  Get uncomfortable but not too uncomfortable

“Miles Davis nudged his musicians into a place where they were uncomfortable, the zone of optimal anxiety. What Larry Page calls “uncomfortably exciting.” When Duke Ellington challenged Clark Terry to play like Buddy Bolden. When Ella Fitzgerald thought, “uh-oh!” What Frank Barrett calls provocative competence: triggering people away from habit and repetition. Where there are no such things as mistakes, only missed opportunities. Embracing uncertainty when we make software, which is inherently unpredictable. We don’t know how our users, or our audience, will react, and that goes with it.”

While it is important that we push ourselves outside our comfort zone, it is also important that we don’t overstress ourselves to a point where we are unproductively worrying about being unproductive. Norton also mentioned the importance of making sure the team is not too stressed. As leaders and teammates, we sometimes need to make sure we pull team members back up the stress curve, making them feel less anxious, by making them feel more confident, competent, and part of the solution.

2 Listen carefully.

“Jazz is a continual conversation where listening is more important than talking. Big Ears encourage empathy, knowing where others are going, and helping them get there. Looking for mistakes that can become new opportunities. You can help by listening more than talking, by being willing to ask questions when you don’t know the answers, even when you think you do. Celebrate following and listening in addition to leading and talking.”

On this note, check out this Marc Abraham post on Socratic questioning.

3 Let everyone solo.

“In jazz, everyone takes turns both leading and following. Psychological safety means everyone knows their voice is valued, and that they’re not afraid to try something risky. You can create this for your teams by demonstrating engagement, making sure each person speaks and is heard, picking up on unspoken emotions, and showing your understanding.”

I think this idea is important and speaks to everyone’s individual need to feel like our work and contributions matter in the world. We all need to feel like we can offer something to the world and that we are thus valuable for these contributions. As leaders and managers, I think it’s important that we help make our team members and colleagues feel this way. It’s what good humans do. 🙂

 

(book review) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

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TL:DR: Giving so many f*cks about so many things–especially about things that don’t matter–will drive us crazy and make us unhappy. This book is not only incredibly dense with wisdom but also incredibly well written and edited. It really feels like every word was chosen and place carefully, so as to make the precise point intended. I highly recommend the book, and think you will find value paying attention to each and every word.

We live in a world that is constantly berating us to do more, eat more, make more, sleep more, exercise more, buy more, own more, etc. Here in the United States, the world seems to want us to give too many fucks about too many things. As Mr. Manson suggests, this is probably because the U.S. is a capitalist society and this is good for business.

Don’t let the title fool you. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson is a book full of deep insights and smart wisdom that can help you live a better life. Mark does an amazing job of examining behavior that hurts us, so that we can stop repeating our mistakes. There are so many lessons but some of my favorite are:

Life is about choosing which pain you want to endure. One of the biggest takeaways for me was that life is about choosing which pain you want to endure. There is no one choice that is pain free. There are always pros and cons to each choice. You just have to pick the choice for which the cons are something you are willing or enjoy enduring.

Our plentiful society is anxiety inducing. Much of the angst we feel is a result of the vast range and number of opportunities we have in our society. The more we have opportunities we have, the more things we have to measure up to and feel worse about ourselves.

We have really become the victims of our own success. Stress related health issues, anxiety disorders and cases of depression have skyrocketed over the past 30 years. Despite the fact that everyone has a flatscreen tv and can have our groceries delivered.

We have so much f*cking stuff and so many opportunities, we don’t know what to give f*ck about anymore.

Our ability to think about our own thoughts makes things worse. Humans are the unique animal that can think about its own thoughts. Other animals just feel and react to that feeling. As humans, however, we worry about worrying, get more anxious about feeling anxious, get angry about getting angry, get more sad about feeling sad, etc. This ability to think about thoughts and feelings means that we compounding our negative feelings. This is why it is so important to not give a f*ck, because doing so means that you stop that recursive loop and stop hating yourself for your feelings. By not giving a f*ck we simply don’t care that we are sad, angry, anxious, etc. and we move on. “We should accept that the world is f*cked and move on, because it has always been that way and it always will be.” says Manson.

Wanting a positive experience is itself a negative experience, while accepting one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.

When we give too many f*cks, we set ourselves up for perpetual and unnecessary disappointment. 

When you give a f*ck about everyone and everything, you will feel that you are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and  happy at all times. that everything is supposed to be just the way you f*cking want it to be! This is a sickness, and it will eat you alive. You will feel that you have the right for have everything feel the way you want it to be!  You will see every adversity as an injustice… Every challenge as a failure…

Every inconvenience as personal slight…

Every disagreement as a betrayal.

 

There is a subtle art to not giving a f*ck; and it doesn’t mean being indifferent. “There’s a name for someone who finds no emotion or meaning in anything…a psychopath.”  Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent. It means being comfortable with being different.  Since being indifferent requires figuring about what matters to you, being indifferent requires figuring out who you are and want to be. And since understanding oneself to this degree and what our guiding principles will be is difficult, Mr. Manson properly notes that:

Learning how to focus on what matters…what matters to you, is extremely hard to do; but it is the most worthwhile thing we can work on in our life.

People who act indifferent are probably the saddest form of a human being possible.

People who act indifferent are actually lying about their difference. They actually give too many f*cks about too many things and are too afraid to speak up and act on their own views. The bellow quote from the book’s preface best sums up the driving motivation of the book:

“There’s absolutely nothing admirable or confident about indifference. People who are indifferent are lame and scared. They’re couch potatoes and internet trolls. In fact, indifferent people often attempt to be indifferent because–in realit–they give way too many f*cks. They give a f*ck about what everyone thinks of their hair, so they never bother washing or combing it. They give a f*ck about what everyone thinks about their ideas, so they hide behind sarcasm and self-righteous snark. They’re afraid to let anyone get close to them so they imagine themselves as some special unique snowflake who has problems that nobody else would ever understand.

 

Indifferent people are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their choices. That’s why they don’t make any meaningful choices.  They hide behind a gray, emotionless pit of their own making.  Self-absorbed and self-pittying.  Perpetually distracting themselves from this unfortunate thing demanding their time and energy called life.

 

Because here’s a sneaky truth about life. There’s no such thing as not giving a f*ck. You must give a f*ck about something. It’s part of our biology to always care about something and therefore to always give a f*ck. The question then is: What do we give a f*ck about?  What are we choosing to give a f*ck about?  and How can we choose not to give a f*ck about what ultimately does not matter?

 

 

(book review) A Curious Mind by Brian Grazer

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TL;DR Summary:  I can’t say enough about this book. The content is rich, tangible, accessible, actionable, and as life-changing as anything I’ve ever read. Anyone who reads this book and makes curiosity a driving force behind their behavior, will be the better for it. Also, movie making might be the perfect career.

 

This week, I was fortunate enough to discover and read two books that have helped me better understand the world, life, and myself. Few books have been so meaningful and helpful to me personally as these two books, which were both shoe-ins for my “Favorite Reads” list.

The first book was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson.

a-curious-mind-9781476730752_hrThis post is a review of the second and equally impactful book: A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer. I am sharing this book because it has helped me understand myself in a very core way and because it provides so many good ideas/ways for how to get the most out of life going forward. It really is a powerfully down-to-earth and joyful book that I think pretty much anyone can benefit from reading.

How to get the most out of life going forward.

Better relationships.

One thing I was probably most surprised to learn from the book was how curiosity can be a driving force behind good, healthy inter-personal relationships. For me, it’s more obvious how curiosity can make us all more thorough and more innovative professionals, but what is less obvious is how curiosity can make me a better people manager, spouse, brother, parent, friend, colleague, etc.

As a self-described servant leader, as a fiancee to my future wife with whom I want to build a long and fruitful relationship that doesn’t end in divorce, and as a brother and son to struggling relatives, the stories Mr. Krazer tells about how curiosity drives constant question asking and how this makes people more responsive to him, were priceless.

Better citizen.

No man is an island. We are all members of at least one society and organization, and so perhaps curiosity can be a driving force to our asking questions of our government organizations and elected officials. If we never ask why and seek to understand how things are done, things would never get done better.  Perhaps this topic can be an opportunity for a revised edition.

Proper questioning.

One thing I think worth highlighting is the difference between “questioning” and “asking questions”.  It is a subtle difference but also at the core of how curiosity can be very a powerful force for good; or an insulting and ineffective force that distances you from people and whatever thing you need to understand.

Curiosity can and should lead to you becoming inquisitive and asking a lot of questions in search of understanding. “Questioning”, however, implies critique, which puts people on the defensive. When people feel defensive, they will not share openly with us; and we won’t learn the truth from them. The whole purpose of being curious is to learn the truth. Instead of “questioning”, our aim is to inquire, discover, understand, and discuss ideas.

“Anti-curiosity”

Mr. Grazer makes it clear that he a proponent for using curiosity to achieve desired results. It is a tool and culture. He is not suggesting we be curious for the sake of being curious. I love the practicality of this.

Ever the proponent of curiosity but of also achieving desired results and being a leader, Krazer does something really smart towards the end of the book, and describes this idea of “anti-curiosity”.  He points out that we must also learn when to stop asking questions; otherwise, we increase the likelihood of being convinced by respondents to not move forward with an idea that we believe worth pursuing.

Better understanding myself.

Curiosity is a good thing…a very good thing.

As anyone with ADHD will tell you, we are constantly distracted by things. We are–by definition–wired to notice. Before reading A Curious Mind, I understood my distractibility primarily in terms of an ADHD mind. Since my curiosity inherently makes me even more vulnerable to distraction, and I’ve always thought of distraction as a bad thing, I saw my curiosity as a bad thing. In fear of “not getting anything done”, I’ve spent more time telling myself to ignore my curiosities than to follow them. Not anymore. In A Curious Mind, Brian illustrates–with many tangible examples–that being curious is not only a unique personality trait but an extremely good way to live one’s life.

It is tough to put into words–especially without becoming a bit emotional–how good it feels to have struggled so much with one’s own mind and then come to realize that you’re mind isn’t “broken”. As they say here in Silicon Valley, my unfocused range of curiosities is not a bug; it’s a feature. And this feels so good.

Making movies might be what I should do with my life.

I still remember the first great movie I saw: American Beauty. I was 18 years old. For me, that movie was far more than an entertaining two-hour escape from reality. Somehow, it was a believable story into which I could escape and at the same time continue thinking about the world but in a new light. It was a magnificent experience,  ingeniously written and executed.

The lessons the movie taught me have stuck with me to do this day, almost 17 years later. Lessons like how people can put up facades and hide who they truly are on the inside. How the people society may judge was “weirdos” or “losers” might be the sanest of us all. It put so much of our society in front of us to rethink and question ourselves, making the movie far more than a great story. Immediately after finishing the movie, I knew right away that this was my kind of movie. These movies that cause us to think about things differently. These are the movies that responsibly take most advantage of this most powerful medium.

I’m fortunate to have attended three great institutions of higher learning, all of which I took very seriously, worked hard at, and learned a tremendous amount from; but movies have been my other educational institution.

As I take a step back and consider my vast range of curiosities, my unique ability to engage with people with different backgrounds, my business and intellectual property backgrounds, and my passion for influential movies, what could be a better job for me than producing movies?

 

 

Give a Coke campaign: A powerful example of digital marketing

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Google and Coca-Cola teamed up to deliver this awesome global campaign, which was a re-invigoration of classic hilltop commercial.   Of course, the messaging was incredibly well aligned to the brand, but I also liked how the power of our modern digital technologies were highlighted.  Watch the video here:  http://youtu.be/45Z-GevoYB8

This campaign, like one of my other favorites (Coca-Cola’s interactive vending machine on the India-Pakistan border), utilized technologies to create consumer/brand experiences that would not have been otherwise possible.

Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” campaign and “Jogger” commercial

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Nike’s Find Your Greatness. — Jogger commercial  is a great ad.  It is one ad in a series for the “Find Your Greatness” campaign, which tells us that greatness is about the spirit within and pushing ourselves to our own individual limits.  Greatness in athletic pursuits is not about being faster or better than someone else; it is about being better than you were yesterday.   Endurance athletes generally know this well.  When we practice and compete, we are battling ourselves, our own will, and our own endurance more than we are that of someone else.  We must conquer what is happening in our own bodies and minds if we wish to compete against someone else.

Nike is a great brand, and there is nothing wrong with their supporting the Olympic gold medalists; but with this ad campaign, Nike wonderfully reminds us that sport and exercise is for everyone; and that we all compete against ourselves; and that we are our most important competitor.

A most inspiring story and definition of “design”

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In his TedTalk, John Hockenberry, helps me understand why I so love design, feel passionately about it’s importance, and why I am so attracted to people–especially women–who have style…it is all about our intent.

Quotes from John’s Ted Talk:

“You’re right between horse and squirrel, John.”

“Design is, supplying intent.”

“Reality itself needed a designer.”

 

 

Are Non-biodegradable plastics a thing of the past?!!!

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Researchers have found a fungi in the Amazon rainforest that can degrade and utilize the common plastic polyurethane (PUR) for energy.   What a thought…that after all our destructive consumption of plastic has done to hurt mother nature, that she might hold the fix to this problem!!!?     Amazing!   The fungi can survive on polyurethane alone and is uniquely able to do so in an oxygen-free environment (I’m thinking landfills).

As someone who cringes at the thought of how much plastics are being put into landfills and our environment, this is fantastically exciting news, and I want to see it implemented if it works, so I wonder about two practical matters:

  1. Can we force these fungi to consume the PUR, or–given other options–will it choose to consume other materials?   That is, if we put them in the landfill, will they choose to eat paper instead of the PURs we want them to eat?
  2. What byproduct(s) if any are produced by the fungi when it degrades/consumes the PUR; and is it good/better for the environment?

I hope the scientists have come up with great answers for these questions!!

The Yale University team of researchers have published its findings in the article ‘Biodegradation of Polyester Polyurethane by Endophytic Fungi’ for the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal.

“That feeling can create its own reality.”

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Two very curious psychological phenomena have been whirling around in my mind when I started to see how much of human behavior might be explained by them.     The first is the concept of “loss aversion”, which explains we often act in ways that minimize our expected losses rather than maximize our expected gains.   The second phenomena are self-fulfilling prophecies.  And interestingly, these may be related.

Loss aversion

Why is that one who loses $100 will lose more satisfaction than another person will gain satisfaction from a $100 windfall?   I might have some ideas that explain why we are this way, but simply being aware of this curious psychological phenomena is probably most important.  Look around and ask whether you think this phenomena can explain the human behavior, and I think you still start to see how well it explains a ton of behavior.   Loss aversion might explain why we do not ask for promotions if we fear that such being denied such a request might result in a damaged reputation within the firm.  Loss aversion might explain why we do not ask people on dates if our minds know subconsciously that we could end up feeling less confident about ourselves if the person says no; and this is even amidst the fact that our ego would probably grow by a far greater magnitude if  the person said yes.

Self-fulfilling prophecies

How often do we fear something happening, and then–out of this fear–act in such a way that then leads to that thing actually happening?!   Take for example, a person who fears that his/her lover is cheating on them.  This person then starts to act in a very insecure way.  The person starts to ask all kinds of weird questions, in weird ways, maybe starts acting weird too.  This then leads to the person’s lover becoming disenchanted by the person and then actually cheating or breaking off the relationship, which is what the person feared to begin with.  I find this incredibly ironic and, at first, very saddening.

Feelings and emotions make us humans interestingly complex, thinking creatures.  In a recent conversation/interview with Charlie Rose, Warren Buffet said:

That feeling can create its own reality.

The topic for Buffet and Rose’s conversation happened to be the U.S. consumer sentiment, and consumer’s faith and belief in the U.S. financial system.   Here the self-fulfilling prophecy to which Buffet was referring, would be the consumer’s fear that the banks were not trustworthy and that they would fail, which would cause many consumers to pull their money from the bank, which would then lead to the bank actually failing.   This is another example of how our feeling scared of something leads to behavior that ironically causes that thing to actually happen.    This realization had me pretty scared and saddened until I read an article that featured positive psychology ideas from Ryan Jacoby.   I then realized that self-fulfilling prophecies can work in the opposite manner as well. For example, if I believe that what I want to happen, will happen, I will behave and act according to this belief, thus leading to the desired thing actually happening.  Take the bank run story, for example.  If we believe that the banks will not fail, then we will leave our money in the bank, and we won’t cause a bank run, which would cause the banks to fail.  If we believe our lover is not cheating, we will act trusting, normal, and loving, and our lover will have no reason to seek companionship from someone else.

Can “loss aversion” explain economic recessions?

Citing the U.S.’s rapid recovery from 1930’s depression, Buffet says the American economic system works very well, but we will have have recessions (we have had ~15 of them since the Great Depression).  This got me thinking…Are our economic recessions also the result of human behavior and the psychological phenomenon whereby wealth is created and then because people fear the loss of this newly acquired wealth, they withdraw or reduce investments, which then slows down the economy because it inherently means taking money/capital out of the economic system?

 

Happiness Advantage

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Due these 5 things daily for 2 minutes each day, for 21 days straight, and "rewire your brain" to not only become more happy but also to take advantage of your happiness!

Want more of an explanation and fully detailed and convincing argument for why you should do these things, watch Shawn Achor’s TEDx Bloomington talk.

 

 

Sugata Mitra’s new education model, SOLEs, could be how our children learn in the future

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An absolutely enlightening and astonishing piece on Sugata Mitra’s research and, now, pursuit to further a new education model he calls Self Organizing Learning Environments (SOLEs).

Below is the video of Sugata’s Ted Talk, which shows his work and the amazing ability of children (young minds).    Highlights include: the story (starts at minute 7:00), the “grandmother method” (starts at minute 10:00), and the story of the 10 year olds correcting Sugata on the spelling of Pythagoras and telling him who he was in a few minutes.