Long-Term Goals – @habits

29 things I re-learned in 33 years

When I turned 29 I wrote this essay, a list of 29 lessons that were meaningful to me.

Now 4 years have passed and I’m 33, the age that Murakami calls “a kind of crossroads in life”. Because I don’t have the desire to write an entirely new essay of “33 things I learned in 33 years”, I settled instead for a review of the original essay.

Of the 29 items, here are the ones that still resonate:

1. You understand your parents better as you get older – still working on this one. It hasn’t gotten much easier…

2. Relationships are like cars – rings increasingly true. Relationships require continual care and maintenance. The more you put in, the more you get out, but you can’t use the expectation of “getting out” as your primary motivation for “putting in”

5. Never stop learning – the following may feel counterintuitive, but it’s even MORE important as we get older to stretch our intellectual and experiential boundaries. Take up surfing at 60, learn a new language at 47, start writing software at 35…

6. Make 5-year commitments – the exact number of years isn’t important, the long-term commitment is. Determine a priority, commit to it, and build a daily habit to support it. So for example if you want to become a good cook, it’s good to think about where you’d like to be as a chef in 5 years. And then find a reason and routine to cook every day

7. It’s never too late – “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today”

8. Conquer fear and you’ll be unstoppable – Scott Adams: “When you see a successful person who lacks a college education, you’re usually looking at someone with an unusual lack of fear.”

11. Re-think, re-do, and re-learn what’s important. And again. And again. And again – this gets back to my concept of a Personal Bible and memorizing wisdom (usually in the form of quotes) by using Anki cards. Those two practices have given me much, although they have also doled out equal amounts of frustration and annoyance. Consuming new content is perhaps 90% of my content consumption bandwidth. Ideally it would be closer to 60%, or maybe even 50%

12. In startups and relationships, pick the right market – there is a delicious juxtaposition between my many years spent in the stagnant world of book publishing and now investing in the explosive and world changing world of bitcoin and blockchain. Andy Rachleff’s observation still rings true, “When a lousy team meets a great market…”

14. Buy less stuff – yes please. The environment is always underestimated. When I’m in Shanghai, I want to buy things. In Taipei, less so. On a beach anywhere, even less so. Except maybe sunscreen

15. Break the rules – Nietzsche: “society tames the wolf into a dog and man is the most domesticated animal of all”

19. Own a word – this might be the most powerful thing you can do in marketing. Coin a word or phrase and you’ve laid the foundation for a lasting brand. From memes like Pepe the frog to slogans like Nike’s Just do it to concepts like Tim’s 4-hour anything

20. Don’t make exceptions – Clay Christensen: “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time”

23. We know nothing – the more we learn about anything, the less we know about everything

28. What do you think about in the shower? – this question is useful but not perfect, because during shower time, limited as it is, your mind will sometimes preference the urgent over the important

29. Write often and much – My goal is to write meaningfully for 2 hours every day. Most days I can reach that target, but only just. Momentum is important: if I hit the goal yesterday, than it’s easier today, and still easier tomorrow. But the opposite is equally true.

If you take 5 minutes to pick a restaurant, then you should spend 2 years to plan your career!

tim-ferriss-show I enjoyed Tim Ferriss’s podcast with Will MacAskill who, at 28-years old, is possibly the youngest tenured philosophy professor on the planet, and at Oxford no less.

Will believes people spend FAR too little time planning their careers. To wit:

1. We take five minutes to choose a restaurant for a 2-hour dinner (some of us much more!)

2. That means we spend 5% of our time planning the meal, and 95% eating

3. A normal person will work 80,000 hours in their life (roughly 40 working years, at 40 hours per week; both assumptions are conservative)

4. The same 5%, therefore, would equal 4,000 hours or 2 whole years!

I assume Will would recommend those 4,000 hours be spent throughout your career, and not entirely in a two-year binge (which would drive even the most fanatic planner insane…)

Even with the caveat, we should all spend more time doing things like:

researching career paths
finding better jobs
deciding what skills to develop and why
building good systems and habits

By the way, this also means you have PLENTY of time to switch careers…more than once!

Plans are nothing, but planning is indispensable – Eisenhower

Thanks for reading! Here are my ten favorite podcasts.

William Zinsser on writing well

“A writer is always working. Stay alert to the currents around you. Much of what you see and hear will come back, having percolated for days or months or even years through your subconscious mind” – William Zinsser

On Writing Well is a book for working writers who want to improve. If you need inspiration to pick up your pen and put words to paper, I’d recommend Stephen King’s On Writing. If you want to laugh and sympathize with a writer’s life, I’d recommend Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

william-zinsser-on-writing-well

Zinsser’s book is an oyster farm of wisdom. Here are some of my favorite pearls (I couldn’t resist the metaphor :)

Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they’re writing fluently doesn’t mean they’re writing well.
Consider all the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that don’t need any help. We don’t face problems anymore. We face up to them when we can free up a few minutes.
Beware, then, of the long word that’s no better than the short word: “assistance” (help), “numerous” (many), “facilitate” (ease), “individual” (man or woman), “remainder” (rest), “initial” (first), “implement” (do), “sufficient” (enough), “attempt” (try), “referred to as” (called)
It’s amazing how often an editor can throw away the first three or four paragraphs of an article, or even the first few pages, and start with the paragraph where the writer begins to sound like himself
Nouns now turn overnight into verbs. We target goals and we access facts.
Trust your material if it’s taking you into terrain you didn’t intend to enter but where the vibrations are good.
The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right.
Surprise is the most refreshing element in nonfiction writing.
This is adjective-by-habit—a habit you should get rid of. Not every oak has to be gnarled.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with “but.” If that’s what you learned, unlearn it—there’s no stronger word at the start.
…it is still widely believed—a residue from school and college—that “which” is more correct, more acceptable, more literary. It’s not. In most situations, “that” is what you would naturally say and therefore what you should write.
Surprisingly often a difficult problem in a sentence can be solved by simply getting rid of it.
Most of the nudgers urged me to adopt the plural: to use “readers” and “writers,” followed thereafter by “they.” I don’t like plurals; they weaken writing because they are less specific than the singular, less easy to visualize.
When you use a quotation, start the sentence with it. Don’t lead up to it with a vapid phrase saying what the man said.
Enjoyment, finally, is what all humorists must convey—the idea that they are having a terrific time, and this notion of cranked-up audacity
After verbs, plain nouns are your strongest tools; they resonate with emotion.
Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself.
With each rewrite I try to force my personality onto the material.
Writers who write interestingly tend to be men and women who keep themselves interested. That’s almost the whole point of becoming a writer.
Two final words occur to me. One is quest, the other is intention.
The only thing [readers] should notice is that you have made a sensible plan for your journey. Every step should seem inevitable.
Never be afraid to break a long sentence into two short ones
When you get such a message from your material—when your story tells you it’s over, regardless of what subsequently happened—look for the door.
You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into an entertainment. Usually this means giving the reader an enjoyable surprise. Any number of devices will do the job: humor, anecdote, paradox, an unexpected quotation, a powerful fact, an outlandish detail, a circuitous approach, an elegant arrangement of words.
One of the bleakest moments for writers is the one when they realize that their editor has missed the point of what they are trying to do.

Thanks for reading! Here’s an earlier post on the same topic, how to improve your writing.

The Scott Adams happiness formula, or life lessons from the Dilbert guy

I’m a big fan of Scott Adams and his irreverent, honest, quirky advice. I read his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big [Kindle] and wanted to share his happiness formula (in the fulfilling and deep sense of the word and not the light happiness crap peddled by self-help gurus):

Eat right
Exercise
Get enough sleep
Imagine an incredible future (even if you don’t believe it)
Work toward a flexible schedule
Do things you can steadily improve at
Help others (if you’ve already helped yourself)
Reduce daily decisions to routine

Each item is — by itself — a life’s worth of challenges but taken together it’s practical and dare I say MECE? From personal experience #1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 work for me. I need to improve at #4, 7 and 8.

Enjoy!

PS Here are past items I wrote about Scott: on systems and on success

Kevin Kelly on the rise of nerds and the Third Culture

I’m a recent admirer of Kevin Kelly’s writing. This article, where he explains the emergence of a third, “nerd culture” (in addition to the science and art cultures), is thoughtful and inspiring. Below are some excerpts and my reactions.

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Science as the outsider culture:

When we say “culture,” we think of books, music, or painting. Since 1937 the United States has anointed a national poet laureate but never a scientist laureate.

Ironically, science continually creates tools that enable new art forms: radio, TV, computers, smartphones.

But it’s no longer just science vs art. A third culture has emerged, driven largely by computers.

It’s a pop culture based in technology, for technology. Call it nerd culture.

Nerds now grace the cover of Time and Newsweek. They are heroes in movies and Man of the Year. Indeed, more people wanna be Bill Gates than wanna be Bill Clinton.

(I think there is growing backlash against this “nerd culture”…if anything, it’s a sign that nerd culture is crossing that chasm and people are feeling transition pain)

Cultures create new jargon. Let’s “google” something. The language of text messaging.

Science is the pursuit of truth. Art is the exploration of humanity. Nerds are about novelty and creation.

Scientists would measure and test a mind; artists would contemplate and abstract it. Nerds would manufacture one.

This nerd culture builds tools, ignores credentials and admires crazy.

C. P. Snow had imagined a third culture where scientists interacted directly with artists. Nerd culture is both a step towards that vision, and something entirely different.

A really good dynamic computer model—of the global atmosphere, for example—is like a theory that throws off data, or data with a built-in theory. It’s easy to see why such technological worlds are regarded with such wariness by science—they seem corrupted coming and going.

But it will only grow, because computers and internet.

As large numbers of the world’s population move into the global middle class, they share the ingredients needed for the third culture: science in schools; access to cheap, hi-tech goods; media saturation; and most important, familiarity with other nerds and nerd culture.

“The effect of concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained” – Freeman Dyson

I disagree with Kelly on the following:

Indeed, raw opportunity may be the only thing of lasting value that technology provides us. It’s not going to solve our social ills, or bring meaning to our lives.

It seems clear to me that the manifestations of technology (the internet, mobile phones, cheap PCs, home appliances) have made Joe- and Jane-citizen richer, smarter and more comfortable. Computer simulations of cancer-fighting drugs…accurate pricing data for third world farmers and fishermen…vast libraries of digital books for schoolchildren around the world…these are all examples of how technology addresses social ills.

(it may just be semantics; for example, Kelly might mean that even the world’s fastest computer is worthless without a competent user, and the computer itself is the product of human minds and hands)

Kelly ends with this beautiful thought:

The culture of science, so long in the shadow of the culture of art, now has another orientation to contend with, one grown from its own rib.