reading review - 12 rules for life (ambitions and ideals)

Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life is one of those books whose title gives you exactly what it promises – twelve rules you can print out on a piece of paper, pin up on your bulletin board, and check in on each day as a reminder of what you want life to be all about. However, the book does not answer one question I anticipate many might have about the work – what is at the core of these rules? As I reviewed my notes with this question in mind, I dug out a few insights that I feel form one likely answer to this question.

Peterson points out in one passage that people should aim for a life of meaning constructed on a widely applicable foundation of simple behaviors. He includes don’t lie, fixing what you can, and paying attention on this list. In short, he writes that what you aim at determines what you see and that people should aim upward at making the world a better place.

This might seem a ludicrously simple summation for a four hundred page book – make the world a better place. But given that reaching for an ideal is often more than sufficient to give life meaning, I think it is a fitting way to describe the soul of the book. Starting small is a great bit of tactical wisdom for this strategy. We should all wake up, consider how life can be a little better at the same time tomorrow, and devote the day to reaching the vision. If we find something that bothers us, we should fix it. If fixing the problem proves too challenging or too uninteresting, we should set our sights lower and find an easier or more interesting problem.

A life devoted to incrementally making the world better by fixing problems within our scope strikes me as a noble ambition. Peterson notes that good ambitions develop character and ability ahead of status and power. I felt this was an important observation in the context of meeting life’s challenges without succumbing to common temptations and turning our lives into a comfortably constructed lie. A truthful existence is not aimed at a preconceived ideal but rather demands constant reevaluation based on what we learn every single day. In this state of constant learning and growth, the stability suggested by Peterson’s vision of the appropriate ambitions and ideals is a vital reminder of how to stay grounded and keep our energies aimed at the right efforts.

proper admin – daily reminders update (additions, part three)

Hi,

Let’s have a look at a few more of the reminders I added to my list in 2019.

-For bball: ‘RUN’

Sport is a balance of many competing skills and success is usually a result of finding the right balance in any given game or competition. This makes it easy to lose sight of the one thing I need from a basketball game – a workout. When the specifics of a game call for a slower style of play, I need this reminder to help me focus on finding opportunities to push myself.

-Don’t see beauty, see beautifully

This is a lot like saying “don’t make comparisons” but the way I put it here just sounds a little better.

-You could not offend me

My views on being offended are evolving and this reminder is one of the signposts on the journey. I’ve gone from ‘hear something offensive, be automatically offended’ to ‘hear something offensive, make a personal decision, and then possibly be offended’. A reaction is a decision so long as I retain control over my response.

I acknowledge the traces of arrogance in these syllables but I don’t mind the label. The number of people I allow to offend me should be zero because the very act of trying to offend me proves my superiority. If that comes as proof that I think I’m better than certain people, then so be it.

-Grover Cleveland rule

Longtime readers will know that I read almost anything recommended to me by two independent sources. This reminder is the broader principle of that application. If I notice something has happened a second time without a clear relationship to the first, I try to give it a little extra attention.

-What three things?

This applies to any form of encounter but I originally included it with social contexts in mind. I try to think about the person or people I’m meeting and come up with three things I want to know more about. The important thing is that I prepare when preparation matters.

reading review - eichmann in jerusalem

Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt (May 2019)

Arendt's reporting of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann's trial is collected in this 1963 book. It's observations and analysis left much for me to think about and we’ll cover some of the best ideas in-depth over a couple upcoming posts.

Today, I’ll comment briefly on a couple of thoughts that caught my attention. First, I liked the simple statement that the Nazis demonstrated the certainty of their guilt by destroying so much evidence. There is an element of history that always thinks a little too much about what the world looked like through the perpetrator’s eyes. Was there something so fundamentally different about the criminal than the horrified onlooker? Destroying evidence is a clear and simple signal that the criminal at least understands enough about society to be expected to abide by its laws. I also found it fitting for this statement to be in a book that otherwise makes a similar point in a far more complex way.

The insight that the beleaguered tend to hope that more time will improve their situation was another interesting observation. The idea, I believe, was included to help explain why so many victims stay in place even in the face of frequent signals of imminent danger. This thought helps a reader see how a feeling common to most people explains an oft-considered question about the Holocaust.

Finally, a fact that surprised me was how there wasn’t much evidence that individual Nazis were punished for refusing to participate in exterminations. This doesn’t rule out individual cases to the contrary but it does make a strong argument against the possibility that Nazis as a whole were reluctant participants in carrying out Hitler’s deranged visions. Perhaps it links back to the thought above – maybe individual Nazis hoped that time would improve their situations such that their participation in exterminations would no longer be necessary. My conclusion is perhaps a little darker. I think people who live in fear of their own safety must learn to do what is right, and to do it right away, because each compromise with conscience pushes them closer to the point where the conscience has no influence at all.

One up: One topic I’ll cover in the future is Arendt’s deep analysis of criminal law. For today, I’ll preview it by sharing her analogy that suggesting a crime is excusable because anyone else would have done it is like saying an average crime statistic compels criminals to wake up each morning and fulfill the daily quota.

One down: I’ve heard people talk about ‘following orders’ as if such dictums are defined by the same standards as law. The difference is that law is never bound by the time, space, or circumstantial constraints of an order. The danger of my comments above may be that the best way to disobey certain orders may indeed be to wait for the emergence of new circumstances.

Just saying: I thought one of the important ideas in this book was that lessons do not need to explain the phenomena. It seems like a universal urge that we seek understanding of what’s happened but the danger of pursuing our curiosity is that it lacks an obvious relationship to future behavior. A good understanding of the past isn’t necessarily to know what happened – it’s to use the past to make better decisions in the future.

tales of two cities - leftovers (green light indicates bikes are secure)

The process of writing about my problems with Hubway – eh hem, Blue Bikes – and their ‘green light’ system reminded me of other frustrations I’ve experienced over the years with various company policies. These stories (each one unique to me in terms of the details yet likely very common to those aware of the various ways companies frustrate their own customers) helped me understand the difference between a good company and a great company: a good company helps you when things are going well while a great company helps you when things aren’t going well.

A good example comes from basic banking practices. Many institutions offer tiered services where they wave maintenance fees if the customer reaches a certain minimum balance threshold. Let’s think critically for a moment – what kind of customer is likely to reach any threshold? What kind of customer is likely to fall below any threshold? When times are good, I’m not going to the bank to make withdrawals on my fee-free account; when times are bad, the bank is ready to pounce by gradually reintroducing various charges and fees.

There are a lot of good companies out there and I think this is why these practices are ubiquitous. As individuals, we are accustomed to following good examples and companies unsurprisingly do the same. But in the organizational context, perhaps great is a better barometer. Good is subject to the whims of many variable forces – the economy, the flavor of the month, the 'wisdom' of the crowd. Great tends to have less interest with these concerns, sticking instead to the deepest principles at its foundation. A great organization endures by setting policies that profit through partnerships rather than exploitation. The logic is simple – customers will always need partners, especially when they can't afford to throw money into profits.

proper admin - november 2019, part two (OMAM concert)

Hi all,

As I mentioned earlier in the month, I had an excellent time at the Of Monsters and Men show in September. I had quite a bit to say about the show so I thought it would be preferred if I covered those separately in today’s post.

First, I finally understood that I always prefer music where a group plays together to emphasize the work of one other member (or sound) (1). This runs counter to what I suppose many expect of OMAM given their folk origins. But when I think about their work that I like best, the process of band members harmonizing in the background to support someone’s individual effort is the consistent feature. It helps that Nanna, one of their two lead singers, brings a unique voice to their music – often this very question of emphasis is resolved merely by letting her sing without excessive distractions.

Speaking of Nanna, as I watched the show I realized that her talent is stretching beyond the limits of the band. This helped me better understand the strange stories I read in the buildup to their new album regarding a songwriting process that was far less collaborative than was the case for their first two albums. Basically, the songs she sang as the lead were vocally challenging whereas the other songs were a little... simpler (let's call it 'basic pop'). The key moment was ‘Ahay’, their third song of the night. ‘Ahay’ is entirely forgettable on the new album but in concert it revealed the gap between her and the band. When she stepped in to sing the final verse, the crowd reacted with a collective gasp, as if she’d started levitating on the stage or suggested that the $15 beers were a good deal. I had full goosebumps until the end of the song. At the end of the show, she wrapped up the concert by going full Bono and turning the perimeter of the Bank of America pavilion into her own private racetrack. As she sprinted a wide arc around the crowd, I wondered if this was it, their last ever tour, simply because it was impossible to imagine what was so plainly in sight – the band couldn’t keep up with her. It wasn’t even going to make the effort.

My final thought is about the general concert experience. The best shows I’ve been to reach a point over the final few songs where each performance feels like the end of the show. I think this is different for each band, the feature manifesting by varying elements of intensity, focus, or creativity in the performance. It's also true that some groups are better at this than others. When I dig out the old U2 footage via the Information Superhighway, I’ve always thought that they’ve really mastered this aspect of concert performance (although it wasn’t true for their concert I attended a year and a half ago). The OMAM show was also a good example of this in action. The best personal example I have of this is Lake Street Dive. They always seem to make each of their final few songs sound like the finale. At some point, this creates the effect of making it seem like the show is never going to end.

Footnotes

1. In other music news…

I confirmed this hunch at a much different type of concert just two weeks later. Again, the highlights of this second show saw band members stepping aside for someone else to take the spotlight.

the most important thing I learned in school, part four

Let’s wrap up my thoughts on limits before it gets completely out of control and I start making wild claims about race (wait… oops, never mind).

The start of my recent thinking (and writing) about limits was when I tried to define the difference between a good idea and a great idea. My answer turned out to be pretty simple – a good idea helps people reach their potential, a great idea helps people expand their potential. I couldn’t have come up with this conclusion without studying limits so that’s where I decided to start my writing.

The difference between one and a million is pretty big (for the non-math folks – it’s around a million). A good idea brings one up to a million. A great idea brings one above a million. Limits explained this in a very clear way to my barely-adult brain and limits are helping my now-adult brain apply the conclusion. If something improves today in a way that can repeat itself tomorrow, we’re all going to do a lot better. Simple, simple stuff, but it doesn’t seem like a very popular approach.

I have plenty of conversations these days about a variety of topics – books, basketball, and yes, even race. These conversations are all pretty good. There’s no law that says good isn’t good enough, but I think there’s a lot of unacknowledged potential in these conversations. We can’t just start talking about it without putting in the work, though. It starts with a little bit of thinking and feeling today and continues with more of the same tomorrow. Each day, we invest a little bit, and someday we’ll reap a big reward.

The deception of the limit is that it’s fixed. It isn’t, and learning about it helped me see it. As it is with any good education, it’s now time to apply the lesson. The horizon stays in place as long as you stay in place. When you see the limit around you, find a way to move toward it without wearing yourself down. The results will surprise you.

reading review - 12 rules for life (listening, conversation, and presence)

I was thinking the other day about what societal change from the past two decades would have most surprised my preteen self. There will always be many candidates for such a dubious honor but I settled on my choice pretty quickly – the ubiquity of (one-sided) private phone conversations happening in public. I’ve learned quite a bit about my fellow Bostonians in the past few years – the happy, the sad, the outright ridiculous – just from being in the vicinity of thousands yelling into their phones. Such scenes would have been unimaginable so many years ago when even the very sound of a ring tone was considered rude. What changed over these past few years that led to the invention of this new behavior?

My explanation is that the blame can be placed on the slow erosion of important skills like listening, conversation, and presence. The rise of the cell phone has removed the landline restriction that once required all phone conversations to take place in a quiet indoor space (or allowed text messages to entirely replace those conversations). This meant another lost opportunity to practice the very types of skills that are important in long, serious, or focused conversation. Over time, as people stopped developing these skills they seem to have rationalized their loss by dismissing their very importance in the first place. When the standard for ‘good face-to-face listening’ became placing a phone flat onto its screen at the outer edges of one's peripheral vision, it confirmed that the newfound ability to take a call anywhere had entirely demolished the very idea of presence. At some point in the last ten years, people adjusted their expectations and defined 'skilled listener' by these new, lower standards. The very idea that an important conversation might happen on a subway became feasible not just because of technology but also because the very standard for good listening and presence required of an important conversation dropped so far that the loud and crowded subway suddenly met the minimum requirements.

I bring up this speculative point because it reminded me of the idea that has been very much on my mind since reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life – do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. Now, I haven’t considered this thought specifically in the context of children but I think my broader consideration of this idea has allowed me to understand the underlying principle. It applies in many ways to how I see the skills required for good listening, conversation, and presence. I think it’s possible to resent people for having important conversations with you while they are distracted (and the righteous feeling is most likely justified). However, as individuals we can take responsibility for setting boundaries about when and where these conversations take place. In other words, we shouldn’t participate in a conversation when its parameters ensure we’ll resent our conversation partner. And we must turn the lens back on ourselves and think about whether our willingness to take rushed phone calls in public is setting ourselves up to be disliked by others.

Peterson writes that living things almost always die from a lack of attention. With a little imagination, it’s clear that what’s true in a physical sense is reflected in the spiritual and emotional realms. It’s certainly true of relationships in all their forms and variants. There is a great power in presence, strong enough to draw anything out from the darkest corners of the soul, because people will a willing listener just about anything. The skills are vital in bringing the best out of others and helping them reach their full potential. We shouldn’t settle for good enough when it comes to these skills and we shouldn't let others do the same. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them – it’s one of many powerful ideas from this book and one that should be applied as widely as possible.

One up: Most early education centers on a core idea that adult attention is a vital catalyst for childhood development. The truth of this idea is obvious to anyone who has watched a baby learn so much from nothing more than parental reinforcement. The natural question is, to what extent does this fact change as the infant grows toward adulthood?

From my perspective, I believe very little changes over time. Outside attention is perhaps the single most commonly missing ingredient in a stagnant adult student. A simple word or token gesture of encouragement, praise, or reward can help a student feel the reinforcement and support that motivate greater learning. A teacher who pays full attention can propel a student of any age to ever-higher plateaus of understanding.

One down: There are many ways to derail a genuine conversation. Peterson includes jockeying for status, advocating for a worldview, or constant evaluation on his list. He also mentions speaking past another (but I see this one as more of an effect rather than a cause).

The stealthiest way is to offer unsolicited advice. A person offering advice might mean well but I think advice is generally a good way to express a desire for the end of a conversation. A good listener cannot succumb to a desire to solve someone else’s problem.

Just saying: The important reality to acknowledge is that in almost every moment of a conversation, the easiest thing to do is to keep the peace. This might be OK in certain situations but a peaceful conversation is limited in the extent to which it can cover difficult topics. At some point, everyone requires an outlet to express thoughts, emotions, or beliefs that others might discredit, dismiss, or find hurtful. The hard conversations that cover this ground are vital because most people do their hardest thinking while talking, listening, and reevaluating in the midst of a challenging discussion.

A good way to introduce these difficult discussion points into a conversation is to fully summarize another contributor’s point of view before sharing a new perspective. This goes back to a point I’ve made in the past on TOA – forget about positions and find common interests. If this approach proves challenging, I recommend thinking about Peterson’s insight that a lot of people who are difficult to understand might simply be talking about an idea for the first time. If you suspect you are listening to The World Premier, have some empathy and patience as they dig deep to find the right words for expressing their rawest ideas.

proper admin – daily reminders update (additions, part two)

Let’s continue on with my review of the new daily reminders I added to my list over the course of 2019.

-You get ten minutes to worry

I included this as a way to regulate my runaway mood. It hasn’t worked at all but I’m persevering with the reminder. I actually don’t think a bit of worrying here and there is a bad thing and I certainly have no interest in some hypothetical ‘worry-free’ dreamland. However, I do think cutting myself off after a reasonable serving is the healthiest approach. Maybe it’s ten minutes, maybe it’s one bike ride, maybe it’s one beer… I think I have the right formula, it’s now just a matter of getting the appropriate number.

-Hungry?

I have this one as a reminder thanks to Intuitive Eating. I try to eat when I’m hungry and I try not to eat when I’m not hungry. Get it?

This sounds stupidly simple (but isn’t). When I’ve played by this rule I’ve felt very good so I’m working hard to get it right.

-Done, then drink

A friend once pointed out that drinking while eating seemed to be an American thing (he may have used a different word, like ‘problem’, but no matter). We all know how committed I am to the mean, median, and mode of American behavior but I decided to humor him on this one. I’ve since tried to separate eating and drinking, ideally going thirty minutes each side of a meal before resuming drinking.

By the way, this isn’t just ‘drinking’ drinking, I’m talking about any liquid.

-Most urges go away in fifteen minutes

This applies to many, many things. Let your imagination run wild, reader.

My original thought goes back to when I was buying ice cream far too often (a late 2015 problem). One day, I decided to stop home first before getting my ice cream. I ignored my intense craving and walked past the magical freezers at my local CVS to reach my apartment. When I'd unlocked my door three minutes later, I no longer had any interest in Ben or Jerry.

-Choose courage over comfort

This looks really good on (digital) paper but I’ve struggled to fully integrate it into my lifestyle. The two problems are (1) my overall lifestyle is a comfort and (2) my day-to-day decisions don’t optimize for comfort. It might just be something to keep in mind the next time I make a lifestyle change.

english, fitz, or percy

I imagine that someday when I look back on my life, I will regret how much I talked up season one of Prison Break. My prophecy has to do with a growing acceptance that the show doesn’t meet the high standards set by television in the decade following the show’s initial run on Fox. Television upped its game over the past decade and left Prison Break behind, a fact made plainly evident by this clip. Honestly, that guard didn’t see Schofield because he was just – just – out of sight? He really believed that he was holding a toothpick in place while the glue dried for a fake Taj Mahal… and that Schofield said nothing when the door opened? And then kept quiet while the alarms wailed on and on? What? WHAT? And somehow despite all this, I’m wondering if the acting is worse than the writing. These considerations are laying the foundation for my future embarrassment.

However, the clip did bring an important idea to mind. The name of the episode is ‘English, Fitz, or Percy’ and as I recall the suspense throughout the hour nearly killed me. The question dictated the episode – what do those three names refer to? The tension finally broke when Schofield initiated the escape alarm and observed how the police will respond in the event of a jailbreak. He noted which road would give him the best odds for success and snuck back inside just in time to maintain his cover.

The big idea this episode reinforced for me is how finding ways to observe actual behavior often tells us so much more than learning about theoretical behavior in the form of plans, intentions, or predictions. I’m sure anyone can plot the fastest driving route from the police station to the prison. I bet a phone call to the sheriff’s office would lead to at least a rough outline of the emergency response plan. But what’s a surer way to know what will happen than finding a way to recreate the event and simply seeing what happens? One way I applied this idea in the past is how I checked job candidates for their attention to detail. I could have simply waited to ask in the interview “can you give me an example of how you demonstrate good attention to detail?” but that would only have invited a hypothetical response that may or may not have been true. Instead, I included limits in the job description on the length of cover letters and resumes, and then threw out any application that exceeded the limits.

Of course, the counterarguments are too numerous to list in full. The best summary of these is that context often determines the behavior. If there was a temporary road closure on the night of the fake escape, the information gained isn’t going to be of much use weeks later. Context counts, perhaps much more so than anyone will admit. I suppose this gives me a reason to hype up Prison Break’s credentials after all – in the context of a show whose name tells you the ending, I guess it’s remarkable that its most notable feature was suspense, and perhaps this fact excuses some of its blatant shortcomings.

i read cinderella liberator so you don't have to

Rebecca Solnit, known for books such as Men Explain Things to Me and A Field Guide to Getting Lost, puts pen to much less paper in this retelling of the classic fairy tale. I didn’t note much about it beyond the basic lessons I suspect are prominent in the original – the magic of helping others reach their best, the importance of asking for help when needed, and (of course) the lousy feeling of not being invited to the party.

I generally read all children’s books recommended to me provided they aren’t novel length. This book and its twenty-eight pages proved no opportunity for a rare exception. I think a reader intrigued by the concept of a retelling or generally in favor of Solnit’s work will enjoy this book and I suggest giving it a try if you are on the fence. Reading a children’s book might feel like an odd way to spend time but I generally find the small investment in the five or ten such books I read a year is well worth the effort. There are simple things that I always like about theses books – all those COLORS – but I think the real gift is how these books always broaden my perspective with the way they look at simple facts about the world like animals, feelings, or objects with a curiosity and wonder that I sometimes go weeks without experiencing myself.

proper admin - news and notes, november 2019

Hi,

Scattershot commentary on (mostly) recent news stories.

Trump Buys Greenland?

I thought this was a brilliant idea. The problem isn’t the alleged absurdity of the idea – just because America has gone ages without buying land doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make some offers. The problem is that I bet Trump negotiating with Denmark over Greenland is a lot like getting a text from That Guy in your fantasy league. (Two backup running backs for Julio Jones, you say?)

Trump the Tradester is a nice idea in theory. If he was successful in this regard, it would probably merit reelection. It just hasn’t worked out in practice. When is he going to renegotiate our corporate bailouts? Those were disastrous deals for the American people, the very sort he claimed required his immediate intervention, and if he'd focused on these it would have come with the added benefit of not pissing off nuclear powers.

The Straight Pride Parade

This one sent my bullshit detector into all directions. By juxtaposing itself to the Pride Parade in both route and name, the Straight Pride Parade invited comparisons that ultimately exposed a rotted out moral core. The main difference in the two events is how pride manifests. The Pride Parade is for folks happy with who they are while the Straight Pride Parade came off as an event for those happy with who they are not. The way these worldviews lead to conclusions about inclusion and exclusion are obvious. There might be a place for a straight pride float in the Pride Parade but such a float will demand the same prerequisite attitude as any other – the participants should be happy with who they are and overjoyed to share time and space with others who feel the same way.

New Green Line trains

The Green Line introduced a new type of car to the system just a couple of months ago. I haven’t seen these yet despite riding the line daily since I started my new job. What I have noticed is that the Green Line continues to screw up even the simplest details. The current (old) cars have two styles – one with stairs at all entrances and another with stairs only at the front and back. Each train has two cars, one of each style. This setup is helpful because not everyone can use the stairs. If you use a wheelchair, just go to the car without the stairs and board in the middle.

What is NOT helpful is the inconsistent placement of these cars. Sometimes the stair-only car is at the front of the train and sometimes it is at the back. There is no way to predict the setup of the next train. This means passengers with the least mobility might have to travel the up or down the platform if they wait at the wrong end. An occasion sight in the morning is to see a mother with a stroller sprinting down the platform toward one end of the train. The solution of waiting in the middle to cut losses doesn’t work, either, because the train never stops in the same place. I eagerly anticipate witnessing the novel ways the design of the new Green Line car will screw over our most vulnerable passengers.

the most important thing I learned in school, part three

One major caveat I should have included about the original post is that although I did seriously think about ‘the most important thing I learned in school’, I probably didn’t think about it for long enough. I suspect I would have required about a year to think the question through properly and I'm never going to do that, This doesn’t change the fact that my consideration wasn’t enough to hand out such a definitive title. I welcome input from readers who have another candidate for this lofty award and I’m willing to admit the error of my decision as soon as a better candidate is presented to me.

This phenomenon of not thinking very much before spouting off with expertise is hardly uncommon. I notice it quite a bit (and mostly in myself). A routine manifestation is while reading a book. People will ask – how’s the book? What do you think? Do you recommend it? It feels rude to point out that I’m on page eleven so I usually just give it an honest go. But seriously, answering these questions before I’ve finished the book is like delivering a verdict on a concert after the fourth song – it’s fine, I’ll probably stay (even for the encore). But honestly, what do you expect I actually know when it just started?

Basketball conversations for me tend to follow the same path. I’m happy to chat hoops with anyone but I find that my understanding of the sport after playing college basketball is just on a different level when compared to someone whose career peaked during a high school pickup game. Is Durant better than LeBron? Is Durant even good? Do you like Durant? I don’t give a shit. Does anyone understand tactics? I’m no expert when it comes to basketball (or anything) but in these conversations I always feel like I’m talking to someone who makes a verdict after the fourth song.

The best example – or maybe worst example, who knows – is race. I have many conversations about race with people who don’t recognize the way imbalanced experiences make clear communication next to impossible. It goes back to the importance of limits because limits help us understand why tiny details result in massive gaps. I’ve felt or thought about race for most of my three decades. Now, this doesn't mean I've sat around thinking about race for every second of my life but let's say that at least once a day something would come up and I would have to think about race. The conversations I have about race these days often involve people who seem to have felt or thought about it every once in a while, maybe recently, or not, with perhaps a talking point or two from the NPR show they heard the night before. The small difference of a few minutes of thinking or feeling each day compared to just some scattered attention every once in a while seems to me a lot like the difference of saving a few dollars every day compared to someone who saves a few dollars every once in a while. What does the second person know about saving compared to the first person? What do their bank accounts say about their knowledge of saving?

The importance of limits is how it encourages investment. Good investors invest in themselves, great investors invest in others. I don’t mind sharing what I have with other people. I don’t mind investing my returns in others. It’s why I seem to gravitate toward teaching opportunities. It’s the same as it was in high school when I helped my fellow students learn and understand limits. It was easy for me because each student was the same. I’m sure this comes off as condescending or even arrogant to say this but things haven’t changed much since high school. The conservations and interactions I have with people in contexts where they’ve consistently invested in themselves or in others are enriching. They’ve harnessed or leveraged limits to reach a certain point of uniqueness, a blend of experience, reflection, and engagement that turns off my teaching instinct and opens my mind to new learning opportunities. The nicest thing I can say about those who invest inconsistently is that they've helped me understand déjà vu. The names, faces, and exact sentences change but the ideas are always the same. The reason no one looks at seeds is because every seed looks the same when it pokes out of the dirt. It’s the investment that makes it work, the ensuing growth that gives it shape and makes it worth my attention.

proper admin – daily reminders update (2019 additions, part one)

2019 saw a number of additions to my daily reminders list. Let’s take a closer look at these newest words of personal wisdom over a series of upcoming short posts.

-Rororo, calm calm calm

I pulled this one from Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, lead singer for Of Monsters and Men. She commented during one recent performance that ‘ro’ is an Icelandic word for ‘calm’ and that their song ‘Rororo’ therefore means ‘calm, calm, calm’. She adds that it might be their only song with an Icelandic word in the title.

Helpful though Nanna’s comment were, I’m still left with the task of figuring out what it actually means. So far, I’ve simply kept ‘rororo’ around in my mind. It's been a useful reminder to keep the lid on the pot whenever I’ve felt my emotions unhelpfully boiling over.

-Do the next right thing

Recent TOA readers may recall that I used this thought as a minor refrain in this post. The line comes from Frank Reich... (I think... yeah, I'm fairly certain). He's a former NFL quarterback and current head coach of helmet football's Indianapolis Colts. 'Do the next right thing' is basically his thesis statement on mental toughness.

(Or if it isn't his thought, then it's someone else's thesis statement... sigh. Just sue me, I don't care.)

Anyway, I’ve liked this reminder regardless of its origins for the way it’s kept me focused in the face of various distractions and nonsense. Is it time to make an excuse and wallow in self-pity? Or is it time to do the next right thing?

-Lean forward, choppy strides

I rebuilt my running routine in 2019 and this reminder played an important role. It addressed my concern that I was a little too upright while running, placing extra strain on my hamstrings. I also used this reminder to keep my stride short so that my body weight was landing straight down onto my feet.

-Everyday or just once

I hadn’t given this one much thought in the few years since my first job but it’s proven useful once more in my new role. A majority of simple operational decisions come down to this idea. Should we try to eliminate all the work (through automation and such) so it never needs to be done again? Or should we try to make the daily process as painless as possible? The solutions that fall in the middle are the ones that tend to become issues again in the future.

ask the business bro (the goal, part 3)

TOA: Hi folks, welcome back to Ask The Business Bro, and apologies for being a little late this time. Unfortunately, our good man didn’t quite show up on time for this edition and we had to delay the start time. What happened?

BB: Well, unfortunately, I was delayed multiple times on my commute, and the various little issues adding up on my journey proved too much to overcome.

TOA: But you just mentioned before we started that you thought it was good thing you showed up late?

BB: Right, well, I think it’s a good example of what we discussed last time in terms of positive and negative fluctuations not quite evening out.

TOA: OK, explain.

BB: Well, I started the commute by leaving right on time, but then I remembered that I’d forgotten my train pass, so I went back to my building to retrieve it. That meant I walked out the front door ten minutes later than I’d intended. I caught a cab and cut eight minutes off my usual thirty-minute walk to the train station, but I still missed my train by two minutes.

TOA: OK, so you were running two minutes late at that point?

BB: Well, from the point of view of the first portion of my commute, yes, but the real variable here is the actual time I boarded the next train. The trains run every fifteen minutes, so it was fifteen minutes later than I’d intended when I boarded the train.

TOA: OK, so by being two minutes late, you became fifteen minutes late.

BB: Right. The train ran smoothly and I arrived at the connecting subway station without hassle. I usually have to wait five minutes for the subway but as luck would have it the next one was pulling right in as I stepped onto the platform so I was able to board the next subway right away. I got to your station ten minutes later than usual, and then I ran here to cut my ten-minute walk in half.

TOA: And that’s why you were five minutes late.

BB: Exactly.

TOA: So what does this have to do with last week?

BB: The key idea is that my fluctuations didn’t accumulate evenly. I was ten minutes late to leave my apartment but this delay cost me fifteen minutes in the context of the trip because I had to wait for the train. So, even though my initial delay was ten minutes, the way this fluctuation accumulated meant I lost an additional five minutes.

TOA: The cab was obviously a good idea, but didn’t work.

BB: Right. You could compare that to a company rushing production at the end of a tough week. I paid a cab driver to help make up for the initial delay just as you could pay your workers overtime to work over the weekend but it wasn’t enough. I ended up late anyway, and at a higher cost.

TOA: And the same kind of thing on the next leg of the journey?

BB: Yes, the trip from my station to your station was five minutes faster because I cut out the wait for the subway. But even though I’d saved eight minutes on the trip to the first station and an additional five minutes on my trip to the third station, the thirteen minutes of savings still hadn’t made up for the first ten minutes I’d lost.

TOA: And then you sprinted here, which saved five more minutes, but even though you’d saved eighteen minutes overall to make up for an initial ten minute loss you were still five minutes late. So, in a way, you needed eighteen minutes of extra effort to make up for a five minute loss, and yet you still came up five minutes short.

BB (squirming in his seat): Ouch.

TOA: The math makes your head hurt?

BB: No, I think I might have pulled a hamstring while running.

TOA: Wow, are you OK?

BB: I will be, but I need to stretch first.

TOA: Maybe we should pick this up again a little later.

BB: That’s a good idea.

TOA: Let me summarize this, though, just so I get it. Basically, the production process for any organization is like your failed commute, there are so many connections and dependencies that a minor fluctuation in one link of the chain impacts everything downstream in ways disproportionate to the initial fluctuation.

BB: Right. Because of these dependencies, a minute lost in one part of the process doesn’t automatically mean you need to make up a minute elsewhere – it could be two minutes, ten minutes, whatever. If I were lucky, it would have been zero minutes. It’s really impossible to say.

TOA: That’s complicated, but I can see it better due to today’s example.

BB: A far simpler way to put it is that you can be infinitely delayed for anything but you can only be early up to a certain physical limit.

TOA: I’m not sure that’s much simpler.

BB: Well, if you call me at one and invite me over for dinner that night, I could show up an hour early, but not a day early. On the other hand, I could be late by a day, two days, a month – it’s really unlimited.

TOA: I’m not sure anyone is going to be impressed if you show up three weeks late for dinner.

BB: Are you going to let me rest, or not?

TOA: You know what’s funny about you pulling a hamstring?

BB: What?

TOA: In running, a pulled hamstring is usually a good sign that you overdid it somewhere along the way.

BB: What would you know about running?

TOA: A lot.

BB: Oh right, you’ve done those long, boring posts about running, I remember now. Those posts were so boring. I’d rather run myself than read those posts, you know.

TOA: Right. Well, what I’m saying is that an organization that has to increase its effort above a certain threshold risks the equivalent of a pulled hamstring.

BB: Well, I don’t know about that.

TOA: OK fine, I’ll let you rest. We’ll be back soon.

leftovers – the so-called vosotros

I mentioned in this post that I briefly considered Jordan Peterson’s controversies in the context of the rules outlined in his book. I ended up finding two rules that I thought might apply to the situation.

First, rule #8 – tell the truth (or, at least, don’t lie). I don’t think Peterson lied to anyone but as a writer I know that unclear pronouns are one of the fastest ways to submarine a piece. I expect Peterson to understand the same. If he deliberately calls someone by a pronoun despite knowing the subject rejects its use, he’s failing to use the part of speech in the most truthful possible way. Wouldn’t he object if I referred to him as she? My recommendation to him is that if he disagrees with a pronoun, become pro-noun, and call he, she, it, or anything else by the name.

I also thought a little bit about rule #7 – pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient). For most people, identity is a foundation for meaning and errors in reference to another’s identity are direct attacks on personal experience. I see denying others their identity as an aggressive and in some cases even violent act. It is one way to deny them an important building block for a meaningful life. The way Peterson evokes the state-backed freedom of speech as part of his justification for retaining the privilege of insulting someone with pronouns feels to me like a classic case of expedience trumping meaning.

The meaningful approach here would be to work together to adapt and expand the common understanding of pronouns so that a government would never even consider stepping in with mandates about which words are permissible for its citizens. As a so-called educator, he should be up to the task. Totalitarian regimes require one ingredient that rarely gets public acknowledgment – a citizenry that accepts the need for some form of government. Instead of worrying about the text of specific laws and citing the totalitarian undertones, perhaps the better approach would be to work out ways to change society such that there remains no requirement for these laws.

ordering fakeout

I’ve spent some time over the past couple of years thinking about the name I give at takeout. I’m sure you are familiar with this process, reader. You order a drink or a meal, give your name as you pay, and wait to hear your name as confirmation that the order is ready. It’s possibly associated with Starbucks (I don’t really keep a pulse on these things) but it’s common enough that I’m sure most folks living in the city will have encountered the system in one place or another.

The origins of the system are unclear to me. It closely resembles The Deli Ticket Method where a customer pulls a number from a kiosk and waits to hear the number. The deli system was so ubiquitous that I’ve heard people say ‘take a number like everyone else’ as a substitute for ‘please wait’. Takeout lines could have easily retained this feature without much confusion. I suppose there are some differences in the two systems (timing of arrival, possibility of doing other things during the interval, speed of order preparation, etc) but these differences don't explain why a name system was necessary for takeout.

I’m forced to conclude that folks just feel it’s more personal to use a name rather than a number. This is fine with me. I like names, including my own. But it introduces a new set of problems for certain people – like me. Is it Tim’s order, or Jim’s? And I'm not self-centered here, I recognize the same issue exists for the Erics and Derricks out there. And let's not forget Bob, in fact, if you see him, tell him that the sandwich isn't for him, it's for Rob. And those fries, those are for... Jen? Ben? Ken? Len? Wren is surely out of style, right… ?

The short version is that for the past few years I’ve been telling folks my name is Tim and I’ve spent the next fifteen minutes convinced of impending disaster. Honestly, those times when I had to repeat myself, I might as well have just walked out (no, it’s not... KIM… apparently the only Asian name in history). After all my suffering, I decided the only sensible solution was to come up with a fake name. I could use this name for takeout orders to eliminate any and all confusion. The ideal name would require two features – common enough to pronounce, not common enough for to share with a fellow diner.

I came up with a short list of strong candidates that fit the bill (but not Bill). I was ready to go but I kept running into one problem – I almost always forgot my fake names. I'm not talking about after I used it, I'm talking about at the counter. When it came down to it, if someone asked my name, I gave… my name. Turns out, lying in response to "What's your name?" is a really difficult task (especially when hungry). My problem was a disease with no cure.

One day, I was standing around waiting to hear ‘Tim’ for takeout. I passed the time by boring my friends with this exact story. At some point, one of us made the point – wouldn’t Timothy work? And it does, it so obviously does, that I was compelled to check if Timothy meant dumbass in French. How did I not think of this myself? The answer was right under my nose, all along! I’ve opted for this method on a semi-consistent basis these days and life is great, just great. Still, I do regret that I never remembered those fake names... pizza for WINSTON...

Oh, who am I kidding, I never would have remembered to go pick it up.

proper admin – daily reminders update

The series of posts about my daily reminders was based on a list as of January 12, 2019. I thought once I completed my initial analysis of each item, I would periodically return to the list and review new additions. I've accumulated a few since January so we’ll return soon and cover those in a series of upcoming posts.

For today, I wanted to make a quick point about how the way I’ve used the reminders has changed. I gave the impression over the course of the series that I carefully read each reminder every single morning. This was perhaps true at one time but over the course of 2019 I found myself gradually reading less and less each day. It just takes too long, you know? Plus, I think the process of thinking and writing about these reminders here on TOA helped me internalize the messages. The ideas remained helpful but they could hardly be called ‘reminders’ if I knew the full story, right?

Over time, I adapted my method. I’ve recently settled on an approach that feels right to me – I think I’ll do it this way for the foreseeable future. Each week (usually Saturday morning) I review the full list as carefully as I once did on a daily basis. I try to ask myself probing questions like ‘did I live up to this ideal over the past few days?’ Then, I’ll highlight (using bold and italics) the eight to ten reminders I’ll focus on over the next week. When I open the document each morning during the ensuing week, I just read those highlighted reminders. It’s proven to be exactly what I need and I’m looking forward to applying the same type of process to other aspects of my life.

Here’s my highlighted list at the time of writing (October 27):

-Be bigger than you feel
-Rororo, calm calm calm
-Do the next right thing
-Prove yourself wrong
-Hungry?
-Label negative thoughts
-What three things?
-Don't let people do what you will resent
-Protect your time

the most important thing I learned in school, part two (t time)

I wrote the last time about limits and why I thought it was the most important idea I learned in school. I’m following up today with a basic application to everyone’s favorite punching bag, the MBTA.

I originally thought about limits when I made a summer trip to Revere Beach. This meant a rare trip on the Blue Line. The trip was mostly uneventful. One thing I learned is that like it is for most of the system, the names of the Blue Line stops accurately reflect their immediate surroundings. Aquarium is located at the aquarium, Maverick is in Maverick Square, and Airport connects you to Logan via a regular shuttle bus. The lone exception is at the end of the line. Wonderland, it turns out, is the best station for Revere Beach even though the previous station is suggestively named… Revere Beach.

Huh.

The only other station I can think of with this odd feature is Fenway on the D branch of the Green Line. The name implies that it is the best station for the famous ballpark. This is not the case. The honor belongs to Kenmore, one stop closer to the city (and accessible by the B and C lines). At least the name 'Fenway' makes no specific promise about the stadium (Fenway is also the name of the neighborhood). I imagine many first-time riders have shown up in the second inning after confusing themselves on the way to the game and having to walk an extra five minutes.

The roundabout point here is that at the moment the T has a lot of potential improvements. They have so many public problems that they are, as some of the UK football pundits like to say, ‘spoiled for choice’. There’s so much the T could do that it seems like it could do anything. And it’s doing a lot – buying new subway cars and buses, repainting and repairing old stations, adding staff and information at stations to help riders. And yes, they could even rename the stations because, you know, that might make a little sense. Each of these changes, real or hypothetical, makes the T a better system.

My advice, though, is to focus a little more on future impact. Draw a lesson from limits – the most power idea expands our horizons. The best thing the T can do is increase the number of potential riders. The most surprising thing about going to Revere Beach by going to Wonderland wasn’t about the names of the stations – it was that the station opened in 1954. Sixty-plus years later and that's as far as we've gone. Is Lynn the end of the world? The T is moving in the right direction in terms of expansions but, as always, moving slowly (we’ve been talking about the ongoing Green Line extensions for almost two decades). It just needs to focus a little more and get expanded or reliable service to as much of the area as possible. A city interconnected by reliable mass transit is always stronger than one defined by varying levels of access. And linking the city to its surrounding areas via consistent service will allow Boston to retain its somewhat inexplicable status as a global city – a fact the T played no small role in establishing over the past few decades.

The rest of the stuff the T is working on are just details. These are easy enough to fix later when everyone is on board. Details don’t determine survival, significance, or relevance. The problem the T has at the moment isn’t related to details, it’s related to how casually they cut existing service and how slowly they expand new service. The T is like an ice cream shop that won’t introduce new flavors and regularly runs out of Rocky Road. The only product the T offers is transportation service! If it wants to reach its potential, it first needs to believe in it, and then work to expand it. Each day that passes without a renewed commitment to expanding service shrinks its limits. Each day, the T invites competitors to catch up. Someday, these competitors will pass by the T, and the world will pass by Boston.

proper admin - november 2019

Hi folks,

Welcome to proper admin, the monthly rubblebucket of anything and everything I couldn’t be bothered to form into a coherent post.

TOA notes

Certain longtime readers amusingly welcomed my recent posts about The Goal, a book I completed about a year and a half ago. As I noted recently I am changing the way I write these reviews and the in-depth analysis is likely a thing of the past. However, if the writing is done I feel no need to throw it aside. Look for posts about The Goal to trickle onto TOA... every week or two... into next spring!

I added a new tag to certain posts recently – ‘musically inclined’. This just means some aspect of the post was inspired by listening to music.

And finally, for those wondering – the TOA book award is done. Look for the finals in December.

Music update

I went to an Of Monsters and Men concert back in September and left with a renewed commitment to finding their best live work. This 2012 performance of ‘Little Talks’ may have, finally, brought me around on their biggest hit. I didn’t think the newest album did justice to the band’s strengths but acoustic renditions from various appearances while on tour have made me feel better – highlights include this ten-minute set recorded in Boston.

I have a couple of more thoughts on music but in the interest of time I’ll follow up with those sometime in the next two weeks.

Book notes

I believe I recently expressed my surprise that I liked The Golden Spruce despite its particular genre not being among my usual favorites. Reflecting more on the question, I realized that this might have to do with it not being a first-person account. For some reason, books recounting The Gripping Adventure told through the author's eyes has never quite moved me in the way many seem to expect.

I also noted recently (I think) that I read The TB12 Method. The short answer I have for this book is that although it was filled with valuable information, a lot of what Brady describes most likely doesn't apply to those who already understand the time commitment of being active. I don't mean this in the commonly heard “he’s a pro athlete, so I can't do any of that stuff” argument (to me, this form of complaint always sounds more like an excuse than an analysis). I mean it more in the sense of "if you can't afford the tip, you can't afford the meal". Many of Brady's ideas just won't matter to people who already invest time into maintenance. I'm sure my 'analysis' won't impress those who are interested only in doing activities without putting additional time into the strengthening, stretching, and recovery aspects that support ongoing pursuit of said activity. I sincerely apologize if any of my fellow weekend warriors are offended by my calling them out but honestly, you wouldn't need a $30 book like this that tells you to eat fruit if you were already making the common sense investments in physical maintenance that anyone's mother could tell you about.

On the next... True On Average:

1. A large pizza for maybe!

2. Surely, we reach a limit in school?

3. We ask the Business Bro if he has anything better to do...

antenna football

One of the highlights from summer was getting access to Telemundo after rescanning my HD antenna. This is the first time I’ve had Telemundo in my five years with the antenna. Telemundo gives me access to the English soccer game of the week on Sunday mornings. This added around five to ten Liverpool games to my viewing schedule for the season.

No exaggeration, Telemundo was one of the five best things to happen to me in 2019.

I’m not sure why I never had Telemundo in the past. I assume it was some kind of fluke. The way these things work has to do with signals and the signals have to do with things like rain, wind, and clouds. It’s possible the day I scanned the antenna was just a really nice day, so nice that the Telemundo signal finally arrived on my television.

Weather is related to the only other use I have for my TV. Most mornings, I turn on the local news to check the current conditions. I’ve always used 7 NEWS because their main studio is down the street. If 7 NEWS says it’s fifty degrees, it's fifty degrees. Can't say the same about WBZ-4, their thermometer comes with an error range that would make an exit poll blush. Anyway, I cannot overstate the value of 7 NEWS. Outside of hanging a thermometer on my window (ha) there really isn’t a better way to get a sense of the outside unless I go outside. It’s important for me because my schedule is pretty tight in the morning (and especially if I’m running - the difference of a few degrees can make the difference between a good and a bad workout).

Unfortunately, in mid-October I lost access to 7 NEWS because the antenna signals realigned (or something like that, I don’t know). This left me with two options:

1) Rescan the antenna to get 7 NEWS (but risk losing Telemundo)
2) Leave it as is (and get my weather from the other crap stations)

Reader, your level of uncertainty about my decision reveals your understanding of soccer. Text me what 7 NEWS says some morning, it will be appreciated...

the so-called vosotros

I think a reader with wider perspective on Jordan Peterson’s work might question the relevance of these rules given the various controversies that surround him. If his rules are so good, you might say, then why is he always knee-deep in various news stories generated by his own questionable judgment? Specifically, where were his rules when he linked the use of preferred pronouns to totalitarian thinking?

The controversy raises the question of how to think about public figures when their behavior dilutes, contradicts, or tarnishes their work. The first time I remember thinking deeply about this was in 2014 when my favorite Liverpool player at the time, Luis Suarez, was running around biting opponents. I was against cannibalism at the time (and remain so) but I didn’t join the chorus withdrawing their support of the player. I thought it was a simple matter – I watched soccer to watch soccer and watching Suarez play soccer made watching soccer more fun. The idea that supporting Suarez somehow made me a supporter of cannibalism was absurd; the suggestion that my support excused his actions was perhaps less so. I decided to see it another way. I felt that if he wanted to treat Ivanovic’s arm like corn on the cob then my only concern should be whether he dined when the referee wasn’t at the table. My thinking changed a few months later when he went off and chomped on Chiellini’s arm during the World Cup. At that point, his behavior and resulting suspension was hurting Liverpool and making it less fun for me as a supporter. When he was sold for a huge transfer fee, I was pleased, and would have driven him to Barcelona myself if it were necessary to complete the sale.

I look back now and realize that I didn’t properly consider whether my support for Suarez enabled his transgressions. His Liverpool incident wasn’t breaking news (prior to joining Liverpool he’d done the same thing in Holland). Should I have taken a broader view of his history and thought more about the consequences of my support? On the other hand, Suarez never leveraged his popularity to get away with the act. He seemed to consider it part of the game, not much unlike punching the ball clear while defending his open goal, and if he was caught he would accept the punishment. He proved during the World Cup that if he thought biting another opponent would help him in a future game, he would get his teeth out straightaway. It’s possible I didn’t make the right decision with my support but I don’t really see how it affected the situation in one way or the other. The key consideration in these situations is to understand the importance of support in terms of enabling certain behaviors. If a public figure uses the fame or fortune that we grant them through our support to take advantage of power dynamics in order to excuse immoral, reckless, or criminal behavior, it’s probably my responsibility to cut off any support so that repeat transgressions are less likely in the future.

This was where I was when I thought about Peterson and his remarks. Did reading his book and telling others that I thought it was good enable him to continue making public remarks that hurt people? I didn’t really know so as a starting point I dove deeper into what he said and tried to make some sense out of his comments. The big conclusion I drew from reading various articles was that although it was unclear whether he earned the magnitude of his controversy, he certainly earned the fact of it. His remarks were mostly in a hypothetical ‘slippery slope’ context about a law that might mean jail time for refusing to use preferred pronouns. I thought he made an error by burying his broad defense of personal freedom under the specifics of his examples, his sloppy delivery, and a convoluted connection that served his analogy more than his message. It’s a version of the Hitler defense I once highlighted on this space. People were upset, possibly rightfully so, but I can’t say I’m entirely sure if that’s the only reason. I think the more important reason is this: people were upset because he upset them. And since he couldn’t have reached so many people without his platform, this feels to me like a case of someone doing more harm with a platform than would be possible without it.

I was tempted to take a closer look at his twelve rules and consider them in the context of this controversy (1). I decided against it because I don’t necessarily think supporting Peterson means I feel he needs to follow his own rules. One of his rules suggests petting the cats you see in the street but it would be ridiculous if he were criticized for walking past a purring feline. His book is not a personal manifesto – it’s just a series of principles he thought would help other people guide themselves through life. Perhaps considering the man and his controversies separately from his twelve rules is a convenient oversimplification but I know that when it comes to my life and the rules I live by, the source of those rules has never mattered to me. One of my basic principles is ‘be bigger than you feel’. Do I know where that phrase came from? I don’t, and I don't care. I just know that I heard it one day, wrote it down, and have kept it in mind ever since. It isn’t worth worrying about where the idea came from if the idea makes sense, I can apply it in healthy way, and it doesn’t bring any harm to others.

Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life is a handbook for living a good life. The suggestion of such a work is that it should set an example but that’s merely my opinion. I understand why someone would feel that the author of such a book should be held to the lifestyle standard described in the work but again I sense this is more of a preference rather than a requirement. Ultimately, the reason I’m not a supporter of Peterson is that he’s demonstrated a recklessness with his public platform that hurts people in proportion to his support. It doesn’t matter if he’s an author, a pop singer, or the greatest striker I’ve seen play for Liverpool – the more support he has, the more people he will hurt, and therefore I can’t support him. This is a position I’ll change as I see his behavior change but for now all I’ll do is acknowledge that I enjoyed reading his book, admit that I learned quite a bit from it, and share as much of those insights as possible. It’s one of the hidden benefits of TOA – it’s a way to help others improve their own lives without going down the avenue of supporting an author who needs to demonstrate greater care with the power granted by his public platform.

Footnotes

1. Er, tempted…

OK, fine, I wasn’t just tempted, I went ahead and did this, but ultimately the couple paragraphs I generated from the exercise didn’t fit very well into this post. We’ll take a closer look at it in the coming days.

reading review - getting to us (coaching strategy)

My first post about Getting to Us covered some aspects of coaching tactics. Today, I want to look more at the broader strategies involved in the profession.

The analogy I liked most from this book compared the process of building a team's structure to growing a plant. A detail-obsessed coach runs the risk of structural micromanagement, the coaching equivalent of planting a tree in a jar. A coach who can find the structural equivalent of planting the tree in a fertile area with plenty of space is likely to get better results. In a sense, a good structure encourages action and growth. It may mean giving new people full freedom from the start with a promise to restrict freedom based on squandered opportunities. The key to establishing this structure is to bring in people who understand the team’s philosophies and the coach’s demands. Once these people are in place, the coach must allow them the leeway to meet their responsibilities. The structure is vital because a team worried about hitting the borders imposed by the jar will miss out on growth opportunities while a team growing without focus will fail to make progress toward its goals. Another good analogy is to think of a rubber band – coaches should remain flexible without stretching to the point of weakness.

A key element to recruiting is to find players and assistants capable of responding to the coach’s style. Coaches who understand their own shortcomings are better able to identify people that can prove helpful assets to the team. This doesn’t excuse coaches from trying to become better at their jobs and learn how to work with different types of people but trying to become good at everything all at once is no recipe for success. It also raises the issues of building trust within a team, a challenge under the best circumstances that is greatly eased if the coach can be his or her true and authentic self at all times. If there are people in the organization who cannot handle the coaching style, the coach may need to sacrifice authenticity at the risk of eroding trust.

There is a long list of routine challenges in a coaching role that have almost no right answer (I list these below). Ultimately, a coach should approach these challenges with reasonable expectations. It isn’t possible to be correct all the time. If a coach can work up to around an ‘A’ grade (95% correct) the many little decisions will add up over time to produce a significant and successful team.

Endnotes

0. A list of things to be right around 95% of the time…

*Discussing personal matters with a player (but never seek such conversations – wait for the player to raise the issue).

*Finding the growth opportunity within adversity.

*Balancing effort and commitment with tactics and motivation.

*Knowing when to allow a player to criticize coaching.

*Determining the right time to say ‘ignore this and focus here instead’.

*Recognizing when too much information means overload rather than direction.

*Demanding common things be done in an uncommon way.

the most important thing I learned in school

I’ve often joked about the least important thing I learned in school. The list of candidates could fill out a hypothetical March Madness style bracket (!). One day I would think it was the name of Columbus’s three ships, the next I would be sure it was penmanship. I can still do a pitch-perfect whistling rendition of ‘Hot Cross Buns’. In my most sober moments, I reflect deeply on the Lanthanide Series, and ask existential questions about the periodic table.

It was only recently that I gave the reverse question any thought. What was the most important thing? I think it has to be limits, a concept I first understood in high school calculus. A limit is a property of a mathematical formula. It states the formula’s behavior as it approaches certain numbers. (The limit of 1/x as it approaches infinity is 0.) I remember thinking at the time that this whole business with limits was a little silly. It always seemed like the answer was 0, infinity, or undefined. The mechanics of the limit I understood, the point of it not so much. Limits were the first topic we covered in that course and we soon moved on to bigger topics in the syllabus.

I look back on limits as critical because it was the first time I thought seriously about how the smallest details in the present might dictate large effects in the future. The multiplicative effect is the easiest example. A constant changes forever when X is introduced. When 2 becomes 2X, the limits are forever altered and what once remained stuck in place can now reliably be expected to approach something as powerful as infinity. This idea works both ways. A simple formula of 2X is far less powerful than X-squared. Their limits are the same, however, for as each formula approaches infinity the limit is infinity. The difference in the two is the rate of change, a difference ably examined by the rest of the calculus class, but this difference had no relevance to limits. They would both get there, eventually.

The key in the idea is the movement itself, always represented in X. There is a huge difference between stagnant and barely growing. It doesn’t matter if the stagnant is a huge idea, if the number is one thousand or one million or one billion, because in the long term anything with X involved has the power to overtake it. Studying limits was a rare moment for me in high school, one of a truly mind expanding nature, but in that very understanding is the power of the limit itself – the best ideas are the ones that expand our horizons.

reading review - what i eat

What I Eat by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio (March 2019)

Today I wanted to share the best of What I Eat, Menzel and D'Aluisio's engaging account of what different people from around the world eat on a given day.

Individual health was a recurring theme throughout this book. What I Eat demonstrates in pictures what one of its essays explicitly stated – for the first time in human history, as many people are overfed as underfed. Those in the former category tend to live in richer countries where increased wealth has taken people away from simple diets. They’ve abandoned basic practices such as time spent cooking that are regularly correlated with better nutritional health. Standard diets for these wealthy citizens emphasize starches, red meat, sugar, and dairy, all products associated with improved health the minute they are removed from the dinner plate. The influence of organizations motivated by sales goals has flooded grocery stores with packaged foods available in huge portions at discount prices meaning wealthier societies tend to eat larger portions with more frequency. All of this adds up, a combination that cannot be overcome even with the healthiest diet composition. Our genes may have changed (or they may be expressing themselves in new ways) but for the most part eating habits are to blame for our expanding waistlines. Like with many problems, what came about over a long time cannot be solved overnight. The authors are left with little to say beyond repeating the age old advice to eat less, move more, have plenty of fruits and vegetables, and try to avoid junk food.

The latter underfed group tends to live in cultures with limited resources. These are places where investing in animals (including pets) is often seen as a liability. The result is that the range of animals eaten is much wider than in wealthier countries yet most of these unusual meat sources are inefficient compared to our standard Western fare. Poorer societies tend to cook all of their food to ease digestion and increase caloric value (digesting raw food uses more calories). Poorer countries experience nutritional deficits due to a lack of variety in their diets. There is less said in terms of advice here (likely because the audience of the book is primarily in wealthy countries) but the underlying implication is that the lacking infrastructure must be built up first before things will change for the underfed.

The question I’m left with is whether bringing underfed societies into the class of the overfed means we expose them to the same problems that saddle wealthy societies. Our lifestyle has left our captive animals afflicted with a range of diseases and conditions not seen in the wild (a fact the authors explain by the animals being prevented from hunting for their food). For the herbivores, the problems are purely the result of our laziness (any animal that likes salt might eat a plastic bag). Most animals do not even have their preference for cooked food accommodated by their handlers. The challenge of lifting all countries out of food insecurity isn’t to simply replicate the mistakes of the 20th century. It requires a little more thinking so that everyone’s interests over both the short and long term are appropriately considered and fairly accommodated. Simple rules of thumb might go a long way toward these sustainable outcomes. A farm should never produce more manure than can be reused on the land from where it came, for example, because this shifts the burden of waste management off the farm to where it can only prove harmful.

One up: Those that look across cultures can sometimes produce brilliant insights. One Chinese student questioned the point of hamburgers, comparing it to cake – there’s no central taste. I kind of agree in the sense that my approval rating for the burger drops each year but I’m more intrigued by this idea of a ‘central taste’. Readers in the know, please get in touch.

One down: The authors mention that the first caloric calculations did not properly account for the energy required to digest food. Interesting, but I suspect sloppy wording. The caloric calculation likely measured the caloric value and nothing more. Even if most people are concerned with the net value – the difference in calories consumed and calories spent – the failure of the food’s caloric value to meet this assumption can hardly be blamed on the original calculation.

By the way, for those interested proteins and dietary fibers tend to overestimate calorie counts.

Just saying: In terms of non-food items, I pulled two thoughts I liked. First, research suggests children move more during free play than during organized sports. And second, you are only as young as the last time you changed your mind.

how to kill a fly

I have always been a reluctant killer of small insects. Mosquitos, spiders, bees, cockroaches, whatever – even if the threat was imminent, I tried to find some way to usher the pest out of sight and out of mind. But if the situation called for it, I’d kill, and I'd kill efficiently.

This was true for all but one foe – the fly. Oh, the fly. Was it placed on Earth to taunt my dull reflexes? I’d swing and swat to no avail. I even tried sneaking up on it, palm taut, but the quieter my approach, the faster the fly seemed to zoom away. I've struggled with this issue for something like three decades.

I realized over the summer that I was getting it all wrong. I never succeeded with the fly because I focused on my actions. The way to get the fly wasn’t in the action, it was in the interaction. The only predictable thing about the fly was that it would escape my first attack. Therefore, I needed to factor this into my move and catch it after it escaped.

I studied the fly's movements all summer. Each time I encountered my ancient foe, I paid close attention to its escape route. I noticed that the fly was indeed the perfect bug, capable of switching directions at the slightest hint of an obstacle. But it had a fatal flaw – it only flew forward. The fly’s ugly red eyes were always pointed to its next spot.

One day, I pieced everything together. A fly that had spent the morning zipping circles around my head finally settled on the tabletop for a short snooze. Its face pointed away from the windows toward the comforts of the commode, and I approached from its left. I slowly extended my right hand until it was directly behind the winged beast. When my hand was in position – roughly the length of a paperback away from the fly – I raised my left hand above the table, directly above the spot about a foot in front of the insect.

I was ready. I struck quickly, my right hand moving first toward the fly. The fly jumped forward as I knew it would and my left hand slammed down onto the table. Success!

You may be wondering, reader, if there is a larger lesson in this story. Are we too focused on actions rather than interactions? Is pacifism the way to go? Am I insane? This story has nothing to do with this, that, or those. This story is about a fly, and how to kill it. Most of you don't know how to do it. This is how to do it. Good luck.

reading review - getting to us

Getting to Us by Seth Davis (February 2019)

Sportswriter and longtime CBS commentator Seth Davis’s Getting To Us explores the various tactics and strategies used by coaches to bring their teams together in pursuit of their common goals. He does so by dedicating each of his ten or so chapters to a profile of a different coach. As always, I found much useful insight here that I will highlight over a couple upcoming posts.

The primary focus of the book is motivation. A team full of motivated players means everyone is committed to following one shared agenda. The coach’s role is twofold. First, the coach must establish the team’s mentality and ensure everyone understands the main goal. Then, the coach must learn how to motivate each player so that everyone understands how his or her individual contributions will tie into the team’s goal. Motivating individuals is a relentless and endless task. A good coach knows to spend time with players and learn how each responds to various emotions or stresses. This understanding will help the coach develop empathy for the individuals on the team and determine the best way to motivate players throughout the many challenging scenarios that arise over the course of a long season.

The aspect of motivating individuals is likely the hardest task for most coaches because the work involved doesn’t necessarily come naturally to them. Good people skills are rarely a prerequisite for starting in the profession and most coaches seem to learn on the job (or not at all). A majority of coaches get their start by having a deep knowledge about a specific element of their sport that can be applied in an assistant role. A new coach can win trust from the players by demonstrating his or her depth of knowledge and understanding of the game. The approach I always liked that Davis highlights is detailed practice planning. He points out something I never thought of but that I realize I’ve sometimes done inadvertently in my previous leadership opportunities – a great practice plan links the drills to how they will beat certain opponents or develop specific skills.

A common tactic coaches employ for motivation is internal competition. There is logic here because after introducing a skill or strategy to a player the coach must allow the player to explore and learn how to best apply the ideas. The challenge with using competition as a motivational tool is the possibility of a team losing its sight of the shared goal. When a coach sees divides form within the team, the internal competition has likely gone too far.

One up: Coaches face a consistent challenge of having to give a player disappointing news without discouraging him or her so much that it negatively impacts future performance. Davis proposes a good rule of thumb – share the truth with players in a way that encourages them to get better.

One down: Innovations in sports are often needlessly framed in the context of an invention replacing the obsolete. The I-formation, for example, was an innovation that helped offenses counter corner blitzing. Helmet football has since moved on and this formation is no longer among the dominant setups (and when it is used, it often is to help the running game). But when defenses adjust and make the corner blitz a devastating tactic, guess what formation will probably make a comeback? Innovation in sports is more circular than it is linear and commentators who forget this reveal a certain ignorance about the game.

Just saying: As I noted above, coaches start their careers with more knowledge than people skills. A particularly challenging area is when a mentally independent person – the sort who takes pride in being strong, the type that often seems to rise into head coaching roles – encounters players who need consistent support throughout challenging times. These coaches will need to work very hard to understand why a player’s response to adversity is demonstrably different than the values that proved successful in their rise through the coaching ranks.

Just saying #2: I liked this book’s definition of toughness – it means doing the next right thing.

vote for me because

The most sensational piece of mail I received this year arrived just a couple of weeks ago. It came from a candidate in the local election. The large flyer was essentially a thank you note for voting in September’s preliminary election. It included a special THANK YOU (big letters!) to anyone who had voted for the candidate and it went on to ask for my support in the general election on November 5th.

Political flyers, leaflets, and postcards have been fairly regular visitors to what is otherwise my echo chamber of a mailbox. These come from various campaigns. They almost always describe the candidate’s experience, accomplishments, and platform. The bulk of what I know about most of the names on the city ballot comes from these mail distributions.

I thought this most recent THANK YOU note was cut from the same (cardboard) cloth. I scanned its approximately 250 words for more information. What was this candidate’s vision? Did the candidate speak directly to one of my concerns? How did the candidate’s credentials compare to his or her opponents? I’m still looking. The note pointed out the existence of known concerns – trash pickup, affordable housing, traffic (apparently) – but it made no indication of how my vote would alter the various trajectories of these issues.

I determined that this note provided my fellow voters and I with only two pieces of information. The first was a website. The note promised more about ‘my platform and record of results’ to those who dared venture online. I suppose as a good citizen I should have just logged onto the Information Superhighway (despite the traffic) and had a look. Maybe the reason to vote for this candidate would have become Obvious. I can’t fault a candidate for this approach but as I pointed out above many candidates have found a way to summarize their positions without the aid of the internet.

The second was a photo. The photo takes up most of the front side. Let’s play a game called ‘Guess What The Photo Was’ – here are your choices:

(a) White guy
(b) Other

We don’t do spoilers on TOA so I’ll just leave the choices up on the board for your pleasure, reader. I’ll finish with this – we can pretend the day and age of voting with our eyes is long in the past. I disagree. And as long as I keep finding mail like this where the only argument presented for my vote is a photograph, I'll be right.

ask the business bro (the goal, part 2)

TOA: OK, welcome back to another edition of Ask The Business Bro, last time we dug a little into the main ideas discussed in The Goal. This week, we’re back to learn a little more about how to apply those ideas. BB, what’s up?

BB: Not too much, I think we left off last time with a question about how to determine excess bottleneck capacity, might as well start there, right?

TOA: Let’s get to it.

BB: As usual, the first answer is deceptively simple. The excess capacity here is just the answer to two questions. First, does the bottleneck resource ever sit idle? Second, could it performer better or faster while it’s working? If the answer is no and no, then you are maxed out, and if the answer to either question is yes, then you can figure out a fairly simple estimate of the excess capacity for the bottleneck.

TOA: OK, so let me see if I get it, let’s say your bottleneck produces five units an hour and it works for seven hours. If you can get up to eight hours, then the spare capacity is five units. If you can get it to produce six units per hour, then the spare capacity is seven units. And if you combine both improvements, then the spare capacity is thirteen units.

BB: Bingo.

TOA: OK, so why is it more complex than that?

BB: It’s not the math that’s tricky, or I should say, the formula is easy, the complex part is getting the right numbers. You might think you produce five units per hour, for example, or that the bottleneck is utilized for seven out of eight hours, but in reality capturing those measurements is the real source of difficulty.

TOA: I imagine Goldratt has some ideas about how to calculate these numbers?

BB: He certainly does. The key to getting the math right is to understand the fluctuations in the process. Each fluctuation creates variation that threatens the reliability of your numbers. If you understand the variation, you can factor those into the calculation and go from there.

TOA: What are some important factors to consider in terms of fluctuations?

BB: Well, before I get into that, I think it’s important to talk about certain assumptions.

TOA: OK, what are the assumptions?

BB: The most important one is that fluctuations average out. This assumption sounds good on paper and anyone who has studied the normal curve in a basic statistics course was trained to think this way. If you crunch your numbers thinking that they could go up or down by 20% with equal probability, you’ll end up with a much different perspective on your operation than someone who thinks differently.

TOA: But why is it automatically the case that those probabilities aren’t equal?

BB: Well, they could be equal, but remember that everything we are talking about ties back to the bottleneck resource. Let’s go back to your numerical example. Suppose the bottleneck resource operates as you defined it, five units per hour for seven hours for a total of thirty-five units. The raw material you need to feed into the bottleneck is therefore equivalent to what produces five units per hour for seven hours.

TOA: Right.

BB: Let’s accept the assumption that positive and negative fluctuations of one unit per hour in the available level of raw material happen with equal probability. On day one, we have a normal day and produce thirty-five units. On day two, we get a negative day and only produce four units per hour for a total of twenty-eight units. We’re down seven units, and we aren’t getting those back.

TOA: Hold on, but what if the next day we have a positive day? Six units per hour means forty-two units, right?

BB: OK, so here we go, six units per hour, we think we’ll get forty-two units because we have the raw material, but remember that we defined the bottleneck as being able to process only five units per hour. In this case, the positive fluctuation on day three doesn’t matter. The unprocessed raw material becomes inventory and at the end of day three we’ve produced thirty-five units for a total of ninety-eight units over three days with seven units of raw material inventory. This means we fell short of the production estimate by those seven units in the inventory.

TOA: But what if we run the bottleneck for an additional hour?

BB: You do the math. We could have ten thousand units of raw material but we can only produce up to the bottlenck capacity.

TOA: OK, five units per hour, so we end up at forty units, with two units of raw material.

BB: The point of The Goal, at least when it digs into the detailed level of how to apply its main principle, hinges on understanding why in most systems fluctuations do not even out. It’s because in most systems, a negative fluctuation accumulates faster than a positive accumulation can make up for it. So even if the probability of the two fluctuations is equal, the reality is that since most bottleneck resources operate at pretty close to capacity most of the time, it’s hard to make up for a bottleneck sitting idle during a negative fluctuation by having it do more work when there is a positive fluctuation.

TOA: I’m seeing the point – you can be stuck in traffic all day but you can’t drive from here to there in an instant.

BB: Right.

TOA: I’m still not sure. Can we go back to the example?

BB: OK.

TOA: Well, what happens if we start with a positive fluctuation? Wouldn’t the accumulated raw material come in handy later on to make up for the shortfall after a negative fluctuation?

BB: It sure would, but let’s do the math. If we have one positive fluctuation, we produce as expected and leave at the end of the day with seven units of raw material inventory. This means we are covered in the event of a negative fluctuation. But keep in mind, inventory is costly, and by holding this inventory we’ve raised the cost of each unit produced. We pay that cost every day until we have a negative fluctuation.

TOA: OK, right, I forgot that we pay for inventory, I guess.

BB: Right. Let’s hammer this point home by looking at a very positive example, let’s say we have a full week of positive fluctuations and we run our bottleneck resource for eight hours instead of seven. At the end of the week, we’ve produced forty units per day instead of thirty-five and we have two extra units of raw material inventory per day. On the surface that looks good, but we're only about two consecutive days of negative fluctuations away from eating up that spare inventory and producing less than the thirty-five units per day.

TOA: But can’t we afford that since we overproduced the week before?

BB: I’m sure it’s true in some cases, but it’s not a given. Remember that we’re working off of an assumed output of thirty-five units per day, so unless the sales team responds quickly and sells those extra units we might not be able to recognize the revenue for those products right away. If the completed product has a short shelf life, we might not recognize the revenue at all. Plus, since we have to buy space to store those extra units, each extra unit above our estimate comes at a slightly higher cost, so we might need to discount the revenue gained from each additional unit to account for this.

TOA: This is getting pretty complicated.

BB: Right. The short version is that if we overproduce, we run the risk of learning the hard way why we don’t overproduce all the time.

TOA: Are there any specific strategies we can use to get around this?

BB: There are, and Goldratt outlines a few, but unfortunately I must say that is where it gets complicated.

TOA: Oh, now it gets complicated?

BB: I think it might be best to leave the tactical discussion for next week.

TOA: OK, that will work for me.

BB: The key thing to remember is that negative fluctuations tend to accumulate faster than positive fluctuations will even them out.

TOA: Yes sir, I will try to do that. Same time next week?

BB: Sounds good to me.

toa quick hits – november 2019

Hi folks,

As I noted in the November newsletter, we here at TOA HQ are buried under a major backlog of reading reviews. Since some of you loyal readers seem to take my book log fairly seriously, I thought I would chime in with some quick notes on recent reading and highlight an important thought or two about each work.

Rising Strong by Brene Brown (February 2019)

Brown is probably known by most as a shame and vulnerability researcher but this book is more focused on their aftermath, resilience. It’s a natural sequel to Daring Greatly and I recommend maintaining the sequence in your reading. The definition of creativity as ‘connecting the unconnected’ has stayed with me all year. If good rules are made by exceptions, then let's say my rule to never make assumptions is bolstered by Brown’s note to assume everyone is always doing their best.

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (February 2019)
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (April 2019)

There’s no need to automatically lump books together by author but I think it works well with Obama. His writing is excellent throughout these works and I feel his unique combination of experience and perspective make it unlikely for a reader to stop after reading just one of the two books. The Audacity of Hope is essentially an outline of his political philosophy while Dreams from My Father is an identity-seeking memoir. One thing missing for me in these works was a new idea to carry with me. However, I found much that I agreed with and plenty else to think about (especially regarding the ongoing role he saw for religion in building the country).

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (June 2019)

This book is a strong example of the common phenomenon of self-help books having terrible covers (although I think in the pure 'terrible cover competition', Plain Talk has it clinched). However, it’s the inside that counts and this book inspired me to change my eating habits. Intuitive Eating is highly recommended for those skeptical of dieting but unwilling to act until they hear a coherent argument.

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (July 2019)

Baldwin should be a required part of high school reading (like honestly, what’s a seventeen year old going to do with Hamlet?). The challenge may be that much of his work is unlikely to be everyone’s cup of tea. This one could be the compromise – a short enough novel that the lazy students could skip by watching the movie. The next person to express disappointment to me regarding this book will be the first.