To achieve any goal, no matter how big, the process is the same. Define clear success criteria Generate ample motivation Create an appropriately sized vacuum of time and energy Anything that is possible is possible in that manner. We fail to achieve our goals when we avoid defining them appropriately, neglect motivating ourselves, or let our time become filled with too many other things.
The Atlantic, published a cover piece in May 2016 titled, The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans. The subject was the unstable financial position that many seemingly successful people are in. The article was well written by an author who declares himself a part of the ashamed population he is writing about. As he ruminates on his situation, there was one thing I couldn’t help but notice – even after researching the topic and writing an article on it, he remains blind to the item he can most easily impact. He writes, “The only thing one can do is work more hours to try to compensate. I long since made that adjustment. I work seven days a week, from morning to night. There is no other way.” The above statement bothers me because it is a fallacy that is unfortunately shared by far too many people. The other option is, of course, that you can spend
“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” -C.S. Lewis In the same way, our goal should not be to own fewer objects simply for the sake of it. Our goal should be to develop a healthy relationship with the objects in our life – our consumption of them and desires for them. Our goal should be to reach a state where we think about them less, thus allowing us to think more about other topics.
A mushroom looms like a single entity. Like a tree. Like an animal. Like a man. But, in fact, what we see is just one fruiting body of a large fungal organism. An organism that can grow to cover miles. The largest organism we know of on earth. The fruit appears suddenly – almost randomly. An overnight success. But the organism has been growing and storing energy. It has been invisible but working hard. The fruit is simply a stage that is more visibly apparent. Like the fruit of the mushroom, our works are only the visible fruit of a hidden underlying network. Our accomplishments are derivatives of what is growing and what has been done. The overnight success is the results of years of movement and work in a focused direction. Our work and the work of those before us. I spend a lot of time and energy thinking a lot about a few
One of my favorite mental pastimes is reducing complex concepts into algorithms or metrics. One recent item I’ve been thinking about is how to measure maturity – specifically as related to the concept of child rearing & personal development. The topic is simple – there is a clear difference between a mature adult and a child. There is also a notable difference between adults; one that ‘really has it together’ and another that is ‘immature for their age’. The complex part is defining and measuring that in a consistent way. How would you quantify mature? How would you program a computer to recognize it? What is most interesting to me is to find a way measure maturity development and then use that measurement to set goals for how I raise my children. Benchmarks to help me see if I’m doing a good job introducing them to new challenges. Tools to facilitate conversations I
In a few months I will turn 30 and while that number has no particular significance to me, I started to realize while watching the Olympics that, physically speaking, I am hitting my peak. While competing at Rio earlier this month, Michel Phelps described himself as a ‘mature athlete’ and commentators made note of how much effort it took for him to climb out of the pool after one of his races, describing it as ‘gingerly’. He announced his retirement this year. After 16 years of racing at the Olympic level, he is ending his career. He is 31 years old. 30 30 tends to be when people stop being able to compete at their athletic peak. There is some variance per athlete, but the trend is pretty consistent. Here are some data I grabbed from the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (my new favorite association) that shows the fastest
Bringing a new product to life, either as a product manager or co-founder, ultimately amounts to solving a collective action problem. That is a problem that often occurs when a group of people is trying to accomplish something that is in their collective best interest but that none can accomplish alone. Encyclopedia Britannica has the following to say about this type of problem: “However, it has long been recognized that individuals often fail to work together to achieve some group goal or common good. The origin of that problem is the fact that, while each individual in any given group may share common interests with every other member, each also has conflicting interests. If taking part in a collective action is costly, then people would sooner not have to take part.” The result is a set of decisions by individuals to participate or not. If everyone acts then the result can ultimately
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. Now that the year is half way through (maybe a bit more) I want to check in on how things are going. 2016 Focus At a macro level I am doing ok so far, probably as well as I will do. I have realized that I spread myself a bit too thin with these items this year though. Introducing a new one certainly exacerbated that. Having four items of focus is simply too many. Some of them have overlap, such as running & health – but others take me in a completely different direction. One of the things I’ve learned and will change for my focus next year is to have the theme be a central item that the goal, challenge & exemplar all tie back to. For example if health
It took two steps to get to the top of the podium. To wear my medal. To hear my song. It took 29,808 steps to get to the finish line. Each becoming more grueling than the last. It required everything of me. It took 1.98 million steps to get to the start line. Logging miles after long days. Early mornings running repeats up the hill. Sacrifices of time and comfort. Everyone dreams of the podium. Some people know what it takes to race. Only those that sacrifice to put in the work before the start line can truly understand those two steps.
On July 31, 2016 I raced my first marathon. I finished in a time of 2:42:23, taking first place in the race. Here is the race report. Compared to the Ironman I did in 2014, this race was relatively quick and not quite as grueling – but it was much more intense and there was far less margin for error. To put numbers to that – during my Ironman my average heart rate was 137 BMP or about 74% of my maximum. For this marathon it was 166 BPM or 90% of my maximum. My goal, which I had set at the beginning of the year before I started my training regimen, was to break 2:37. I missed by about six minutes. If you don’t fail once in a while, you aren’t trying hard enough. This was an intentionally aggressive goal that was set without context months earlier. That said, I think