Brady Helps

"Our foolish naive persistence defied what many thought impossible -- what I had thought was impossible." - Natasha Lance Rogoff, Muppets in Moscow.Is that all you need to defy the odds? Yes.All that you have is the present. In this present you can decide to start, stop, or continue. The present doesn’t care if you give up or slog through life; the present doesn’t know past or future. The present knows what you do now. I don’t know what the future holds — perhaps that’s naive. I know that what I do now sets the stage for what’s to come. If I want to be more than what I think I am, I must decide and act that way now.

I’m learning about friction and heat. I don’t have an expert understanding, but I think I am learning. I think I understand that force of friction equals the coefficient of friction multiplied by normal force. The coefficient of friction is a dimensionless number. It represents the number of frictional characteristics of a surface. Friction converts kinetic energy into heat — which is then transferred between objects due to thermodynamics. Why should you care? Why do I care?Gather many types of people into a room and try to solve a problem. Gather people from all walks of life. How easy will it be to create consensus without argument? Each area of diversity adds to the coefficient of friction in the room. The group will birth a marketplace of ideas as they try to attack the problem. Ideas will be tested, edited, cut, and rebuilt. The winning idea will rise to the top. The winning idea gets implemented. Work ships, energy gets transferred.Change happens.

I like to know what’s going to happen before it happens. Please, spoil the movie for me. At the same time, I enjoy making surprises. Surprises are an experience. A good surprise disrupts someone’s worldview — their reality. One minute they believe one thing about the world, and the next second that world is completely different. A good surprise creates a reaction — a laugh, a cry, a gasp.How do we create more happy surprises for those we serve? Inhabit the mind of those you seek to serve. Understand their worldview.Imagine what benefit could you give that person that would materially change their world and be unexpected.Determine how you can give that person that thing at a time where they least expect it.Surprise.We need more of the right kinds of beautiful surprises in our life.

I like these five questions. Would I go job-by-job and ask these questions? Maybe. Interviewers often look for “red flags.” Long employment gaps, negative perceptions of past employment, or the wrong word said at the wrong time — all can be considered “red flags.” What makes these red flags? Employment gaps — some people have them. I have them. Does that make me less employable? An interviewer might wonder what caused that large gap — perhaps something happened. An involuntary exit from a past employer is almost assumed. A skilled interviewer gets curious.Skilled recruiters are self-aware. They know what they don’t know, and they know that humans are unpredictable. A “red flag” in one circumstance could be “gold” in another circumstance. Expert interviewers ride that middle line of curiosity and probe further. “Tell me about that gap, what were you focused on? What did you learn from it? What did you get from that gap that you can take here?”Harry Stebbings, the interviewer from the video I linked above, offers you and I “the five questions to ask every potential new recruit.” I might rewrite it as, “a set of five questions you can ask every potential new recruit… if you’re skilled enough.”HT to Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution for sharing the link

I don’t particularly enjoy “work.” I enjoy, love, and am driven to seek out and indulge in “creativity.” Being creative — making connections and building things — is a tonic for me. It heals my soul. It helps me think and realize what’s possible. I get excited to ship my work. “Work” is the opposite. Tedious, task’y, and agenda-driven. That’s not who I am. I’m not addicted to that.I’m fortunate that the thing that sustains me with a living — my job — is chalk full of ways to be creative and build interesting things. It’s never “work.” It’s also… and I mean this… addicting. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing me this year is coming to terms with that.

A friend of mine and I met for coffee. We talked about ideas — some controversial, some not. My friend asked me, “David, at what point do you outright reject ideas because they’re wrong?” I try not to outright reject ideas. Instead, I try to consider both sides of an argument. My values may lean me towards one side over another; but I know that my values are not necessarily the values of others. Musicians are encouraged to record themselves play. We always sound worse on the recording than we do in our heads —- most of us. Why do we record? Because the recording gives us perspective that we can’t easily consider — what someone else hears. Considering the contrarian side of an idea is no different.

When looking for your next role; Charlie Munger - famed investor - recommends:Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself.Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect.Work with people you enjoy. HT and quoted from “A Learning A Day”But once you find that job, Lenny Pickett, Saturday Night Live saxophonist, recommends:Say “yes” when people ask you to do something;Show up on time. Don’t complain.HT and quoted from NYU Steinhardt Jazz Studies YouTube.Why are the simple lessons so hard to apply?

You and I have something that we are most passionate about. It may not be a thing we learned in school, it may be an inclination we’ve always had. That thing is a thing we ought to cultivate. I’m not sure of my earliest inclinations. It might have been music; though music is not a passion. I think it was being curious about people. Decades later, I am still curious about people. It just happens that I leveraged music to pursue my passion — people. Now I have a life that is about understanding people and helping them solve their problems. What were your earliest inclinations? How have you cultivated them?

I’m attempting to read Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. It’s tough. I read a lot of books, but none this tough yet. Here’s the thing with reading tough books — approach them like tough problems. How do I approach tough problems? Like I approach eating anything… one bite at a time.I don’t believe in speed reading. I believe in reading to learn. If you want to learn, don’t try to go faster… instead, go deeper. One bite at a time.

Customer service is hard. On one hand, it’s about listening and empathy. But that ultimately doesn’t make a customer’s life better.On the other hand, it’s about outcomes. Did the customer get what they want? Yes? Then you’re good.On another hand, it’s about the extra mile. Listening and solve the customer’s problem and then adding a little bit more because you can. I live for that third hand — if we could just give a little more, what would it be?Magis.