Stories that are too big too tell
Do you ever have this problem where something means too much to you, and when you try to communicate it to others it always falls short? Usually, it’s not because they don’t get it. Usually, it’s because it is too intensely personal and you are scared of sharing it. You would feel too vulnerable.
There is this story that I have been telling over and over in the past few months to any good friend patient enough to listen. The story isn’t even mine. It’s about someone else’s life, a collection of anecdotes, that made a deep impression on me.
The stories carry some kind of transformative power. When I tell the story, I can feel my tone change. I’m telling a story that is someone else’s act of greatness, but it is a story that is thundering through me.
The stories are not personal. The stories aren’t mine. They are something I aspire to. And I want so much to share them. But the retelling feels intensely personal because I am profoundly moved by these stories and they have made me live differently.
The problem with tactics
When I am under greater stress or feel like I’m floundering, I resort to looking at those around me and trying to learn tactics. Why does X get ahead, despite X’s [insert some undesirable trait]. I try to copy. I try to emulate the tactics. The whole problem is that these moves are just that - tactics. They work in the short term, they work in surface relationships, but they don’t add up to trust. They don’t add up to character.
For instance, learning how to manage difficult clients. I have observed how some people do it and the things they get away with. The things they say, the kind of posturing that works. I think, wow, they got what they wanted! And I make a note to employ their tactics next time.
But then I think of how the same tactic has been used on me. In those cases, it temporarily diffused the situation, but I felt… managed. To put it more bluntly, I felt manipulated. It didn’t increase my respect for the person.
If these tactics don’t work on me, why should I use them on other people. These tactics twist you into agreeing with words, but in your heart, you feel anything but agreeable. This is not going to work.
What is needed is an emotional shift. Of greater empathy, I would argue. If we could listen better, if we could get closer to what really motivates people to act the way they do, if we weren’t afraid of facing people’s feelings as they are, we wouldn’t need tactics. We would be more direct and kinder. We’d get closer to saying what we actually mean. We would both feel understood.
All that takes a lot of courage.
Do what you are
“He believes in a theory. He believes in a position. And then he tries to manifest it…”
- Jerry Colonna on Mixergy, on Seth Godin starting Yoyodyne and Squidoo, two companies that reflect who Seth is
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My negotiations professor at Wharton, Adam Grant, is writing a book called “Give and Take”. The book is about:
- Givers - people who prefer to contribute more than they receive
- Takers - people who want to get more than they give
- Matchers - people who try keep the giving and receiving in balance
From the synopsis:
Giving is professionally dangerous, but it can also be professionally powerful. Over the past decade, my research has uncovered a paradox. Givers are not only over-represented at the bottom of the success spectrum. They also dominate the top of the success spectrum.
If you have ever met Adam Grant, you will know that he sits firmly in the givers camp. Giving, selflessly giving, is intrinsic to Adam Grant’s personality. The fact that he is doing research on a topic that is so wholly him is wonderful.
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We spend a lot of time thinking about where we want to go. What’s next, what’s next. Too often, that is dictated by what other people tell us we should want. Sometimes there is an actual person telling us what we should want. Sometimes it’s just a sense that this is what people are supposed to want. Or we want the emotional outcome (social approval, financial security, etc.) so we end up choosing a path that other people tell us will lead to the outcome. Career decisions end up being a matter of picking from a menu of options.
But sometimes, some people forge their own paths. They look at what is available on the menu and combine things, or choose something in between, or create entirely new flavors. They pour themselves, their being into their work.
They do what they are. It is a rare gift - to themselves and to the world.
I don’t know what the process is for this exactly, but I want to do more of what I am.
Giving credit where it’s due
The salesguys had gotten free tshirts and jerseys from a client. Really nice brand, nice swag. It’s been a ton of work to get this launch out. The salesguys H and S were giving out shirts to the people who worked on this.
I told the salesguys, make sure you give one to A!
A is the engineer who has been working incredibly hard on one crucial part of this. There were many pep talks involved, many frustrated discussions about why we were doing this. She is not one to fight for the limelight, but this one took an incredible amount of mental and emotional effort. All that success that people were predicting and making bets on? None of that would happen if not for A’s work.
Later that day, salesguy H came over with a jersey. He told A to put it on. She put it on not realizing what we were trying to do. I said, how do you like the logo? She looked down and noticed. It was great. She kept the jersey on for the rest of the day. Every time someone commented on it, she beamed.
That evening when A had left, I saw H on his way out. Why aren’t you wearing one of those shirts, I asked.
H goes, I gave mine away.
And there I was feeling pleased with myself for being the kind of PM who makes sure that the engineers on my team feel good about their work and get the credit they deserve.
H’s gesture has made me feel better about working here than anything else in a long time. I feel great about many parts of the job, but that - that was grand.
An afternoon in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Bridge
The Manhattan Bridge
One Girl Cookies
One Girl Cookies (I love their lighting)
Dumbo Arts Center
Things that cannot be taught
…that I wish could be:
1. How to make yourself happy
People I know who are best at making themselves happy were also acutely miserable at some point.
People I know who are bad at this have only known a numb unhappiness and a lot of inertia.
Being able to make yourself happy is different from being lucky.
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2. Professional judgment
In roles that require managing people and processes, the difference between the average performer and the very best is professional judgment.
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3. Self awareness
It is the pre-req for the ability to self correct, which is important for growth beyond the limits of your natural talent.
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Or can they be taught?
Or perhaps they can’t be taught but they can be learned?
Discuss.
For giving to feel like receiving #generosityday
I didn’t always get generosity. Sasha Dichter once ran a Generosity Experiment. For 30 days, he said yes to every request for help, for money, for anything from friends, people on the street, anyone. I loved the idea. I also thought it mildly crazy. I wanted to feel what he felt, but couldn’t get comfortable with it. Giving is supposed to feel good theoretically. But in reality, sometimes I feel bad after giving. For instance, I often struggle with what is the right amount to donate to charity. Once I finally pick a number, I feel worse. I feel like I haven’t given enough, but I also start wondering if that’s really the best way to help. Is that really the best use of my money.
Giving didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel conflicted.
In recent months, something changed, something clicked. I experienced acts of unexpected generosity that have led me to this: the giving must feel like receiving.
Generosity feels good to the giver only when we have the right intent. In too many instances, we have mixed intents. We want to be patted on the back. We worry about feeling good about being good. We wonder about the return on our generosity. I realized that mixed intents are what made me feel bad. For giving to feel right, we need to have the right intent. That comes about when the giving feels like we are receiving.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend a Wednesday meditation session, it is quite a profound experience. The Mehta family plays host. They open their house to friends, strangers, anyone who comes by every week. They invest the time to build this community, to create this meditation space. Then they provide a satisfying dinner to every single guest. The fact that they do this entirely free of charge is already an amazing act of generosity. You feel wowed by how they’ve created this feeling of abundance. You feel gratitude to be able to be part of the evening.
As if all that is not enough, we come to the part that really gets to me. Every week Nipun Mehta will basically say, we thank you for the opportunity to host this gathering.
What?? It sounds like it could be some ridiculously corny line, except that these hosts mean it fully. They are the ones who have given so much every Wednesday evening, we are the receivers, and here they are saying thank you. To have to listen to a “thank you” of that magnitude after having received so much generosity is… it is almost too much. But you see, for this family, giving feels exactly like receiving.
I have no idea how you get there. All I could think was, these people have seriously figured something out. I want that. That is the kind of generosity I seek in myself every time I give.
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In that spirit, I have made my Generosity Day pledge. Sasha Dichter & co. are rebooting Valentine’s Day as Generosity Day. If you’re intrigued, I encourage you to sign up too. I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Valentine’s Day.
Connecting online to offline
For these two weeks back home, I’ve scheduled lots of meals (when one is in Singapore, one eats) to catch up with friends. These are typically with Singaporean friends I’ve known since my school days. This is the first time that most of these meals are with people whom I’ve gotten to know in the past year. A couple of you I’ve only met once in person. One of you I have never met in person. We have only had a very long Skype call.
I suppose our circles have evolved. I have taken more introductions since b school and since joining the startup community. The more introductions you take, the more you want to do, the more you receive. A virtuous cycle.
I have been fortunate enough to meet most of you through very good email introductions. The first degree friends who did the introductions knew why we should get to know each other. There is context, there is some kind of essential common ground. There is something valuable that could be exchanged. That something valuable is most often each person’s perspective (on startups, on bondbreaking, on whatever). Not all introductions are created equal. With weaker introductions, that something exchanged is information. With very good introductions, that something exchanged is friendship. In the best cases, a kindred spiritness.
In all these instances, our offline interactions have been enhanced, sustained by our online presences. I think about the friend I am meeting for dinner. We have only met once in person for maybe 10 minutes in a group setting, had one long Skype conversation. But through all our other mutual reading of blogs and tweeting and email exchanges, I feel I know him well enough that I would be glad to use my social capital to recommend him to anyone. (And I also feel close enough to demand that he bring an autographed copy of his new book to dinner!)
I would go so far as to argue that there are meaningful parts of online interactions that cannot be replicated offline. When you read someone’s blog for instance, you get to hear a version of what they sound like to themselves and how they want to be heard by the world.
Emails, long pensive personal emails, achieve a similar effect. I once had a friend call me and he said he wanted to pick up the phone and call because he was tired of how emails felt so impersonal. I thought to myself, no, that’s just because you don’t understand how good emails work. I love a great 2-hour catch up phone call, but don’t dismiss email. A good, thoughtful email gets closer to how that person wants you to know them when they are presenting themselves, edited and uninterrupted. There is communication and then there is communication.
I’m not about to suggest that online interactions are better than offline. Of course not. I do think it’s simplistic to insist that all offline interactions are “better”. I don’t know what “better” means. You can’t build the same connection across different media. But that’s the whole point. A smiley face :) is a poor substitute for how it feels to have someone beam at you in person. But there are tones of a lighthearted Twitter exchange between friends that cannot be replicated in an offline conversation. You cannot speak a URL.
The point, to me, is always the connection.
The internet doesn’t change what we as human beings need to feel connected to each other. It’s just another tool, another medium. Our psychological and emotional needs for connectedness are the same as what they have been for thousands of years. The internet, if you get how to use it, is connection enhancing. The very opposite of isolating.
People who want to connect will find a way to do so meaningfully in any medium. On this trip, I am glad these online interactions can go offline. And I’m sure we’ll pick them back up online. Seamless. It’s wonderful.
Of business trips and a three-year-old
Another day, another business trip. This place is growing on me.
It’s funny but there are things mentioned in the meeting that refer back to things that happened months ago. I remember what happened and I also remember how I felt back then, how lost, how mildly terrified that I was going to screw up a big deal. Except that of course, I had no idea how big a deal. And I had no idea that this particular working relationship would turn around and become a partnership. We’ve come a really long way.
Getting to see people change is an amazing thing. Getting to see companies change equally so.
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I squeezed in an extra meeting that afternoon. I got to catch up with a b school friend over ice cream. He brought his two daughters along. Kate is 5 and Jane is 3. At one point, I have a moment alone with little Jane and she decides to pretend to be Kate.
I ask Jane, “Okay, if you’re Kate, what would Kate say? Say something that Kate would say.”
Jane thinks for a long time. Then she bursts out, “‘No, Jane!!’ That’s what Kate would say.”
:)))
When we leave, I hug my friend. I get in my car. Then Jane decides she wants a hug too. So her dad carries her over. My new three-year-old friend hugs me and kisses me on the cheek.
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May all your business trips be so full of blessings.
Growth requires friction
In the first couple months of my job, the two most common phrases I used to describe my experience were “thrown in the deep end” and “drinking from the fire hose”. I felt slightly overwhelmed on most days, totally overwhelmed on a few days, and it was great.
Fast forward half a year later, I work less hours (somewhat). I generally no longer feel lost. I am less stressed. Which is great… except that in order to be in flow, you need to be sufficiently challenged. Growth requires friction.
In the next 6 months, my biggest challenge will be to force my learning curve to be steep enough so that I stay in flow. I could optimize around the edges - be faster to respond to clients, know the product better, tweak processes. But that is pretty much cruising to me. Not very interesting. The point, the proper use of my effort, is to be performing at an entirely different level in 6 months.
Need to go think about how to do that.
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I wrote the part above around the new year. A turn of events in the last couple of weeks has basically offered me my challenge. I’ve had to shift from thinking about what I can contribute as an individual, to what we need to contribute as a team.
And lately, I find, the less you think about yourself and the more you think about everyone else, the better things seem to work out.
(Perhaps one could also say, the less you think of yourself and the more you think of everyone else, the better things seem to work out.)
I am definitely back to feeling the learning curve. And feeling grateful for that.
