I read something today that made me take pause. It mentioned that in the early days of the internet, hen chat rooms were prevalent, you would tell people you were taking a break and would be back soon.
It was announced when you wouldn’t be there, because you had to literally sit at a computer to chat. Nowadays, we don’t need to do that as we are always on and always connected.
Until I read that post it didn’t occur to me how true that is. We can be at work, home, the beach and still be connected.
This is a topic touched on quite a bit and I have been intrigued by it for some time. When we are younger we can go to work and then home. They are separate entities. I had a job working at Pizza Hut as a teen. I can recall not once did I get home thinking about work or responding to emails. ( I did love it though, as I’m a huge pizza fan).
One result of that job was that I didn’t learn the lesson that sometimes work does need to be done at home or after hours. And now, as a professional, I struggle to figure out a balance to it all.
I had a CEO tell me one time that work and life are actually a blend.
There will typically not be a true balance, but both bleed into each other. As a father I find myself on my phone too much at home. Sometimes it’s work and sometimes not.
The blend idea teaches that the most important thing is to be present in the moment. It will pay dividends in the long run.
Being present may be the most important lesson I have learned on this topic.
And perhaps if we, as a society, put it in practice then work-life balance would not be such an issue.
I don’t believe there is one simple solution, but that would be good start.
Tomorrow can be a day of thanks for a lot of people. It gives us time to pause and share good times with friends and family.
There are a lot of things I truly appreciate about the holiday.
I live pretty far from family, so it’s nice to come home, catch up and relax.
It can also be a time to remind myself of why I work and what I am grateful for.
I have been thinking about this concept of thanks for a while now as I try to further it within my life, both professionally and personally.
I work in sales and my life is directly affected by the actions of my clients. As a result there is much to be thankful for. My challenge now is how to convey that. I am also realizing the benefits of giving thanks.
As I consider the topic I find that when I give thanks it not only edifies me, it enhances the person being thanked as well.
It’s essentially a power source that keeps going and building. Have you ever been thanked for something in a genuine way? How did they make you feel? How hard would it be to do the same for another?
Meditation can be helpful and when I meditate I consider those I am thankful for and it immediately rejuvenates me. I feel more compassion, joy, and energy.
So as we head into the holiday, maybe look around and see where you can impact in a positive way.
It would be a nice change from the grind of the world… at least for one day.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here.
When I was young there was a riddle making the rounds (it probably still is) that went like this.
Railroad crossing look out for the cars, can you spell it without any rs?
You could spend a lifetime puzzling over how to spell ‘railroad crossing’ without an r.
Or you could spend just a few seconds focusing and thinking about what was actually said (or rereading it if written), instead of reacting to the overall idea.
There is constant chatter about how fast you must go to keep up with today’s world, so who has time to focus/think?
Of course, if you listen mindfully, instead of multitasking, or read carefully, instead of scanning, you wouldn’t have to go back and do it over.
The people who have no trouble with riddles like this one are literalists.
They respond to exactly what they hear/see because you can’t be a literalist without being mindful. The two go hand-in-hand.
Why should this matter to you?
Because your your instructions need to work for both, as the following two examples, one conversational and one written, graphically show.
His co-workers didn’t believe him, because they didn’t see any.
One day Tracey joined him to see if it was true. They walked to the corner and he asked if she had seen any yet.
She said no.
So he asked the guy standing next to her if he could shake his hand.
It was Henry Winkler.
Tracey didn’t see him, because she wasn’t paying attention — not mindful in today’s lingo.
I had a habit of looking into the face of every person who walked by me or stood next to me on the street, something that maybe most people did not do.
All this happened in 1988.
Before smartphones, before iPods, before all the distractions of our digital age.
I hope you remember this the next time you find yourself staring at your phone, instead of noticing the world through which you are moving.
Who knows who you might see or what adventures await you if you only notice.
Solitude and boredom are essential to creativity or producing any sort of serious work. We are becoming scared of boredom, scared of solitude, scared of conversations with ourself.
Capacity for boredom is at the root of observation. Observation inspires science, art, change, and opportunity. Have we become afraid of our inner lives? I think that we will find ourselves much happier when we are able to look forward to boredom, and to actually aspire for it, instead of being afraid of it.
But apparently there’s actually a market for a solution to providing the first two and reducing the dangers of the third.
Both created cultures that incorporate a critical attitude — paranoia — although they look very different.
Andy Grove:“When I came to Intel, I was scared to death. I left a very secure job where I knew what I was doing and started running R&D for a brand new venture in untried territory. It was terrifying.”
Zhu Zhu:“The day we released this application to the market we realized it was never going to take off. It was doomed to be a failure.”
Musical.ly’s first pivot went from a video education app to a combination music/videos/social network that was catnip to their target early-teen demographic.
That led to growth, but it was slow growth, which the founders knew was leading to a slow death.
The a-ha tweak happened when they moved the logo and growth exploded.
They had realized that when people shared the music videos, the logo was cropped out on Instagram and Twitter. They repositioned it so now it was easy to see that it was a Musical.ly video.
Zhu Zhu is far from complacent and keeps pushing and iterating faster.
“I think we have these scary moments all the time because you’re never safe. Even if you have tens of millions of users, you have to keep them always engaged. I think it’s better for us to be scared all the time rather than feel content that we built a successful product and now we can lay back.”
If you don’t care for paranoia, you can substitute a combination of never-ending mindfulness, objective reality as opposed to comforting assumptions and unremittingly honest feedback.
I find it forever fascinating to try and decipher the minds behind the creativity that stretches the boundaries and adds unique beauty to normal, real-world stuff. Here are two wonderful examples.
It takes a rare mindset to see a utilitarian object, with its own shape and use, and turn it into completely different object with a totally different form and use. The beauty is found in the operational innovation, since each of the final forms looks totally normal.
Or the artist’s mind that takes something that’s been around for centuries and keeps it’s utilitarian properties, while changing it in ways so far beyond the normal decorative and stylistic features that it is almost unimaginable — except to that one mind.
Wouldn’t you love to share a meal (or a bottle of wine) and just talk? No agenda, no purpose, except to bask in the creativity that flows from a truly original mind?
Yesterday’s post focused on the difference between mindful and mindless social media usage as private individuals.
The problem is more far-reaching when the person speaking heads or publicly represents the company, whether as an employee or celebrity spokesperson.
Foot-in-mouth disease isn’t anything new.
What is new is its global reach and immortal status.
The problem is best summed up in a comment from Lee Rainie, a Pew Research Center specialist in the social influence of digital technologies.
“Despite all of the warnings, all of the evidence to the contrary and all the material floating around proving otherwise, people still think that when they’re sitting alone typing something out, they know exactly who their audience is. But the specific character of digital information is that it’s replicable, repeatable, and there are lots of outlets now that are interested in these stories.”
One further warning.
The “outlets” mentioned above — old and new media, pundits, individuals and trolls — like nothing better than to take that private email, joking tweet or casual image and spin it into something that supports or illustrates their own viewpoint — no matter how badly they distort it or how warped the application.
It’s likely you’ve seen this video already, but I’m posting it anyway because it says what I’ve been saying forever.
Its focus is living mindfully, although none of the commenters I scanned through seemed aware of the concept.
Some agreed, while some thought it was “self-righteous” bullsh*t,” but if that’s true then the teachings of Confucius, Aristotle, Plato, Buddha, Jesus and all the saints, prophets and rabbis also qualify as self-righteous BS. (I found it amusing how many of the nay-sayers fell back on four-letter words to express themselves—probably the extent of their vocabularies.)
Mindfulness is a conscious way to live life and applies extremely well when building company culture.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
When I was young there was a riddle making the rounds (it probably still is) that went like this.
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