Alexandersmap

    Tag: Shane Parrish

    • Shared Beliefs

      “Everything that is not a law of nature is just a shared belief.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts

      Shared beliefs. Have they ever been as contentious as they are today? People believing the election was rigged, storming the Capital, having their kids burn masks for the optics. Other people thinking those people are delusional and irresponsible. Anger and accusation on both sides. I betray my own beliefs just writing this paragraph. But I know people lash out in strange ways when they perceive a threat to their livelihood.

      For all the madness and anger, there are laws of nature that unite us in this world. Scientific principles are pillars of truth in which society anchors itself. Gravity isn’t a shared belief, it’s a proven law any time you drop something or jump in a pool. Gravity is easy to prove because we live with it every day. The tricky part is in what we believe to be true.

      The last year has been a year of turning beliefs upside down. Beliefs about the role that certain countries play in the relative stability of the world. About mask-wearing and social gatherings. Personal responsibility and accountability. Equality and fairness. Level playing fields and stacked decks. When beliefs are challenged that friction can erupt into fiery rhetoric. We’ve seen plenty of that, haven’t we?

      Shared beliefs can be beneficial if they’re anchored well. We have the responsibility to question that anchorage from time-to-time. Seeking common ground is the stated goal of President Biden, and common ground is the turf of fairness, equality, social responsibility and the laws of nature. The world is slowly tackling the pandemic, inching towards equality, and incrementally embracing the shared values that unite us as fellow humans on a fragile planet. We still have time to get it right.

      In writing this blog post I deleted far more words than I kept. I’m hoping to create something more substantial than my own beliefs. Maybe one small step away from the noise. And back to nature.

    • A Good Map and a Compass

      “A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of a man’s faith in other men; it is a symbol of confidence and trust…. A map says to you, ‘Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.’ It says, ‘I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost.’” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      We use maps less in everyday life than ever before in modern times. It isn’t that we aren’t going someplace, it’s more that we have devices that keep track of where we are for us. And we lose something in ourselves when we aren’t part of the conversation between that GPS and the satellites silently flying above us. If maps represent faith in others, those “others” now extend to the network of technology that swirls around us, landing in our pockets with an advertisement when you stop at traffic lights.

      There’s something elegantly beautiful about a great map or nautical chart. Far more detail than the average person would ever notice, with lines and numbers most ignore. But for all the detail, a map is just a representation of what the world is, not the actual world. It can’t account for weather and downed trees and bad judgement and other such variables. Just the facts as they were, and might still be. We can be sure that the path shown on the map took somebody from here to there. Most likely it still does, but you can’t be sure until you get there. Maps represent the past in this way, but also our future as we place ourselves on them in hopes that our physical selves meet the expectations represented inside the grid.

      “We need maps and models as guides. But frequently, we don’t remember that our maps and models are abstractions and thus we fail to understand their limits. We forget there is a territory that exists separately from the map.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models

      It’s one thing to use someone else’s map to figure out where to go. It’s another thing entirely to map out our own path through uncharted territory. Where do we go from here? This thing we’ve grown familiar with has changed, we’ve changed, and now we wish to go in a different direction. Where to begin? Choose a direction and set your compass. Map it out. Figure out what the obstacles are and how to get around them. Use the paths others took to your advantage until you jump off in a new direction.

      “Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.” – Henry David Thoreau

      The fact of the matter is that most of life happens to us. We might diligently map out our career path and pick a major based on where we think that might take us, but much of life is about seeing the terrain we stumble upon and figuring out where we’re going to go next. Few of us get the map completely right, we sort it out as best we can along the way. And that’s where the compass helps set our direction or brings us back on course when we deviate from the path.

      “Don’t mistrust the compass — your judgement will never be more accurate than that needle. It will tell you where you ought to be going and the rest is up to you.’” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      The problem for most of us isn’t the absence of a good map or compass, the problem is abstraction and having too many directions to go in. With so many options, which do we choose? You can’t just walk in circles of indecision. Pick the most logical direction, map it out as best you can, and go. But bring that compass too. You’ll need both to get there.

    • Bucking Trends

      “Trend is not destiny.” – Shane Parrish

      Trends. Sometimes they seem so laughably predictable, other times so completely unreliable. Anyone paying attention saw the events of January 6th unfolding, trending towards violence. We all watched COVID-19 infection rates trend alarmingly upward a year ago, quickly turning our growing interest into immediate action. There’s clearly a trend towards people buying more hiking gear and bicycles, adopting pets and using technology to connect with loved ones. What will the end of the pandemic do to trends like these?

      Trends aren’t completely accurate predictors of the future, but they can be indicators of that future. There are trends indicating climate change, and trends indicating a slow move towards lowering greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation of the rainforest. Where do these trends meet? If you can’t reverse a trend can you slow it down enough? And what exactly does enough mean anyway?

      I’m trending towards old age, but that doesn’t mean it’s my destiny. A meteor could smash into my office even as I write this, nullifying both my life and that trend towards older in a moment. Or consider my tendency to lose 15 pounds every year when the weather got warm and I was more active outdoors. That trend was turned upside down in 2020, when some combination of pandemic stress eating and a slower metabolism stalled me at the same weight for most of the year. Is that a new trend? Or does the five pounds I’ve lost in the last two weeks indicate a new trend?

      What do we make of the trendy? People who seek out the latest styles, book reservations well in advance at the cool places, and live in the right neighborhoods. Being trendy is like surfing waves – you read the ocean and find just the right swell to ride out. I’d rather swim in the surf than fight for the perfect wave. Does that make me a laggard when it comes to trends, or an indifferent outlier on the bell curve? Depends on the trend, I suppose. Give me denim over whatever is trending in fashion at the moment, but I’m all in on the iPhone 12.

      The thing is, none of us really know our destiny, but we can adjust our trends to favor better outcomes. Don’t like the trend towards drinking and eating more? Eat less, earlier, and take a walk instead of sitting down to watch Netflix with a glass of wine. Don’t like the trend in pipeline for your business forecast? Double down and develop new opportunities. Trend is not destiny, it’s just the direction you happen to be going in at the moment.

      So, knowing the trends, are you going to change your destiny?

    • That Moment When Everything Changed

      “I wonder if I should have a change — a year in Europe this time — something new, something better, perhaps. A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. It is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no good anticipating regrets. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday…

      It seems remarkable to me at least that if I had not gone to Molo, I might never have seen New York, nor learned to fly a plane, nor learned to hunt elephant, nor, in fact, done anything except wait for one year to follow another… How can the course of a life be changed by a word spoken on a dusty road?”
      – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      In this last year of the pandemic, with borders closed and wandering spirits limited to adventures of the local kind, it’s easy to throw your hands up in frustration at the “one days” that are postponed. Of one year following another with a measure of stasis unfamiliar and a bit uncomfortable. If we’re fully engaged we learn to make do, to thrive really, in those local adventures and appreciate what we have in our own back yard.

      You want a quick adventure? Click on the link above and read Markham’s book. Put aside the disgust of elephant hunting for this one (it was a different time) and immerse yourself in the perspective of an adventurous soul and a brilliant writer. Growing up in Kenya a hundred years ago, training thoroughbreds before pivoting to flying.

      Markham’s life changed when she met a man repairing his car who flew in the first World War and would soon teach her to fly. He sparked her imagination with possibility, and the rest of her life sprouted from that spark. She quickly charms you and makes you wish you’d met her in the brief time we breathed the same air. If I’d read this book at twenty I might have dropped everything and flown straight to adventure myself.

      So why not now? As with many adventurous role models, she makes you wonder; what is our own pivot? What is your moment that changes everything? It may not be a chance encounter, it might just be a small leap into the unknown. We’ve learned a lot about the world and ourselves over the last year. If there’s one clear lesson from all of it, it’s that the world was always trying to tell us something. But we were too busy distracting ourselves to pay attention.

      “The world does not act on us as much as it reveals itself to us and we respond.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Volume I

      How will we respond to the last twelve months that changed everything? And what shall we make of our future? Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday. Our one day can begin today. We don’t have to rely on some chance encounter with someone who teaches us to fly. That moment that changes everything can, indeed must, be this one. Flying requires summoning the courage to start down the runway and the accumulated experience to soar.

    • Going to Do

      “What’s the me in ten years going to think about what I did today?” – Hugh Howie, TKP Interview

      I wrote a 500 word post Friday night about what I was going to do, read it and tucked it away in the drafts folder. I won’t write about what I’m going to do, I’m just going to do it and write about it after I’ve accomplished something. I have nothing against planning, but I’ve been caught in the trap of making bold claims and not getting there. No more “We will go to the moon” proclamations, just set the goal and get it done. And then I listened to a couple of The Knowledge Project (TKP) podcast interviews I’ve been meaning to get to, and it clarified my thoughts on the matter. I’ve noted my short-term goals, and I’ll pursue them earnestly, but quietly.

      “A lot of our calcification, the inability to break our stasis and launch our lives in a different direction is the feeling that we should have done it ten years ago and we’ve lost the opportunity and now we can’t do it.  But ten years from now we’re going to think the same thing about this very moment, today…  whatever you think you could have done five or ten years ago to change the direction of your life, you can do that right now, today, and make that deflection point, that decision…” – Hugh Howie, TKP Interview

      I can look back and see deflection points throughout my life. Places where I did something that led me to something else that led me here. We all can, really. And sometimes you’ll wish you’d done this or that other thing along the way, or done more of something that clearly would have brought you further down the path to where you wish you were at. But Howie turns that around and points to the future you looking back on you today. Today is your deflection point – what will you do with it?

      And that brings me to another TKP podcast that the interviewer Shane Parrish highlighted in his newsletter; Robert Greene’s concept of alive time. It’s been borrowed and amplified by Ryan Holiday as well. I keep coming back to this concept, and the words “alive time” chirp in my ear whenever I waste time playing one-too-many games of computer chess or watching television or scrolling through political opinions on Twitter. No, you were meant for more than this, get to it already.

      “You really don’t own anything in life. When you’re born, and you come out of your mother’s womb, and you’re kicking and screaming, and you go through your 60, 70, 80, 90 years of life, you think that you own stock and money, and this, that, and the other, but really, you don’t own anything, because it all disappears, it all goes away, and you die, and there’s nothing left. The only thing, the only thing that you own, the only thing that we can say is that you own time. You have so much time to live. … Let’s just say you have 85 years to live. That is yours … Alive time is time that’s your own. Nobody tells you what to do, nobody is commanding you how to spend it. … Taking ownership of your time means I only have this much time to live, I’d better make the most of it, I’d better make it alive time, I’d better be urgent, have a bit of an edge, be aware of each moment as it’s passing and not in a fog.” – Robert Greene, TKP Interview

      So when we talk about this pandemic in ten years, how did it serve as a deflection point in your life? How did you use your alive time to pivot into a new and exciting pursuit? How did you use the extra time with family? What did you learn? What workout did you do that proved foundational in your path to better fitness? What’s the me in ten years going to think about what I did today?

    • Short Run to a Long Run

      “The short game is putting off anything that seems hard for doing something that seems easy or fun.  The short game offers visible and immediate benefits.  The short game is seductive.” – Shane Parrish

      “I hope we can all agree that the long run is made up of a bunch of short runs.  That seems obvious.  The surprising thing is that we live our short runs as if that isn’t true.” – Seth Godin

      “Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.” – James Clear

      I was contemplating each of these quotes on their own merit the last few days as each appeared in my inbox or Twitter feed.  It’s no accident that they resonate for me; after all I’ve chosen to follow the authors of each of them.  But they say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  I believe that to be true.  And there’s a lesson in each of these quotes that’s hard to ignore.  Daily, consistent action towards an objective.

      James Clear would argue that the goal isn’t the point, the system is more important.  And identifying yourself as someone who would take this daily action is ultimately the most critical part of the entire sequence.  For example, I’m an athlete so of course I get up at 5 AM to work out.  Or, I’m a successful salesperson so of course I make efficient use of my time, have a bias towards action and am highly knowledgeable about my products and each of the opportunities I’m working to close.

      “Only mediocrity is sure of itself.” – Paulo Coelho

      Mediocrity stems from not examining your life, your job, your process, your goals, your system and challenging yourself to improve in each.  Demanding more of yourself is hard to do if you think everything is fine.  We’re all guilty of getting comfortable in our own skin.  After all, it worked yesterday, why not today too?

      Ultimately every day is a small but meaningful part of the whole.  At my age that lesson has become very clear.  Recognizing the value in each day is earned through living.  I remember hearing that throughout my life, but you don’t really know it without the cold intimacy of accumulated time.

      “Life without a design is erratic.” – Seneca

      This is an indictment on winging it.  I’ve seen my own success in anything directly tied to how much I’ve structured action around a specific objective.  We can’t all hit the lottery, but we can all determine our identity, establish long term objectives and break that down into daily tasks that get us there.  As James Clear so eloquently puts it, we cast a vote for our own identity.

      If I live to be 100, and that’s certainly the goal, then I’ve clearly rounded the mark and it’s shrinking into the distance behind me.  Best to have clarity about where you’re going, set the sail and get to it.  There’s a lot to do.