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The Difference in Small Fears vs Big Fears

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:17 pm

I’ve been thinking a lot about small failures lately.

In my experience, they’re more difficult to publicly face than large failures.

fear

 

For example, in 2008, when my father opened the first Shogun, the idea that “this might might work” didn’t cross my mind too often. I felt like:

“Of course this might not work!”

It’s a big risk. The economy is depressed. One out of 4 restaurants fail in their first year. That number rises, to three in 5, over the next 3 years.

We faced plenty of other obstacles:

  • Was there a market for Japanese food in Delmar?
  • Was the market in the Capital Region over saturated?
  • Lack of knowledge of this particular business.

There was an enormity to that task that made it okay if we didn’t succeed.

I followed the same logic with moving to Los Angeles and trying to start a career in Hollywood. There wasn’t much fear, because there were already so many challenges:

  • Didn’t know anyone in Los Angeles
  • Didn’t know anything about the entertainment industry
  • No job, or apartment lined up to serve as a safety net

If things didn’t work, there was an enormity to the task that allowed me to shrug and say, “well, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. Let’s give it a shot.”

I say this with no brag. This isn’t unique, people do it all the time with varying degrees of success.

The Topic of Failure and Fear

Where it manifests and how to manage it, gets covered ad nauseum in the self-development world. Three techniques worth mentioning are:

  1. Regret Minimization Framework (attributed to Jeff Bezos) – in 50 years, what decision would you regret, doing it or not doing it? 
  2. Fear Setting (attributed to Tim Ferriss) – identify your fears, how to prevent, and what you’d do to recover.
  3. Understanding the Lizard Brain (attributed to Seth Godin) – fear is an artifact of our evolutionary response to life-threatening stimuli in our environment, that we continue to experience today (even though our lives aren’t actually in danger).

For endeavors or projects that’d result in a big failure, these techniques are especially helpful.

Fear On a Smaller Scale

On a smaller scale, however, it doesn’t work as well. Some examples:

  • Making Youtube videos no one watches
  • Starting blogs no one reads
  • Sending emails that don’t get responses
  • Rejection

This has been exacerbated, I feel, in part because the idea in Hollywood is that any failure is completely unacceptable. That you’re not allowed to misstep, and “assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.” When you do fail, it’s so public:

  • Hollywood is actually very small town like – everyone talks to everyone
  • The iterative approach is not widely accepted
  • They’re quick to criticize what hasn’t been done before

Which in turn, is further exacerbated by social media, where everyone naturally posts the good things in their life, and you begin to thinking everyone is doing better than you in their carefully crafted social presence. You begin to think you’ll be defined by this one failure.

So how do we overcome that?

What’s helped me is to find examples of others who faced public failure or criticism, and who have either addressed it, or moved on so quickly this was barely a blip on their radar. I make informal case studies of the “bigger names” out there, to grasp their mindset. Those are below:

Case Studies

Oprah and Arianna Huffington Ripped On in Deadline 
In an article entitled DESPERATE: HuffPo and Oprah Team Up Now that barely passes for journalism, Nikki Finke reams out Oprah and Arianna Huffington for all of Hollywood to see. As Hollywood knows, Nikki never wears kid gloves, but in this article in particular, there’s an animosity that goes regular snark:

“This pathetic pairing sounds to me like an ill-conceived partnership, and it’s interesting that no mention is made of AOL which bought HuffPo last year.”

How does Oprah respond to Nikki? She doesn’t.

First she has a nervous breakdown.

Then she gets over it. And six months later, goes back to kicking ass.

Tucker Max versus Gawker 
Tucker Max’s life has been fairly public. Posting stories and building a brand around all the women you’ve slept with and treated poorly will do that. He’s made the public very aware of his successes.

“I’m so far up the power law curve of book sales, dude,” Tucker told me. ”The very tip-top are J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, James Patterson, and Paulo Coelho. People who sell tens or hundreds of millions of books. That’s just a different game. That’s like, the Bible. They’re competing with the Bible. I’m not in the Bible tier.” (I can hear the religious among readers thinking: thank goodness!)

“I’m on the tier below that. But still, on the power curve, I’m all the way at the tip. I’m on the same tier as Tim Ferriss or Chelsea Handler or Jeanette Walls—we’re in the 2, 3, 4 million range.” — as told to Michael Ellsberg

Of course, this kind of publicity is a double-edged sword. For every success Tucker trumpeted, Gawker splashed his failures all over its front pages. It’s even created a special page on the site, breaking down this Tucker-Gawker feud to its individual campaigns.

Some of Tucker’s public failures:

Yet amidst the waft of all this dirty laundry, Tucker has marched on. He’s moved beyond his fratire brand, started a new blog, published on the Huffington Post, and getting his rebirth featured in Fortune.

Love him, hate him, admire him or loathe him – he’s taken his brunt of public failures.

And he’s still standing.

Blogger / Entrepreneur Tynan and His narcissism 
Blogger Tynan Smith and his lifestyle was recently featured (favorably) in the San Francisco Gate. What followed next, he describes in his blog post, was “hundreds of comments, 95% of them negative.”

“The negativity was absolutely astounding. I could hardly believe how many people spent the time to sign up and leave vitriolic comments.”

He could have ignored the article, and all the negative comments. He could have just called everyone haters. But Tynan didn’t. He addressed the fact many people felt he was a narcissist, and even owned up to it:

“I wear a silver necklace with my name on it.”

Then he went back to programming and writing. His work went on.

An Author’s Fans Vote “No”
Blogger and Science Fiction Author Jamie Todd recently put out a survey, asking his readers if they’d be interested in him putting out a newsletter. I don’t know how many readers/subscribers he has. But 50 people voted in this survey, and the response was overwhelming “no.”

Jamie could have swept this poll under the rug. He could have pretended like it never happened. Regardless of how stoic you are, that must take an emotional toll, your readers telling you, “no, we don’t want this.”

Instead, Jamie posts the results. He says, “thanks for voting. I appreciate the feedback.”

He gets back to work, posting nearly everyday, writing thousands of words a week, and continuing his Going Paperless Series.

Ramit Sethi covers “3 Crushing Fears I Had”
Best selling author and personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi covered these 3 fears to his email subscribers. They were:

  • Charging for products on his site
  • Firing people
  • Saving money in strange places

He says:

“I looked around and saw other people doing better than I was. Posting pics on FB of their fancy vacations…getting covered in the press…having more RSS readers or email subscribers or revenues…and I would start thinking, “Maybe they’re just better at this than I am.” Notice I didn’t say — they’ve practiced their skills more, or they’ve learned more strategies, or they’ve just been at it longer.  No, I made it about them being a BETTER PERSON than I was.”

He continued working though, chipping away at the fears, and growing his business. It’s not something that happened overnight — he’s been working at this “blogging thing” for 8 years now.

The Knowing-Doing Gap

That’s the clinical or academic term for the space that exists between “knowing” what you’re supposed to do, and actually taking action on it.

For me this space is a gulf when it comes to acknowledging the fear of failure and doing something about it. I still listen to self-development nearly everyday, but find myself tuning things out if I’ve heard it before.

I say, “yes, yes, I’ve heard this before, let me find a new tactic.” But the value is in actively reflecting on the fears. This is work. It’s not something that happens when you half-ass it.

Reading and learning new case studies, though, and  seeing how others approach their fear of small failure helps. It provides different lenses to see that fear, often so insidious, to spot it and face it down long enough to get back to the work we’ve set out to do.

#####

Photo Credit: epSos.de, Manuel Valadez Acuña

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What I’m Reading: Understanding Michael Ovitz

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:17 pm

I think understanding context is crucial for education and self-development.

An example: my current employer, Intellectual Property Group is a successor to the H.N. Swanson Literary Agency, one of the greatest Hollywood Lit Agencies of all time.

Swanie represented some of the greatest literary heavyweights: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, etc.

The foreword to his memoir, SPRINKLED WITH RUBY DUST, was written by client, the late great Elmore Leonard.

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How Do You Decide: Take a New Job or Stay at Your Old Job?

Curtains

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:25 am

I got offered the opportunity to work for a show runner the other day.

Was it the right decision?

My friend asked me to call him. He said, “This position is about to open up. I can tee it up for you, but you have to tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in four hours. You’re the first person I’m going to, but if you pass I need to get someone else in the room.”

It’s a gun-to-the-head situation, but fair play.

I thought it over, as I tried focusing on check letters and connecting calls and the minutia of the day’s tasks.

I passed.

Here are the metrics that went into that decision

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Finished Shooting A Web Series and It’s Effect on Everything or Nothing

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:25 am

We finished our web series. Three episodes, six producers/directors, 11 actors. It was a fantastic two days:

focus

Here’s a List of Barriers

I personally had to overcome to Get To Done:

  • My distaste for preproduction
  • My dislike for physical production (and physical labor, for that matter)
  • Heated 90-minute arguments over whether to shoot 3 episodes or 1 episode
  • My hang-up over my own failed passion project

Even after smacking around these barriers like they owed me money and reaching a success milestone… doubts linger. It probably stems from my immersion in self-dev (turns out you actually have to apply this stuff — intellectual mitosis it ain’t).

Here’s a List of My Doubts

  • I don’t necessarily want to be a Youtube Creator. I don’t want to compete with kids who’ve been making webcam movies since they were 6 and told they are unique snowflakes since 4
  • I don’t want to work in a medium where a WB executive can condense a 90-page Youtube Creator Playbook onto a single sheet of paper
  • Where will this web series fit into my nebulous “brand?” Does it?
  • If I pursue this, it means sacrificing another pursuit. Tim Ferriss says, “there’s more than enough time for the things that are truly important.” Comforting on one hand, but on the other: you must be absolutely ruthless in eliminating anything that’s not important. Where does this project fall?
  • It’s in the can — now what? Do we post on Youtube or Vimeo? FoD? What’s the end goal?
  • Does this project become the focus of our side projects?

These questions hung me up throughout the process. Taking a hard look at those doubts, though, I realize:

This is My Desire to Find Logic in the Illogical.

Or as Nassim Nicholas Taleb is fond of pointing out, trying to make  connections between disconnected events. Attempting to find casualty where there is none.

Unfortunately, the puzzle pieces of our lives don’t align as we move forward. They only slot neatly into place when  looking back. When we study the past, the chain of events appear transparent:

  • Of course WWII was inevitable! Look at Germany’s unrest in the 1920s, the unfair reparations, coupled with the Great Depression and the ramifications that flowed into Europe.
  • Of course HARRY POTTER was going to sell a more than 450 million copies! And JK Rowling was destined to make more money than God (or £5 every second). (Even Rowling describes her story as one “the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.“) The book is so good! The world was ready for the Harry Potter phenomenon!

Never Mind Predicting the Future

I can’t even find casualty in the greatest experiences of my own life. Looking back , the truly amazing came so far from left field I still don’t understand how it all fits:

Doubt Remains

It always will. The trick is not letting it slow us down. Put less priority in aligning puzzle pieces, and more on the fundamentals:

  • Be yourself.
  • Take chances.
  • Work like a mofo.
  • Create something every day.

“Brand” will follow. All will be illuminated.

Photo Credit: cypherone

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The Benefits of “No”

Last updated on March 19th, 2017 at 11:18 pm

I read this beautiful piece by Kevin Ashton called Creative People Say No. The gist of which can be summed below:

Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know. We are not taught to say “no.” We are taught not to say “no.” “No” is rude. “No” is a rebuff, a rebuttal, a minor act of verbal violence. “No” is for drugs and strangers with candy.

Creators do not ask how much time something takes but how much creation it costs. This interview, this letter, this trip to the movies, this dinner with friends, this party, this last day of summer. How much less will I create unless I say “no?” A sketch? A stanza? A paragraph? An experiment? Twenty lines of code? The answer is always the same: “yes” makes less. We do not have enough time as it is. There are groceries to buy, gas tanks to fill, families to love and day jobs to do.

It’s elegant in theory. Some caveats in application in Hollywood and entertainment:

  • As Derek Sivers put it, Los Angelinos are some of the most optimistic people in the world, who want to say “yes” to everything. Thus, on one hand you could argue LA is the worst place in the world to be creative. Paradoxically, many great creators call Los Angeles home and Hollywood their place of work.
  • Unlike some examples Ashton cited, film is a medium that requires collaboration – a lot of it. It isn’t created by a writer, or a director, or a props master, or a best boy, in a vacuum. It requires all. Simultaneously. Collaboration, in turn, requires relationships, and relationships are built on yes’s.
  • Saying “yes” connects you to new people, who bring new ideas. New ideas, or inspiration, are the lifeblood of creativity. When it’s time to work, and time for new ideas to coalesce with old ideas, then saying “no” is crucial.
  • A creative life requires space. Which means not cramming your calendar with as many lunches and drinks as possible, as is the expectation of the majority of Hollywood’s acolytes. There’s an opportunity cost to relationships, and being creative requires evaluating, on a case-by-case basis, where to say “no.”

Before we trumpet the “no” in the name of creativity, it’s important to point out: Ashton’s examples were all masters. At some undefined point, maybe after 10,000 hours or 1,000 true fans, they earned the right to say “no.” Until anyone exceeds that point, a blanket “no” seems like a very simplistic view.

Photo Credit: Steve Tran

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What I Learned From My Failed Passion Project

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:21 pm

There were dozens of fingerprints on it, but it was my world. I was the Alpha and the Omega, bitch.

Unfortunately, the execution was flawed. I populated my world with creatures to roam the land… but forgot to give ‘em lungs to breathe the air. Oops.

So when my friend Richard brought up a project called SUBTEXT by the Pander Brothers over lunch, it felt like a gut shot at first. He read the logline: “A young woman is led into a tryst by her boyfriend via phone texts, only to discover a painful truth about their relationship.”

That sounds a lot like your TEXT web series, doesn’t it?”

It did

But the idea is malleable, like pressing Silly Putty onto a fresh newspaper: even though the words were the same, there is an infinite number of shapes and configurations. No, the idea wasn’t stolen or borrowed or lifted. It was just a good idea.

My friends and I tried to shoot TEXT two years ago. At the time, I had a good script, but lacked the vision to pull the project together in the only place that counted. Which wasn’t the page. The script was just a blueprint. When a skyscraper wobbles or your tablet crashes, you don’t see anyone crying over the CAD drawings, do you? I didn’t get it right in the fabric of space and time, where I was accountable for light and sound and shots and the intangible goodwill of friends who sacrificed a weekend to make my vision a reality.

But Man, The Idea Was Good

That I know for sure. It’s reassuring. If I have 10 more ideas, if I’m lucky, I’ll have 1 good one. So I have to get through the 9 not-so-good ideas first. Of those 9, perhaps 2 will be worth executing, for the purpose of learning to execute.

Which runs counter to an idea I heard recently, about passion projects. I heard this nugget from a blogger the other day (excuse the lack of attribution, I have no idea where it came from): “If it’s not a joy to make, don’t make it.”

She suggests only taking on projects that are a joy, because that joy will drive you past the Dip. It will drive you to the finish line. But I think this idea deemphasizes the importance of practice. Of learning the chops — which isn’t always a joy.

If you’re a professional, it doesn’t matter if a particular project is a joy, or if it’s your passion project. You bring your fucking A-game no matter what. You prepare, you sketch, you debate, you run over every possible outcome from A to Z. Yes, there are moments of joy. In equal parts as moments of “what the hell did I get myself into?”

Learning Chops

Lake Bell wrote and directed her short, WORST ENEMY first, as a means to learn the chops before she directed (and produced, and starred in) IN A WORLD…

My father opened his first Japanese restaurant in a wonderful but small town. There were only 37 seats. Which gave him the chops to open a bigger sister-store in a more trafficked location, with about 80 seats. He lost a lot of sleep over the restaurants, and took on a great deal of risk. There were a lot of those “what-the-hell” moments. And neither were his passion project — but they paved the way to  the third restaurant, which is.

Someone who helped me with TEXT recently, um, texted me, and asked “Whatever came of the Texting short?”

I considered fibbing: saying it was stuck in post, or there was still hope to fiddle with it. No one else had said otherwise yet, so technically it was true.

Instead, I admitted the truth: the project was dead.

text

Saying it aloud made it true. It made the failure real. More importantly, it embarrassed me, but it didn’t kill me. It did not make the good idea a bad one. It made it clear the only thing left to do was find more good ideas, and make them real. Alpha and Omega.

Photos Credit: Ruben Ras

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“You Don’t Know As Much As You Think”

Last updated on March 19th, 2017 at 11:47 pm

Hopping aboard any digital sharing bandwagon was always a struggle: Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook. Before that: LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Xanga.

So on. So forth.

I didn’t gravitate towards voicing my opinion on pop culture and politics

Or what I had for breakfast. Didn’t think this literature was worth the digital space of 1’s and 0’s it took up. I made attempts through the years, but never felt strong doing it.

It’s easier, I think, to catch this early wave of social sharing that leads to YouTube sensations and pop-culture-websites-to-book deals when your parents convinced you you’re a unique snowflake whose opinion carries weight, even if it’s the opinion of a 12-year-old girl who’s never wanted for anything except a pair of Louboutins. Or your parents taught you education isn’t an institution but a street market in New Delhi where grades can be haggled over, and that your spot on the “A” soccer team isn’t hinged on being one of the best 11, but because of the $3,000 donation towards the booster club’s new bleachers.

My first day of work, ever, I wore pleated Dockers, a checked shirt and plastic Payless shoes, the latter of “Buy 1, get the 2nd ½ Off” sale. My father sat at the kitchen table, putting on his socks, which is where he attended to all things foot-related. He offered one nugget of advice, one sock already wrestled up his calf, and the other in his hand: “Don’t talk back. Listen first. You don’t know as much as you think.” The idea stuck with me.

Not always in a good way

It’s held me back times when I should have stepped forward. When I was the smartest person in the room (admittedly, a tiny room). Instead, we’d follow the leadership of someone who didn’t think from A to F, never mind A to Z. Who struggled to spell “piss” and do it when confronted with a toilet. But she was bold and fast and not scared to look foolish. She stepped forward and there’s merit in that.

Anyone with an Internet connection can step forward now. We’ve all got a soapbox. We just need to make the choice: shout at every passerby, refusing to be drowned out by everyone else clamoring for attention? Or do we whisper, so that the few who want to listen, must lean in? If the latter, we better make our message worth the lean.

Answering that challenge is difficult. To quote the hipster I overheard at the Last Bookstore on Spring and 7th in downtown Los Angeles: “it’s all so completely derivative, man.” He might be right.

A Byproduct of Self-Dev

I’ve never shied from the fact that I’m a byproduct of self-dev. I’m the amalgamation of those self-help aisles in Barnes & Noble with placards that boldly proclaiming LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT and RELATIONSHIP, always questioning whether this iteration of me, with the cheap haircut and hand-me down clothes, is in fact the best version of me. I’m also the byproduct of all those times I listened when maybe I should have spoke, not because I didn’t understand the words but because I wanted to stay inside myself, and take it in.

It’s left me behind those who can form an idea and Tweet it out to the Universe with naught a thought. I’m still calculating. I pause — “Is this what I’m really thinking? Is this how I actually feel?” I’m not far behind though. Everyday for these last few years, I’ve grown a little more confident. Still listening, still taking in all in, but with a little more hand raising. A little more, “I’ve seen this. I’ve done this. I can lead the way.

Photo Credit: Shuo Wang

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The Use of Barriers

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:25 am

I wrote about the Use of Feedback to calibrate my work. Today I wanted to write about Barriers. I define a barrier as a tool or technique that prevents distraction.

I remember in college, I had friends who complained about being unable to study. They said they couldn’t focus. They became web doctors and self-diagnosed themselves with ADD or dyslexia, not taking into account their study environment. Nothing about their environments were conducive to studying: it was a dorm room where either someone was playing a videogame, or the television was tuned into the latest rerun of NEXT TOP MODEL.

The answer seemed ridiculously simple: turn that shit off! Right? Wasn’t it easy?

The Nonstop News Feed Of Our Lives

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized it wasn’t so simple. What I realized is these were all intelligent people, and if the solution were a simple “off” switch, they’d have done it already. But our default environment today is one of non-stop stimuli and instant gratification:

  • Email – we know the message is transmitted and hits their inbox instantaneously.  So we expect a prompt response in return.
  • Information – any morsel of information is available on the Internets, and access is nearly ubiquitous, across any number of platforms (computer, phone, tablet) so if we want to know something (e.g., how far is the earth from the sun?; what was Coriolanus’s mother’s name?) we expect to find out right away. Information retrieval is an exercise in instant gratification.
  • Text – as long as they have their cell phone on them (which most of us do) we know they’ve received the message right away. So if we asked them a question, we expect a prompt response.

newsfeed

We’re conditioned to life’s nonstop news feed, which has restricted our ability to shut down. I believe this ability is a muscle, and like any muscle, it needs to be developed. It is a skill we must acquire. The  idea that’s it’s worthwhile to develop this muscle, has been made so clear as I study people I admire and see what they’ve accomplished in short amounts of time. A shortlist: Ted Melfi, Charlie Hoehn, Jeff Bezos.

There’s so much to accomplish, but getting through the task at hand requires a high level distraction-free focus. You’d think this requires great will power, but it doesn’t. It requires taking will power out of the equation. Thus, the objective changes: don’t fight distractions, but pre-empt them. Will power has no say in the conversation. Which is done through Barriers.

My Barriers

Here’s a list of barriers I use to make distraction a non-issue. I didn’t implement these all at one time. (That’s akin to telling my friend (above) that in order to study better, they need to change all their habits. Or “just focus harder.” It doesn’t work.) These barriers developed over years, one at a time. They keep me focused despite the new feed of our lives:

  • Don’t push e-mail – I’m probably a rarity for Hollywood assistants who don’t push e-mail (e.g., get a notification when I receive new e-mail. Many claim this isn’t an option for them. I sympathize. It must be utterly demoralizing to receive pings on your phone at any point in the day. I have the good fortune of working for agents who understand there are two choices: you can either respond to every ping, or you can get to work. They prefer the latter, as do I.
  • No TV – When I visit my family, the TV is always on. I’ll walk by and see ENTOURAGE or THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is on, and I’ve basically forfeited an hour of my life. Because I don’t have the willpower not to watch.
  • Freedom and LeechBlock – Browser tools that prevent you from using the Internet.
  • I carve out time to be alone – Mostly in the morning. When it’s still dark out, after I’ve eaten something and hours before I let myself check e-mail.
  • No music – Which is a complete 180 degrees turn for me. I once required blaring music to tune everything out. Until I noticed it was tuning out my own thoughts.
  • TK’s – I write every time I come across something I need to research or look up. Rather than lose my flow, I write TK (which stands for “to come”). I’ll return and fill in later.
  • Phone is off

I compare the time when I can put all my barriers to use, versus the time I spend in the office, and all my lines are ringing and I have to jump from executive to executive to executive and schedule all their meetings. So much more gets done without the distractions.

What barriers do you use?

Photo Credit: Huw Gibbs

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Prioritizing So Hard It Hurts

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:20 pm

“I’m prioritizing so hard it hurts.”

I first heard BJ Fogg, a Stanford professor who studies and teacher persuasion, utter this expression a year ago. As I listened to his interview (again and again — check it out here) I tried wrapping my mind around that idea. I didn’t get it, until a recent Saturday afternoon (which I’ll get to it below). The circumstances in which prioritization can inflict pain and cause ache suddenly emerged into focus.

The Progression of My Understanding

First the easy part: awareness  at the macro level, all the things you want to accomplish with your life. This is the long list of projects gathered and standing idly on your life’s to-do list, looking sophisticatedly bored, with “Hello, My Name is” tags like Learn French, Become a Working Actor, and Run a Marathon.

My list at the moment looks like: Build a Personal Finance Blog for Young Hollywood Professionals, Work for a Best Selling Author, Shoot Another Web Series.

The Granular Level

Next is the micro view, breaking these projects into actions, and understanding the next step at the granular level. The macro is understanding our year (or 3 years or 5). The micro is how we’ll spend the week or day. When I say granular, I mean, knowing precisely what you’re going to do for the next hour, in five-minute increments. That’s the exactness required.

Yes, it’s exhausting. Accomplishing life goals should be.

For me, that means when I wake up, if the plan is “Work On The Blog,” then I know which post and where I left off (annotated with “MING YOU ARE HERE”). If I’m studying a development course, in my notes I’ve marked where I’ve left off (e.g., Module 3, Video 2, 12:38). When I get to work, if I’m in the middle of an Option Agreement, it’s opened on my computer, a document next to it where I’m making my comments.

This is what granular looks like (gaps typically mean I’m at work, where I keep a different calendar). The idea of using Google Calendar to borrowed from Scott Dinsmore:

Time

The third component of prioritization is understanding how much time everything takes. At the granular level. Not, “just start now” or “if I work at this for ten years, I’ll be successful.” Not that it’s not true, but it’s difficult to take any action at such a high level. What this looks like: “okay, this blog post will take me 1 hour to write. After that, it’s going to take me another 30 minutes to post because the formatting screws up after adding headlines and images. So really, I should  budget an extra 45 minutes. That’s how long the last few took.”

I accommodate this time into my schedule. Then I come to the all too human conclusion that there aren’t enough hours in the day. However, I understand why I’m doing something , what I’m doing, and how long it’ll take, so there’s this huge fundamental shift in how I look at time. The cliché, “not enough hours in the day” transforms to “I need to find a one-hour block to fit in this research but the only time I can give up is time allotted for drinks with John. Which is more important?” The first time I made that transition, I finally understood B.J. Fogg’s words, “you have to prioritize so hard it hurts.”

Cal Newport explained it a different and fantastic way: when you master the skill of manipulating your time, it’s like seeing the Matrix.” You see how all the pieces fit together. If you need to free up a chunk of time you can move this piece here and make room for it.” Seeing the Matrix is a skill you develop, through judicious practice, and an understanding of exactly how you work.

Personally, solid chunks of uninterrupted alone time (1 to 4 hours) are precious. Ask any assistant how often they have enough uninterrupted alone time to write an email, never mind string together 500 coherent words — it’s like unicorn hunting. Which is why to me, my mornings are sacred. Especially Saturday mornings, which I try reserving just for writing.

Prioritizing So Hard It Hurts

But one particular Saturday a few weeks ago, I scheduled a lunch, not giving much thought to it at the time. I tried squeezing in work before it, but it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to even get into the right headspace, and by the time all the engines were firing, it was time to make a 45-minute drive over the hill. (Neil Strauss says that’s why he keeps all appointments tentative: if you get going, don’t stop — you don’t know when it’ll come back.) The lunch was amazing and productive and will hopefully lead to an amazing partnership, but I was still berating myself for not defending my creative time more judiciously.

Amy didn’t quite understand why I was so upset with myself. “It’s only one afternoon,” she said. She was right: it was only one Saturday afternoon, with many more to come. I couldn’t really explain the feeling, until now: I was upset because the circumstances were completely within my control — this was a lunch I scheduled. I could have chosen another date, but I didn’t, so I let that determine my day.

I prioritized poorly. It hurt.

Photos Credit: JSN Skeet

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personal development

The Use of Feedback

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:25 am

I wanted to write about Feedback, Barriers, Stakes, and Batching (though I covered some thoughts on batching in My Morning Routine). I put off exploring these ideas and concepts because:

  • Covering all of them felt extremely daunting
  • Tactically I hadn’t worked out a system to implement them
  • Wasn’t sure if my ideas were completely fleshed out

However, the only way I’ll eventually get through all three is by first exploring one. Thus…

What is Feedback?

Feedback is the process of soliciting criticism for our work, using focused time to filter and distill those criticisms, and meaningfully implementing changes to improve in the long run. “Constant calibration” is another way of putting it, but CC doesn’t quite capture the essence of feedback I think is most important to recognize: it’s really fucking uncomfortable.

The discomfort happens across a spectrum of projects and endeavors, but it always feels the same. Whether I’ve started a new project and need to email friends for their feedback, I want to raise my hand to ask a question at a panel, or I need to defend my position on a deal point, my body always runs me through the same gamut: my stomach drops, I become very aware of my tongue, the hairs on my arm bristle, and a heat spreads across my neck like a warm breath.

These feelings used to be my cue to eject. Excuse myself, stop what I was doing, get the fuck outta dodge.

Now I’m reading the feelings as, “okay, this is where I want to be.” If it’s uncomfortable, it’s personal. If it’s personal, then you give enough of a shit to make it better. That’s the only purpose of receiving feedback. It’s saying, “this one matters, so make sure you get it right.”

Years ago, when I only thought of these ideas in the abstract, I told my friend Joshua, “not asking for help is something that’s held me back for a long time.” I didn’t know how to be in that discomfort zone. Growing up, no emphasis was placed on short-term failure in exchange for long-term gains. Mistakes were examined through a singular lens: “don’t make them.” (To be clear, I don’t blame my parents or upbringing for my hang-ups. They were (are) loving and amazing. As J.K. Rowling said, “There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.”
Source

The more I encounter better thinkers, the more I realize the importance of high-feedback environments and tight feedback schedules. This means: getting quality feedback, on an expedited, regular timetable.

Examples of high feedback environments

How Good Writers Become Great

Great writers work with great editors (the editor doesn’t have to be an Editor. It could be a manager, an executive, a friend.) Someone who’ll push your abilities past their current level, who won’t let you publish until every word has earned its place on the page. While blogging and self-publishing has its place in the world, I wonder if it’s stopped some very good writers from becoming great writers. In the mad dash to put something out into the universe, we may not hone our abilities or polish the product before offering it to the world. (With so much stimuli clamoring for my attention, I know I don’t.) “Great” is sacrificed for the result of “done.” I think we need to seek a balance, between shipping to get to done, and shipping because it’s only through shipping we’ll leap to the next level.

Literary Option Agreements

Preparing and making comments to a Literary Option Agreement is a high feedback environment of mine. It’s made up of several components:

  • Consistent exposure — between three bosses, there’s always a deal pending.
  • Regular assessment — my comments are reviewed immediately (i.e., within a day). I see right away how certain language should be phrased.
  • Regular discomfort — receiving comments back from the other party is always uncomfortable. I go through rejections (of comments) but more importantly, I see the logic their rejection was based upon.
  • Deliberate calibration — armed with their logic, I can compare to previous deals to deliberately find ways to close the deal point.
  • Real-time calibration – on the other hand, when I listen to calls, I learn the nuances of a live negotiations. I see this is the standard and speed I need to be able to implement the previous step (deliberate calibration). I’m exposed to mastery: the ability to put together a good deals in real-time.

Attraction and Social Dynamics

On a less literary note: for as long as I’ve known him, my friend was good at meeting new women. Then one fall, he started working in a nightclub with major traffic, and that experience launched him to a new level. Because in this environment, he was exposed to countless opportunities for feedback. He literally had the opportunity to hit on 100 women in one evening. There was never a formal process: he didn’t study his tactics, or “go over yesterday’s tape,” so to speak. He just landed in an environment of extremely high feedback level, where he could barely get rejected before he was presented with an opportunity to try again. He put his environment to use.

Creating a high feedback environment

In their career mastery course, Scott H Young and Cal Newport covered using quantitative metrics to supercharge your feedback and to create tangible skills. Tactically speaking, I won’t get into career factors or career metrics (thought I acknowledge their importance.)

For my purposes, if I’m struggling to create a habit, I have to systematize the process so it happens automatically. In creating a high feedback environment with a tight schedule, I need a system that automatically pushes me into my discomfort zone. I still don’t have a formal outline of what this looks like, but some attributes would be:

  • Smaller group projects — small because lowered stakes will force me to get to done. Group because it forces accountability. Also, in a group project, “any failure is a public failure, but no failure will never be fatal” (I believe this quote is most commonly attributed to Seth Godin).
  • The right people — these are more difficult to find than you think. The “right” people can be critical without discouraging. They genuinely want to see you do better, and understand at the big picture level what you’re trying to create and believe you’re capable of it.
  • Deadlines — a tight feedback schedule requires deadlines with real stakes. The amount of time a project requires will expand or shrink in proportion to when it’s due. So without a deadline, the project can drag until gravity and friction stop the momentum forever.

In my queue of projects there’s one specifically that I’m both slowly getting feedback on and using as a sort of beta to create a formal feedback system. When it’s fleshed out I’ll follow up with what I’ve learned.

Photo Credit: Clairec12003

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