A New Source Code

Walk into any coffee shop these days and you’ll see complexity. You hear orders of lattes with almond or soy milk, made with extra foam. Then you can see people adding cinnamon and chocolate to these lattes.

It’s now a given that most businesses will be catering to every taste. Newspapers tell stories of how “you can have it your way”. “Customization” is now the rage in our society.

And that’s because we believe that complexity is good. More selection is generally better than less. Right?

But it becomes a major problem, when you have the entire system wanting more and more complexity. You can’t see or predict the changes that result once everyone interacts with the system.

For example, if one person orders a latte with almond milk, it’s fine. But when entire countries order lattes with almond milk, it changes the dynamic of the food system. From an ecological perspective, this has tremendous negative effects. More land has to be cleared away to plant almonds. More fertilizers are used that leech the soil of its essential nutrients. More oil is produced to ship the almond milk to the locations that need it.

When you change the scale of the solution, there are ripple effects. Massive ones. And you are disconnected from them in our current system. Which means you don’t feel empowered to make a change until it directly affects you.

The truth is every choice you make has an effect. Just like when you throw a stone in the water, there are consequences.

It’s something to be aware of when next you order your latte with almond milk.

 

You’re in Rome on a hot summer day. On today’s schedule, you have to tour the Colosseum. Then you have to learn to make pizza at the world’s best pizza restaurant. Then you need to go to the Vatican and visit the Sistine Chapel. After you’ll taste fantastic gelato and espresso. Finally you finish off your day with a whirlwind party into the late hours of the morning.

Too much?

What if it were your last day in Rome, ever?

Then you’d definitely squeeze in seeing the most essential sites. You just have to do everything possible because you won’t be back.

Now contrast that intense feeling of urgency, to how you live every normal day. For example: you put off learning to cook. You put off starting the business until the perfect conditions align. You put off traveling the world because it’s not the right time.

Why?

Because you assume that you have too much time. That at some point in the future, you’ll get to do everything. That everyday will remain exactly the same as yesterday.

What if you lived each day, knowing that it was your last? And what if instead of the typical YOLO style, you spend your time doing activities that deeply matter to you? You get to make the change that you’ve always wanted to happen.

How you feel then? Fulfilled? At peace? Grateful?

The reality is: You have a lot of time. But you squander the time that you have. Time is counting down, daily. Better take advantage of the time you have, so that you have no regrets.

Do as the Romans do. Live each day like it’s your last. Make the change happen.

 

 

If you’ve ever cooked, then you know that salt is your best friend.  

It brings out the flavor in the dish. You can add salt to correct a dish that is both bitter and sweet. You can almost never add too much salt to a dish (unless of course you actually throw the entire box into your food).

If you want something that truly tastes amazing, then you need to add some salt. It avoids food from tasting too bland. Bland is terrible for food.

But when you’re in today’s work environment, bland is precisely what you get.

The modern workplace tries to encourage diversity. But the people in charge, want diversity in skin color. Or diversity in gender. Not diversity in thought.

And so you get a team that thinks similarly. There is even a name for it: Groupthink. The team is essentially bland; like food without salt. There’s no flavor to the team.

Now the real question is: do you act as salt and lift the team? Do you enhance the team by supporting them when they need help? With your experiences, do you enhance the team with different viewpoints? In other words…

Are you the team’s salt?

When you’re trying to get from your home to work, you already know which path to take. It’s usually the path that gets you to work, in the least time possible.

That’s because it’s a drive you make so often, you just want it to be over quickly. You have better things to do and places to be. If you ask your friends, you’ll also find that they take the fastest route to and from home.

But this logic breaks down when you’re trying to decide what to do with your life. You can’t just pick the path that gets you “there” the fastest. You have an infinite number of possible choices. How will you make a decision? 

When choosing between infinite possible choices, here’s my rule:

Choose a path with heart. 

That means that you trust your intuition. You lean into the voice that says “this is what you’ve been called to do”. You listen to your heart when it speaks.

“But what about the fear“, you ask? A funny thing about fear: it feels exactly the same as excitement in the body. There is no biochemical difference. You’re brain is just putting a negative spin on it.

So what are you waiting for? Choose to listen to your heart. Choose to dare. Choose to go for it.

You absolutely can’t lose.

Which path will you take?

Kings aren’t talked about much these days.

To most, they seem like a relic of our past. In our society, we’ve all but removed kings from our daily vision. You don’t hear any stories of them. You don’t see them being escorted anywhere. You don’t feel any connection to a king right now.

And that’s a problem.

Because despite all the horror stories of kings, they gave us someone to look up to. Someone to believe in. Someone to fight for.

A good king was inspiration to everyone in the kingdom. A good king gave generously to his subjects. A good king protected his kingdom. A good king wisely provided for his people. A good king was someone you respected and wanted to emulate.

Where are the kings now? Now, we have leaders who care only about themselves. We have leaders who start wars with other countries while their people are starving at home. We have leaders that people want to forget even exist.

All this means that there’s a dearth of good kings. And we need YOU to step into that void.

Will you become a good king?

Caterpillars everywhere dream of one thing: being able to fly. 

They eat as much as they can. They have the freedom to go anywhere they want on land. And they do their best to hide from their predators to have a long life. But in order to fly, they must do the hardest thing.

They must find a secluded spot away from predators, go into their cocoon and wait.

Before, these caterpillars were free. Now, inside of their cocoon, they are restricted and vulnerable. They must stay in their cocoon for months, sometimes years. Waiting. Developing. Strengthening their wings.

They must do, something that I call, cocoon work. 

Cocoon work is the act of cocooning yourself and doing the messy work that no one sees. It’s the shitty first draft of your speech that you worked on in secret. It’s the practice attempt at firing someone in your office at 11 in the night. It’s the morning journaling that you do in order to improve as a leader.

And it’s essential if you want to fly.

You don’t know exactly how the caterpillar becomes a butterfly. But in the end, you don’t really care. You respect butterflies because they did the hard work. You respect butterflies because they haven’t told you how they did it. And you respect them because they were once caterpillars who dared to fly.

The same goes for you. If you dream of becoming a butterfly, then you must go into your cocoon and do the work.

Every butterfly that you see flying around in nature, did their cocoon work

Will you?

Listen to a beautiful piece of music like Beethoven’s Fifth. You can hear the notes. You can also hear the pauses. But there is one thing that is integral to the music and which truly moves you.

You can’t notice it on your first listen. But if you speed up or slow down the music, you notice it. Something feels off. Something you just can’t quite put your finger on. It’s lacking something.

It’s lacking one thing: Harmony 

Harmony is the sense of right proportion. A sense of balance. A sense of “enough”.

Composers are highly skilled in creating this sense of harmony in their music. And any truly skilled artist can do the same with their medium.

But in your daily life, do you have it? Are you able to say that you have the right proportion of anything?

Can you work hard and then relax just as hard with your family and friends? Can you lead and then follow in equal amounts? Can you create as well as destroy?

Harmony isn’t a word that you talk about. But it’s a concept that’s fundamental to living your best life. You need to know the right proportion of what you want, in order to enjoy it. So..

Are you thinking about harmony?

 

 

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

Did you just cringe after hearing that question?

Yeah. Me too.

It’s one of those questions that always makes you feel like you’re behind. That if you don’t know where you’re at, then you’re not “doing well”.

Society has tricked us into believing that you should always know where you’re heading. That you should always know exactly how fast the car is going and how you’ll get there. That you should be the one driving the car at all times.

You hear this when people talk about having “SMART Goals” and making forecasts. The assumption there is that: You must be in control.

But what if that assumption is flawed? What if Life could drive the car better than you? What if being a passenger is actually better than driving the car?

Think about it.

When you’re not driving, you get to look outside the window. You get to feel the wind ruffle your hair. You get to smell the fresh ocean air and taste the saltwater. You get to fully be present.

The problem with being the one driving the car, is that you end up missing the entire journey. You’re fully focused on the road and so you miss the beauty along the way.

Maybe, the better way forward is to allow life to lead. Maybe, you won’t end up in the place that you wanted to. But maybe you do reach a place that is 10 times better than you hoped for.

So..

Can you be a passenger?

Kendall Jenner has caused quite a stir lately. She’s the youngest billionaire ever. At 19!

Now take that piece of news, and tell someone about it and listen to what they say.

I’m guessing that they’ll talk about how unfair it is, and how lucky she is. Then they’ll probably make some snarky comment saying that it doesn’t really count. That anyone who grew up in the Kardashian household would easily be able to be a billionaire. That she got a massive “handout” from her family.

Each of the fifty people I’ve spoken to has given me some version of this response. And to me, this story shows a major problem in our thinking.

It’s that we mistakenly believe that, unless you become successful on your own merit, it doesn’t really count. For example: you shun talking to your powerful uncle who could help because want to do it on your own. You don’t want to live with your parents to save money on rent. You don’t ask your recruiter friend to help you find a qualified candidate.

Clearly you’re not using all of your advantages because of this faulty belief. You could easily accomplish what your goals but you actually want the extra struggle. And that’s insane.

Why make it unnecessarily hard for yourself? Why don’t you use the advantages that you’re given?

The reality is: You don’t get brownie points for the extra struggle. All you get is wasted time not doing what you really want to do.

Kendall Jenner is the youngest billionaire ever. That is news worthy. But what’s more news worthy is that she used all of her advantages to get there.

Shouldn’t you do the same too?

“This won’t take too long.. I’ll be finished this report before you know it.”

Raise your hand if you’ve ever said this before. And now, raise your hand if you’ve ever gone completely over your estimate.

Now, why do you keep making optimistic assumptions when deep down, you know you’ll be wrong?

Because you’re lying. You’re not seeing the situation clearly and you’re making poor assumptions. One of which is that you can control the future. When, the reality is that you can’t.

This forecasting problem thinking shows up in the subtlest of ways. It shows up when you’re estimating the budget of your project. Or it appears when you are trying to decide if your customers will like your product. It even appears when you’re trying to determine what you’ll eat for dinner.

The reality might be that your customers hate the product but you don’t want to accept it. Or it might be that you have no control whether costs will stay low throughout the project. And that’s okay.

You have to accept the harsh truth. Accept it totally and make the necessary changes. Get a new supplier. Talk to customers. Do what the situation requires you to do.

But whatever you do, please, please, please stop lying to yourself. You’re making it 10x harder to go where you want to go.

We don’t want to listen to your lies anymore. We prefer the truth instead.