Systematize Success #8 - Career, Optionality & Learning
Career, Optionality & Learning
Hi Friends,
Happy Monday!
I have been reworking my information processing and knowledge structuring workflows for quite a few months. Those months have been silent in terms of publications, but they were foundational (besides dealing with family and business priorities as well).
I am now using Roam Research as my master repository for connected thinking and networked knowledge management. I am not related to the company in any way, but I can't recommend their product nearly enough. Based on that new platform choice, I have the strong conviction that I won't need to upgrade my knowledge base ever again until Elon releases Neuralink in production.
I regret not having had access to such a life-changing tool from when I was in high-school onwards, but better now than never.
From now on, I will resume sharing my best finds on a weekly basis. I will need more time before I start publishing original writing again but, when I do, it will be more frequent.
In the meantime, please enjoy my best finds for last week:
Middle Management: Where Work & Life's Most Difficult Phases Collide (4min)
You are two or three levels away from those who calls the shots. You have a team of direct reports, many of whom have teams to manage of their own. You have scores of stakeholders to manage (across teams, across functions, across units).
On the personal side, you might have a life partner who also needs your attention, support, love, and focus. You might have kids, who still need you to wipe their butts, feed and clothe them, or assist with their homework. You might have aging parents, who need care, attention, and support. You have friends who want more of you. Everyone wants a piece of you.
Some thoughts / tips to help you make it through:
Be good to yourself. Practice self-care. Be selfish when you get a chance to. Guilt-free. Be intentional with self-care. Place your own oxygen mask on before assisting others.
Be present. Enjoy the moment for what it is. This phase will not be forever. When it’s gone, you might even miss it. Like the classic parenting adage: the days are long, but the years are short.
Play the long game. Pace yourself. Now is a time for patience, and logging those miles. Yes, it sometimes feels like a slog. Try to find a little gratitude where you can, to help you through.
Stay authentic. Be yourself. Play your own game. Don’t measure yourself against others. Acting like someone you are not is a fool’s errand. Sure, identify blind-spots and address weaknesses, but don’t be a phony. It’s too tiring.
Learn to say No. Not now. Not yet. Maybe later.
Give fewer f&%ks. I’ve hit my “f-you fifties” and it sure is liberating to care a whole lot less about what others think of me, now that I realize no one is paying attention anyway – we are all in our own heads 95% of the time.
Don’t judge. Presume the good intention of others. Nine times out of ten, when someone is acting badly, it’s not personal about you – there’s something else going on with them.
Be kind. People don’t remember what you say, they remember the way you make them feel.
Ask for help. Admitting you need help shows strength, not weakness. You are carrying a heavy load. You don’t need to be a martyr. Others want to help with your load. You won’t get what you don’t ask for.
Warren Buffett’s “20 Slot” Rule: How to Simplify Your Life (4min)
I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches—representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you’d punched through the card, you couldn’t make any more investments at all.
Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives (15min)
At the heart of what makes the “growth mindset” so winsome, Dweck found, is that it creates a passion for learning rather than a hunger for approval. Its hallmark is the conviction that human qualities like intelligence and creativity, and even relational capacities like love and friendship, can be cultivated through effort and deliberate practice. Not only are people with this mindset not discouraged by failure, but they don’t actually see themselves as failing in those situations — they see themselves as learning.
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.
[…]
I’ve seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves — in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser? . . .
There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.
Dweck found that people exhibited the same dichotomy of dispositions in their personal relationships: Those with a fixed mindset believed their ideal mate would put them on a pedestal and make them feel perfect, like “the god of a one-person religion,” whereas those with the growth mindset preferred a partner who would recognize their faults and lovingly help improve them, someone who would encourage them to learn new things and become a better person. The fixed mindset, it turns out, is at the root of many of our most toxic cultural myths about “true love.”
The Feynman Learning Technique (21min)
There are four steps to the Feynman Learning Technique, based on the method Richard Feynman originally used.
Pretend to teach a concept you want to learn about to a student in the sixth grade.
Identify gaps in your explanation. Go back to the source material to better understand it.
Organize and simplify.
Transmit (optional).
Thanks for reading!
V