Category: personal touch

One Epic Thing Before You Die

Chicken feet. Ever had?

I’m pretty sure it’s a calorie-neutral food, since it takes as much energy to EAT it as there is IN it. It’s pretty fatty, lot of little bones, or cartilage, or whatever. Not sure why it’s a part of Dim Sum, but that’s what was offered this past weekend, and I’ve never had it, and you only live twice, right?

And then, somehow, the topic of whaling came up in our party of 13 – not entirely surprising (oh, it was from outfitting barbs at the end of the chopsticks, turning them into little harpoons). Anyway, my buddy says, before he dies, he wants to go on a whaling expedition and kill a whale himself. And then feed his family, friends, and a village. And himself. That’s pretty manly stuff, I’ll admit. He follows up this declaration with:

You’ve gotta do one epic thing before you die.

And then it hit me – I have had red bean ice cream before.

And then something way more significant hit me – what would mine be? It was exhilarating to think about. Killing a large beast to feed hundreds (dozens?) is both epic and bad-ass, but just not my cup of green tea. It doesn’t drive me. It doesn’t get me jumping out of bed, “Alright, Captain Ahab, time to whale for fish, or fish for whale, or just… whale. Whatever. I’m hungry.”

And then I thought a little more about the construct of his remark… one epic thing… one epic thing. Let’s address the grandiosity of the thing before the singularity of it. It’s gotta be big. BIG. Bordering on ridiculous. RIDICULOUS. Aim for the bleachers. Sure, there are fewer people after the over-sized goal, and the nature of those things is that the pay-off is larger. Yet, is this what we mean by epic? If my understanding of epic is correct, maybe we really mean something hella-crazy-wikked cool, or whatever the kids say nowadays after I yell at them to get off my lawn as I wave my harpoon cane. I’m going to fathom that whatever this thing is for me, it’s the most cool/epic if it most aligns with my purpose / life path.

And then there’s the one-ness of it. One? ONE? Only one epic thing? After I accomplish this singular event… that’s it? Is everything downhill from there? I can’t ever do that again? Do I spend the rest of my life saying, “Yeah, I did that one epic thing back then, yep, I’m awesome,” or another chest-pounding phrase? Or do I just feel it as an other-dimensional warmth and confidence to do whatever since I pulled off that one epic thing? The idea of the best being behind me is semi-depressing. Here’s an ideal: do the epic thing not just once, but each day / all the time.

And then we can turn the “one epic thing” into the “all the time awesome thing”.

And then… you die.

New Year’s Resolutions Suck

Some time around a couple of New Year’s Eves ago, I became happily resolved in my resolution that Resolutions suck. I mean, I don’t mean to offend either of you, Father Time and Baby With Sash, you guys have a good thing going. What better marker than (basically) the Winter Solstice to celebrate longer days and the fact we’ve made it through another Winter as a species (in the Northern Hemisphere… caipirinhas be chillin’ with Caipirinhas in Rio). High-fives all around, can’t wait for that harvest.

Survival worries aside, you two have built in a Natural Retrospective, although the focus seems to be on the Adaptive aspect. Dah boat a yews are off to a great start… we’ve got a good thing going here… but I’ve still got some beef (especially with you, Baby With Sash, sashes are so last… century). Why are you setting us up to fail?

This whole thing is well-intentioned – getting us to write lists that are then framed in our hearts to keep for the entire year to become better people. But from whatever cloud you’re sitting, sipping champagne and blowing bugles, you’re laughing at us as we go along with your cruel and unusual punishment. I’d like to meet somebody who has truthfully pulled off their list of New Year’s Resolutions – each one; they deserve a Nobel Prize in Discipline and/or Stubbornness. At least the folks doing Lent have a fighting chance since it’s a MUCH shorter time to keep some resolution. I’ll bet on those guys any day over some schmuck who says they really believe they can keep something up for a year.

So, gentlemen, allow me to submit a modification to the impractical prank you’re peddling while keeping the intent:

Give Resolutions a chance: shrink that time box down from a year to a fortnight.

And make them smaller, so that you could pull them off in two weeks. And make them clear, so that you know when you’re done.

Hell Yeah Test

Let me set the scene. (OK…)

Boston. South Boston. The Southiest part. South of Washington Street. It’s Sunday. There is this open air market. It’s filled with friendly people selling friendly things to other friendly people out in the open air. The air is so open and so airy (what?!) and so friendly that each tidal wash of this pleasantly invigorating life force is an intimate activity, since it’s among friends. (Oh c’mon…) Smiles are artfully and generously cast only to return like a boomerang of love. (Stop it, that’s just ridiculous…)

That’s when I walk into a trap (here we go…), albeit of my own doing. (Oooh, a twist…)

So, you know my thing about bow ties. I finally learned to tie one a few days ago (big whoop, it’s like tying your shoelaces, except around your neck) and have joined the ranks of the dapper, so why not augment my ability to parade my fashionable skill to the masses? (‘Cause nobody else does…) Thus, like a match made in open air market heaven, I happen upon a booth of bow ties. Custom bow ties. Friendly open air custom bow ties. (Snarky comment in three… two…) It was too good to be true. (They were made of bacon?)

In truth, however, it wasn’t good enough.

The bow ties were good, but they weren’t great. They were cool, but they weren’t awesome. They were custom, but they weren’t me. (That thing did not have a hemi.) I stood in that booth looking over the buffet, listening to the owners share their story, thinking about what outfit a particular choice would go with (ninja suit – can’t go wrong), learning how they were made in Thailand (BowTieLand?), feeling them pour on the pressure to buy like the management students they were. The longer I stayed, the more committed and bow tied down (niiice) I felt.

Through a break in the clouds, the wisdom of the commerce gods (Hermes? Mercury?) dawned upon me and I yanked myself away. I realized that none of the bow ties passed the Hell Yeah Test. (Now we’re making stuff up.) I didn’t make this up. I read it in ‘The $100 Startup’ by Chris Guillebeau (and then we made it up):

When presented with an opportunity, don’t think about its merit or how busy you are. Instead, think about how it makes you feel. If you feel only so-so about it, turn it down and move on. But if the opportunity would be exciting and meaningful – so much so that you can say, “hell yeah” when you think about it – find a way to say yes.

So yes, I walked away from taking on another piece of clothing I wasn’t excited about. And why shouldn’t that apply to anything else? Not just all purchases (a new rule I’m imposing upon myself) (oh, what a burden), but also… life? The big things and the small things. The big things meaning friendships, relationships, jobs, picking where to live, voting, other lifestyle choices. The small things meaning what to eat, where to eat, what to wear, what to do in your down time, what to buy, whether to buy a bow tie. Having the strategic and tactical driven by the Hell Yeah Test sounds like a sense of flow, yes no? (Hell yes no.) This test guides you along what excites you – what giddily excites you to your kiddie core. (Heck yes, please.)

Conversely, where possible, this also means don’t do things that don’t pass the Hell Yeah Test, like purchase a bow tie that doesn’t excite you. This thus turns into a very natural selector – in a sense, you’re listening to your body – essentially another version of following your intuition. I happen to like how it’s phrased here a lot better. Don’t you? (Hell Yeah.)

Personal Overhead

This is the post where I share my ScrumOfOne existential doubts.

Do I doubt this whole “Using Scrum for Personal Development” idea? Yes I do, yet I think it’s somewhat healthy. It is very encouraging that Scrum encourages critical thinking by building in a time to be retrospective and thus adapt: choose to amend the set of processes I’m imposing upon myself, which includes killing off all that overhead altogether! There is a question from ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ by Timothy Ferriss that fits this all too well:

Am I being productive or just active?

Rephrase:

Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?”

I’ll admit that I feel this ScrumOfOne idea is kinda my baby; I really like the idea and have found it key to managing how I purposefully get things done. So that I can analyze if these ‘Scrummy’ practices are a good return on investment, I have turned to these existential questions from ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson:

Why are you doing this?
Is this actually useful?
Will this change behavior?
What could you be doing instead?
What problem are you solving?
Are you adding value?
Is there an easier way?
Is it really worth it?

Man, those questions are straight-up down-right (left hook?) harsh! And I like ’em. A lot. They bleed with the spirit of Getting Real. I had huge plans: waking up at 5:31am to step through the three questions (I even convinced a buddy to be a part of this pre-dawn Scrum), stepping through and documenting a formal Retrospective, writing a PERL script to manage a text-based Product Backlog, reading weekly a set of quotes & phrases & book notes I’ve collected over the years as my personal set of Psalms. These weren’t just plans… I actually did them for a while!

So do I still do all this? Hellz no! These ceremonies were just not sustainable for the long term. My commute schedule changed, so 5:31am turned into an ungodly hour to be awake, although I still have the 531am.com domain name. My Retrospective currently covers what happened over the past two weeks, how process adaptations fared, and what process tweaks to adopt. My Product Backlog is a Google Doc with the Sprint Backlog at the very top – a text editor in the cloud suffices. My hours-long re-centering read now happens monthly. I pared down the personal overhead to manageable levels based on fruitful returns.

Sure, ScrumOfOne takes discipline, which connotes a struggle, though what I’ve found as I’ve been massaging this system of processes is you can change the nature of the motivation when you see the fruits of your labor. The morning stand-up has turned into 15 minutes of alignment, mental prep, and a generally feel-good start to my day. It’s a trigger to personal finance documenting, reading a few fruity-sounding affirmations, and walking into the day with a purpose. When I do this, I literally walk differently. (I do!) This whole Scrum business is just that transforming.

Thus the system continues, yet only because it started with a habit: a small step: the seed of a fruit I hoped would work out. Upon processes that proved their own worth, I added, modified, and removed (…mostly removed) as I evolved this personal overhead, like trimming a fruit tree.

Alright. Seriously. What’s up with all the fruit in this post? I think I’ll grab a pear…

Cadenza

Remember the old Facebook? I mean, the old Facebook. I mean, the OLD Facebook. Back when you had to log in to thefacebook.com with a .EDU email address. Back when the homepage had the list of schools that were coveted members of the walled blue garden with that face in the upper-left corner. Back when you didn’t have zombie wars or mafia wars, just poke wars. Back when your favorite quote of some inside joke from your dorm floor was right on your profile page and not hidden five clicks under your secondary yet larger profile pic. Here is mine, by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

If a man is to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Essentially, be the best at whatever you do. Sounds trite, yes no? It’s just not that exciting. Doesn’t have that special somethin’ somethin’. Being some generic ‘most good’ at some activity comes off as very… impersonal. So let’s inject a tonne (1000 kilograms, which is more than the more familiar ‘ton’, which is 2000 pounds, which is 907.19 kilograms) (you’re welcome) of personality in.

Let’s thus talk about a Cadenza!

…a piece of furniture that became very fashionable during the second half of the 19th century. Often made of a burnished and polished wood decorated with marquetry, a central cupboard would be flanked by symmetrical quadrant glass display cabinets. The top would often be made of marble, or another decorative stone, or of inlaid wood.

Crap, that was a Credenza. Not the type of ‘personality’ I was going for. Let’s try again.

…an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a “free” rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display.

That’s a Cadenza. Much better. You hear the personality in that? Soloist! Virtuoso! It’s not just showing off, though; it is an opportunity to pour your heart into your art. It is your heart, so it is in a unique style that is distinctly yours, and nobody else’s. It is your heart, so it is your essence and undeniably associated with your core.

…and doesn’t all that sound better than ‘best’?

In brief, I’ll unflourishingly channel my inner Forrest Gump and end this by submitting another shade of ‘find your life path’: Life is like a cadenza. Find an art into which you can pour your heart.

MUSICALLY TAOIST POST-SCRIPT:

Alright you music geeks, I’m talking to you. We know cadenzas are indicated by a fermata over a ‘rest’. Thus, this held space represents… potential. The way we’re told the sky is the limit and we’re free to go nuts, shedding shame to share our virtuosity, is via a vacuum explicitly laden with possibility. A cadenza is both (visually) empty and (audibly) full.

The notes that are played are unwritten… cadenzas are indicated by an ‘uncarved block’… I’d call this pure potential the closest musical equivalent to Pu. Sounds deep, yes no?

(Too close for missiles. Switching to guns.)