Setting Up A Positive Cascade and Getting Stuff Done

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Monday marks the start of Birthday Week
Guess who won the lap swim lottery?

In response to my observation that I need to challenge myself to avoid sliding towards mediocrity, a friend asked, “where do I start?”

Ask yourself, “What one thing, if it happened, would change everything?“

Simplify all the BS and focus on your thing, first thing, daily, for a long time.

My last 20 years can be summarized as a series of “one things”

  • Get out of this town
  • Do the plan
  • Find more love
  • Be the brand
  • Stop Using (beer, anger, fear, self-pity, sugar, bread…)
  • Break The Chain
  • Get Up Early

You must keep it really simple – life will constantly throw stuff at you, while your habit energy pulls you towards your status quo.

The true cost of the status quo is hidden.

Bella had a substitute teacher for PE today

Choose wisely => pick a “one thing” that sets up a positive cascade when you get it done.

I’m going to get a lot done in June. Everything I accomplish will track back to my core goals:

  • wake up by 4am
  • don’t complain

Here’s how the positive cascade will work:

  • Up by 4am
  • Up… well, I might as well workout
  • Working out… well, I might as well do it right
  • Finished, showered, feeling good… What’s important now?
  • Home school the kids by executing the schedule
  • Looks dirty over there, mini-cleaning break

Within that work flow, I calendarize fixed blocks of time to meet my outside commitments.

My calendar (my life, really) is 100% transparent to my wife. I remind my kids to leave me alone immediately before I start.

I get interrupted a lot – just the way it is, don’t complain… don’t retaliate.

Amphitheater Loop, Boulder Mountain Park

So if you’re struggling then consider…

1/ Am I picking the right stuff? My ability to execute is much stronger when I’m doing stuff that matters to me. It takes uncommon honesty to own the fact that you’ve spent most your life trying to impress others.

2/ Keep it simple. Before you can put two people into orbit (Space X in the news this week), you must master in the basics. What might those be? Save some money, exercise daily, keep your house clean and always keep small promises to yourself.

Still having trouble?

Simplify, lower the bar and let compounding work in your favor.

Corona Diary 30 May 2020

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Highlights of things that came across my radar over the last few days.

Riots and protests have started in many cities => mass unemployment, an Executive Branch led by someone who enjoys conflict, and the end of supplemental UI (July) is making for a volatile period.

Colorado => my home state’s testing, positives and hospitalization numbers continue to improve. Longform Politico article on our “early” reopening and link to state data sources. It is taking more tests to find less positives. Colorado publishes hospital resource tracking data.

Our local university offered a road map to Fall 2020. They are planning to reopen from August to Thanksgiving, then wait-and-see via remote learning. Professor G, no relation 😉 , had an interesting blog on the subject.

Vail Burton US Open cancelled for March 2021 => this is a big hit for the local economy.

The Federal Government sent me a preloaded debit card. I nearly threw it in the trash because it looked like a scam. I’ll be sending them the money back, as an income tax prepayment.

The Chinese did an end run on the HK Legislature by passing a top down “loyalty” law.

Lots of discussion about mail-in voting. We have it in Colorado, it works well and nobody seems to worry about it. There must more in the “voting security” debate than meets the eye. It’s a non-issue here.

SP500 went over 3,000 => up 35% from the bottom. I checked portfolios and didn’t need to rebalance => market values have been running up across the board.

Started a new training block called SF45 Alpha => I’m only using the strength component. The fitness part will come from hiking and cycling. Coach Rob pulled all his essays together – some fun reading for coaches, leaders and the generally hardcore.

Boulder has closed (a few) streets to support outdoor dining and get retail moving again => my wife tells me the new pedestrian areas look really good.

My daughter loved riding with her older “ride buddy” who’s a female racer.

Related, around the world there are skilled kids, and adults, in need of income and something to do. We are tapping local experts in sport, sewing and schooling.

Unemployment figures this week lifted the total over 40 million and the news didn’t crack my Twitter trends. I had to go looking. Incredible.

Our two youngest started a band => he’s on recorder and she’s on piano. Our oldest helped by writing the notes onto the piano. Band name => BAXEL. I’m told they rock hard.

My son started running our morning walk => just under 1km per loop, 1-2 loops per morning. Kid pacing, for sure. Full tilt right out of the gate. Big grin on his face.

Expert Knowledge and Unforced Errors

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A favorite picture from one of my first daddy-daughter trips, July 2011, just after my son was born. I took our oldest out of the country (!) so my wife could get to know her new baby.

Howard Marks’ latest had a couple of gems:

You may have to be an expert in a field in order to be able to figure out who the true experts are.

True expertise is scarce and limited in scope.

So great and always relevant to decision making.

How to use these insights?

First, ask the experts, who they rate.

It’s a bit like asking your doctor, “what would you do?” rather than, “what do you recommend?”

In finance, Buffett/Munger come up a lot. Both these guys have written a lot of material over the years. How much of it have you read? I am better off re-reading the best-of-the-best.

In your field, you’ll likely have people you rate. Outside of your field… you will be tempted to follow the advice of the same people. This will create the opportunity for unforced errors.

Quick story on that type of error. Last year I went to a conference on complexity and risk. It took a couple hours to realize that I was WAY out of my league quantitatively. Once I realized I was clueless, I grasped the implication of my cluelessness… there was NO WAY I wanted to be on the other side of a trade with these guys.

Further, I had no basis to evaluate the truth, or otherwise, of what they were telling me. By the way, there is a very profitable industry (financial gatekeepers) built on ignoring this reality.

I went to the conference to learn how-to-do but came away with a clear idea about areas where I should not venture.

That was 98% of the discussion. The other 2% of the discussion diverged into my wheelhouse. As soon as the panel strayed into my area it was clear they had no idea what they were talking about. They had forgotten Howard’s advice that true expertise is limited in scope.

The humility to limit the scope of our confidence is near impossible to remember over time.

  • Ask the experts who they rate
  • Stay in the wheelhouse of core competency

Howard ends by encouraging the reader to have…

the humility to recognize when my opinion doesn’t count.

So good, so true!

You can clearly see our collective “need to know” in children. My kids hate it when I tell them I don’t know, or I won’t play-the-game of guessing outcome.

Telling them my opinion doesn’t count creates a lot of cognitive dissonance in their minds. It does not compute.

In my job, errors can be large, time consuming and expensive to exit. As a result, I am always trying not to predict and to point out the limits of my knowledge. Makes me reliable, but a bit boring!

How to use this point.

Make a list of the key areas where you are likely to make a mistake, screw up or hurt someone.

These areas will repeat for decades, trust me, and are where you need to develop the humility to recognize your opinion doesn’t count. Here are mine:

  • Every situation that requires empathy, rather than execution
  • Every situation where I might make a quick verbal reaction in a group

Zoom meetings work great for me. The little bit of friction, to unmute my microphone, cuts my error rate substantially.

Separate from my empathy-deficit, which is balanced by my wife, I have other biases (medicine, science, memory, action over reflection) => these are addressed by remembering to involve other people in my decision making process.

To sum up, the issue isn’t having holes in our abilities.

The issue is letting pride blind us to our biases and not creating systems/teams to reduce our unforced errors, and re-learn from our past mistakes.

The Source of Performance

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Tomorrow is 77 days.

This crisis is an excellent case study for what prevents us from getting stuff done.

The #1 performance preventer is getting de-railed by a transition.

  • It’s not your plan
  • It’s not your willpower
  • It’s not your genetics, talent stack or experience

This week is our fourth transition, in less than three months.

  • Close the schools
  • Start online education, two weeks later
  • End the official school year, eight weeks later
  • Start summer school, one week later

Each change is an opportunity to start down a path of falling behind.

By the time we get back to school, there’s going to be a large cohort of kids who haven’t had much education for five months (not moving forward) and have forgotten most of what they learned in the seven months before we closed (moving backward).

This is a compressed version of what happens to all of us: in sport, in relationships and in our careers.

“Something comes up” and we’re off our game.

What to do?

  • Don’t mess with a streak! You will only get a few opportunities for an extended block of outstanding work.
  • Good enough will get you far. Nearly everyone you know is going to fall away over time. Skip the protocol debates and just do it.
  • Leave room for tomorrow, and the next transition.

I’ll use home school as an example.

We’re doing 90-120 minutes of academic work a day and we’re doing it six days a week. On top, we’re adding five hours of martial arts and ten hours of cycling (per week).

It’s not what my wife and the kids “want” to be doing but it’s a lot better than looking at a blank piece of paper every morning!

My seven-year old’s math book (for her next grade) contains 200 pages. She’s doing four pages a day alongside me. Grade Three math will be done by July. It’s a similar thing for each of my kids. Maybe it takes until August for the older ones to learn the following year’s curriculum.

It’s daunting to set up the summer school week => the transition from “we should do this” to “this is what we will be doing” nearly defeated me! I had five teachers say “no” to mentoring my kids but I persisted.

Another hurdle => cost. You can tell yourself it is too expensive to hire three tutors, a black-belt PE teacher and a cycling mentor from the local university team (our daughter loves to ride).

I called BS on myself => the pain I feel is committing my own time, not my money.

My total budget for Summer School will be less than the refunds I got back when Corona cancelled my 2020 travel schedule.

This investment will move my kids ahead, at a time when a lot feels like it is moving backwards.

But it’s more than that => the family knows we are being productive, we are getting stuff done, we are working together.

It’s not all kumbaya but it is meaningful.

Do not focus on the details. You can spin your wheels forever.

Focus on getting a bit done every_single_day and let compounding work in your favor.

Corona Diary 27 May 2020

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Home School Wednesdays are for catch-up and personal focus. So that means no new work and no video tutoring.

Why use a tutor? Here’s a practical example from today.

Use of a tutor makes it more difficult for a kid to push back on me, particularly a kid who loves completing her assignments.

Towards the end of recess, I asked our Alpha Tween to come into the house first, and alone. This lets me get the most challenging kid transitioned to her next assignment without any distractions, and inside a quiet house.

Up next was DEAR (drop everything and read). This can be a tough transition. Over the next five minutes…

“This is too tough, I need an audio version of this book.”

Sweetie, you’ll need to take that up with Mr. R. I think you should probably read this first block for him.

“This is too tough, I already read this morning.”

Sweetie, you are at page 30 and Mr. R wants you at page 120 by Friday. You don’t want to have to read 70 pages tomorrow. Why don’t you read 40 pages now.

After she settles and the reading is done => Sweetie, I want you to know why we read a lot. We read a lot so we can teach ourselves. Being able to read well gave me an enduring advantage in my life.

What I didn’t say => I see myself in her.

I need challenging goals, and accountability, or else I will default to the path of least resistance. To avoid a constant battle against the easy way…

  • Schedule it
  • Create a daily habit (of one small step)
  • Do it first
  • Ask, “What’s important now?”
  • Place myself in an environment where I want to set an example

Bella’s key session was vowel sounds and Peter Rabbit on PBS Colorado Classroom.

It’s been taking us about double the video run time to get through the lesson. A total lesson of 40-45 minutes is a LONG time for her to stay focused so we isolate in the house. It went well.

More Bella => After two weeks of “strictly the minimum” contribution, Bella’s been cleaning everything! I’m glad I didn’t push when she wanted to take a break.

Lots of positive feedback, and a bit of extra pocket money, when she goes above-and-beyond.

Two thoughts on regulating (the speech of) others…

When I get the urge to control someone else, I remind myself to direct that energy into making myself a better person. I have an endless (!) amount of material to work with AND I have a better chance of making progress.

Second, I remember a Peterson quote along the lines of, “If you dislike a type of speech enough to regulate it then you’re going to really dislike the sorts of people who will end up regulating your speech.”

The quote reminds me of my time at McGill University and the folks who controlled our campus press. A lively bunch, who were deeply convinced they knew what was best for us.

Science Wednesday saw us make LED Flashlights from Mystery Science. Huge hit. Positive, negative, batteries, switches, current flow… fun.

Before Science, we watched a travel video on Shanghai. Each kid gets a pencil and paper and we do Q&A at the end. I choose videos on places where I’ve worked, or lived, in the past.

Lunch, Shanghai and Science took up a three-hour block of our day.

I’ve been working on my essay topic for the week => Marriage.

It’s not quite where I hoped to get it. Might hold off on publishing as our 15th wedding anniversary doesn’t arrive until July.

Writing my essays has me re-reading my most popular stuff. WordPress lets me see what connects with y’all.

Next week is the 16th anniversary of meeting my wife => I wrote How I Met Your Mother for my kids. It is one of my favorite pieces.

Here’s my absolutely favorite piece => The Person You Will Become. It’s about getting to better.

I borrowed Bella’s chef hat for Taco Tuesday.

I am guessing the stress of this crisis has many going one of two ways…

All the bullshit is gone.

or

All I’m left with is bullshit.

Find the win.

Corona Diary 26 May 2020

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WSJ.com, above the fold

I’m sure we’d all like that to be the case (May 25, 2020).

In Colorado:

  • Testing continues to trend up – getting close to 5,000 tests per day
  • Positives and hospitalizations showing a clear downward trend

Main Colorado data page link.

In early May, I told Monica that the shift in seasons was likely to have everyone feeling more hopeful. It is really green in town, the days are long and I’m feeling much more optimistic.

Perhaps the second wave will come in the fall, rather than late summer. Time will tell.

Community spread is still out there. I sit on a citizens’ committee associated with our school board. Last week we were told that three of our bond construction sites had seen brief shutdowns due to positive test results. Most the construction happens indoors and the crews are being very careful to avoid an outbreak.

My weekend thinking had me considering two questions.

1./ Am I acting like I’m certain of outcome?

  • We can afford to miss out => up, down or sideways => it’s OK to miss out
  • Survival is what’s most important => avoiding ruin, death and disability => in a highly uncertain time this implies getting the “no” correct is more important than worrying about bold actions
  • I had been thinking about moving and making a large purchase => separate from the direction of the housing market, do not increase stress at a stressful time => moving is not going to happen during this pandemic

2./ Are you doing what needs to be done, or what you want to be doing?

In stressful times, we tend to give the world more of ourselves. More in a very literal sense. As in “More Gordo Than Gordo.” If you are a strong personality, who is able to get stuff done, then I’m willing to bet that you’ve been getting a lot done!

This has been a weakness for me because, in a stressful time, the people around me don’t necessarily need me to do more. They need me to listen more, love more and talk more => particularly when they are cut off from their peers, who handle this aspect of their lives in normal times.

A favorite reminder, “when more ceases to work, consider less.”

This made me smile:

There are deep concerns about surveillance in BoCo, a place rarely associated with the far right.

“Far” anything tends to converge.

Tapping my inner Kylo Ren while walking the neighborhood

Lexi caught a fish this past weekend!

Summer School is off to a strong start. The kids love their tutors and I love having them engaged, happy and learning each morning.

I support education by having my kids (who are great) alongside your kids (who are also great) & providing supplemental earning opportunities to great teachers.

This costs my family a fraction of the private education track and benefits my community (links are to blog posts).

Some awesomeness… Younger Axel wrote a letter to Older Axel.

Lockdown life is what we make it.

Make it a good one.

Embrace Small Failures

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Yesterday, wasn’t a chair-in-the-shower workout but I did need a chair in the kitchen to cook breakfast.

It’s been over a year since I read Professor G’s book (The Algebra of Happiness). I’ve been working on his advice to Embrace Small Failures.

A reminder to reach for a better version of myself

Historically, my training has been where I expose myself to the risk of failure. As the kids have become more self-sufficient, I’ve had space to bring some athletic challenges back into my life.

Challenging myself at 51 is a whole lot different than going big in my 30s.

I’ve been using Mountain Tactical out of Jackson, WY.

I first came across MTI a decade ago when a friend used them. I remember thinking, “no way I could do that.”

For what it’s worth, I had the exact same reaction the first time I heard about Ultraman Hawaii, no way I could do that.”

I won Ultraman three years later.

Day 3, Ultraman Hawaii, 52.4 miles in the lava fields

Each module from Mountain Tactical had me wondering, “am I going to be able to get through this?”

My latest was a 10-week training program with 5 workouts per week => 50 sessions total.

Lots has changed between the start of the block and the finish.

The biggest change had nothing to do with sport, it was a gradual shift from “temporary” shelter-in-place orders to an ongoing you-must-stay-in-your-home-to-be-a-good-person vibe. Depending on your peers & politics, your mileage may vary.

Back in March, I looked ahead to Session #50. I thought it was a type-o:

When I first used an 80-pound bag for the getups, I’d get pinned (for a while!) before figuring out how to get back up. There’s no prescribed way to get up, so I took relief in my struggles.

The plyometrics were more psychological than physical => a lot of post-workout soreness and a lurking fear of tearing tissue. Once I realized I could keep plugging along, it was a mental game of persisting.

If you’ve ever done step-ups then you probably noticed it is the “down” not the “up” that causes problems. Thousands of step-downs nearly gave me an overuse injury, but I never quite got there.

All in all, a perfectly set plan.

Cheap thrills with my fan pointing up for step-ups

There were a lot of small failures in the last ten weeks, not all athletic:

  • My psoas getting so tight I thought I was a hip replacement candidate!
  • My right calf blowing out
  • Losing patience with the kids

Overcoming the failures provides a deeper appreciation of the victories.

Find the win.

I did a Q&A with Andy on athletic transitions, lockdown and other topics.

Corona Diary 23 May 2020

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Balloon fight went surprisingly well yesterday.

Balloon filling… less so.

Here’s our Saturday Schedule, which has been working well:

8:15 Announcements 

Early days of Luke Skywalker

8:30 Art

  • Axel draws Luke Skywalker – these projects have been a huge confidence builder for him
  • Bella work on her Corona Diary
  • Lexi makes masks – this week she contributed a mask, rather than cleaning

9:45 Snack

10 Recess

10:30 Bella Reading Class – Lesson Three was sight words and butterflies

Lexi & Axel iReady or DEAR (Drop Everything And Read)

11 Free Choice

Each of us makes a weekly cleaning contribution.

11:30 Lunch

12:00 Jiu Jitsu at Home

1:15 Lunch

1:45 Free Choice

2 Second PE or Friends (Lexi walking down to fishing pond with buddy)

Employment

Our employment incentives are out of whack:

  • Lots of social cover for firing staff
  • Federal government subsidy via extra UI payments
  • Huge number of peers out of work

Continuing to subsidize people standing down will not have the outcome we want. We have a stampede of layoffs. Human nature tells me we will overshoot on the cutting back.

Well intended, but rushed, policies might be making things worse for the collective.

Hertz into Bankruptcy

The Hertz bankruptcy filing noted plans to sell $5 Billion worth of cars into the US market. While a small percentage of the overall market, when combined with the unemployment/economic figures, there may be a big impact, and great deals if you need a car in the second half of the year.

Personally, I’m waiting for non-depreciable assets to go on sale.

Other Stuff

Argentina defaulted on its sovereign debt and the story didn’t generate much press. Too much big news these days.

Having trouble finding a new bike for a spouse or kid? Put a drop post underneath the saddle of an existing one. Monica and I have been sharing my bike since the start of lockdown.

Once your kid hits five-feet tall, a drop post on a used high-end ladies mountain bike (see below) is a cost effective way to expand your cycling quiver. We’re going to get a dozen years out of the bike below.

Our oldest now has a choice for her rides… too big or too small. 🙂

Big day yesterday, she rode Baseline “from the bottom”

UK starting 14-day quarantine for arrivals from June 8th.

Possible pump and dump by management of vaccine developers – and connected politicians, I bet – Moderna execs sell.

Hong Kong Government giving away masks and China imposing top-down loyalty legislation (sad for my friends in HK, not surprising to me).

Summer science learning links – see Can Crusher for an easy way to impress the kids!

One day left on my Big Mountain training plan.

Every training blocks ends

Find The Win

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We kicked off home school this morning by sharing “scrapbooks so far.”

Kids loved it!

+++

My early morning routine is a good example of applied psychology.

The routine incorporates…

  • a lot of winning
  • anticipation
  • a sense of purpose
  • a focus on “the clearly better”

I pay attention to “the clearly better” because it shows me where it is worth applying effort.

Worth repeating => When I choose, I spend effort, time and attention on things that leave an emotional taste of “clearly better.”

3:55am – The day started by waking up 5 minutes before my alarm, which makes me happy.

I’ve been going to bed at the same time as my kids so waking up 2.5 hours before them is cake.

4:00am – I’m downstairs and every single light on my main floor is switched on. Up Before The Enemy – we haven’t had any prowler reports before 6am. I give the bad guys an incentive to skip my house.

4:05am – Third win of the morning is a mug of coffee. I set the coffee up the afternoon before so I can look forward to it.

My Skull Mug is reserved for my toughest sessions and is hand painted by our youngest. I have another one from our oldest that says #1 Dad.

The difference between the best coffee I can buy and the cheapest is ~20c per day

4:30am – This morning was a lot of step ups.

I am my son’s margin of safety in the mountains => this knowledge motivates my prep

4:45am – Fat Boy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now comes on. I remember Okanagan Lake and a morning in August many years ago. Looking across the lake in the best shape of my life.

Pushing to the finish many years ago => I’m not that skinny in my memory!

5:00am – Decide I might want to remember my session, it was a lot of step ups… send my wife a text to come and take of picture of me.

Monica has been waking up in the “4”s during lockdown and looks absolutely fabulous when she arrives (Team Win!).

5:45am – My workout wraps up and I head upstairs to eat some muesli.

I prepared the muesli yesterday so I’d having something to look forward to while grinding out my step ups. While I advise people to be careful about setting up the exercise-sugar reward cycle, I’m not above motivating myself with a special breakfast.

Wake up, lights, coffee, music, workout, wife and breakfast => Seven Wins Before 6am

The only person who can screw up my morning win-fest is myself.

Attitude is Everything

Taking Stock on the Last Day of School

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Wednesday morning science project was making a solar oven and s’mores for lunch followed

Tomorrow is ten weeks.

When this started I made myself two promises: (1) I will not complain; (2) I will wake up, early, every single day of lockdown.

So far, so good.

+++

The city acted on the crowds in our waterfront park, the creek near the park was closed yesterday (paywall).

I have a hunch everyone will move downstream, which might “work” if they stay dispersed.

+++

Lexi and I have our initial essay topics lined up for summer school. Thanks for the ideas.

Questions for me to consider over the weekend:

  • Am I acting like I am uncertain of outcome?
  • Am I doing what I want to do, rather than what is required/needed? I can get caught up in doing things that I think are important to others, but aren’t really important to them.

+++

Completed the last “strength day” of my 10-week training block.

I did not expect to get so much satisfaction from getting up early to lift weights in my basement. In hindsight, the failure to anticipate was an obvious oversight on my part. I enjoy overcoming small difficulties.

The original idea was to eliminate my gym-commute, allowing me to be done with my morning workout before the kids wake up, in turn, freeing up my wife’s morning.

Making it easier for your spouse to train has a worthwhile return on investment.

Today is the last day of school => ten weeks of home schooling went by fast.

We just got back from the Goodbye Parade.

Lexi’s teacher was wearing the mask she made for him. Quality hat selection, too!

Since lockdown, I’ve made material, hopefully enduring, progress with my two weakest areas => patience and coping with kid noise.

The physical cue I have established is breathing in, when I used to hold my breath => a form of internal de-escalation.

I went back to wearing earplugs when I sleep but have shaken the habit of reaching for them as soon as my house gets loud.

Getting ready for a masked, socially-distant, outdoor playdate… with a sprinkler balloon!

As an elite athlete, I spent a several winters in the Southern Hemisphere.

The game I would play was staying put for 13 weeks and rolling-the-plan.

Simple, not easy!

Summer Home School starts Monday => We’re going to keep it rolling.