Heroic Aspirations

For my entire career, I’ve tended to be the one in a group who could stay calm through a storm and identify a pathway out. Many times, I’ve had collaborators who contributed but I’ve always viewed myself as the leader in these moments - the collected one, with a plan!

At Minerva, almost everybody who works here has this skill. It’s amazing that we have this caliber of leader and problem-solving all throughout the org. We have built such strong trust throughout the org, as well as systems to share the accountability load. It’s wild in certain moments to see important work getting done that I’ve had little-to-no involvement with.

Sometimes, when others are so quick to pick up the leadership reins there’s a feeling of relief. At other times, it leads me to question my own role. 

As someone who’s always identified as the person to lead a group out of a storm, what do I do if that’s not expected or needed of me? 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting around twiddling thumbs. This feels like a moment of transition from a kind of executing role to one of support and empowerment.  I’m currently on this spectrum with 3 different kinds of roles:

Independent contributor

Manager

Executive

Around the start of 2020 I was worried about losing focus after my second son was born (he was due mid-February 2020). I felt an urgency to create some systems that would hopefully turn into behaviors, carrying me through whatever would come with the birth of another child.

It worked magnificently for me. Not only did I have a certain set of things that I set out to do regularly (x number of times per week), but I tracked them. Tracking them was essential because the visibility of my successes/failures led me to alter my behavior - I didn’t want to fall short, so I would push through. 

It feels silly to say that I need a push to do the things I’d already said I wanted to do. But sometimes there’s a chasm between knowing what’s good for you, and having the strength and discipline to follow through on the hard things, even if you know they’re good for you.

I had fallen out of rhythm around September of last year, as my son started being more aware, moving around - needing more. In the last 3 weeks, I’ve returned to the systems that brought me such value at the start of 2020. I need to ‘get back on track’ and having found some prior success, it’s easy to take those systems off the shelf and get moving again. 

Burn is good. Pain is not.

I hurt when others hurt. I hurt more when I’ve caused someone’s hurt.

Minerva recently made a switch to ShapeUp principles, a philosophy for working that is vastly different from any process the team has worked under before. This was my choice and I led the training and transition. We experienced some bumps, which were expected - I set the team’s expectations that we would make mistakes and that it might even piss some people off. Well, that happened.

Thankfully, nobody got really pissed off (at least that I’m aware of), but it was clear to me that there was pain inflicted on some of the team. When talking through the transition with an advisor and sharing my remorse that I’d caused pain, she told me that it wasn’t pain - it was burn.

Pain = unnecessary agony after which you are not better off (e.g., a kick to the head)

Burn = a sign of progress and growth (e.g., going to the gym)

Holy hell, this seemed so obvious when she said it, but it was eye-opening for me. We’re learning something new. There are always mis-steps and mistakes. As long as you’re watching out for them, seek to understand and take reasonable action to correct, then you’re growing!

This helped me beat myself up a little less. I truly believe in the reasons why we shifted to ShapeUp and the impact it will have on the investment and satisfaction of the team, the quality of the work, and the speed and reliability of delivery. The burn will only make us better.

Yesterday, I spent the day helping people in my community through the on-site experience of getting a dose of the Covid vaccine.

Initially, I had jumped at the idea to volunteer because there’s the implicit reward of getting vaccinated as a thank you for volunteering. After I had started the process to sign up to volunteer, I was able to sign up for a regular appointment. So I then no longer needed to volunteer to get the shot. I considered backing out from my initial request to volunteer (no date had yet been committed).

I’m glad I pushed through and did it anyway. The experience is still swimming in my head. 

I was stationed immediately after people had just gotten their shots. My job was to hand out a protective sleeve for the vaccination cards, while also directing them to the appropriate checkout desk based on whether it was their first or second dose. If it was your first dose, you came out with a white sheet of paper; second yellow.

I was overwhelmed at one moment seeing a wave of people with yellow sheets come my way. These people were that much closer to greater protections - thus also their families and their communities. It was a tangible feeling of progress. I imagined how these people were feeling. Most were visibly happy by time they came my way. Some were fairly neutral. Some seemed a bit bothered by the overall process. One person sobbed. 

It was difficult to know what to do or say - impossible to know what anyone was feeling or thinking, unless they gave me clear signals. One woman said, “I feel like I can dance on out of here,” with a big, big smile. I fed off this energy and it gave me hope. 

I felt like I was a part of something, captured in a moment in time. Maybe it’s the way I imagine the 1940s US war effort on the home front felt - people, communities, the country all coming together to serve a singular greater purpose. I was inspired by all the people volunteering, especially those who have been doing so for days and weeks. People can be so generous. We, as a people, are capable of so many things. 

Holy shit. I just received my first paycheck from the company I founded, Minerva.

After 13 months of pounding pavement, rejection, high hopes, optimization and hustle, my partners and I closed a round of funding to launch our company, Minerva. This is the kind of thing I’ve thought about before, and explored weakly, but now it’s happening.

It’s thrilling, it’s terrifying, it’s...right.

I spent years in the freelance producing world, across many industries, leading projects and creating something from nothing. Then I spent almost a decade in different facets of the ‘corporate world.’ I’ve formed many opinions about how things should be done within and outside of an org. 

Right now is a chance.

Not quite a first chance, certainly not my only chance. But perhaps the biggest chance to-date. I have the strongest partners I could imagine - both from a technical and strategic standpoint, as well as on the human level. 

Joaquin, Rafael and I are humans first. These humans decided to come together to do a thing. So here we are - building a company, a product, a team, a culture.

This is a new world. It’s time to lean in and give it a go. It’s an amazing feeling to know that people are taking a financial chance on me; my partners; this thing we’re building. It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to pay myself off of that belief. It’s validating. It’s humbling. We now need to deliver on that faith, and satisfy our own vision. Not just for ourselves, but for the community seek to foster and serve.

I recently finished Jerry Colonna’s book Reboot. One of the many concepts that still remains with me is that we don’t have to get on the roller coaster if we don’t like it.

A roller coaster can take a lot out of you, even if you do enjoy them. I sometimes wonder if I’m expending energy in the wrong places. 

Yes, I can help solve that problem, but is the time and emotional toll worth the potential return (or no return at all)? Am I sometimes running under water when I could be running on land? 

Do I have a choice in the matter, or is the environment I’m in naturally a roller coaster? Is my choice between trying to learn to love the roller coaster and getting off the roller coaster altogether?

To fight fear and intimidation, work to get out of your own way and increase your knowledge.

Fear is an internal response. It's driven by a view of the world/situation and anticipated negative outcomes.

Intimidation is fear plus a perceived, active external threat.

I fear what might be lurking just outside that door. I'm intimidated by the wolf staring right at me.

How does one deal with these natural human responses?

I think with knowledge.

We no longer live in hunter-gatherer times. I’d bet a lot of first world fear is real, but grounded in misunderstanding. Is the CEO really that intimidating, or have you been unable to get to know her yet? The experience of meeting her could your knowledge increase knowledge. Either a) she's not that scary, or b) she is that scary but now you've learned more about what works out doesn't work in communicating with her.

I am an optimist.

But do not mistake my optimism for naïveté.

I’ve been called a dreamer plenty of times in my life. I envision things as they could be, or should be. Some people only see the distance been the present and such visions.

How could you possibly make that happen? You’re out of your mind to think you can change that.

I get this regularly. Yet I do see what these people see. I see the challenges. The difference between me and the people giving this feedback is that I can see the battle ahead, I see how to wage it, I’m confident I can navigate the twists and turns, and have the fortitude to see it through.

I’m a realist.

Just because something is hard does not mean it’s not worth going after. In fact, precisely because it is hard gives all the more fire to go after it.

I’ve done this many times in my life and in my career. Often, the detractors will be loud and, unfortunately too-often, aggressive in their will to see me fail so they’re proven right. I appreciate the detractors because they help point out potential fail points for me. So I welcome the detractors. They actually end up working for me, helping me identify potential problems that I need to consider and work through. They make my journey more refined and my resolve that much greater.

I find one of the hardest things about doing anything is simply getting started.

What prevents me from doing something?

Fear of failure

I don’t know how to do it

Fear I won’t figure out how to do it

Fear I’ll be bad at the thing

Many more, I’m sure, but this is a solid list to start. To navigate this, I’ve found I have to trick myself, or bribe myself, into getting started.

Often, this means committing to do something for a very short period of time - 5 minutes, say. Think about this thing for 5 minutes. Explore this. Write down 5 ideas around this topic. Practice for only 5 minutes.

This make the barrier to entry so low, that it would be silly to not try.

What happens almost every time is that the 5 minutes turns into much more. I’ve dipped my toe in and realized the water’s not that deep, or that I’ve discovered there’s a post in the water to hold on to so I don’t go under, or that I actually can float or swim. There’s enough positive reinforcement to keep going. And the 5 minutes turns into much more.

So my internal monologues looks something like:

Just Get. Out. Of. Bed. You don’t have to do the thing, but get out of bed

Try it for 5 minutes a day for a week. If you don’t like it, you can stop

I trick myself into getting started and am almost always pleasantly surprised with the result.

Wow, i have great taste. A thought I’ve randomly had twice in the last few days.

This doesn’t come from a conceitful place, but rather one of discovery, or rediscovery.

First, with the end-of-calendar-year playlists coming out from Spotify, I’ve been returning to playlists I made to track songs I like going back to 2016. So that’s 3 playlists - 2016, 2017, 2018. Each playlist has about 2.5-3 hours of music. I’ve been playing them as I’ve been about the house or driving. There are songs on these playlists that I probably haven’t heard since adding them to the list in the first place! I sometimes find myself saying, Man, this is a great song.

Second, I just spent a few minutes rereading some of my blogs and said to myself, Man, these are interesting topics, and I had some great thoughts around them!

This has led me to wonder, in this moment, Has my thinking stalled?

Or am I merely consistent? Or simply reaffirming existing beliefs and traits? Is music preference more about taste than belief? Do I find my blog topics still relevant and my thinking on them unchanged because I haven’t challenged my own thinking; or perhaps because I have and have validated and strengthened the thinking?

I have a reason to be. It may not be my life’s calling and it may not change the world. But it’s the thing I’m doing right now. I care about it. I see the places where I can make a difference and go for it. I may not get there and I may not be the best suited to go after this thing. But I'm gonna try.

Who has more impact on humanity - the doer or the storyteller?

I had a few conversations recently about impact on the world and on humanity. How do we define it? How do we value it? Can we value it in the present, or does that come only after the impact has proven itself?

One argument says Elon Musk has (or will have) more impact on the world because he is creating the technologies that will drive impact. Another argument says Neil DeGrasse Tyson has more potential impact because he’s helping people understand why certain things are important and how they will impact humanity.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you build a world-changing technology but nobody’s using it, have you really changed the world?

Doing the work is so important, but storytelling cannot be ignored. It can help people understand; it can help them believe. It can help spread information about the work.

Often, the doer and the storyteller are not the same person; or, rather, it’s rare that one person excels at both.

I’ve always wanted a passion, that thing I was just dying to do. I told people I had a passion - it was filmmaking for the first phase of my career. But really, it was just an interest that I enjoyed.

There have been many interests that have come and gone, but one thing I’ve always tried to be good at is going deep whenever something interests me. I read books, listen to podcasts, I visit places, I follow people on twitter in that world. I get an understanding of the thing. Sometimes I participate in the thing, and sometimes I even create something within that world.

I explore. I fight through the fear of the unknown. I take on the risk of failing and looking like an idiot. I take on the risk of looking like an idiot just for having the interest. So what? I’m learning about a thing. I believe that it’s making me smarter, and better, in time.

When I say interests have come and gone, I don’t believe anything has ever fully gone. I may take 4 or 5 steps into a world, and then 1-2 back. But I’ve still educated myself. I’ve still developed relationships around a thing. That matters. I’m rarely ‘big picture’ bored. I’m always chasing something. I can often be ‘small picture’ bored and not sure what to do if I have an hour or two to kill on my own.

For anyone who is ambitious, it’s easy to be hard on yourself and judge yourself against the perceived performance of others. It’s easy to tell yourself that you’re not worthy.

Don’t do that.

There are enough obstacles in the world - don’t get in your own way. Try your best, do what you can, learn the things you don’t know. As long as you do those things, then you win. Because you learned. Because you got better. Because you took a chance. Because you put yourself out there. Because without doing so, you’d never know.

I’m jealous of the people who know what they want. I think I’m really good at figuring out how to get from A to B, and then executing. But without that targeted goal, am I just meandering? Or am I perhaps telling myself I don’t have a goal because I’m scared of not achieving it? It’s possible this is the case and I’m just not allowing myself to see my goal; possible I’m getting in my own way. I’m not sure how to unblock myself, or validate whether or not this is something going on.

I know there are things that light a fire under my ass and in my soul (not that my soul is in my ass...though, who can really know?). I need to engage with more of them.

I went to an event last week hosted by InVision intended to bring designers and product people together. A friend works at the company and put it on my radar. What was intended to be a somewhat topic-focused hang turned into a terrific reminder for me that I need a regular feeding of my creative soul.

The corporate environment has plenty of benefits that I enjoy, but unleashed creative expression can sometimes be hard to come by. I really, really felt it at this event last week. The way people dress, their hairstyles, the tattoos! I get very quickly inspired. Here are people who have found their way in the world, with some measure of following their own rules. Carving their own path. Knocking down the door of their own ideas and putting work out into the world.

I rode the L train back into the city and absolutely loved my subway ride. Filled with young couples, a guy transporting his guitar somewhere, excited conversations. The energy was real and I miss that energy.

In every book, Kurt Vonnegut explored the question of humanity’s purpose. 

Machines are taking on more and more work that humans used to do. Loads has been written about what will happen when large populations are put out of work. Even if we solve for all of humanity’s basic needs, we’ll still need to solve for purpose.

Already today, sports occupies so much of people’s time, energy and attention outside of work (not to mention the millions whose occupation is in the sports industry). Fans and supporters’ groups do this willingly, and for no pay.

In a world where individual occupational purpose becomes harder to come by, I think the sporting world will see even more time, attention and energy from those seeking purpose in their lives. 

Something to root for. 

Something to bring people together.

Something with a long-term view. 

Something that creates anticipation.

Something that delivers emotion (either thrill of success or sadness in defeat).

Earlier today, a friend wanted to create a word to capture the concept of what he was describing as “selfish selflessness.” He described such moments when it appears you’re doing something nice for someone, but really you have self-serving motivations.

I like to refer to this concept as The Mutual Win - a moment when both parties get something they want out of an interaction.

We laughed somewhat cynically at the phrase “selfish selfishness,” but really, if everyone walks away happy, then is it a bad thing? In fact, for every engagement I walk into, I attempt to find The Mutual Win. I think about my motivations and goals, as well as those of the person I’m engaging with. If I can find a meaningful way to get both of us closer to our goals, then I think this is a positive thing. Sometimes, I will be so explicit as to ask the person, “What’s a win for you in this situation?”