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Posts tagged with #Intentional

Managing one's time

My sons,

A characteristic of the modern world that we live in is that we always seem to be short on time. We never seem to quite have enough time for all the things that we want to do, and the time we do have seems to slip through our fingers in a manner that leaves us not remembering what we’ve been up to, and wondering where all our time actually goes.

Whether we’re talking about our professional life (there never seems to be quite enough time to finish all our features, to fix all the bugs, to polish all the user experiences, or to ensure we’ve got the right metrics) or our personal life (how many of us are happy with the amount of time we spend on social engagements, with family, and with loved ones?), we never seem to quite have a handle on our time. The older we get, the busier life gets and the more problematic this becomes.

When time was a luxury

When we were younger, we had what felt like an abundance of time, especially when compared to the lack of other resources (such as money) and minimal commitments and responsibilities that demanded our time. We could therefore trade off time for other things. I distinctly remember in my college years standing at the corner of Albert and Columbia where I lived, and contemplating walking the 45 minutes to Conestoga Mall or spending the 3$ to take the bus. I walked. Yikes.

Not only were there fewer taxes on our time back then, but there were fewer things for us to do with that time. For the majority of us, the only real available options were hanging out with friends, studying, playing sports, playing video games, or eating. Or sleeping I suppose, but that’s one thing college students never feel like they need to do much of. Maybe give or take a few more things. But realistically, there were not that many options for us to balance between, and so we had plenty of time at our disposal.

Subservient to the system

Fast forward a number of years, and we find ourselves with more things to do than we can mentally keep track of. Things ranging from replacing dead lightbulbs to remembering kid birthday parties, from scheduling a follow up dental appointment to remembering to congratulate a friend on their promotion. Everywhere we look there is something we need to be doing, something we need to remember.

And that’s just the things we have to do. What about the things that we want to do?

What about finding time to have a heart to heart with a loved one, or to read that self-help book that’s been so highly recommended for you, or to try that new restaurant, or to simply sit and think? With all the taxes on our time, is it a surprise that most of our wants and desires go unfulfilled and unsatisfied?

60% of Americans feel they are too busy to enjoy their lives most of the time, while 12% feel they are too busy all of the time. That means that one in ten of us feels that we never have the time to enjoy our lives, that we are always too stressed to make forward progress in the things that we desire to do.

If this isn’t subservient to the system, I don’t know what is.

The important over the urgent

It is universally accepted that when push comes to shove and our time constraints squeeze more tightly, the things we trade off are the non-urgent but important things. This is the tyranny of the urgent, and happens in both our life and in our work.

In life, how many of us have traded off our personal reading and development time because we’re too busy? How many of us have told our kids to come back later when mommy or daddy isn’t working on something urgent that came up? How many of us have showed up late to a friends’ gathering and left early to rush home for that work call instead of showing up early to support and build that relationship? What about healthy eating and home cooked meals? What about daily exercise and meditation?

In work, how often do we make the short term fix instead of the right long term architecture? How many times have we swarmed to some urgent and tactical problem rather than spending the time to develop the right long term team and skill sets? How about burning a bridge with a partner team by escalating and effectively forcing them to get what you need done? How often do we focus on the transactional rather than spending the time to build ~non-transactional relationships~?

Managing the time you’ve got

It is true that much of our time is not our own. Time is a networked resource and gains value expressly because there are others that can make demands on it. As we grow in our lives and in our careers, there become more demands of our time that truly are outside of our control. How we manage the demands, and most importantly, how we manage the remaining time we have left is crucially important.

So how do we do this effectively?

1. Ruthlessly prioritize what you need to be in top shape

Perhaps the hardest one to do, it is also the most important. We need to take the time to thoughtfully determine what the daily requirements are for us to be in top shape. Have you ever shown up to a meeting fully prepared but not feeling your best self? You know your stuff, but it just doesn’t come out right. That’s because you’re not at your best self.

Take the time to figure out what that means, and be unapologetic about it.

Personally, I never leave my bedroom in the morning without having showered, groomed, dressed well, and made my bed. I spend at least 30 minutes a day reading, and spend as much if not more time than that thinking. With a few allowed exceptions, I also need to eat healthy. I need to exercise daily (this one’s been a struggle… but I’m working on it). I need to have quality sleep for at least 7 hours a night.

I am uncompromising in these, as without them for prolonged periods I am not able to be my best, and everything else suffers as a result.

2. Dedicate time to thinking

Another characterization of an overloaded life is that things are frantic, frenetic, and unorganized. We jump from urgent thing to urgent thing and run at a break neck pace for as long as we’re able. We spend all our time doing, and as a result end up decreasing our effectiveness by not thinking enough.

Most of us live reactionary lives. We react to the incoming torrent of tasks, demands, and requests made of us. We don’t spend the time to deeply think about what, and more importantly why we are doing what we’re doing.

Thinking deeply requires time. It requires dedicated, uninterrupted time. Our brains are bad at multitasking, and can easily get distracted. In order to be our best selves and to be the most effective and efficient in our endeavors, we need to spend time thinking. Whether we’re thinking about our intentions, our options, the possible alternatives, how to develop our staff, or our strategic advantages, we need the time to thoughtfully pore over our thoughts, data, and inputs.

Bill Gates used to have Think Weeks where he would go off himself to a secluded place with no interruptions and dedicate the week to reading, learning, and thinking about the business. While we may not all have the luxury of clearing out a full week like Bill could, we can certainly block off time throughout our week to think, and to remove the distractions and notifications while we’re doing it.

3. Learn

Above all things, we need to make sure we are learning. As our world evolves around us, we too must grow and evolve with it. Our thinking needs to adapt and mature. Our reactions need to consider new inputs and alternatives. Our plans have to accommodate the shifts in technological advances that are underway.

As such, we need to ensure that we are carving out time to learn. Whether it is a weekly time block, a quarterly retreat, or an annual reading goal, it is imperative that we dedicate time to our own learning and enhancement.

Putting it all together

As a manager, I need to get better about creating time and space for my teams to do these things. I can help by sharing more context, reducing meetings, and empowering more decisions to be made lower in the organization. As an employee, I need to be willing to take responsibility for the immediate outputs that I have balanced against the long term growth that we’ve been discussing. As a person I need to think about the big picture not only of what I’m accomplishing, but more importantly who I am becoming.

And above all, I have to have the patience to see this through, knowing that the tweaks I make in my life won’t produce results overnight, but will set me up for a lifetime of greater success and happiness.

Intentionally unproductive

My sons,

Human beings are wired for play. In our earliest years, life basically consisted of eating, sleeping, and learning through play and exploration. If you walk into homes with young infants or toddlers, you will commonly hear the sound of laughter, of bubbly little voices excited about the brand new discovery that squishing the plastic giraffe causes it to emit a squeaking sound (both of my children grew up with Sophie the giraffe teething toys).

But something strange happens in elementary schools all around the world. We begin to change the daily environment of our children from one dominated with play and exploration to one filled with learning, memorizing, and study. Once they hit middle school, daily scheduled play time (aka recess in America) gets eliminated altogether. Free play time at home after school gets replaced with extracurricular activities and more homework. Even volunteering, which used to be a self-initiated activity stemming from the goodwill of one’s heart has become a required prerequisite by our educational systems.

By the time that child graduates from college, free play, which used to consume the majority of their days, has been transformed into something that we relegate to our 3 weeks of vacation a year if we’re lucky. That child now lives in a culture that serves the god of progress and achievement, a god which happily will take any and all time that we do not fight to hold onto. They are told that excessive play is immature, and are in an environment that regularly reinforces that their only purpose in life is to make progress.

The benefits of progress

Let’s be clear - I’m not advocating for us to play constantly and to ignore our responsibilities in favor of that play. Our world is increasingly complex and requires increasingly dedicated, educated, and creative people to continue to make it better for us all. And let’s make no mistake about it - our world is infinitely better than the one previous generations lived in, across any and every measurable metric.

Average lifespans worldwide are longer. Many deadly diseases have been either eradicated or made treatable and non-fatal. More people are being educated. There is greater (although not perfect) gender equality. There is less violence and crime. The number of people in the world who have electricity has increased from 70% in 1990 to 90% in 2022.

I know there will be some that argue that the world is a more dangerous and terrible place than our past - to those I will highly recommend two books: Steven Pinker’s ~The better angels of our nature~ and the late Dr Hans Rosling’s ~Factfulness~.

On a more local scale, we have persistent access to the internet. We have a plethora of options of electric cars and carbon-zero household products. We have the ability to say goodnight to our home assistant and have her turn off all the lights, close all the garage doors, lock all the doors, lower all the shades, and turn off the bed warmer that was keeping our bed at a balmy 80 degrees for us to climb in. (Okay, maybe that last one was just princess Sam in action).

No matter how you dice it, that progress has many benefits.

The evolving conditions for progress

Unfortunately, our conveyor belt approach to equipping our children to carry on that mantle of success is in need of an update. While it is true that decades ago our assembly line approach to education produced workers skilled enough to work the machines of the day that propelled our world forward, our world has evolved, and the needs and conditions for that progress have changed.

As our world continues to move from physical and manual work to knowledge work enhanced by greater automation, the need for creativity, imagination, and ingenuity have become the new baselines for advancing our world forward. And as it turns out, creativity cannot be taught, it must be fostered and nurtured.

Intentionally unproductive

As a child, I found myself constantly bored. Whether it was sitting in a boring Canadian history class (I must have read about Vimy Ridge, the one important thing Canada did in WWI a thousand times) or sitting at home after school with no access to video games and on-demand TV/movies, I was constantly bored. I strongly believe that that boredom played a huge part in helping me achieve much of what I have accomplished in my life.

That boredom was the fertile ground that enabled my brother and I to invent games to play. It gave me the time and space to dream up worlds and explore them in my mind’s eye. It gave me impetus to read, to imagine, and to dream. It allowed my mind to wander into all sorts of places and situations.

Granted, there were down sides as well. I got myself into a lot of trouble because of that boredom (my mom and my principal were on a first name basis…), and I found myself more often then not finding creative ways to be mischievous. While running around with a can of WD-40 and a lighter lighting spiderwebs on fire and flushing out ant hills wasn’t particularly useful (or safe, really), that time of non-productivity was a launch pad for all sorts of creativity.

It turns out that our subconscious minds are much more capable than our conscious ones. It also turns out that our conscious minds are much louder than our subconscious ones, so if we’re constantly engaged, our subconscious minds have little time to be active and to make connections on our behalf.

DaVinci knew this. Excerpts from his recovered notebooks showed that not only did the grand master paint and create timeless works of art, but he allowed his mind to wander to all sorts of unrelated and fanciful topics. In 1485 for example, he imagined the first parachute three centuries before an actual parachute was made and deployed successfully, and he detailed out specifications for it in one of his notebooks. It was constructed in 2000 and demonstrated to work successfully at 10,000 feet! He also imagined a submarine, a helicopter, and solar power among many other things.

How did he do all this?

He had intentional unproductive time. He knew that his mind needed rest, space, and margin to do its best work, and he actively created time to daydream. He would often go for walks with nothing on his mind and nothing in his hand but a pencil and a notebook and presently realize that he had filled many pages with seemingly unrelated thoughts. In 1994, Bill Gates bought one of DaVinci’s notebooks for $30M. Other notebooks have gone for $5M or more.

Creating margin

I will never be a DaVinci or a Gates. Neither will you. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the greats of our world and integrate some of their practices into our lives. It turns out there are many studies that show a plethora of benefits of having margin and allowing ourselves to daydream. A few benefits:

1. We become more creative. When we daydream, our subconscious minds make connections between seemingly unrelated topics, letting us maximize the learning and benefits we get from our experiences.
2. We can build better relationships. Something my college advisor told me that has stayed will me to this day is the truth that if you want to make connections with people, you have to make space. People don’t have crisis moments when it is convenient for you to show up for them. They don’t have breakdowns, epiphanies, or life changing events happen to them on your schedule. If you don’t have space for them, they will find someone else that does.
3. We become more interesting. By giving ourselves margin to daydream, to pursue hobbies and interests, and to explore and experience without agenda or purpose, we become more interesting! No one is interested in a cookie cutter person that just eats, sleeps, and works. People are intrigued by those who go off the beaten path and explore!

My sons, I know that there is great pressure for you to be always productive. I know you’ve been told that the stakes are high. I know that without a doubt those things were told to you with the best intentions. But they don’t tell the whole story. Be productive, yes. But also make sure you spend time to be intentionally unproductive - I guarantee you won’t regret it!

What makes a good culture?

My sons,

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about culture - team culture, family culture, friend group culture - and how much it impacts our lives. In his book Wanting, Luke Burgis explains how much of what we think we want is not actually intrinsic to us but is rather a product of us mimicking those around us, mimicking the culture we have. If that’s the case, culture is an incredibly important thing for us to think through.

What is culture?

Culture is not what we desire to do. It is not a set of principles or values that we print out and put on the walls to inspire our teams. It is not “the way we’ve always done things”, nor is it what our founders had in mind.

Culture simply put, is the way we do things today.

That means culture changes with each new day, with each new person that joins the team, with each new adjustment to the daily norms that we introduce. It means that culture shifts and grows as we do.

Culture is the way you spend an extra 10 seconds to say “hi” to everyone on your way in. It is the way we gather everyone on the team to go to lunch everyday. It is our willingness to speak up in meetings, our courage to express our opinions, and our trust knowing that those opinions won’t be slammed down by our peers. It is how we utilize documents or presentations, what our expectations are of instant messaging and email, and how much information we share with or withhold from our partner teams.

And it is what every new person gravitates toward when they join us.

An intentional culture

The thing with culture is that it can happen “naturally” (aka accidentally) or it can happen intentionally. Intentionality is better.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing many different types of leaders at work, each with a wide variety of skills and competencies. I’ve seen leaders that are hyper intentional about the culture of their teams, and I’ve seen leaders who simply accept whatever culture their team has as long as the leader is able to work in the manner that they prefer.

The leaders who had a firm understanding of the type of culture they wanted to cultivate on the team were not only more well-liked (turns out people like it when their leaders care about their experience), but their teams had more longevity. Regretted attrition rates were lower, team loyalty and ownership was stronger, and willingness to collaborate was noticeably higher.

Some of this is obvious - a leader that cares about culture naturally values people who care about culture as well, thereby building a virtuous cycle of people who are intentional about the environment, habits, and practices of the team.

Less obvious for instance, is the reality that leaders that cared about culture typically cared to see the impact of the culture they’ve created. They engaged themselves in inclusive behaviors, in learning from the team what’s working and what isn’t, in getting feedback, and in having dialogue and discussions with the team. These leaders cared about culture, and spent time actively crafting, refining, and sharing. They led by example, both in their communications and in their behaviors.

What makes a good culture?

There are a number of dysfunctional behaviors and norms that have permeated themselves into our world, with some much less obvious than others. Unfortunately for our world, there are still some very overtly dysfunctional cultural habits in the workplace today. Things such as blatant disrespectful and discriminatory behaviors towards women or clear minority groups unfortunately still happens today. Less obvious are things like CYA (cover your ass) cultures, cultures where bosses take credit for their team’s work, or hierarchical cultures where subordinates don’t speak up unless spoken to.

Healthy cultures on the other hand tend to balance productivity with fulfillment. Healthy cultures are ones where people can come as their authentic selves and do their best work together. They are cultures which enable and empower while keeping strong expectations and a high bar. They are cultures that elevate people and stretch people, allowing them to grow and develop, not just as workers but as people.

My SVP says it incredibly well. He says he builds teams of passionate and relentless people. I love that.

We want to create a culture where passionate and relentless people thrive. People who are incredibly passionate about what they do, about the mission that they’re on, about the impact that they have on the world, and about their craft and their role in achieving that impact, but at the same time are relentless in their pursuit of excellence, in their dedication to their craft and their learning, and in their desire to build the best thing for their customers, whoever those customers may be.

There are a few things that are essential to create a culture that fosters these behaviors.

1. Open communication. The most critical ingredient required for great teams is open communication. Any culture where a diverse set of passionate and relentless people can thrive deeply requires open communication. This is because people are different. When you’ve got a lot of strong people together with poor communication, inevitably one person ends up steamrolling the rest without listening to others and you end up with an adversarial and mistrusting culture.
2. Strong opinions, weakly held. Another key part of great team cultures is the ability to have weakly held opinions, to be convincible. The world is big. The amount of information, knowledge, and wisdom out there is astronomical. To think that one individual has it all, is always right, and knows best is not only improbable and naive, but just down right stupid. We therefore need to build a culture that recognizes that great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere. Have opinions, yes, but be willing to be convinced of other viewpoints as well.
3. Regularly revisiting cultural norms. Great teams need to regularly revisit their cultural norms and reevaluate whether adjustments need to be made. Our world changes - new technologies develop, the business landscape changes, societal trends shift - and if our teams wants to stay relevant, we need to change along with it. In order to ensure we do that well we’ve got to regularly revisit our norms to decide if the patterns and practices that have served us well in the past will continue to allow us to excel in the future.

Whether we like it or not, whether we’re conscious of it or not, and whether we have input into it or not, culture affects each and every one of us. It is the set of norms that we automatically take on whenever we enter the sphere of any group that we’re a part of, whether that’s work, friends, church, or even family. The more awareness and thoughtfulness we have the more we’ll be able to help craft and shape our cultures to be healthy and empowering places for all of us.

Dream big

My sons,

One of my favorite games to play with you when you were young was the sleeping game. It was a silly little game that was designed to get you two to stay still and quiet for as long as possible. The game was simple - everyone lays down and sleeps, and the first to move around or to make noise loses. Not a very creative game, I know, but hey, I was a young dad who needed some peace and quiet, and you two were these tiny, loud, and rambunctious little things.

That didn’t change the fact though that I love sleeping. All my life, I’ve always loved sleeping. I slept a ton as a teen, and even as a young adult I’d spend Saturdays sleeping in as long as I can. The primary reason I loved to sleep? I loved dreaming. I loved the feeling of waking up from a wonderful dream and laying there, languishing in the feeling, trying to hang on to the last traces of it as consciousness permeated through.

One of the reasons I love dreaming is that dreams suspended reality. They allow my mind to build worlds, to create scenarios, to fully live out relationships and fanciful experiences that my real life didn’t enable. They open my mind, expand my horizons, and give me space to freely explore things that otherwise seem impossible. They provide an escape when I need, but most importantly they embolden me to think about the world as it ought to be, or even as it could be, instead of as it is. And then to do something about it.

Shaping our dreams

As I’ve looked back on my dreams over the years, I’ve recognized that they have been largely shaped by the inputs that I had in my life at any given time. The obvious (and probably mortifyingly funny) ones were the ones about girls. Yikes. My teenage years were filled with romantic flights of fancy with my crush of the day (and yes, there were many!). Combined with a healthy intake of rom coms (“She’s all that” starring Rachael Leigh Cook was my teenage favorite) and sappy love songs (“Kiss me” by Sixpence none the richer), I imagined many a sunset walk on the beach or a picturesque convertible joyride through the hills.

As I thankfully moved past those years, my college life of computer science, helping out younger class mates, and learning to ride motorcycles moved my dreams in those directions, and I found myself dreaming of working at Microsoft, of being an adjunct professor, and of exploring the continent on a motorcycle. Graduation brought dreams of success, of starting a family, of having two wonderful children, and of finding my place on the long road of adulthood.

But then a strange thing happened. I began to read more. I began to deviate my life from the daily grind, and began to fill my mind with books and with the ideas that those books brought about. While my childhood and adolescent reading was primarily filled with fiction which helped me dream of new worlds and encounters, and my regular, socially accepted inputs like watching Friends for a decade filled my dreams with common and relatable topics, in my thirties I started to really read. I read to learn, I read to grow, I read to become a better person.

Books like Mindset by Carol Dweck, The top five regrets of the dying by Bonnie Ware, When breath becomes air by Paul Kalanithi, Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella, and Infectious Generosity by Chris Anderson again shifted my dreams, this time in a much more elevated fashion. My dreams now turned to making an impact on our world, on figuring out how the world ought to be, and on finding my place and impact in it so that I could leave the world better than when I entered.

And slowly but surely I became convinced that we can shape our dreams. By controlling our inputs, by being intentional about the things that we exposed ourselves to, and by being staunch guardians of the inputs we allowed to influence us, we can guide and direct our dreams to topics and explorations of ideas that we want. Instead of allowing the activities of our subconscious minds to be governed by things like media (traditional or social), advertisements, and the general pessimistic and sensationalistic existence that is our societal norms, we can endeavor to shape and guide our unconscious thoughts and musings intentionally and according to the things that we value.

How do we do this?

We need to first recognize the impact that our daily experience has on our dreams. The environments we’re in, the worries that we have, and the set of activities we apply our efforts to in our conscious and waking moments all impact what our minds expand on in our subconsciousness.

One of the most beautiful characteristics about the human race is our ability to dream, to be inspired, and to find our own meaning and purpose for life. We do not merely exist and carry out our physical functions; no, we take those functions and try to assign meaning, to derive value, and to create joy in our experiences. The bigger we dream, the more our lives expand and the more rich our experiences become.

Dream big

So how do we then dream big? How do we get inspired, both consciously and subconsciously to take on bigger and better things? How do we go from a life that is rooted in the mundane experiences that our society places upon us - going to work, swiping up on your social media accounts, taking kids from place to place, and generally just running the rat race - to one that is uplifted, elevated, and expansive?

1. Notice your posture. Have you ever noticed that we spend an inordinate amount of time looking downwards? Whether it’s physically looking down at our phone screens and the like or metaphorically looking down on other people and on situations that we judge, we spend a lot of our posture looking downwards. Look up. Look up at the heavens, at the grandness of the world above and beyond us. Look up towards the inspiring stories of those who strive to elevate life, to make our world better.
2. Stop and smell the roses. We’re so busy with our lives that we never take time to rest, to have margin, to have space. When we force ourselves to smell the roses, when we turn our rat race running brains off, when we allow our conscious mind to lose focus and allow our subconscious to drift, we begin to rest. We begin to wonder. We begin to wander. We begin to dream.
3. Read. I firmly believe that reading is the most important thing a person can do. If there is only one thing that you learn from me in our time together, if there’s only one thing I can impart on your lives as you grow, my hope is that you learn to love reading. Read books on life, on philosophy, on science, on generosity. Read biographies, fiction, exposition. Read for fun to enjoy a lazy afternoon. Read for study. Read to learn. Read to dream.
4. Surround yourself with dreamers. We become like those around us. We adopt and elaborate upon the shared experiences with those closest to us. We can be lifted up, we can be anchored down. We can be inspired, we can be terrified. By surrounding yourself with dreamers and by creating times to discuss, to share, and to work out those dreams, we orient ourselves accordingly.

And so my boys, my hope for you, my dream for you, and my prayers for you are that you are dreamers, that you become men who both see the world as it is and as it could be, and that you be men of big dreams and even bigger actions to help us get there. I love you guys!

Keystone moments

My sons,

It has been said that life is a series of moments. These moments can vary across many dimensions. They may vary in duration, in intensity, in importance, and in their impact on the overall trajectory of our lives. But it is these moments, strung together with some invisible string, that guide us, that give us meaning and purpose, and that ultimately define who we are and who we will become.

When we take the time to look back and be introspective about the strings of moments in our lives, we often discover that there were some moments that seemed more important than others, more prominent in our memory. They may not have seemed important at the time, or may even in retrospect be small or unremarkable, yet they nonetheless are critical moments that we remember as having some strong impact on us.

In the 2015 Pixar movie Inside Out, the writers propose the concept of core memories. These memories hold higher importance, and are memories that strongly shape our personalities and our character traits as we grow. But they don’t explore why these memories are important, why they become core memories for us.

I believe the reason is that these memories are memories of keystone moments in our lives, moments that hold strong value and have an overall greater importance than the rest. But what are these keystone moments and why do they have such a strong impact? I’ll define the following:

Keystone moments are moments that bring clarity to all the little moments along the way, causing us to introspect and compelling us to decision and action.

If it is true that our lives are indeed a string of events, a series of moments, then keystone moments are the ones that bring clarity, understanding, and unifying themes to some series of seemingly insignificant and disconnected moments along the way. They are moments that light up individual moments and allow us to see patterns and derive meaning from the otherwise endless and continuous stream of moments along our path. And they are moments that bring sharp attention and focus, compelling us to consciously examine ourselves and actively decide what path to choose next.

Very often, a keystone moment may not be immediately obvious. We may fail to notice their significance at the time of the event itself, only recognizing their significance later on. Often it is when our minds are quiet, when our hearts are at peace, and when we’ve got the head space to reflect that we then notice a significant moment has occurred.

At first glance, these moments may not seem significant - a note from a friend, a feeling of peace after a storm, opening your first piece of mail at your own home - but in context, they become incredibly important. They allow us to elevate our thinking, to see our lives in perspective, and to step back and look at the big picture. Perhaps the note came at the end of a long series of struggles and conflicts, the peace was hard fought through a long stormy period, the mail symbolized your first touch of freedom. Regardless of the context, these moments are the culmination of a set of experiences that have deeply impacted us.

Keystone moments cause us to introspect and evaluate

A trademark of a keystone moment in the making is that when it happens, we are compelled to introspect and evaluate. Maybe you’re like me and like the dramatic and romantic thought of looking out the window at the evening city lights with a glass of scotch in your hand as you reflect, or maybe you prefer sitting in your PJs wearing your favorite robe with a warm cup of coffee on a quiet Saturday morning to think. Regardless of your choice of dramatic underscoring, keystone moments nudge us towards rumination.

These moments strike a chord with us. They are moments that reach through the veneer of everyday life and touch some deeper vein of consciousness within us, begging us to turn off the autopilot of our lives and to strongly consider the implications of what we’ve just experienced. They resonate with our core values, perhaps contradicting, perhaps amplifying, but always causing us to pause and evaluate.

keystone moments allow us to strongly pivot and change course

Some years ago, I was at yet another work conference in Vegas, staying at my favorite Vegas hotel, the Wynn. One night after some conference events, I found myself at a bar next to the casino floor with two friends, drinking and chatting way into the night. This itself is a fairly common event for me - working in Big Tech, I must have been to two or three dozen conferences in Vegas by then. This night was like many others - a couple of friends, a thinning crowd at the bar as the hours wore on, and of course, several rounds of drinks which led to deeper and more meaningful conversation. Again, nothing new.

Eventually, 5am rolled around and we all decided that we should head back to the rooms in order to make it to our 8am meeting the next morning (unsurprisingly, two of us didn’t make it), so we left the casino to escort our one friend to the hotel next door where she was staying. Walking out the front door we immediately felt tired, and attributed it to the myth that Vegas hotels pump oxygen into the casinos to keep people awake (they don’t). We all had a good laugh at that, and that was that.

Some years later as I prepared for my transition out of that company, it dawned on me - that night in Vegas was more than just our typical after-conference evening. Something about that evening that to this day I’m not perfectly clear about impacted me. For some reason, that night solidified my understanding that the thing which mattered most to me was not the work. It wasn’t the brain stretching problems, the perplexing people management puzzles, the exciting new product ideas, or even the inspiring visions for how the world ought to be, how it could be. No, the thing that mattered most to me was the people. It was the relationships. It was the friendships.

From that day onward, I changed the way I thought about my career, about the roles I was willing to take, about the team environments that I sought out. That keystone moment brought about a clarity that allowed me to pivot, to change the way I behaved and the paths that I pursued.

One of the realities of an increasingly connected world is that the strength of the current of the path expected of us gets ever stronger. With an almost nonstop scrutinization of our lives in the form of friends, social media, professional networks, and public personas, the force required for us to adjust course is almost insurmountable for most.

It often requires some large event, some crisis moment that shakes us loose and forces us to move and to pivot. Those moments are one class of keystone moments that cause us to action and give us the leverage we need to pivot.

In 2019, we had a global event that caused crisis moments for virtually every person on the planet. This global pandemic had many, many negative impacts, but for some, for the thoughtful, the intentional, and the mentally strong, it also created a flurry of keystone moments that allowed for a strong pivoting of their lives.

In the comically light hearted movie Deadpool, Colossus is trying to convince Deadpool that being a hero doesn’t mean living a life with a perfect track record. He shares:

“Four or five moments. That’s all it takes to be a hero.” - Colossus

Four or five moments. Four or five keystone moments where we pivot hard and make the hard choice to be better. That’s all it takes. I love that.

Playing to win, not to not lose

My sons,

A good friend recently recommended I read The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd, a book that describes the author’s journey in finding meaning and fulfilling purpose in his life. In the book, Millerd lays out a concept that he calls the Default Path, a blueprint for life that outlines purpose, value, and success. It is a one size fits all path that we are all expected to adhere to. He asserts that for most people, the notion that a second path exists is almost entirely unbelievable.

The Default Path, Millerd argues, is the one that our upbringing, background, social, and economic systems work together to daily reinforce. It is the model for our lives that has been imprinted and reinforced in every interaction and every experience. It is so deeply engrained, so fundamentally expected that we never stop to ask if life must in fact be led this way. And when we eventually (and, arguably, inevitably) question the path at an inflection that many have taken to calling the midlife crisis, there is such an overwhelming amount of peer pressure and societal structure to overcome that we often end up concluding that rather than being an issue with the path there is instead something wrong with us.

For North Americans, that default path often resembles what’s globally known as “The American Dream” - the belief that anyone can achieve financial and social success through hard work and dedication to that work. Images of single family homes with white picket fences, a pair of cars, a pair of kids running around with a happy spouse, and financial independence - all attained through hard (and recently updated to include meaningful) work.

Everything in our upbringing reinforces that message so strongly that most of us never stop to consider if there is another path. Legendary economist John Maynard Keynes (aka “Our Hero, Lord Keynes” to anyone who has ever had the great privilege to have taken Larry Smith’s Econ classes at Waterloo) famously said that “worldly wisdom teaches us that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally”.

And so we play to not lose.

We play the game of life in a way that doesn’t seek to win, doesn’t seek to conquer new horizons and be filled with awe-inspiring experiences and journeys. No, we play in a manner filled with fear of losing, fear of failing. We fear missing out on what everyone else is doing, fear being left behind by the masses moving in the direction of the inevitable path.

We feel so strongly that not only is this the right path, but it is the only path. And so, on we go, putting all our energies and resources into working harder, making more money, having more social influence, and raising children who do the same.

We play this fear-driven and defensive game with the hope of not losing for so long that we inevitably wake up one day sometime in our 30s and 40s and wonder what it was all for. We have spent the entirety of our youth and the majority of our most productive years on a path that we didn’t even set for ourselves! No wonder we come to a moment of crisis. Coined in 1965 (coincidentally a short decade or two after the beginning and wide-adoption of the 9 to 5), the midlife crisis is a recognition that we have been passive players in the direction of our lives, and this terrifies us.

A rude awakening

We wake up one day realizing that we don’t have any earthly clue what our life’s purpose should be, and that our goals to this point were not in fact our own. Worse, we are thoroughly unequipped to set meaningful goals for ourselves and define what a rich and fruitful life looks like, so we revolt. We buy sports cars. We get plastic surgery and update our wardrobes. We do any number of nonsensical things in an attempt to silence that inner voice telling us that we’re playing this game wrong. What many of us never realize until much too late in life is that there is another way to play this game, another path that we can be on.

We can play to win.

We can learn to play the game differently. We can endeavor to gain much more clarity on the rules of the game, the terms of engagement, and, most importantly, the conditions for victory.

Most people spend the majority of their lives sitting in the passenger seat, having fully assumed the role of spectator in the unfolding narrative of their life and having fully accepted that the majority of decisions are made for them. We were never told that there is another way to play, another path to victory, and another role that we can assume.

Think back to the first big decision you made in your life; the one where you felt the true gravitas of the situation. For a fair amount of us, this was the act of deciding which college to apply for, and hopefully to attend upon acceptance. Think of how that decision was made, of the inputs, the factors taken into consideration. How small a role did one’s passions play in that significant decision? How much more did we consider things like future earning potential, prestige of the school, respectability of the profession, desires of our parents, or just plain ol’ common wisdom?

Discover yourself

From that early age we were taught to make decisions by someone else’s standards. Playing to win means that we need to throw out those standards and to come up with our own. We need to first discover ourselves, to do the hard work of uncovering the things that bring us joy, that excite us and ignite the passion within us.

We need to let go of the need for external validation, the compulsion to measure against what our peers are doing. We need to remove the mental pollutants in our lives - the likes, the retweets, the perpetual feed of an abundantly glamorized default path - and instead look within for validation, for meaning. We need to learn to trust our internal compass.

Own it

And then we need to own it. Once we’ve discovered what makes us tick, what things bring us joy, what types of people we desire to become, we need to unapologetically own it.

One of my great mentors told me once long ago that as a society we have become so focused on the next big thing - the next promotion, the next million users of our product, the next milestone in our children’s lives - that we forget to think about the people that we are becoming. We get so wrapped up in impressing someone else that we forget about what it does to our character, our morals, and our decision making framework. If left unchecked, we become like the environment we place ourselves in.

So we need to own it. We need to own how we show up at work, what we’re willing to do based on our boss’ orders or company expectations, and how we determine what a successful time in our place of employment looks like. We need to own what we work out with our children to actually be the best for them, and not what all their peers happen to be enrolled in. We need to own what traits in a partner make us happy, whole, healthy, and growing human beings, regardless of their social standing or their pedigree.

Playing to win means playing by your own standards, and not conforming to the expectations of the world. It means being okay with walking off the beaten path. It means spending the time and effort to discover your unique personal path that will bring you much lasting joy. And that is an incredible thing.

Including the excluded

My sons,

Everything about our natural world tells us to stay in the safety of those that are like us. In the wild, while certain species may be willing to coexist in the same environment as one another, by and large everything in our natural world sticks close with those of its kind. We never see birds of different species flying in graceful formation together, or packs of deer mixed with buffalo running together. In fact, it is far more common to have a pecking order, to have predator and prey.

Growing up as a Chinese immigrant in Canada, that natural order was made immediately clear in every possible social realm. If you were athletic, you hung out with the other athletic kids. If you were a music nerd, you hung out with other music nerds. If you were an Asian kid in a predominantly white class, you naturally gravitated towards the other two Asian kids.

This is natural, but suboptimal.

It is true that birds of a feather flock together, and there is much benefit in that. Shared context, a common background and upbringing, even similar value systems all lower the barrier to connection and understanding. Not having to explain cultural norms and traditions certainly makes it easier to bring people together.

Easier isn’t always better though.

In fact, I’ve found that in many, if not most cases, easier is generally not better. Quite the contrary. When we have to work for it, when it takes effort, when it requires diligence and perseverance, it (whatever it happens to be) is generally much better. It therefore behooves us to understand this dynamic as it applies to the most important element of human society: relationships.

Natural outsiders

In every society there are outsiders. Because of the bountiful diversity that exists across the human race, there are infinitely many criteria which we can use to create groups, and thereby create a dynamic of those inside the group, and those outside. Add to that our strong beliefs, biases, and experiences, and any group can become not just an outsider, but an adversarial outsider. Jews. Christians. Women. Immigrants. Poor. Sick.

I believe that people naturally fall into three categories:

1. People who create outsiders
2. People who are excluded
3. People who stand by and watch

Evolutionary forces create a strong desire for us to be included, accepted, and welcomed into the clan, and social history has shown that there are few easier ways to be included than to create a group to exclude. Just look at any average schoolyard. Not only are all three categories always clearly present, but children will move from one category to another seamlessly depending on the day, the activities being done, and the children in attendance.

I certainly experienced all of those categories over the years. One of my early memories included some of my friends deciding to “betray” a particular person in our group for some (real or imagined) slight. This involved a bunch of us sneaking back into the classroom at recess and moving the person’s desk into some remote corner of the class, separate from our cluster. While I don’t remember being the one to initiate the “betrayal” (fully admitting that this may be my unconscious mind trying to forget), I certainly stood by and watched as we actively and intentionally excluded others.

No longer an adolescent, I’ve begun to see that there is a fourth potential category. This category is unnatural, and requires intention, dedication, and persistence to create. This is the category of people who bring outsiders inside.

Including the excluded

When people are pushed to the margins, when they are excluded, that is when trouble happens. Practically every large scale conflict in history has been rooted in some sort of exclusion of some group. History is replete with warnings and examples of what happens when we exclude, of the many crises that unfold as a result. Our current day geo-political situation is chalk full of this type of conflict.

The first step in many crises is to include the excluded.

This is counterintuitive for humanity because we are evolutionarily predisposed to avoid things not like us. Our fight or flight instincts have been honed over hundreds of millennia such that our bodies instinctively detect same-ness and not-same-ness, and instinctively prefer same-ness. This makes it very natural for us to exclude those that are in the not-same camp.

If we struggle well against that nature, however, and intentionally learn to include the excluded, a great many things happen.

1. We lift people up. When we include those on the fringes, we lift them out of a feeling of isolation, adversity, and survival and into one of belonging, collaboration, and flourishing.
2. We make our world better. It is well studied and documented that diversity brings about a better world, that listening to one another, learning with and from one another, and partnering with one another brings about longer and lasting change. When we include the excluded and learn from each other, we are able to release our focus on the not-same-ness and focus on the things that we have in common, and in doing so make our world better.
3. We elevate our thoughts and adopt a posture of learning. This posture allows us to take in, to broaden our perspectives, and to see the world clearly. It is from this posture that we may experience the abundance the Psalmist felt as he penned those beautiful words, “my cup runneth over”. When we include the excluded, we reorient ourselves and our world to the way that things ought to be.

So how do we do this? How do we integrate the practice of including the excluded in our lives? My studies and experiences have caused me to make a few changes that I thought I’d share.

1. Be critical of your inputs. There are many divisive sources out there, from books to blogs to articles and reviews, with some more blatant than others. Be incredibly critical of your inputs, as they have the power to slowly but surely change your mindset.
2. Regularly learn about/from someone not like you. If you look around and discover that most of your social circle is very much like you, be intentional about changing that. We all need to have people in our close circles that are not like us, that think differently than us, and that see the world from a very different perspective. Make sure you have regular mechanisms that allow you to interact closely with people not like you.
3. Practice empathy. Empathy is a skill and muscle like every other, and therefore needs to be practiced, honed, trained, and intentionally exercised. Just as you make time to work out, to learn new skills, and to advance your career, make time to practice empathy, to develop it, to learn from others who are masters of it, and to find situations to apply it.
4. Be balanced. Provide opposing viewpoints. When you make a decision about someone, play out the opposing viewpoint to see how the other side might see things. For example, when you’re interviewing someone and want to hire them, spend more time providing the best reason you shouldn’t hire them than you do on your reason to hire (or vice versa if you’re rejecting a candidate).

My prayer for you boys is that you are characterized as people who include others, who invite others, and who build community instead of tearing it down. I know this is hard - this is something I struggle with often as well. But I believe firmly that not only will we make our world better by including those that are excluded, but we will make ourselves better, and in doing so will enjoy a much richer and fuller life.

Know the moment

My sons,

In life, there will be many tools, tricks, skills, and experiences you can gain that will help you in a myriad of situations. I believe that one of the greatest such tools is the ability to analyze a situation and to know the right moment. Whether it is knowing the moment to retreat from battle, to press your advantage, to use your ace in the hole, or when to kiss the girl, your ability to instinctively know the right moment to act or to speak is disproportionately beneficial.

In relationships, knowing whether the moment is right to air a grievance or to wait and instead be supportive can be an incredible boon to the partnership. Imagine your partner coming home from a crummy day just to have you bring up something you’ve been stewing on for months. Crummy. Now imagine them coming home from that same crummy day to have you be sensitive to the fact that now is perhaps not the right moment to air your thoughts and instead choose to be supportive and gentle with them. How much stronger would your partnership be!

We must realize that everyone - ourselves included - has bad days where their threshold of irritability or tolerance Is low. In realizing and identifying that, we must then act with compassion and choose actions to accommodate. We must develop the skill and the sensitivity to know the moment and know how to choose to do the next right thing.

So how do we grow this skill? A few thoughts.

BE AWARE

It is important to be constantly aware of how important timing is. We are trained to be concerned with content, with delivery, with action, and with substance. While those are absolutely important things, we must realize and give credence to the reality that timing is critical. Even if all else is perfect, if the timing is off, if the moment isn’t right, failure (or at least a sub-optimal outcome) is guaranteed.

BE RESOLVED NEVER TO SPEAK OR ACT IN ANGER OR FRUSTRATION

These emotions (and others: jealousy, wounded pride, resentment, fear etc.) make us irrational, and often cause us to say or do things inconsistent with our values, and often cause irreparable damage. Aristotle wrote,

“Anybody can become angry - that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way- that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy”.

How true that is. Let us not act in such a state!

PRACTICE EMPATHY

Knowing the right moment begins with understanding the people around you. Understand their perspective, their thoughts, their circumstances, and their fears. By building the muscle that allows a greater understanding of our compatriots, we put ourselves in the position to better anticipate the situation and therefore more likely to know the right moment to act.

BE THOUGHTFUL OF THE FUTURE

Not just your future, but that of others. Is your friend about to enter into a difficult situation? Is your brother about to start a new job? Is your boss’ wife about to give birth to their first child? Knowing these things and being thoughtful about them will help you be more prepared to anticipate outcomes. Remember that the future is impacted by a variety of factors - a person’s desires, the community that they keep, their family, the circumstances of their job, even plain dumb luck. All of these, and many other factors, can and will influence the future.

BUILD PATIENCE

Lastly, build your staying power, your perseverance, your ability to wait not only for the right moment to come around (and it will come around) but also for the universe to come round and adjust to the changes you’ve already initiated.

My boys, I cannot stress how important timing is, nor can I emphasize how much it is a learnable skill. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve got a ton of stories of ill-timed, ill-fated endeavors and situations. My goal is to share my thoughts here with you in hopes that you can learn from my learnings, and take the effort to learn this invaluable skill yourselves. I love you boys!

Discipline vs Habits

My sons,

There are all sorts of philosophies, books, and articles written that dance around the topic of discipline. Life hacks, tips and tricks, short cuts, scheduled regimens - everyone is trying to figure out quick and surefire ways to lead a more productive and successful life. I definitely don’t profess to be an expert on these topics by any means, but I do want to share with you my thoughts and experiences on what has worked for me, and what I’ve found success in.

First of all though, we need to define the difference between discipline and habits, because while they are entirely related, they’re not the same. In fact, I believe they’re two sides of the same coin.

DISCIPLINE

Discipline is the ability to take action in accordance with a particular system of thought or belief. It is the ability to fight against one’s natural state of inertia and take action. It often is used interchangeably with will power, and tends to be associated with doing things that go against our natural selves.

For example, we associate discipline with the ability to refrain from eating that second slice of pie, or the act of choosing to go home instead of continuing on with your mates late into the wee hours of morning.

HABITS

Habits on the other hand, are the actions that we take without much thought or intention. They are our body’s default actions, our programmed auto-responses to stimuli and situations. They are often overlooked and not thought about precisely because they are automatic, and our conscious mind therefore does not detect them.

I’ve read several great books on the topic - the two foremost authorities being “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, and “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. They both define habits as being a multi-part function. The cue prompts us to crave the thing in question, which causes us to respond to the craving and gain the reward for our action.

For example, after dinner (cue) we desire to end on a sweet note (crave) and therefore procure a dessert (response) which makes us feel satisfied (reward).

Leading a more productive life then, requires both discipline and good habits. It is not enough to rely on sheer force of will to make lasting changes in one’s life. Nor is it possible to build great habits without some semblance of discipline. We need both working in tandem to permanently affect our behaviors.

Both Duhigg and Clear propose means for tweaking that multi-part function to change our default behaviors. By changing the cue (ie avoiding the casino), changing our craving (ie learning to make a delicious yet healthy snack), changing our response (ie deliberately leaving your cash at home), or changing the reward (ie buying yourself a treat after working out), we can make lasting changes.

In order to tweak any of those parts of the function though, we require discipline.

Change tends to go something like this:

1. You determine you wish to make a change in your life, one that is not currently a natural occurrence
2. Your discipline allows you to overcome the natural inertia of it initially, and your zeal for the change propels you forward
3. You tweak one or more of the habit function to incentivize the right behavior
4. Your discipline allows you take the right action the first few times
5. After a few times, the habit becomes solidified and you’ve changed your behavior

My boys, I wish nothing short of a rich and fulfilling life for you both, and I am convinced that the path to that is through actively and intentionally changing our behaviors to reflect the character that we wish to embody. Being productive, being successful, building deep connection, and having rich and meaningful experiences are all deeply connected to the character that we have. My prayer for you both is that you grow up to be men of great character, men that are continually seeking to learn and grow, and men that love, support, and encourage one another on this journey. I love you boys!

The meaning of it all

My sons,

Hopefully by the time you both read this, I’ll still be as avid a reader as I am while I’m writing (or perhaps even moreso!). Over the past few years, I’ve been trying to read books that are outside the standard set of things that I have spent much of my life concerned about. Books that don’t have to do with leadership, technology, faith, or self-improvement. Books that are works of fiction. Books that are on topics I’ve spent less minutes thinking about than I’ve got fingers.

A great friend recommended one to me, called “When Breath becomes Air”. It’s a beautiful memoir by a brilliant young doctor as he struggles for meaning knowing that he’s terminal and that he hasn’t got a lot of time left. As I journeyed with the author through his struggle and through his quest for meaning, I found myself relating, empathizing, and searching for those same answers. Instead of an informative last testament of a man I’d never met I found a mirror held up to my own question of meaning.

And I cried. I cried for him, for his family, for his wife and daughter that survive him. I cried deeply as his wife’s Epilogue ran across the pages, speaking of his focus for life and his love of relationship. It was that book that started me on my journey to better understand myself, my purpose, my meaning.

I won’t say that I’ve found all the answers since then, and I don’t doubt that when you boys read this, I will still not have all the answers. But I will say that along the way, I’ve been learning more and more that connection - meaningful connection - matters.

We were made for connection, made for relationship. We were made to do life together.

I’ve found that to be true. When I look back on the time lapse of my life so far, when I see the fleeting three-second clips of deeply cherished memories, I see connection. In every single one of those memories I see connection. Whether it is sharing a beautiful sunrise with a great college friend after pulling an all nighter together, or chatting with the one friend that stayed awake while the others slept in the back on a long cross-country drive, or even celebrating our childhood sports victories over milkshakes. Most of these moments were about connection.

It’s not an accident that every success, every victory, every win that I have I immediately want someone to share it with.

It’s also not an accident that the deepest, sorrowful moments of my life were all moments that I felt alone and abandoned.

We were made for connection.

So my challenge to you then, is to be generous in your attempt for connection. Put yourself out there. Be courageous. Be willing to make the first move, to initiate a conversation, to sit next to a stranger on a plane and not immediately put in headphones or pick up a book. Even small connections matter. A smile, making eye contact with a stranger, a friendly wave, a warm hug goodbye. You never know just how much those moments may shape someone’s day.

The next right thing

My sons,

Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately is the concept of choosing to love, especially when it’s hard.

It’s very easy to choose to love someone or to choose to do the loving thing when things are easy. But the true test of character is what we do when things aren’t easy, when they’re not ideal, when they’re not living up to our expectations. How do you respond? What choices do you make? Do you choose anger? Or do you choose love?

Anger begets more anger

So choose love. Choose to do the thing that you know is right, even if you don’t feel like it. Choose to hold to the principles that you believed to be praiseworthy and worth pursuing when you weren’t in the midst of the storm. And hold on. Tight.

How do you do it? How do you choose to do the hard thing, to do the unnatural thing, to do the thing that you know you ought to but really, really don’t want to? How do you choose to hold your tongue when you’re ready to rip someone a new one? How do you choose to love, to swallow your hurt and pain, and do the right thing?

There’s a song that I love from a movie I watched recently that’s entitled “The next right thing”. I love so many things about that song, musically, dramatically. But most of all, I love the message the song conveys.

This grief has a gravity, it pulls me down
But a tiny voice whispers in my mind
“You are lost, hope is gone
But you must go on
And do the next right thing”

Break it down to this next breath, this next step
This next choice is one that I can make
So I’ll walk through this night
Stumbling blindly toward the light
And do the next right thing

There will be times when you feel like you’re flattened, that you’re on the floor. You’ll feel like the world is against you, and you’ll want to give up. I hope that in that moment, for just a moment, you’ll be able to take a breath and get even the briefest hint of perspective that will allow you to choose to do the next right thing.

It’s something that gets easier with each victory, and is something that should be celebrated when you succeed. Take a second for yourself to internalize that feeling when you know you’ve chosen the right thing, even when the walls are still crumbling. When you know that while you may not have saved the current situation, you’ve chosen the right thing. The thing that will let you look back and be happy at the men that you’ve become, that despite all odds and worldly wisdom or reason that told you to choose otherwise, you chose the next right thing.

And that’s my hope for the two of you; that when life goes sideways, when things really suck, that you’ll be able to choose to do the next right thing.

Be real

My sons,

In recent years, popular culture has decided that the majority of our lives are lived out unauthentically. You’ll get a lot of head nods when call out the need for authenticity, but by and large the majority of the populace lives with a buffer, a barrier that prevents others from seeing their authentic selves. This is so prevalent that we’ve developed an interesting subculture of occasionally piercing that barrier to let people in to see our real selves.

We call this “being real”.

This is a phrase that has permeated through every level of our social structure. It has made itself into our corporate culture in the form of “intimate fireside chats” with their executives. It has invaded our music culture: “can I be real a second, for just a millisecond” (bonus points if you can figure out where that’s from). It has invaded our youth culture and has made its way into urban dictionary (“are you fo’ real?”). Across the board, we have realized that there is such a lack of unauthentic life that we as a society have deemed it necessary to label things “real”.

Much of the time though, being real is associated with being negative. So often, someone will say “hey, I’mma be real with you” and then go on to complain about something, be negative about something, or say something quite derogatory and demotivating to the listener. Being real at a group level has subtly mutated into gatherings where people feel uninhibited to be negative and to make strong, baseless remarks about some aspect of life that they haven’t fully taken the time to examine and to ruminate on.

My sons, being real does not give you carte blanche to be a jerk.

Being real ought to mean being authentic, ought to mean piercing the shroud and sharing our vulnerable selves with the other party. It ought to bring about a deeper connection to those around us with whom we are expressing ourselves without facade, without pretense. Being real should be associated with letting people in, with showing people our full and true selves, flaws, blemishes, and all. Being real should lead to a beautifully connected life where one knows and is known.

A few reasons for this.

WE LONG FOR CONNECTION

Human beings are relational creatures. Whether you believe in creation or evolution, we were created for relationship and our evolutionary traits have by and large weeded out the lone wolf urges and instincts such that we survive and thrive in packs, in tribes, in communities. The good book tells us in Ecclesiastes that “though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

We long for deep connection not just as a means of physical survival but of mental and emotional stability, safety, and flourishing as well. From a young age we develop a disdain for fakes and phonies. In our very core we know that relationship requires trust, and trust requires honesty, vulnerability, authenticity.

AUTHENTICITY ALLOWS US TO LOWER OUR GUARD

We’ve all done this. We’ve all got defenses that we put up, self-preservation techniques and tactics that we’ve employed in our lives. We all have insecurities and shortcomings that cause us to take a defensive posture towards life.

And we all know that it is exhausting having to constantly have your guard up.

Authenticity allows us to come as we are, to lower our guard, to be seen and known with all our inadequacies. It allows us to divert our energy from having our guard up and allows us to refocus that energy on growth, on moving life forward, on building up other people. It allows us to remove our scrutinizing gaze from ourselves and instead look up to see the world around us that needs us.

BEING REAL MEANS WE ARE FREE TO RICHLY EXPERIENCE LIFE

Henry Ford once said that

“Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.”

By acknowledging our inadequacies and imperfections we unlock our minds to developing character, to experiencing life fully and richly, with all its ups and its downs. Being authentic with ourselves and with others allows us to be in the moment, to fully experience the richness and the depth of every experience. To grieve unconstrained and unashamed, to savor unfiltered and unforgettably, to laugh uproariously and obnoxiously, and to love uninhibited and unafraid.

My sons, I pray that you live lives that are authentic and real. That you surround yourselves with others who see you and know you, and love you in spite of and because of that. I love you boys!

Silence

My sons,

We live in a noisy world. The growing allure of cities that never sleep, the 24/7 nature of online communities, the endless stream of echo chamber social media updates, the constant notifications and interruptions brought about by our connected devices; these make moments of true silence a scarcity, or even a rarity. Our world prides itself on being able to entertain us and hold our interest at all hours of the day with anything and everything that we may desire at the tip of our fingers. Instant messaging, same-day shipping, fast-food services; all of these reinforce the man-made belief that we are extraordinarily busy, and that any moment spent without a pressing action to take is a wasted one.

When I was younger, I read a beautiful essay titled “The eloquent sounds of silence” by Pico Iyer that spoke to me as much then as it does now, and speaks volumes on the topic. Masterfully written, the essay begins by describing the nobility and loftiness that our thoughtful selves identify with silence. Quoting Herman Melville, he begins:

“All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
[It] is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on
of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”

It is no accident that the greatest honor we can pay someone is a moment of silence. Sacred places are purposefully silent. Reverent places. Honored places.

When one visits the 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center, one is instantly transported to a place of honor, of grave silence, of respect and admiration for those that lost their lives and to those that gave them to save another. In that silence, in that reverent space, one’s words and thoughts cease and make room for emotion and feeling to rush in. It is in falling silent that we allow ourselves to truly feel. It is in that space that the most beautiful and divine elements of humanity can be experienced.

And yet silence is something that at best eludes us and at worst terrifies us. We are constantly seeking to drown out the silence with noise. We prefer the bustle, the white noise, the incessant notifications of a busy life.

“In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think;
but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think,
and so sink below ourselves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows.”

Perhaps we fear the things we cannot control. Perhaps the thought of something deeper than our consciously controlled thoughts terrifies us. Or perhaps, hopefully, our avoidance of silence is not a conscious one and is therefore one that we can remedy. Perhaps all it takes is a bit of desire and some strong intention to allow ourselves to be silent, to allow ourselves to be taken to that transcendent place that allows us to simply be.

“In love, we are speechless; in awe, we say, words fail us.”

Beautiful.

A life given

My sons,

Someone once said that the true measure of a life is how much of it is given away. I’m not sure if that’s the only measure, but it’s certainly a very noble one, and is one worth considering.

While the argument can be made (and certainly has been) that those in fortunate positions ought to be generous with what they’ve got, I want to go further and suggest that we remove the precondition. People ought to be generous with what they’ve got, regardless of their station in life. There are the obvious altruistic reasons for this, but it turns out there are a lot of benefits for the generous individual as well.

Focus on others

Being generous causes us to think of others. It takes our eyes off ourselves and instead allows us to consider someone else, to consider their needs, to consider how to help move their lives forward. By thinking of others and pouring into their lives, we necessarily need to know how and what to pour in; requirements that can only be fulfilled by us shifting our gaze from ourselves onto others.

Growth mindset

Whether we’re giving time, resources, or our energy, generosity naturally fosters a growth mindset. We pour into others to help them grow, to help them be filled, and to move their lives forward towards fulfillment. And with any habit, the more we practice this, the more our brains will be rewired towards that mindset.

Perspective

Have you ever noticed that the happiest people you know are also the most generous? They may not be the richest people, the smartest, or the ones with the most time and uncomplicated life, but they are generally quite generous with whatever resource it is that they’ve got. No matter their station or circumstance, I’m willing to bet that when you enumerate those in your life that you know of that are truly happy, they’re also very generous with anything and everything that they’ve got.

This isn’t an accident. The more generous a person is, the more perspective on life they get. Because generosity requires us to pour into people, requires us to loosen the hold on the things that are ours, and requires us to consider others, we see things from a different vantage point. We view ourselves against the backdrop of humanity on a whole and are able to get a glimpse of the big picture. And that’s a very humbling experience. When we see ourselves on the canvas of the world painted on the timeline of history, we realize that while our individual part is incredibly significant and meaningful, we are but a small part of a much more important whole.

And so I urge the two of you to view yourselves on that canvas, and to see the role that you can play as a part of the bigger picture. In being generous, not only do you sharpen your view of yourself and of the world, but you see the movement and growth of the world that you can play a bigger part in. Our generosity allows the world to move forward, to heal, to rebuild, to refine, and to redefine. And those are all beautiful things worth giving our lives for.

Life is not an endurance exercise

My sons,

There are times when life feels simply like a grind. Too much work to do, too many books to read, too much study left with topics to learn. In those times, it is easy to feel like life is an endurance exercise, that it is something to be endured.

We’re told that our endurance is rewarded. We’re told that studying hard in school means that we’ll be rewarded with a great job. When we start that great job, we’re told that working hard will allow us to advance quickly and will give us the freedom and purchasing power to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Then we have kids and we’re told that we need to invest in our kids and give them every opportunity. Following this train of thought, the point at which we stop enduring and stop working incredibly hard is the day that we retire.

And then we can enjoy life.

Now, don’t get me wrong - I’m not at all suggesting that working hard is a bad thing, and that perseverance and grit aren’t noble characteristics; quite the opposite. I want you to grow up as steadfast men, as men that have grit and perseverance, as men that stand up for the right things and fight the good fight. But I also want you to grow up as balanced men, men that recognize when it’s time to be running the race, but also when it’s time to be having fun, enjoying life and love, creating joy, and experiencing freedom.

Life should not only be an endurance exercise.

Even in our physical exercise, we’re told to take breaks. Just as the body needs time to rehydrate, to recover, and to refuel, so too do our souls need that time. Push hard, yes. Go big, yes. But make sure that you don’t work so hard that you forget what it’s like to have fun. Make sure you’ve got people by your side that you can have the time of your life with, who will be there to shoulder the load with you when you can’t carry it alone, who will be there to jump off a cliff with you when you desire it, and who will laze by the pool with you when you need it.

My hope is that you can be that for each other, that you can help keep each other balanced. Run the race together, yes. But also celebrate the victory together. I pray there are many of those for you both. I love you boys.

Being content with your actions

My sons,

Something that corporate America puts a large emphasis on is this concept of owning outcomes. It is so deeply rooted in our professional culture that at the time of my writing this, the exact phrase “owning outcomes” is one of the things that my company measures my performance on.

We are a capitalist culture that is hyper focused on outcomes, on the output of the individual, the team, the company. So much so that we’ll often sacrifice other things to get the results that we want.

Now, don’t get me wrong - I believe that owning your outcomes is a good thing. It’s good to be intentional, to be deliberate, to have the organizational mindset that enables planning for success and for achievement. But as always, too much of a good thing can and likely will become a bad thing, and I believe that we’ve gone overboard with this notion of owning outcomes. Here’s why.

First, when we put ownership of outcomes so much higher than other attributes such as empathy, balance, and mature judgment, we miss out on the fact that in pursuit of those outcomes, we may in fact cause pain to others. We ignore the fact that we may be causing a natural imbalance that has other rippling effects. And we may not spend the time to thoughtfully assess the impact of our actions on other areas of our concern.

Second, when we focus too much on outcomes, we lose sight of the fact that in the journey of life, the destination isn’t the only important thing. We are sometimes so incredibly focused on where we want to be, what experiences we want to have, what the notch on our belt or the line item on our resume will be that we forget to take into consideration who we are becoming. How will these experiences and choices shape the men that we are becoming, the values that we are acquiring, and the natural inclination to repeat these choices in the future?

Lastly, when we focus on outcomes, people become an afterthought at worst, a resource or asset to tap at best. And resources over time tend to be exploited selfishly for their worth to us.

So my challenge to you today is to recognize that while planning well and having a thoughtful strategy for your life is a good thing, ultimately the outcome is out of our control. Be content with the way you handle factors that are in your control; factors like the way that you respond to stressful situations, or the patience you have with the person who cut you off. Don’t focus so much on the outcomes here, because chances are, many of these outcomes aren’t as important as the men that you are becoming.

What are your moments?

My sons,

It’s been said that in life, we only have a handful of moments, of choices that set us on a path and ultimately work to shape our legacy. Those moments may be actions that we choose to take that have eternal impact, words we choose to say or write, or even thoughts we allow ourselves to entertain.

These moments happen when we least expect them.

It’s not ours to determine when they happen, so we need to be ready for them. As you both know, I’ve always been a huge fan of being intentional, both in thought and in action, and while that’s certainly much more of an aspiration than a daily reality, I believe that it’s our ability to stay the course, to strive for that aspiration that will be our greatest asset. And so we start small. Rome wasn’t built in one night, and neither is character.

So start small. It’s the little things we do, each and every day, each and every little choice we make - these add up to shape the greater whole of our character, and ultimately allow us to be ready for those moments when they arrive.

We may not even know they’ve come and gone until later when we’ve had the time to reflect and to assess the impact they’ve had on our path.

My prayer for you both is that when those moments come, you’ll be ready to consciously and intentionally make the choice that you want, that you intentionally have come to decide is the right one for you.

And remember that no matter what you choose, you’ll always have my support. I love you boys, and I know you’ll both make me proud!

Empathy pt 2

My sons,

I know I’ve written about empathy in the past, but I’ve been doing a bunch of reading and thinking on the topic, and I wanted to share some more thoughts with you both as I learn more about this beautifully difficult character trait.

When I first encountered the concept of empathy, I believed it to mean putting myself in someone else’s shoes, and trying to determine what I would do in their situation. While I still think that much of that statement is true, I need to make a small tweak. I now believe empathy to mean putting myself in someone else’s shoes, and trying to determine what they would do in their situation, and why.

The fundamental difference here is the focus. My first definition has to do with me; what would I do in their situation. This is entierly determined by me, my background, my experiences, and my context. The choices I make in that frame of empathy then, will reflect my preferences, my value system, and ultimately would, without intention, be self-serving.

Now, since our goal when we apply empathy is to understand the other person and to add strength to the relationship, this definition isn’t as useful to us.

Our new definition is more compelling because it gets at the heart of what the other person needs, what they desire, and what motivations factor in to their decisions. It causes us to not just know about the other person, but to know them.

In his book The Lonely man of Faith, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik postis that one of the core needs of man is the need to know and be known. He argues that the need to be known is a universal characteristic across mankind, and that as relational beings, we find much fulfillment and peace in being known.

And so when we want to demonstrate empathy, there is much good that we can do to add to our shared understanding, and to bring fulfillment to the other person.

1. Remember that empathy is an act of understanding, not of judgment. It is primarily an observational activity, observing and learning about the other person’s motivations, context, and values. It is not applying our own judgment to those things!

2. Be patient. In our self-centered and self-focused world, it takes time to develop the muscle to break away from that trend and to focus not on our own agenda and goals but on someone else.

3. Intentionally practice and apply empathy. No change comes without effort. While the desire to have empathy is already a great first step, we need to progress past that and realize that there is real work to be done in order to get us being truly and effectively empathetic.

My hope for you both is that you grow up to be men that are confident in yourselves, and have enough confidence around your own desires and needs that you’re able to set aside yourselves and learn to concern yourselves with the needs of others.

Critical Beliefs

My sons,

We live in a world that is quickly commoditizing skills, assets, experiences, and capabilities. Globalization began with goods; starting with raw minerals and materials and eventually expanding to finished products. Then came services; the ability to have offshore call centers for example. Then came ideas and philosophies; the internet has made mass proliferation of thoughts and ideas instantaneous.

Just about everything you can think of that is outside your body can be exported to you in a matter of days, if not sooner, and if desired, can be replicated fairly effectively and efficiently.

That leaves our minds, our opinions, our beliefs, and our convictions as the last bastion of our unique selves.

There’s a scene from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption where the incarcerated main character Andy Dufresne, played by the marvelous Tim Robbins risks his life boldly stepping up to one of the prison guards to offer his services as an accountant. After dangling Dufresne’s body over the edge of the roof where they were standing, the guard relents and accepts Andy’s help. In exchange, Andy asks simply for two buckets of beers for his fellow prisoners currently working roof detail.

His prison mate Ellis Redding, played by the legendary Morgan Freeman narrates, speculating that the reason Andy pulled off such a stunt was simply so that he could feel human again. That sitting up on the roof in the hot sun with a bucket of beers allowed him and his fellows to remember what it meant to be free men; and that was a beautiful thing.

Our beliefs, our convictions, our values - these are things that can never be taken from us.

And so it behooves us to be critical of them. If men are defined by what they believe in, what they stand up for, what they are passionate about, then you must be critical of those things. Do not allow the world to imprint them on you unwittingly. Be intentional about defining and refining your beliefs. Debate them with trusted peers. Meditate on them. Reflect and expound on them. They are the things that make you unique, and are the things that will ultimately drive the direction of your lives!

My prayer for you is that the two of you will be steadfast in your beliefs; that when the winds of the world blow, they will find you firmly grounded in beliefs that you have thought out, debated, and formulated as a culmination of your experiences, your relationships, and your critical thinking. I pray that the two of you would have a relationship where you can be that sounding board for one another. May you both grow to be men of bold beliefs, strong convictions, and non-extinguishable passions.

On the shoulders of giants

My son,

Each generation stands on the hard work and tireless efforts of those that have come before. The world changes at a rapid rate, and this fact has never been more evident than it has in our lifetime. The information revolution has exponentially accelerated the pace at which the world changes, ideas proliferate, barriers are broken down, and collaboration happens.

This is the world that you will grow up in, that you will experience, and that you will impact.

As such, it becomes increasingly important to be mindful of where you get your grounding and the influences that shape you. There is no such thing as a self-made man; every man learns from others, studies those that have come before, and gets advice from those that have run ahead.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Never forget that. In times past, social currency was anchored on many different things; coats of arms, gold in the vault, status in society, position in a patriarch, net worth, and even physical beauty. In an age of globally proliferated ideas, social currency is being increasingly anchored on thought leadership and on the reach of one’s ideas.

I urge you to be well-learned; study the thoughts and artifacts those giants before us have left behind. Learn from them. Life is too short for us to learn everything we need to know on our own. Ask for help, seek advice, and listen to the stories of your elders. Though they may come from a different context and from a different time, there are transcendent lessons to be learned and universal concepts to be shared. And who knows, you may stumble upon a wonderful mentoring relationship in the process.

Learn from those giants. Stand on their shoulders and elevate our world to new heights. I’m so proud of you, and can’t wait to see the world that you shape.

The future is unwritten

My son,

Something I realize I’ve taken for granted in these posts is the fact that I believe deeply that you can change your stars. Not just that you can be whatever and whomever you want to be, but that the future is unwritten, and that you can be an author in the grand drama that is ever unfolding.

One of the greatest founding principles and beliefs of many of our modern nations is that we are free. Free to believe, free to speak, free to associate, free to express, and free to be happy with the life and path that we’ve chosen. That freedom is the very foundation on which many, if not all, of the thoughts that I’m able to share with you are based on. I have nothing but the utmost respect and gratitude for that freedom, and for the men and women that make that freedom possible.

That very freedom is the foundation by which we are able to move life forward, are able to be a change agent, are able to thoughtfully and intentionally shape our world the way we dream of. To quote from Whitman:

You are here - that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

You may contribute a verse. You may author a verse. You have the power to impact that powerful play, and you can be a force that can change the world.

The only way to do that is to be authentic in your expression. Write your verse. Speak your mind. Sing your songs. Make your music. But do all of those things authentically. Do them with the fullness of your conviction and your beliefs. Don’t take half measures. Be all in.

The world is full of people, of corporations, of agendas that want to shape you into something you’re not. Don’t let them. As the Lord said to Joshua,

Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. ~Joshua 1:9

So my challenge to you today is to write, to sing, to dance, to paint, to create, to invent, or to do whatever it is that you do. And to do it all with all your heart and determination. The future is truly unwritten, and it is up to you how you want to write it.

Turning information into insight

My son,

We live in a time when the amount of information that’s available out there is enormous. The information age is in full swing, and we’re generating data at an astronomical rate. Gartner has forecasted that the sheer volume of information that will be generated in a single year in 2020 will be four times the amount of information accumilated from the dawn of the internet to our present day.

By 2020, we’re also expected to surpass one trillion devices in the world that are connected and generating raw information for someone to consume. For a world population of 7 billion or so, that’s an astronomical amount of devices.

So why am I bringing this up? Because the average person will be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the stream of noisy information that they get, and it will become critical for you to know how to turn that information into insight that you can act on.

As with everything in life that’s worth doing, this takes practice. There’s no substitute for raw hours put in to refine your craft and your abilities. So practice. Be diligent about consciously tuning out the noise and filtering out what you need to hear.

Next, know what you’re looking for. Know what you need from each information stream and don’t get drawn in to the distractions. Remember that much of the content that’s out there is made to distract, to entertain. Isn’t it strange that when something doesn’t have actual value, we say it has entertainment value?

Lastly, tell stories. Each new insight that you take in should sharpen your narrative and provide clarity to the story you’re telling. Make sure it does that, and make sure you tell each updated version of your story often.

Because at the end of the day, the most valuable thing we’ll be able to add to this world’s story is our own.

Discovering creativity

My son,

As the technology of our time advances to automate more intelligent tasks, the differentiating factor becomes the ability to create, to innovate, to dream, and to realize those dreams. Our world has evolved such that success and productivity are no longer achieved by repetitive and well-known tasks. As we automate more of the routine tasks required for sustaining life, the acts of creativity and discovery come to the forefront.

It’s said that creativity is simply us discovering things that God has hidden for us.

If that’s the case, we must ask ourselves how we can discover more of these things. What lifestyle changes, what behavioral adjustments, what values and investments do we need to shift so that we’re ready and able to see what’s hidden there? What can we do?

First, we can be intentional with the time that we spend. As with any other skill, the skill of discovery and detailed observation takes practice. Set time in your day to thoughtfully observe, to ponder, to consider. Be thoughtful about your experiences, your circumstances, and the inputs that you have in your life. Examine them to see if there’s more than meets the eye there - you might find some transformative insights there. (Yes yes I know, your dad’s a Transformers nerd).

Second, find people that are interesting and run with them. Interesting people tend to be thoughtful about their interests, and tend to have reasons for doing the things that they do. These conversations help shape you, help refine your context, help polish your thought process. Interestig people also tend to have interesting friends, so expanding your circle there helps too.

Lastly, never say no to a new experience. Yes, I know there are exceptions to that rule, but your default stance should be one that is willing to try new things, to expand your horizons. This is something I didn’t do nearly enough of when I was younger and it’s one of the few things in my life that I’d change if I had to do it over again.

I’m not guaranteeing that by doing these things, you’ll end up discovering the next big thing. I am guaranteeing though that these actions will make your life that much richer and that much more full. And ultimately, that’s the prayer that I have for you every day - that God would give you a rich, full, abundant life.

Follow your passions

My son,

Last time, we talked about paying attention. More explicitly, I suggested that the world has a road that they want you to follow, and if you don’t choose your path yourself and pay attention to where you’re going, you’ll naturally fall into that path.

Today I want to encourage you to follow your passions.

How is this related? For starters, people who follow their passions whole heartedly tend to carve out a path for themselves that allow those passions to flourish. More importantly though, following your passion allows you to encounter others that do the same.

Passion is one of those things that is entirely additive in nature - the more you do life with passionate people, the more that passion rubs off on you.

As you grow up, there will be many attempts to get you to conform, to “fall in”, to focus on doing what’s expected of you. By the time you read this, I hope I’ve helped you keep time set aside for yourself, for you to follow the things that excite you, for you to let the things that spark your soul flourish.

As much effort and pressure the world puts on you to conform to a path, it strangely doesn’t reward that conformity, which is a bit of a mystery. Those that have the patience, persistence, and gall to follow their own path are the ones that not only end up being more successful, but end up being more interesting, keeping more interesting company, and leading rich and full lives as a result.

While I’m not saying to completely buck the trend and be completely non-conformist, I am saying that you need to pay attention and invest in your passions as well. At the end of it all, that’s what brings you the joy, fulfillment, and happiness of a life well lived.

Paying attention

My son,

As you know by now, I try to be a pretty intentional person. I heard something the other day that I absolutely loved, so I thought I’d share it with you.

Wherever it is you want to go, there is a long and conventional path, and there are shorter, less conventional approaches. The long conventional path is the outcome of not paying attention. It’s what happens when you let other people dictate your life.

I’ve found this to be extremely true in my experiences.

While I do believe it is sometimes beneficial to not pay attention, those times should be explicitly decided upon. Some of the best memories I’ve had were days where a few of us had no firm plans or designs, but rather played the day by ear and presently discovered that we had a fabulous time as a result. Those are days that are intentionally unintentional, and aren’t the subject of my attention today.

What I’m referring to today is the consciousness and critical nature that is required at a grander scale. It is more than just ability; it is a trained state of mind, a refined attribute that may take years of intentional practice to adequately acquire.

It is the art of knowing what pieces of input to process and come back to, and what to discard and not spend time on. It is the discipline to remember to step back and look at the bigger picture ervery so often. It is having the audacity to challenge the norms that are given to you, that you’re supposed to just accept.

The truth is that society doesn’t want you to do that. It wants to raise a geeration of people that are easily influenced by the latest greatest marketing trends that are out there. Capitalism is selfish by nature, and so it will do everything in its power to numb your senses and have you follow the path that profits it the most.

If you don’t have a plan for yourself, someone else will and you’ll fall into that.

My challenge to you today is to make sure you’re paying enough attention to be able to intentionally choose which path you take. Because even if there are many paths to your destination, time is the resource that you’ll never get back. So make the most of your time and pay attention to what you’re doing, where you’re going, and who you’re going there with!

Candle Power

My son,

As a kid, I loved candles. I loved watching them flicker, loved watching the glow that they made. I was always amazed at how much light could come from such a small little flame. I loved the glow; soft, warm, almost magical in nature.

As I grew older, my fascination with candles changed. While I still loved that warm familiar light that they emitted, I became enraptured with how they shone brighter when a small breeze would come through the room. The small, gentle flame would become large and fierce. It would fight to stay alive, would flame up and light up the room more brightly.

The noble human spirit shares this beautiful quality; it is a peaceful glow that flames up fiercely under adversity, fighting to stay lit and illuminating all those around it in the process.

Jesus said that “in this life, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!” - John 16:33

In this life, we are assured trouble, trials, difficulties, struggles. That’s a fact, guaranteed. The true measure of a man is how we handle these trials. When the wind comes, do we carefully nurture that candle so that it gets just enough wind to let it fiercely light up our spirit? Or do we turn that candle straight into the wind, letting it blow out completely?

One of the hardest things a father has to do is to not stop the wind even though he sees it heading straight for his children. I pray for the discernment for you to know how to nurture that candle so that when you need it to, it will shine brightly in the night. There is much darkness all around us, and the world will need more candles to keep us in the light. May yours be one that shines brightly, and may it bring light to all those around you!

The little moments

My son,

As you will have discovered by now, I love the epic, the grand, the vast and expansive. Naturally this means that I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and have spent a number of my notes to you espousing my thoughts on that.

Today’s thought will be quite contrary, but at least as important if not moreso.

It is the little moments in life that that really make us feel human.

It’s the accumulation of the little things, the seemingly insignificant instances whose individual presence may not account to much but whose combined impact is far greater than the sum of its parts. They may be as small as a friendly wave from an acquaintance, a kind word from a stranger, or a shared experience with a friend.

While the big moments are the ones that stand out, it’s the continual flow of little moments that forms the backdrop for those epic events to be seen.

As you know, I love photography, and a very basic understanding in photography is that no matter how beautiful your subject is, your photo is only as good as the background elements - the light, the backdrop, the scene, the underlying notes of color and contrast - all these things bring life to the subject.

It’s these little things that ultimately determine our character and overall composition. And amazingly enough, it’s these little things that we often have the most control over.

So my challenge to you today is to impact the little things in your life as best you can. Be the one that gives a friendly wave. Speak an encouraging word. Give a stranger a smile. Give a friend a hug.

While it’s difficult to orchestrate an epic moment, the little ones are absolutely within our realm of control, so I urge you to take the opportunity to help make positive little moments for those you interact with, and to be a bright spot in someone’s day.

There’s a book on your bookshelf right now that your mom and I read to you that has us imagine people with buckets. Each act of kindness fills someone’s bucket a little bit at a time. Such a simple yet beautiful analogy that even at a young age you were able to understand. So I’ll leave you with the sentiment of that book: go and be the best bucket filler you can be!

Care deeply

My son,

As much as I wish I did, the truth of the matter is that I don’t have all the answers. Nor am I always right. My thoughts in these letters to you are just that; my thoughts. These letters are a culmination of my experiences, my influences, my environment, and my best efforts. But they are just mine.

The reality is that you are your own person, with your own interests, your own designs, your own desires, your own aspirations. If you’re anything like you are at the time of my writing this, then you’ll have so many of these things. Even at this young age, you’ve got a beautiful personality, decisive, confident, and full of passion. My prayer is that over the years, all of those have grown and have molded and shaped you into a wonderful man.

So with that in mind, today’s thought is going to be pretty simple.

“Find something to care about; and then care deeply about it.”

And that’s it. No matter what you do with your life, no matter pursuits you choose for yourself, pursue them strongly and deeply. Your mother and I will love you and support you regardless of what you choose. My charge to you today is that whatever and whomever you choose to care about, care deeply.

I love you, my boy. I can’t wait to see what kind of man you choose to be.

What does life want from me?

My son,

The last twenty years has seen a trend of people who are raised to believe in self, in the individual human spirit. While I’m not against the belief that intrinsically each person has value and that God created each one of us uniquely and wonderfully, I do think that we could take a lesson from one of the greats in history.

JFK said once that we ought to “ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”.

The sentiment here is that there’s something greater than ourselves that we ought to consider, and that there’s something to be gained, some purpose fulfilled, some satisfaction in pursuing a goal that may not have originated with us.

Much of my generation has struggled with the question of purpose. Many spend years trying to discover themselves, to find meaning in the chaos that is life. Conventional wisdom these days says to look within oneself for the answers, and while there is some element of truth there and we can indeed learn more about ourselves as we become more introspective, I think that’s only half the story.

If we consider the things that resonate most with the human spirit, the things that kindle a fire deep within us, the things that elevate us to greater heights, to greater awareness, and to a greater richness of life - these things are not exclusively internal. The purity of the human spirit is the work of God refined by our relationships, experiences, endeavors, and shared ventures. Mankind was not put on this earth to be alone. Nor was he put on this earth to live for himself alone.

Discovering that which we were created for, that which we are destined for - that is something that takes a lifetime to learn and to refine. As Nietzsche put it, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”.

The vital question then becomes this: What does life want from me?

In other words, what is the larger, grander venture that I ought to be a part of?

My challenge to you is to discover what that is. And whether it is being a comfort for the weary, being a safe place for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, loving the downtrodden - no matter what it is, I urge you to run at it with all that you have. We keep talking about a deep sense of richness and fulfillment in life - this is one of the keys that will help get us there.

Living in the moment

My son,

There’s a natural tension in life between today and tomorrow. As you know, time is the only resource in life that we will never get back, and so we naturally want to maximize that. This creates the dilemma of whether we should invest in tomorrow or if we should spend on today.

As much as I would love to give you a hard and fast rule for which choice to make, the reality is that the richest lives are lived somewhere in the middle - investing enough in tomorrow while still spending time today to live your life.

So then what are we talking about today?

Balance.

A rich and full life is one that balances our investments in the future - school, learning, reading, developing skills and interests - with our enjoyment of today - shooting the breeze with friends, sitting on the deck and enjoying the sunset, standing in awe of the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen.

Asian culture tells us to invest in tomorrow. We’re taught to save our money and to invest it. We’re constantly reminded to work hard today so that we can be successful tomorrow. We’re reminded to think about the big picture, about the life that we want to have later, about our next job, our future wife and family, our retirement plans.

And yet there’s no emphasis on today.

In that sense, tomorrow is something that is always coming but never comes.

And that’s my challenge for you today. While investing in the future, make sure you take the time to smell the roses. Make time to do it. And do it big. Whether this means turning on your noise-cancelling headphones and cranking up your favorite epic song, sitting outside with a glass of wine and watching the sun set over the horizon, or taking a walk down a familiar street with the love of your life.

Those are the moments - those perfect, timeless moments - that give you strength to keep pushing forward. Those moments you’ll remember for a lifetime, and will ultimately confirm for yourself that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

No Regrets

My son,

Life’s too short to live with regrets. While it is certainly good to go back and consider where you’ve come, do so to learn from the experience and not to regret what’s happened. Everything is 20/20 in hindsight - use that to your advantage. Go back and consider the things that have happened, but do so in order to learn from the experience, not to regret what’s happened.

I love the concept and the thought of the epic moment. I love how it transcends time and becomes engrained in your memory as a time when everything in the world lined up perfectly to bring this one pure and perfect memory, this glorious experience that can’t be tarnished over time. I love that these moments are timeless and can be shared and experienced across the ages.

In order to live in these moments and to be in a place where we can experience them, we’ve got to live free of the confines of regret, free from the shackles of guilt and self-doubt.

Remember that time is the only resource in life that you will never get back. You can always earn more money and can always buy new material things, but you’ll never get your time back. It is the most valuable resource simply because it’s non-renewable, and is consumed at a constant rate regardless of your wishes or whatever you do to prevent that.

And so we ought to live maximizing that resource.

That’s my prayer for you - that you would live with no regrets, that you would give your all to your experiences, that you would dream without abandon, and that you would have a rich and full life. That the time that you spend on this world will be full of those epic moments, full of timeless, transcendent moments. And that above all things, you would love with everything that you’ve got.

Reminiscing

My son,

It’s human nature to reminisce, to think back to days gone by, and to romanticize the days gone by. While I certainly don’t support living in the past and not being able to live in the present (that’s another topic for another day), I do believe there is value on occasionally reminiscing about your past.

Reminiscing reminds you of your values
One excellent outcome of reminiscing is that it reminds you about your values. The things that are absolutely core to your being, the things that you care about, are driven by, and are unwilling to compromise - reminiscing reminds you of those things.

One of the prerequisites of living a full life is to know what you’re living for, what you’re loving for. And the only way to know that is to know thyself intimately enough to know your motivators, your passions, and the values that define your very being.

The things that we reminisce about are clues to what we truly care about.

Reminiscing shifts your mindset
One of the great things about the human mind is the ability to transcend the immediate and be immersed in something greater, something bigger than ourselves.

When we take the time to thoughtfully consider the victories and mountaintop experiences of the past, our mindset shifts to adapt. By recalling and reliving those great moments, we’re able to put ourselves in that environment again, and are able to focus on how we felt, how we reacted, how we anticipated, and how we thought in that moment. We’re able to adopt the mindset of our experience and apply it to our current existence, and respond accordingly.

Reminiscing brings your current path into focus
By remembering where we’ve come from and noting where we are, we’re able to extrapolate the path that we’re on so that we can course correct as needed. In looking back on our past experiences, we’re able to see the growth that we’ve had since, and are able to focus on the path and see where we’re headed.

So my challenge to you is not to be afraid to look at where you’ve been, but to deliberately do so in a manner that helps you be more confident in who you are, where you’ve come from, and where you’re headed. Don’t get stuck in the past, but rather learn from it. Draw strength from it, and use it to channel and direct your energy where you want it to go.

Relationships

My son,

Throughout history, every single achievement that mankind has accomplished has been a group effort. Even the great ones - Einstein, Gretzky, da Vinci - all of them had strong influences that encouraged, challenged, instructed, and inspired them to be able to have accomplished the great things that we know them for today.

There has been much research about a person’s development, growth, and ultimate success as a healthy, fully functioning member of society. While there are very drastically different theories on the most important experiences or surroundings that produce successful people, every theory agrees that relationships are critical to a person’s upbringing.

As the good book says:

“Bad company corrupts good character” - 1 Corinthians 15:33

It is therefore critically important that you be thoughtful about the company that you keep, about the relationships that you build. Build being the operative word here.

Make no mistake about it - relationships are works of art that need to be intentionally built. They need to be thought out, planned, worked on, evaluated, and refined. Whether we’re talking about a casual acquaintance, a lifelong friendship, or an epic romance, each of these need to be sought after, worked on, invested in, and cared for.

So how do we build the right relationships?

While I am by no means an expert on the subject, I can share with you my thoughts and observations.

1. Be mindful about the type of investment this is. Not all relationships are equal. Some are meant for your enrichment, some are meant for you to learn patience and endurance as you pour into someone else for their enrichment. Some are mutually beneficial. Know which is which.
2. Own it. Be intentional about what you want out of each relationship. While it’s very easy to have acquaintances and friends that are seemingly aimless, don’t tolerate that. Be deliberate and thoughtful about each relationship you have.
3. Prune it. Reclassify relationships as required, and prune the ones that no longer serve a purpose. Relationships themselves will naturally run their course, and while it is certainly easier in the immediate instance to allow them to do that without your intervention, in the long run, you’ll find that being intentional here is going to be far better.
4. Pour your life into it. For relationships that you’ve decided are worthwhile, go big. Don’t take half-measures, but pour your all into it. Relationships are two-way streets - the more you pour into them, the more you’ll get out of them.

My hope for you is that you will have a lifetime of rich experiences, and great relationships and companions to travel the road with you. Remember to go big, to dream without abandon, to give without expectation. And above all, love with everything that you’ve got.