Chris' Blog

The Monster On the Other Side of the Debate

August 21, 2019 by Chris

Can we not reason together, exploring deep truths and grappling with difficult questions as we each try to find meaning and purpose and satisfaction and direction?

Some people are in favour of relaxed immigration policy, some are not.

Some people believe that the rich should be taxed more and their wealth used to provide services for the poor. Others believe that capitalism will fail, incentive to achieve will end, and the path to socialism is a path to destruction.

Some people believe that men are men and women are women. Others believe that gender is fluid and gender identity should be determined by the individual, not by their biology.

Some people believe the world is going to end soon if we don’t do something about carbon emissions. Others that climate change is a massive hoax perpetrated on an unwilling populace.

Some people even like anchovies.

But something strange and disturbing is happening – we’re losing the capacity for reasoned disagreement.

Instead, if you don’t hold my view you are, in truth, less than human – you are a monster.

Perhaps you’re a type of “ist” – racist, sexist, misogynist. Or perhaps you’re a phobe of some kind. But if not I’m confident there is an ugly humiliating label that I can find to attach to you.

And you know what – that’s great! It’s great because if you’re a sub-human monster then I can:

feel both vindicated and righteous in my hatred of you as a consequence of your opinion;
call you whatever I feel like without any pangs of guilt or conscience; and
ignore absolutely everything you say on any topic. Because, after all, sub-humans don’t really deserve opinions on anything, and I don’t need to listen to yours because YOU are ignorant and demented;

And so, we cannot reason together, exploring deep truths and grappling with difficult questions, coming together over the challenges and exigencies of life that trouble us all as we each try to find meaning and purpose and satisfaction and direction.

Instead, we point at each other from a distance and shriek “oh dear Lord what IS THAT THING”. And the louder I shriek, the less human you become. And that’s fine with me, because I’m right and you don’t deserve to be heard.

Preaching to the Choir

December 12, 2018 by Chris

There’s a fast way to get positive feedback – do something, say something that everybody already agrees with.

The thumbs ups will follow.

But there’s a trap. Over time, you’ll start to preach only to get the choir to sing, not necessarily what the choir requires to be extraordinary.

Of course, if you head too much towards what people don’t want to hear, then they’ll stop listening and you won’t earn the right or opportunity to be heard on more important topics.

Saying what people already know, already agree with, already do doesn’t effect change in the world.

But sometimes the comradery of agreement provides the catalyst for the magic of startling revelation and change to occur.

Accomplishment, or Credit?

December 9, 2018 by Chris

When someone steals your awesome “viral” LinkedIn post for themselves, cut and paste, without acknowledging you… what do you do?

If you build something amazing, will it have your stamp on it?

If your idea sparks a great forest fire, that burns wildly and impacts the whole world… will you be in the press seeking acknowledgment of the spark?

When the case is won, the file is closed, the job is sold, the bill is paid… what do you hope for?

Are you content to change the world and those around you? Or do you want the credit for it to be worthwhile?

Trying to Scale

December 7, 2018 by Chris

It’s what all the cool kids are doing – start a business, make a thing, then “scale” it.

But what’s the virtue of scaling? Why is it good?

More importantly, how does scaling help:

you; or
your customers,

in any way?

Often it has the reverse effect.

So why scale?

Do This if you Want to Succeed…

December 6, 2018 by Chris

If you want to succeed, you must do X.

I’ve read this headline more often than I care to. I admit, sometimes I read the articles too, in the hope that I might learn something new. It rarely happens.

Much like in maths, X is not a constant – it’s a variable.

So X for you is not X for me, and X today might not be X tomorrow.

X might mean waking up earlier, or perhaps it means getting more sleep.

It might mean you need to “get after it” or it might mean you need to let it go.

All I can come up with is this: success isn’t about doing X, it’s about constantly solving the equation.

I Knew It!

December 4, 2018 by Chris

A quick Google search and PRESTO, I’m not alone anymore.

In fact look – there are 25,000,000,000 hits on my search – that must mean enough people share my opinion and that it’s not crazy after all.

As I read through the clever, thoughtful blog posts on the topic, I’m more and more convinced that what I already thought is definitely right. I mean, these people have really thought it through.

After a few hours I’m satisfied – no way there could be this much material if I was wrong. I knew it!

I call back my friend who had the audacity to disagree with me. They pick up and we both say “so Google says you’re wrong…”.

Haters Gonna Love

December 3, 2018 by Chris

This doesn’t rhyme, and it’s not going to make a smash hit.

Sometimes, haters are our best assets. Not because we enjoy their company, and not because they make us feel good.

But if we’re fortunate, then somewhere in the vitriol our haters will tell us the truth. They won’t pander to our sensibilities, or bow to our “wisdom”, they’ll simply say “no you’re wrong – and here’s why”. Maybe they’re less polite of course…

If we’re smart, we listen to our haters. Not so much that our spirit is crushed into a ball of pitiful misery, but with enough humility, enough courage, and enough self-awareness to take the hate and make it into something awesome.

Wisdom is to answer this: are your haters telling you an important story, or an irrelevant lie?

If you can turn your haters into valuable tools for your achievement – it’s amazing.

You Can’t Build Anything on Motivational Quotes

October 21, 2018 by Chris

I love a good bit of motivation to get my blood pumping and my energy up.

But nothing of substance was ever built off the back of a motivational quote.

There are two reasons:

They’re shallow
They lie.

Some Examples

Google “motivational quotes” and you’ll find plenty to work with, including things like this:

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Good, right?

Inspiring, even. Especially if you know who said them, and then you can fill in some blanks about what they were talking about and the amazing things they accomplished.

But what if the people who said these inspirational things were actually deep thinkers. What if these quotable quotes, with all their lovely encouraging juice, were actually just subsets of a much larger picture?

Too Clever, Too Shallow

First we have a problem: motivational quotes are always too shallow.

In order to build something, you need a strong foundation – and motivation isn’t it. It might be a tiny piece, but it’s not the entirety of the puzzle.

Life is complicated, subtle, nuanced and messy. These pure truisms that motivational quotes consist of might be helpful on a given day, in a given scenario, for a moment. They are not, however, the foundations of anything grand or majestic. They are not solid, dependable things on which we can balance a masterpiece, a business, a life, or a family.

In almost all cases, a motivational quote will provide you no solutions, no action, no decision, no wisdom. This is why they (at best) are truisms rather than truths – there is a big difference.

They might support you, make you happy, and increase your motivation – but they cannot be latched on in a time of need.

As a result, they are shallow, fleeting things.

Lying By Omission

“Failure will never overtake me if…”. Demonstrably false. Plenty of determined people have been overtaken by failure. Perhaps they were determined to do something stupid, perhaps they simply weren’t very good at it, and perhaps by all human measures they ought to have succeeded… but didn’t. As nice as it sounds, determination is not the only factor in success.

“It always seems impossible until…”. Some things ARE impossible, despite the nice statements to the contrary. Sure, great achievement results from people who see beyond what might seem possible, but not always. Often, it actually is impossible. They failed, went broke and never went back to their project.

“If you’re going through hell…”. Perhaps you’re going through hell because you made a wrong turn, and actually need to back track. Or perhaps not. The idea, of course, is to get out of hell (always good) but the concept isn’t universally great. Maybe if you keep going you’ll end up in more hell for a longer time than if you simply turn back.

And here we see the problem.

At most we can say “wow that’s awesome” and move on, accepting that in some cases there is something important we could learn from the experience of the quoted individuals.

But without the context, the meaning, the rest of the words – we actually haven’t learned anything at all. We just feel a little pumped up, like the guy at the gym watching his own muscles.

Wow… So Negative

Like I said – I love a good bit of motivation.

But you can’t build on it – it’ll fail you.

Merging Onto the Highway at Half Speed

October 2, 2018 by Chris

As I go to merge onto a highway at 100kms/h, I often find myself stuck behind someone who has decided that the only safe way to merge onto a high speed section of road is to slow down considerably.

It’s causes traffic chaos, and is extremely dangerous.

Sometimes, slowing ride down isn’t the safest option at all – in fact, sometimes it’s the worst possible thing you can do.

The problem is that it feels like a safer option. After all, if we’re going more slowly then surely less can go wrong if we hit a bump.

But in truth we lose a huge amount of momentum and leave ourselves vulnerable to being made roadkill.

Momentum Matters

It’s far harder to get going once you’ve slowed down than it is to keep going fast when you already are.

This is both a truth of physics and a truth of psychology.

The energy required to get the enormous mass of your life headed in a direction that you’ve actually chosen is huge. But once you’re going at speed, you can course correct and adjust far more easily than if you slam on the brakes every few minutes because you’re starting to get the heeby-jeebies.

The reason we slow down, most often, is because we get scared that we’re going too fast, doing to much, and that we’ll lose control or burn out.

But here’s my question: how often has that actually happened to you?

Controlled by Irrational Fear

There are certainly cases of burnout, and we’re right to be conscious of the possibility.

But most of us aren’t even coming close to the kind of pathological commitment to something that would be required to reach burnout.

In truth, we’re letting the fear of something that probably won’t happen control our decision making to avoid going all in.

Here’s my theory why: if we avoid fully committing to something and it doesn’t work, we can always just tell ourselves that it’s because we didn’t try hard enough, not because we sucked or the idea wasn’t very good in the first place.

More than being afraid of burnout, we’re actually afraid of going all-in on something and it not working out as we’d hoped.

As A Result…

As a result, many of us slow down before merging onto the highway, and end up crawling along the shoulder of the road because we never really develop the momentum we need.

If you want to get on the highway, you’ve got to hit the accelerator.