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What systems are in place? →

Published April 28, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 28  ·  

Finish this sentence: I am the sort of person who…

Here’s a different way to look at it, one that we can broaden into an insight about adult decisions about where to work, where to live, who to hang out with. There are two parts:

Are the people this place attracts the sort of people I want to spend time with and become more like?

Is the system that is in place here one that pushes and cajoles and processes people to become more like the kind of person I’d like to be?

~ Seth Godin from, On choosing a college

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Not everything needs to be planned out, pre-visualized, processified, done-defined, and OODA looped. However, having mastered those things, it is massively empowering when things go sideways, off the rails, and get set back. Having mastered those things, I know I can always begin anew a slow upward spiral.

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Perspective with Jamie Holmes →

Published March 20, 2024  ·  All posts on Mar 20  ·  

Perspective with Jamie Holmes

What strategies can individuals use to manage administrative tasks efficiently while maintaining their creativity and productivity in other pursuits?

Jamie Holmes joins Craig to discuss life’s admin tasks, her journey through holistic healing from melanoma, and insights into the world of circus arts and personal fitness showcasing her multifaceted life and philosophies.

I think it was three months from when I had my first, initial consult with my surgeon, and he said, “okay I can get you in. It’s going to be a bit harder because you’re doing both hips at once, but I can get you in within three months.” And that was horrid to me! I was like, “I have to live three more months like this!?” It wasn’t just that it hurt a little bit when I walked— I couldn’t move— I could not move— I was having weird panic attacks all the time, because if I dropped something and had to bend over, it was— I’m a bit of a tough cookie, but that? That broke me pretty hard.”

~ Jamie Holmes, 35:15

Not your average bears, Craig and Jamie begin in left field discussing ways of managing life’s “admin” tasks. Jamie professes integrating everything into her daily flow, rather than reserving them for a single day. Her approach, she explains, allows her to work at a high speed, avoiding the buildup of dreaded tasks. Her method emphasizes efficiency and the mental ease that comes from staying ahead of administrative duties, reflecting a deeper understanding of personal productivity and time management.

The conversation shifts into Jamie’s profound journey through holistic healing after a melanoma diagnosis. Rejecting traditional treatment paths, Jamie opts for a holistic approach, guided by her conviction in the body’s healing capabilities and her passion for health and fitness. This segment of the discussion not only highlights her resilience but also serves as an inspiring testament to the power of our minds and bodies.

Jamie also shares insights into the world of circus arts and her studio, The Circus Fix, illuminating the challenges and rewards of managing a fitness and arts studio. Her narrative encompasses the delicate balance of artistic passion with the pragmatism of business management, underscoring the significance of adaptability and understanding in leadership roles.

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It never gets easier →

Published February 21, 2024  ·  All posts on Feb 21  ·  

Very early in my rediscovery of movement, someone said: What was once your workout, will one day be your warmup. It’s both motivating (simply do what you can, today, and the changes will come) and inspiring (it implies that the people far ahead, at one time, were here, where I am today). I can now see in hindsight that it is an expansive perspective: One will expand their capabilities as one expands one’s practice to bigger and better things.

Years later I realised that the answer to this question is: everything. There can be more articulation of the toes; rotation can be made more extreme; even that ineffable quality of artistry can be developed. It’s often thought that the greater your prowess, the easier your performance becomes. However, as I progressed upward through the ranks of the ballet world, I saw that this wasn’t the case.

~ Barbara Gail Montero from, Against flow

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Years into my rediscovery of movement, I realized it was truly a mastery practice. Something which can be done, forever, just for the process.

And just now, it’s occurred to me that this is also true: What was once my warmup, will always contain enough challenge to also be my workout.

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Using structure →

Published January 3, 2024  ·  All posts on Jan 3  ·  

I’m aware that I have a habit (or perhaps it’s a dysfunction depending on your perspective) of turning everything into a process. Before I even do something a first time I’m imagining the whatever-it-is as a checklist— imagining it as a process. I’ll be generous, and I’ll call that being detail-oriented and being a planner. I’m also processifying (my spell-checker balks) everything from both ends: The first step I imagine is: What does done look like? I’m building the process from the front (“gather materials,” let’s say) and from the back (“deposit check, dance jig”). In the middle I’ve a place holder: Magic happens.

I refine and sub-divide the stuff at the front. I refine and sub-divide the stuff at the back. I’m creating more and easier steps, and I’m trying to pull as much as I can out of that “magic happens” step in the middle. When I look honestly, I see this everywhere in my life. That ill-defined, magical, central step is the feature. The struggle there is real, and it’s not to be avoided. Once I’ve factored out—moved to before, or move to after, the magic, middle part—all the stuff I’m more or less certain of… what remains is tension, in that magic, middle part. When I do it just right, that tension makes the magic happen.

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Upwards →

Published October 11, 2023  ·  All posts on Oct 11  ·  ,

As the edges of human knowledge are advanced, the total amount one must learn to be able to then contribute to further advancement grows. If there’s a proverbial mountain of knowledge, it grows taller as each contributor adds. If you start from the beach (at birth), wander inland in your early years of not-guided-by-you learning, and eventually decide to scale the mountain… well, it really matters in what epoch you happened to be born. Or maybe it doesn’t?

There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers-conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

~ Vannevar Bush from, As We May Think

Bush played a complex role in the history of the United States. (It’s better if you form your own opinion about him and his work.) His short essay from about 80 years ago is these days seen by technophiles as heralding our own, current Internet and information age. In particular, a lot is read into Bush’s description of a desk which behaves like our modern Internet, information systems, and data processing. That’s fine. It’s like reading 80-year-old science fiction that became science fact.

Much more interesting to me is the point that with just a bit of squinting, it looks like nothing has changed in 80 years. Everything about this—the mountain of information, the tools [eg, Bush’s imagined desk, our internet], the people feeling overloaded, the specialization—feels fractal.

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Creating something →

Published September 6, 2023  ·  All posts on Sep 6  ·  ,

I’m the obsessive type. I’m ordered and process driven to a fault, but not quite (or at least, only rarely) to the point where this affects my ability to function. I’m continuously thinking about things like can I carry something else if I’m going in a certain direction— which is fine when heading out to run errands with the car, but which can stop me in my tracks, and cause me to turn in circles in place, before moving from room to room. I’m also obsessive about doing things. I’m the guy you want physically setting up your complex computer systems and networks—physically arranging everything. I’m the guy who got really into roller skating, bicycling, skiing, Aikido, scratch-building radio-controlled gliders, sailing… there’s a much longer list.

I learned one lesson on my own over the years and many obsessions: Do or do not. I am unable to “spend less time” on an obsession. I have to lean into it, or let go of it. Many of my obsessions paid off either as income or simply being useful to my personal growth. Being able to assess when continuing an obsession is not going to do either of those things for me is a hard-won skill.

But there are some heuristics you can use to guess whether an obsession might be one that matters. For example, it’s more promising if you’re creating something, rather than just consuming something someone else creates. It’s more promising if something you’re interested in is difficult, especially if it’s more difficult for other people than it is for you. And the obsessions of talented people are more likely to be promising. When talented people become interested in random things, they’re not truly random.

But you can never be sure. In fact, here’s an interesting idea that’s also rather alarming if it’s true: it may be that to do great work, you also have to waste a lot of time.

~ Paul Graham from, The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

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Graham’s point about creation is a second lesson about obsession. I agree, and I think an obsession’s being about creation is critical. I stumbled really near this lesson a few months ago when I wrote Being Genuine for Open + Curious where I wrote…

A great conversation is one where we (and our partners) feel the joy of creation, even if that’s while discussing a contentious topic. We have little chance of being creative if we know, or think we know, where things are headed.

Creation is critical. I need to imagine the world differently, and then try to go and create that new world.

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Priorities →

Published August 7, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 7  ·  

Having priorities isn’t enough for me to end up sane. I’ve overcome the naive urge to line up everything into a single-file queue; That’s not how life actually works. Leaning into parallel-ism is the way. Social engagements bubble up on their own, and I lean into those whenever I can. Maintenance and administrivia need to be regimented and so I’ve process-ified everything so the important but not-urgent things get attended to. One must have the mental space—the ability to sit with one’s thoughts—to really think about life.

At the individual level, it is not enough to work on good ideas. You must only work on the best ideas. It is not enough to ask “is this good” you must also ask “is there something better?” As painful as ruthless prioritization is, it is not as painful as failing to do it.

~ Andrew Bosworth from, Half Staffed is Unstaffed

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Unfortunately, prioritization stands upon the idea that “best” or “better” have meaning. I have no interest in being particularly disciplined at anything. (Setting aside various comments people make about how much I get done.) I have no interest in doing what’s “best”. I have a moral compass I’m comfortable with, and I enjoy creating things (like great conversations).

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Should I keep blogging? →

Published September 23, 2022  ·  All posts on Sep 23  ·  ,

This is not a passive-aggressive maneuver to get you to scroll to the bottom, read the footer and consider supporting my work. (It would mean a lot though if you did.)

This is a serious question which I ask myself at a frequency approaching every minute. All the benefits are not directly measurable.

Exposure — In order to ensure I have material to write posts, I have various processes and systems that force me to skim an insane amount of stuff pretty much every day. If you imagine skimming my weekly email in a second or two, that’s 7 items. I skim about 300 to 500 items every day. A small number each day catch my attention enough that I toss them on my read-later queue. There are 764 things on that queue at this instant. It takes me significant time to read them, but often just a few seconds to realize, “yeah this is going to be a blog post” (and then I go on reading to the end and then I write the post.) If I stopped blogging, would I still do all that work to be exposed to ideas?

Learning — Writing blog posts creates a third “imprint” in my mind. First a glance, then a read, and then thinking about it. Even if I sometimes abort the blog post mid-writing, it’s still three different repetitions. And I have software that feeds me my own blog posts (“what did I post 10 years ago, today?” etc.) so I am constantly re-reading everything on this site; that’s more repetitions as things drift into history.

Integration — If I write a blog post about it, I generally try to figure out its relationship to everything else. Adding blog tags is the most obvious bit of integration. But figuring out what to pull quote involves deciding what is salient to me. And deciding which part(s) I want to focus on, magnify, or disagree with requires further integration.

Writing — Thoughts swirl in my mind. Characters appear on my screen. There are several skills one can work on between those two sentences.

All of that goes into feeding my personal growth and priming my curiosity. Since good conversation is powered by genuine curiosity, all that stuff also enables my person mission.

Should I keep blogging? It doesn’t feel like stopping is realistically an option.

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Systematic abandonment →

Published April 30, 2022  ·  All posts on Apr 30  ·  ,

To that end, Drucker recommends that executives routinely take part in “systematic abandonment.” Every few months, an executive should do a reevaluation of all the organization’s practices, looking at everything the organization is doing and deciding anew if the organization should stop or continue it.

~ Brett McKay from, Peter Drucker’s Question for Eliminating Practices That No Longer Serve You

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Drucker was writing explicitly in the context of business executives. McKay does a nice job of showing how those principles which serve executives so well, work equally well in one’s personal life. I didn’t have this process—this guiding principle from Drucker’s work—identified clearly in my head. But I have it firmly implanted into how I instinctively do things.

I’ve had more than one person make the joke, “Craig, how many clones do you have?!” (I like to jokingly reply, “Yes, I have several clones, but none of us can get the others to do anything we don’t want to do ourselves.”) I accomplish a lot. While I have a number of clear advantages—such as where I was lucky enough to start in the game of life, luck in biology, and luck in opportunities I was shown—those aren’t the truly magic ingredient. The magic ingredient is what I don’t do. It doesn’t matter what specifically it is that I don’t do; Each of us has to make those decisions for oneself. What does matter is that I am willing to regularly and often spend a prodigious amount of time examining what I am doing, and how I am doing it. And then ruthlessly cutting away things that I should stop doing.

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Play with Brandi Heather →

Published November 19, 2021  ·  All posts on Nov 19

https://podtalk.show/play-with-brandi-heather

How can integrating play into our personal and professional lives improve creativity, productivity, and well-being?

Discovering the connection between joy and resilience reshapes the way we approach work and life.

Play integrated in everything you do. So when you’re doing something at work, that you are so absorbed by— that you absolutely love about your work and you kind of lose track of time in that space. That’s the play I’m talking about.

~ Brandi Heather (13:55)

The conversation examines how play influences personal and professional development, emphasizing its role in creativity and joy. It explores how podcasting enabled one individual to discover and refine their voice, eventually translating this journey into a book. The discussion highlights the intersection of storytelling, science, and personal experience in effectively communicating complex ideas.

Further topics include societal misconceptions about play and how redefining it as a state of absorption and joy can benefit both individuals and organizations. The conversation also touches on the challenges of blending academic and experiential insights into accessible narratives while advocating for preserving playfulness in both childhood and adulthood.

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