Like architecture? →

Published February 28, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 28  ·  , ,

Most importantly, I think we need more software that’s done—not allof it, just more of it. Just like we’re always going to have prefab buildings to serve a particular function at a particular time, software that continues to change and improve pushes us forward and is absolutely necessary. But maybe it’s ok for that app you’re working on to be done. And by going into it with a realization that it’s going to be done some day, you might even make something that lasts for decades.

~ Rian van der Merwe, from The Analog Revolution

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It’s taken me a long time–like, maybe, right up until about ten minutes ago… It’s taken me a long time to realize just how much I enjoy creating physical artifacts. I built a bunch of universes worth of stuff with Legos as a kid, lots of model airplanes, and a scratch-built glider that I flew untold hours. With the help of various others, I built a complex shed from plans I purchased, and a small retaining wall that solved a fundamental problem with how our home was built 60 years ago.

The internet and computers clicked right into my obsession for understanding things and for making things work. The ephemeral nature of the digital things I’ve built, or been involved with, over the years is a big positive; it enables one to take big swings with vastly reduced down-sides. On the other hand, it’s ephemeral.

I know exactly where and when I became inspired to start this, my web site. The inspiration arose from within me. At the time it was because I felt I had something to say—something to share. At the time I already had a long established personal website which I tossed in the trash bin and started anew. It turns out, I now see, that what I really had was the ongoing urge to think and learn and to build something as permanent as is possible on the internet.

Today, it may well be that I do have something unique and interesting to share. (…or it may be I don’t.) But I’m quite certain that the thinking and learning I lured myself into, day after day as I built this site one post at a time, was without exaggeration the smartest thing I have ever done (and will continue to do.)

Are you too called to create?

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The beginning of philosophy →

Published February 27, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 27  ·  , ,

The beginning of philosophy is this: The realization that there is a conflict between the opinions of men and a search for the origin of that conflict, accompanied by a mistrust towards mere opinion, and an investigation of opinion to see if it is correct opinion, and the discovery of a certain standard of judgement, comparable to the balance that we have discovered for determining weights, or the rule, for things straight and crooked.

~ Epictetus

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Dan Edwardes | Creating a Culture of Excellence →

Published February 26, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 26

On Castbox.fm — Dan Edwardes | Creating a Culture of Excellence

How can individuals develop a personal culture of excellence that enhances their leadership, goals, and daily habits?

Personal habits and daily customs shape success more than ideas or intentions.

So a lot of this stuff is about identifying why aren’t we fixing these things? Why are we carrying on with these bad habits? When, you know, they’re bad habits? They’re not helping you. And why aren’t you changing it?

~ Dan Edwardes (4:36)

The conversation centers around developing personal excellence by cultivating better habits and self-awareness. Dan emphasizes that personal culture—daily customs and habits—determines success more than external goals or beliefs. The discussion highlights that leaders often know what they need to improve but fail to implement changes without a structured plan. By focusing on small, consistent steps, individuals can build lasting momentum that fosters larger transformations over time.

Another key theme is the importance of self-care as the foundation for leadership and goal achievement. Neglecting self-care can undermine professional success, and Dan draws parallels with athletes and entrepreneurs, showing how each group handles this differently. The conversation stresses the importance of personal reflection and recommends small, actionable changes that compound into significant progress.

Takeaways

Self-care as foundational — Prioritizing self-care is essential for sustaining personal and professional success.

Small, consistent actions — Incremental changes lead to lasting improvements and create upward spirals of growth.

Leadership as coaching — Effective leadership involves guiding others through questions rather than dictating solutions.

Culture of accountability — Building team habits around excellence, like those of the All Blacks rugby team, fosters long-term success.

Judgment and empathy — Reducing judgment and practicing empathy enhances leadership and personal well-being.

Personal values — Understanding and reinforcing personal values drive consistent improvement and align actions with goals.

Resources

Dan Edwardes’ Website — Personal site for contacting Dan Edwardes and exploring his work.

Parkour Generations — Organization founded by Dan Edwardes offering coaching, certifications, and events.

Art of Retreat — A leadership and education retreat for Parkour and movement practitioners.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Digging deep →

Published February 26, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 26  ·  ,

What was fascinating to me about what T.R. said was that he never mentioned athletic ability or strength or speed. The qualities he cited were all mental. They were deeper than mental. They were psychological, emotional, and spiritual. They were qualities of aspiration, of commitment, of intention, of will, of intensity, and of perseverance.

These are all qualities that you and I have control of in our writing and our artistic lives.

~ Steven Pressfield from, “He’s a Winner”

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There was definitely a time, until very recently in fact, when I thought that bashing through the work was a predictor of success. I know see that my ability fetish for bashing through work was made possible by my ability to focus. It’s that focus which I’m still able to summon while the physical and mental strength to bash is gone—maybe not completely gone, sure, but certainly far reduced from the days of yore.

Should I spend time having a meaningful conversation, or should I spend that same amount of time working on this task? One requires bashing on work I don’t really feel like doing, while one is pleasantly challenging. I continuously come back to my touch-stone phrase for 2020: Get less done. Laser focus? Check. Laser focus on the right thing? Well, that’s what I’m trying to be more intentional about these days.

What are you up to?

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Instead, have a compass →

Published February 25, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 25

These three interviews, along with many others in the Roadtrip Nation archive, all undermine the notion that you should simply follow your passion, and you’ll immediately be happy. For Glass, Steele, and Merrick, the path was more circuitous. This doesn’t mean, however, that their success is entirely serendipitous.

~ Cal Newport from, The Pre-Med and Ira Glass

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Newport has written a lot geared toward helping college students navigate, (college, life, time management, everything.) This piece is of use to everyone, whether or not you feel you are currently following your passion.

I think, (and I’m not saying this is in contradiction to what Newport wrote—I’m just wandering off here,) it’s far more useful to follow your own compass—whatever it points toward. It’s not even critical that you always make progress in the direction is points. Having a compass simply keeps you oriented. Which is, obviously the opposite of disoriented. And who wants to be disoriented. Having some orientation, gives you at least some confidence, and confidence enables you to move.

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Monterey Bay →

Published February 24, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 24

‘Think’ breaks →

Published February 23, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 23  ·  

Conduct shorter think breaks. Even a few hours can be extraordinarily helpful. This can be as simple as leaving the office at lunch in order to have a phone-free reflection period at a nearby coffee shop.

~ Chris Bailey from, How to Take a Think Break

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The quote is a from a list of “Do’s,” so it may feel a bit odd. If you don’t immediately know what a think-break is, stop and go read that short article. (Which also contains a link to a longer article. :)

Some people famously take week-long, totally-disconnected (from people, technology, routine, everything,) think-breaks. I suppose I could do that—I mean I know it would be possible, but I feel that I don’t need an entire week to think.

All I do is come to a stop and start thinking. After a few minutes I’ve 11 new ideas—or worse, ideas that have been rattling around in my head—that I can either decide to outright kill immediately, or work into things that need to be done. I don’t need to spend more time thinking, I need to spend more time anti-doing things. Do one thing, cross off two, or better yet, three things from my literal or ephemeral lists.

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Time management →

Published February 22, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 22  ·  ,

As addicting as it is, desire is the enemy to proper time management. Poor sleeping habits, unhealthy lifestyle choices, and just plain dissatisfaction are all byproducts of a poorly managed life.

~ Ryan Holiday from, 5 Stoic Lessons On Time Management

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Time management is the only thing—the only major skill critical for leading a good life… Time management is the only thing which no one ever attempted to teach me explicitly. Everything else was covered to some degree: science, religion, morality, philosophy, work ethic, hygiene, sexuality, language, geography, personal finance, and more, depending on how you want to subdivide all the stuff in my head.

Time management isn’t the most critical thing to know. Language and critical thinking are the top two, because with those two and sufficient time you can bootstrap everything else. However, things would be far better for everyone, if the third item on the list of must-have skills to be Human was a basic grasp of Time Management.

For me, I was trying to fix my sleep when it became obvious that I needed to arrange my day around sleeping. That lead immediately to an entirely new need for time management. “I need to be at work by 8,” is not Time Management (with capitals.) I then took a circuitous route discovering the needs and methods of Time Management.

But where do I wish I had actually started? That’s an excellent question. Right around 18 years old, I wish someone had handed me a copy of this tiny book: How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by A Bennet.

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Practice practice practice →

Published February 21, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 21  ·  , ,

Depending on your own personal history, there isn’t necessarily a lot at stake in how you conduct yourself at a cash register. What I’m trying to get at with my idiosyncratic cashier-focused story is this: there’s a vast difference between the habit of getting by, and the habit of getting better, and you may, without realizing it, be free to choose between them.

~ David Cain from, The Difference Between Getting By and Getting Better

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I’ve not gone down the exact same rabbit hole as Cain. However, being intentional with my work on the podcast interviews is amazing—it’s the same iterative path of discovery as he’s describing.

I’ve done well over 100 interviews—indoors, outdoors, quiet spaces, noisy spaces, while healthy, while sick-ish, with shy people, with insanely energetic people, during the day, at night, across sunsets with natural light, English-speakers and English-as-second-language speakers, old-ish, young-ish, men, women, couples, teams, while working alone and with an assistant, sleep-deprived and well-rested, with the occasional tech problem, in comfy chairs with tea, in an unpadded folding chair for 12 interviews in a row, well-fed and ravenous, . . .

None of that matters.

The conversations are always amazing. Time after time, once we get into the flow state, it turns out that people are interesting— most of the time surprisingly interesting. The more I work at this, the more I’m coming to believe that the art of communication, and in particular conversation, is the single most important skill for a human to possess.

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Reality check: A public service announcement about passwords →

Published February 20, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 20

If anyone ever says to you, “your password must contain one capital, a digit,…”, you can be certain that they are an idiot, and that they do not understand security. If you encounter such requirements in software, then it was written by an idiot—or it was written to a standard which was written by an idiot.

I’m serious. This is not hyperbole. Anyone who says such things truly has not even the most basic understanding of computer security. You should immediately stop trusting them with anything related to computer security.

To begin to understand why this is true, please enjoy this wonderfully explanatory cartoon from XKCD: Password Strength.

The cartoon is fun, but its core point about the critical feature of your passwords being the amount of entropy they contain will make you smarter than the vast majority of people.

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