Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Jump In

Question. If you want to learn to swim, do you think you would learn faster by standing around the pool watching others swim or by jumping in?

Hopefully, you answered jumping in.

However, I can understand if you answered watching others. Sometimes, it is easy to feel the need to know everything before even beginning. Unfortunately, for anything more complicated than brewing a pot of coffee, knowing everything before getting started is utterly impossible, leaving you perpetually on the side of the pool.

Most of the things you pick up while trying not to drown.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Best Piece of Advice I Ever Received

Back in the Summer of 2012, I was an intern at Qualcomm's Boulder office. My internship was almost over, so I put some time on my calendar to go chat with some of Senior-Staff/Director level folks who had been around for a while, to get a feel for their experience throughout their years with the company.

One chat really stuck out in my mind. That chat was with my team lead, Tim. Tim was a Senior-Staff manager who had been around as long as, if not longer, than the Directors at the Boulder office.

During our chat, he seemed particularly animated about one decision that could have put him at a much higher level. Midway through his career at Qualcomm, he got approached to switch teams from his current team(the first team he led) to a brand new, promising yet experimental team.

He was comfortable with his current team, so he decided to stay there.

That new team now makes up the majority of the current business.

His piece of advice: "If given the choice, the comfortable choice is usually the wrong one."

Monday, April 28, 2014

Building Sh*t

The hardest part about building shit is getting started.

The second hardest part about building shit: finishing.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Perfect Practice

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." - Vince Lombardi

Practice is easy.

Mindlessly going over the pentatonic scales, or copying examples from a programming book is practice.

Learning your favorite bands' songs or looking through open source projects is a little better, but, alas, still just practice.

Taking what you know and applying it to writing your own music or programming projects is getting really close. But its still just practice.

Now, take the result of the previous step, and show it to a mentor or a group of knowledgable people and have them critique it. Have a meaningful conversation with them as to why the various pieces don't fit, truly internalizing why it doesn't work(this will probably involve digging deeper into theory or programming language, or drawing from examples of other musicians or open source code), and hammer the jenky pieces until they are flawless.

Perfect practice is a bitch.

When I was younger, I never made it past playing mindless pentatonic scales and learning easy parts of songs.

I still have plenty of jenky pieces left in powerlifting, bodybuilding, and software development but at least I am hammering in the right pieces.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Choices

Ham or bacon(or sausage or steak or ...)?

Vanilla or chocolate(or twix or chocolate waffle cone or ...)?

Apple or Samsung(or HTC or Sony or ...)?

Pre-med or Engineering(or Philosophy or Underwater Basket-weaving or ...)?

Our choices are seemingly endless, essentially paralyzing our decision making from sheer information overload.

I saw a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon Cooper demonstrated exactly this... and he only have to choose between 2 items: the Xbox One or the PS4. A tough decision indeed.

Fortunately, all that competition to be the best has created a vast surplus of things that are good enough. Any smart phone we get will be able to make calls, send world-class selfies, and run candy crush until our fingers bleed. Any car we purchase will get us from point a to point b, have decent gas mileage and probably not spontaneously combust.

We(I am definitely guilty of this!) all need to learn to take less time on decisions where good enough will suffice so we can spend time on making the choices that truly matter: what am I looking for in a partner, where do I want to live, what do I want to do for a career, and who do I want to spend my limited time with. 

Oh, and Xbox One or PS4.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Labels

When can you label yourself a bodybuilder?

When can you label yourself a powerlifter?

When can you label yourself a surgeon?

Is it when you first start caring about what food you put in your mouth? How about when you really start caring, when you stress over every little detail?

Is it when you pick up your first weight? How about about when your lifts start reaching some arbitrarily large number?

Is it when you pick up your first biology book? How about your first day in med school?

No, in my opinion, none of those things will qualify you as a bodybuilder, powerlifter or surgeon. You don't earn those labels until you put yourself out on a limb, completely vulnerable.

You're not a bodybuilder until you step on stage, rocking the banana hammock for the whole world to see. No more hiding those last 5 pounds or touch-ups with instagram filters.

You're not a powerlifter until you suit up in the singlet, putting your lifts at the discretion of the 3 judges and lights. No more hiding that "parallel" squat, touch-and-go bench press and hitched deadlift.

And you're certainly not a surgeon until you operate on your first patient, accepting full responsibility that this is a real person's life on the line. No more hiding behind textbooks and cadavers.

As Ronnie Coleman is famous for saying, "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilda, but don't nobody wanna put on the banana hammock." Or something like that.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Badass Economy

Even though we already have our fair share of coined economies(Sharing Economy, Connection Economy, Thank You Economy, to name a few), I feel compelled to add another, because why not.

I dub it: The Badass Economy.

As a millennial, my main criteria when looking for a job is the degree of impact I will be able to make on the world, the amount of training available, and amount of challenge the job presents. Essentially, I am looking for a job where I will be more badass each day.

Obviously, employers are looking for only the most badass employers. The whole purpose of the interview process is to answer the question: is this person badass?

Companies even have formal badass ratings given to them by investment banks: their valuation.

Finally, consumers buy products for the sole purpose of becoming more badass. Those new clothes put a pep in our step, that new gaming machine renders pixels just a little faster, and obviously we all want to lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle without breaking a sweat.

Even beating a level in Candy Crush leaves us feeling just a tad more badass, it even compels us to tell our friends on Facebook exactly how badass we are. Speaking of Facebook, social networks even have more metrics to determine your badass rating: number of friends, followers, and they even allow the "influencers" to have their own fan pages and verified pages(obviously, they are so badass that people would want to pretend to be them).

Okay, maybe some of that was a stretch, but there are definitely worse goals than making ourselves and the world around us just a little more badass.



Monday, April 21, 2014

Readings of 2014, March Edition, Part 2

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyasaki:

I received this book from my aunt about a dozen years ago, and just now finally got around to reading it.

The namesake of the book comes from Robert's childhood, where he had his biological dad(poor dad) and his best friend's dad(rich dad) who both acted as mentors as he was growing up. Poor dad came from the conventional mindset of getting a college education and then making a career out of working for a company; on the other hand, rich dad(a high school dropout) held the mindset that one must acquire assets and then have those assets work for you.

The only thing that I found mind-blowing was Robert's advice to always pay yourself and further nourish your investments first, before paying off things like bills. His reasoning: bill collectors will always scream louder at you then you would scream at yourself, hence he is forced to come up with creative solutions to make extra money on months that he is running a little short.

The 9-to-5 Cure by Kristin Cardinale:

Have you read The 4-hour Workweek? Well this is pretty much the same thing, albeit Kristin Cardinale didn't seem to draw me in quite as much as Tim Ferriss(man crush).

Abstract: do work you are truly passionate about, and take periodic "mini-retirements" throughout the year.

Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman:

Have you ever pushed on a door, only to realize it needed to be pulled?

How about attempted to turn on a light, only to chew up the silverware that was sitting in the garbage disposal?

Well, then this book is for you. Norman spends the entire book looking at everyday things, and providing examples of how they are done poorly as well as how they are done well.

Abstract: design != aesthetic, it is perfectly possible(and frequently done) to make a pretty thing that is completely unusable. Additionally, if you want to provide the user with the most usable design, put the knowledge into the world and not the user's head, for example: push pads on doors, and natural mappings between dials on stoves and their respective burners.

What Does the Fox Say? by Ylvis:

Yes, a children's book adaptation of the youtube sensation. Literally, a 2 minute read.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Dots: When to Connect and When to Collect?

In Seth Godin's post of a similar title, he argues that the connecting the dots is becoming more important than ever.

I don't disagree that connecting the dots is becoming more important, but I would like to argue that knowing when to stop collecting and beginning to connect the dots is by far the most important.

Case in point, just now, I randomly typed in 2 symptoms(fever and bloating) into WebMd and 75 possible conditions, all relatively equally likely, were listed as the cause: everything ranging from the flu to Hepatitis to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Chances are you'd be wrong, if you were to give a diagnosis based on those 2 symptoms alone.

It would be like trying to have someone replicate a circle by providing them only 2 dots on that circle; reproducing the circle is possible, but the most likely result is that the other person will simply draw a line. They connected the dots as any perfectly logical person would, yet came up with the completely wrong answer, simply based on lack of enough information.

On the other extreme side, there are many people who are in very long relationships before deciding that the other person is, or is not, the one they would like to marry. Granted, sometimes that is due to other reasons, but after a time of about two years, there isn't really anything significant left to learn about the other person. As my mom would say, "It's time to shit or get off the toilet."

I don't think the true magic is in either collecting or connecting dots, but in the ability to know when which is appropriate.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Thank the Batmen

In "The Dark Knight," Batman took the fall for the murder of Harvey Dent, Gotham City's largest symbol of hope. Even though Batman did kill Dent, it was only after Dent had gone insane as the villain Two-Face. That final part was left out in order to preserve Dent's status of hope.

As a result, Batman instantly became viewed as a renegade in the city.

In "The Dark Knight Rises," it was clear to see the mental toll that being viewed as a villain was taking on Batman, despite all the good he was doing. That, combined with the physical toll of crime fighting, caused Batman to become a recluse. This disappearance allowed a new mega-villain to step into Gotham City and almost destroy it, until Batman finally came out of retirement to save the day.

We all know real life Batmen, those who take a bunch of heat for others, yet live a rather thankless life.

At work, our managers absorb a lot of heat for us, yet it is a commonly held notion that manager's jobs are just to make our life a living nightmare. Similarly, the sys-admin and IT folks receive a lot of flack for all the process employees must go through as well as when things go down, yet receive little thanks for the amount of good that results from that process and for the vast majority of the time that things are up-and-running flawlessly.

However, the most important Batmen are clearly our parents. During our teen years, we view them as ruthless dictators who make arbitrary rules for the sole purpose of making our lives's a living hell. Yet we don't see what those rules save us from, and how little we actually miss out on as a result of those rules. They drive us around from practice to practice to social event, yet we always expected more of them.

Fortunately, when we reach the wonderful twenty-somethings stage of our life, we begin viewing our parents as the Batman that saves Gotham City, and not the Batman who killed Harvey Dent.

We all need to stop and take the time to think the Batmen in our lives, because we need them all in our lives(even if we don't know it yet).



Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Best

Chances are, we won't be the best in the world at everything(or anything) we would like to be.

We probably don't have the best genetics.

We probably aren't smart enough.

We probably aren't pretty/handsome enough.

We probably didn't get started young enough.

We probably can't train all day every day.

And a few lucky SOB's do/are/did/can. Get over it.

Even though we probably won't be the best in the world, that shouldn't stop us from being the best version of us.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

It's Okay to be the Big Fish, too

Yesterday, I wrote about subjecting yourself to situations where you are the little fish being necessary for growth. But what happens when you now become the big fish in that pond?

Well we really only have 3 choices:

1) Eat all the other fish in the pond. This is analogous to the rockstar/stud/ninja/<insert other buzzword> who expects everyone around them to kiss their ass and worship the ground they walk on. Hopefully, I don't need to let you know that this is the wrong choice.

2) Find a new pond. Just because your surroundings initially provided a challenge and facilitated growth, doesn't mean that it always will. That is why many of the successful companies in Silicon Valley make it easy to switch teams and projects; they know the great employees are constantly seeking to learn and face new challenges, so it is much better to keep them within the company on a different team, than to have them go to a different team outside of the company.

3) Help out the small fish and give back to the pond. When you are the small fish, your only job is to learn and not mess stuff up too bad, but after a point you must begin paying it forward. More experienced powerlifters bring the newer guys under their wings through coaching, angel investors sit on boards and help to groom the next generation of entrepreneurs, and software engineers contribute to open source projects . And let's be honest, being the big fish feels amazing, so pushing the smaller fish will in turn push you, if you want to keep that title.

Switching ponds isn't always an option, but bringing others under your wings(or should I say fins?) is.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Be the Small Fish, for a Bit

If you want to be the best financial analyst you can be, move to Manhattan.

If you want to be best country singer you can be, move to Nashville.

If you want to be the best actor/actress you can be, move to Los Angeles.

If you want to be the best software engineer you can be, move to Silicon Valley.

If you want to be the best powerlifter you can be, move to Columbus.

Contrary to the belief held in Malcolm Gladwell's book, David and Goliath, which states that college students you have a greater chance of success by going to a less competitive school, powerlifters have the mentality that is a horrible thing to be the strongest guy in the gym for a substantial period of time.

In order to grow, you need to be pushed, you need to be a little afraid of getting eaten alive, you need to learn from mentors that are better than you in every way. It feels nice being the big fish, but if you want it bad enough, put yourself in a position where you are the little fish, and then make yourself grow, even if just a bit, everyday.


Sunday, April 13, 2014

The Important 20%

It's all important, particularly the end.

But let's say you want to broaden your horizons, and insist on putting Pareto's Principle to the test. On which 20% should you focus?

The 20% that scares the shit out of you.

The 20% that you are putting off.

The 20% that requires being fully present.

If you want to get stronger, a heavy squat is going to do more that the half-assed leg curls. If you want to get the promotion, turn off the email client and get to work on solving the difficult problems.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Knowing Versus Doing, the Follow-up

You have been dieting and exercising for awhile, the weight has been coming off great, but it is slowly creeping to a crawl. So you cut calories and add in more cardio, kickstarting the weight loss again, but eventually the weight loss stalls again. So the cycle continues. Slowly the weight loss comes to a screeching halt, or even some weight gain happens, and you have no additional calories to remove.

Now what?

You have been working at a company for years, rapidly rising through the junior and mid level positions, through a combination of talent and tenacity, but have been stuck at staff level for an eternity.

Now what?

I have been in preparation for a bodybuilding competition since November 11th of last year, losing about 12 pounds in the first 10 weeks, but in the 12 weeks since then my weight loss has been negligible. Maybe it has even been a swap of muscle for fat. Judge for yourself: January 3rd and April 8th.

I finally reached a point where I couldn't cut any more calories or add anymore cardio, even though the scale still wasn't moving.

Now what?

We threw a monkey-wrench into the mix by adding calories and decreasing cardio.

Do we know it will work? No, but we knew what we were doing wasn't working.

We all know how to get from point A to point B, but doing more of that may not get us from point B to point C. In the beginning, what we do is driven by what we know. When we reach an advanced stage, what we know is driven by what we do.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Knowing Versus Doing

We all know how to lose a little weight.

We all know how to better our general fitness.

We all know how to advance our careers.

Unfortunately, knowing is never enough. That is why so many are stuck at our current weight, fitness level or job.

Doing is scary, we have to put ourselves out on a limb, with the possibility that we will fail. But if we don't do, we are guaranteed to fail.


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Not-So-Urgent Care Clinic

Last weekend, I felt an oncoming sinus infection, and couldn't get into my typical physician, so I was relegated to going to the Urgent Care Clinic. Let's just say my time spent waiting stood in stark contrast to its namesake(on the bright side, that did allow me to get in 2 hours of reading).

Why do we put up with this?

Why do we put up with Comcast?

Why do we put up with jobs we are generally dispassionate about, or, worse, genuinely loathe?

Because, at the time, no viable alternatives exist, or at least appear to exist.

Finding a new job is always a possibility, but the fear of jumping into the unknown causes many to rule it out as an option.

Comcast, on the other hand is definitely giving the appearance that they are fighting claw-and-teeth to remain the only viable option for cable and internet(but what happens when someone rises up to contest them?).

Fortunately, services like MDLive are beginning to pop up, that will allow doctors to swiftly provide elementary diagnoses over the phone, as opposed to the hours and hours of waiting room time spent in Urgent Care Clinics around the world.

Now that I no longer have to wait to talk to a physician, I can return to waiting for my Comcast repairman.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Frat Houses and Companies

Companies have presidents, heads of marketing, recruiting and even philanthropy.

Fraternities have presidents, heads of marketing, recruiting and even philanthropy.

Companies have monthly or quarterly all-hands meetings, where the entire company gets together, praises their collective victories and points out areas of improvement.

Fraternities have weekly chapter, where the entire local chapter gets together, praises their collective victories and points out areas of improvement.

Fraternities and companies both share the same central problem, the majority of the people that are responsible for the future success(or failure) do not feel that they individually make a substantial contribution.

If you have ever seen a kitchen in a Fraternity house, it would be instantly apparent that the mess was the collective work of many individuals over time, yet the blame for the entire mess can be placed on nobody. Additionally, many Fraternities suffer from recruitment problems; pledge classes slowly dwindle in size from lack of involvement and deteriorating reputation, and next thing you know the chapter needs to bring in nationals to prevent them from closing.

Similarly, the fall from grace of Fortune 500 companies rarely results from a particular, catastrophic event, and is instead a gradual deterioration in relative quality.

As Seth Godin would put it, the deterioration of both organizations happens gradually and then suddenly.

The simple(but not easy) solution is to make sure your members or employees are actively involved and feel a sense of personal responsibility. Otherwise, you may end up with a messy, or empty, kitchen.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Contextual Lessons

As a Computer Engineer student, the notion of adding redundancy to systems was harped upon us almost daily. We became pros at making systems as fail-proof as possible.

Sidestep to other areas of life, namely setting my alarm clock. My alarm clock has failed me on numerous occasions, seemingly always when I have an early flight or day of work to attend to. The most recent occurrence was for a 6 am flight leaving La Guardia; I set my alarm for 3:30, and didn't realized I had slept through it until 5:15 am.

There are numerous reasons for failure of an alarm clock to accomplish its intended job: power outage, mixing am and pm, setting it for the wrong time or day, forgetting to enable the alarm, and simply sleeping through it.

It would be logical to assume that I would instinctively set multiple alarms, seeing as redundancy was so deeply engrained into me, yet I never contextually connected the two until my most recent failed alarm attempt.

Lessons in particular area usually applicable to many other areas of life, but aren't obvious. In my case, I feel particular oblivious to them, until they hit me over head multiple times.

At least I have finally learned to set multiple alarms.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Readings of 2014, March Edition, Part 1

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder:

Ok, I have to get something off my chest... in 2008, all incoming Freshman of the University of Illinois received a copy of this book, with instructions to have it read by the time we arrived on campus. I had attempted to read it then, but failed miserably, and it was apparent that a vast majority of my peers were in the same boat.

However, now that I have read it, I can see why a University Chancellor would recommend it for incoming freshman.

Well as they say, better late than never.

Onto the take home lesson of the book, and why I believe the Chancellor wished that all of us would read it: if you want to make a change in this world, you will have to work really, really, fucking hard.

The book revolves around Paul Farmer, a Ph.D in Anthropology and M.D from Harvard, who splits his time between Boston and Haiti, as well as a bevy of other third world countries and shitholes(like Russian prisons), trying to fight HIV and Tuberculosis. In his free time, while he is not seeing to patients in clinics, he is taking multi-day long treks into the remotest of remote regions of Haiti to make house visits to patients who are too weak to make the treacherous visit themselves, and to assess his patients living conditions.

Oh, and he hardly ever sleeps.

Yeah, you could say he works really, really, fucking hard.


Friday, April 4, 2014

The Nickleback Effect

Hardly anybody truly loves Nickleback.

Just like hardly anybody truly loves McDonalds.

Yet, Nickleback is consistently selling out shows, McDonalds is always packed, and both are making more money than I could fathom.

There is nothing wrong with money being the end goal, but in order to do so, consistency and accessibility usually win out over quality and creativity. Every time I buy a burger from McDonalds, I can be fairly certain of how it will taste: not bad and not great, just burger-y. Every time I hear a Nickleback song, I can be fairly certain of how it is going to sound: not bad and not great, just sing song-y.

In order to make something truly great, you will risk losing some of that accessibility. Not everyone will understand a truly magnificent piece of art, and truly talented, risk-taking artists are bound to have a few pieces that don't turn out well. Not everyone will enjoy the menus of world-class chefs, and they typically change daily or seasonly, so chances are a few of those may be busts.

However, with that lack of universal accessibility comes an increased risk of failure. That is why we have so many restaurants closing daily and starving artists; relatively few McDonalds close and Nickleback is at no risk of starving.

There is nothing wrong with choosing to be Nickleback, just like there is nothing wrong with choosing to be the (potentially-starving) talented artist. However, there is something wrong with the chef trying to lead the McDonald's kitchen.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Praise for Microsoft

Microsoft has finally put the last nail in XP's coffin. They had been pushing users to upgrade for a while, by offering some pretty serious discounts; but now it is official, Microsoft will stop supporting XP.

Windows XP came out in 2001, that means that it is almost 13 years ago. I don't point that age out to be a sign of weakness, I point it out as a testament to XP potentially being the greatest operating system of all time(relatively speaking); operating systems that work extremely well stick around for a while, those that do not are quickly slain... I'm looking at you Vista and ME.

With that said, I fully support Microsoft announcing that it is ending support on XP.

I hear the criticism's now, "My XP machine works perfectly fine for my needs, so they should support it." My response to this is an analogy... an old 1969(same relative age as XP) Camaro would work perfectly fine today if it was maintained, but GM feels no need to keep turning out replacement parts, and we as consumers are completely fine with that. There are definitely still old Camaros on the road, but those owners must go to aftermarket dealers for custom parts.

Additionally, Operating Systems are some of the most technically difficult systems in Computer Engineering, so I have no doubt that the engineers that were left supporting XP were extremely bright. Keeping them on support of XP is taking away valuable resources from creating something that truly pushes today's boundaries.

Microsoft has definitely had their fair share of flops in recent years(Zune, Surface, Windows 8 to a degree), but I truly believe that this is not one of those. As Henry Ford famously said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

April Fool's Day

What would you do if you woke up today and it was yet again April Fool's Day?

The exact same song is playing on your alarm clock radio. Certainly, you wouldn't believe yesterday hadn't repeated itself, but, lo and behold, it is not just the radio show that is repeating itself, but everyone's fake pregnancy stories on Facebook are also repeating themselves.

So you go to bed hoping it is all a bad dream.... and in the morning it is April Fool's Day again.

Now what do you do?

Do you steal money and live it up, or do you hone your skills?

Do you brush all people off because they won't remember you when you wake up, or do you take the time to truly get to know people?

Do you try and off yourself, or do you try and live life to the fullest?

The same thing happened to Bill F*cking Murray(Chive On) on Groundhog's Day. Spoiler alert... the first choice is the wrong one.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

The Interesting Behavior of Spring Break

First off, I want to apologize to my 2 readers for the long gap between this post as my previous. Both of you already know this, but I was Wifi-less in Florida for Spring Break.

I have never been before, and definitely had a blast... and also witnessed activities that I couldn't believe(for reference, I lived in a Fraternity house, so I have seen some pretty outrageous events).

I heard guys call girls sluts almost by the minute, saw girls live out that name almost as frequently, saw a beautiful beach begin to resemble a landfill, and even saw a guy try to go from the 9th to 10th floor of a condo.... by climbing it on the outside.

Why do I think Spring Break is the perfect breeding ground for this? One of the guys I was staying with ever-so-eloquently said it to a girl, "The best part about this is, I will never have to see you again."

The second face of anonymity is a powerful motivator for bad(albeit, fun) behavior.