Life Advice

I’ve been asked for “Life advice” a few times recently, which has given me pause for thought. I think advice of this type should really be tailored to individual experience, so I’m a little reluctant to espouse generalities but, I have some ideas - most based on personal experience (so take them with the usual caveats on anecdote) of the nurture part. I’d go so far as to say ignore what I say and go read stuff (which is one of my top pieces of advice).

You may not be able to change your genetics but, outside of a few narrow domains, the interaction with the environment and the culture you create, or find yourself in, are still very important.

One other caveat is that I grew up without internet and its arrival has changed life in ways that were hard to comprehend.

These are my thoughts on being successful:

Immerse yourself deeply in at least two domains, preferably a few more if you are inclined. If two of the domains are not closely related, so much the better.

I was average at Art, but engaged productively with it A-level, gaining an A grade and winning prizes with my photography. I was also well-immersed in clay work when younger and with the broad arts in my teenage years. Art was my 5th A-level when most people did 3 to 4 A-Levels (the remainder of my courses being Maths/Physics/Chemistry-focussed). I also started my interest in theatre and began directing plays at a young age. And later, poetry.  Some of those practices stay with me - a notebook journal that has visual elements. An understanding on how to look at art and poetry. The processes of creativity.

The skills and knowledge of a deep domain are very valuable today. For instance, my friend (who is more gifted than I) has deep knowledge of programming C (as well as many other matters) this skill has provided decades of value. But, being able to cross-silo expertise into other areas can create unique and valuable insights. 

Shallow knowledge is not very useful, especially in the internet age.

I wouldn’t worry too much on how “marketable” this domain knowledge is. Certainly, computer coding in C has a bigger market than poetry, but if you are driven to go deep, it will help you.

Evidence: Tim Harford in Messy quotes several studies and case studies on what he calls slow-motion multi-tasking. Essentially successful creatives go deep on a “hobby” outside of their core domain and also have many on-going projects in different areas. Short blog here.

Be (or learn to be) curious. About everything.

While I think there do seem to be aspects of curiosity that more naturally occur in some people (like me). I also think it can be taught or nurtured to a high degree.

A deep curiosity about why something might be can also lead to deep domain knowledge (see above). It also means you are less likely to be idling time on addictive mobile games but seeking out knowledge on areas you are curious about.

You can’t command people easily too simply work hard at matters they are not interested in or curious about. So cultivating curiosity partly solves both work ethic and domain knowledge.

You also seem to learn better when curious (see study above) and it will lead you to better knowledge and judgements about true states of the world.

I remain immensely fascinated by many things still. It makes my story telling better and it makes my investing better too.

Evidence: States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit (Gruber et al. 2014)  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4252494/

Be (or learn to be) empathetic.

Similar to curiosity, while I think there do seem to be aspects of empathy that more naturally occur in some people, I also think it can be taught or nurtured to a high degree. It’s clear to me that it occurs (and can be taught) to autistic spectrum people - once thought not to be (at least typically) empathetic.

Empathy will help you in relationships of all kinds - romantic, friendship, family, work and even fleeting day-to-day.

Personally, making all types of work and my personal life work has involved understanding and empathy, some times over deep domain experience.

Evidence: Science of Empathy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513638/

Read. Read. Read.

I hardly know anyone successful who doesn’t read a huge amount (I think Donald Trump is the only one I know). I suppose podcasts (which I find slow) and other inputs of the modern era would also count. (It goes hand in hand with deep domain knowledge referred to above).

Build and nurture connections.

Social and relationship capital is built in the connections we make with others. Small and fleeting. Long and lasting. (See above on empathy).

But, I think the internet can bring connections to a level I didn’t have while growing up. 

Binding together the ideas of deep domain knowledge, empathy and curiosity will and can lead to building connections with and to friends.

Choosing your friends will be important as the “culture” you surround yourself with is an important factor in your life trajectory. This feels true to me on the micro-culture of your friends as well as the wider culture of your school/work/country.

Evidence: Power of Connections here and Esfahani book.

Learn how to communicate effectively

There are at least two levels to learn this at. First, the art of one-to-one or small group conversation. Here the advent of mobile phones has been a disadvantage, so needs more work. This also comes down to having strong social skills. (And even if not top quartile, a passable level is still useful - look at Bill Gates - who has many of these things, but had to be forced to learn a moderate amount of social skills and then public speaking).

Essentially, you need to be able to cultivate the ability to listen and comprehend well and respond (with empathy).

The next level will be the ability to communicate ideas or persuasions through public speaking. High level rhetoric may be beyond most people, but a decent skill level is within everyone’s grasp and is important.

There is another level in the small-medium group communication class which depending on how your life proceeds you may also want to be skilled in - although with many similarities to the above two categories.

The ability to influence and tell stories is a vital skill in persuading other people. It goes hand in hand with the above, and without it, it can leave your deep domain knowledge as less useful as you can’t communicate it to others.

Less obvious is that it can be taught and learnt to a large degree. (Yes, the ancient Greek had whole important works dedicated to rhetoric and communication).

Evidence: Supposedly, the job survey evidence puts this as the soft skill employers want. I think it’s a little weak, but it seems obvious to me that communication is vital.

A few more personal musings…

Learn how to cook food you and others will love. 

Everyone eats, not everyone knows how to cook. The ability to cook a wide variety of dishes will be: 

• good for your health. Cutting out processed foods, takeaway etc. will be good for you.

• good for forming strong social networks and conversation. If you cook for friends (and more) you engage with one of the most ancient forms of human bonding.

• teach you about other cultures and history, if you decide to be even a little bit curious as to how your recipe and foods came about.

Cooking has been an important part of my life and has created important bonds with many of those close to me, or even only in passing.

Learn how to make physical things or craft in the real world.

I would count cooking as a form of making. I would count many creative arts, like poetry, also as acts of physical creation - drawing, crafting, as well. Ditto gardening, knitting, building - soldering electronic circuit boards, carpentry, sewing and so on.

There are plenty of skills embodied in the learnings of a physical act and it grows brain skills in a different domain to almost whatever you’ve decided to do as your primary domain.

I’ve learnt many ideas on what makes things work by being engaged in physical creation like art, gardening, crafting. These learnings are quite different and thus useful plus there is deep satisfaction in making items by your own hands.

Prioritise experience over objects/consumerism

Buy experiences with your money over throw-away items. Experiences live longer and more positively in the memory and contribute to greater happiness. There’s a fair amount of strong research on this.

Evidence: Atlantic pop science article overview plus key Psych study.

Learn to think for yourself

This seems self evident but I find much of what many people tell me is flat out wrong.

One recent example, in a conversation with someone who was a sustainability investor of soughts, he claimed 5 “facts” and studies, which I knew simply to be wrong and he would have had other around him believe him, if I hadn’t said what I thought was wrong, and why and where you could find information to check yourself. It could have been awkward (but see social skills) I used a lot of humour to deflect (!)

Think that you are running your own race, or playing a game with your own rules. Not another person’s race.

Don’t think about your learning or your life trajectory as a competition with others. 

Sure, work and products and the like will all be about competition. But, many domains won’t be about competition and you might want to think about the route you are taking as your own path.

No one I knew at school was squeezing in Art A-level between double Maths. I don’t know any playwrights who are also successful investors. Often, it may help to think about taking your own path and not worry about everyone else.

Travel.

The last one for me was to travel and live for a time in other cultures. This really exploded many assumptions I had (see my time with the Wana Tribe) and gave me a much larger view point on the world. Maybe  in today’s connected world this is less important, or perhaps, it’s even more important now to go and really find out what things are like.

Finally, also feel free to ignore all advice that doesn’t seem helpful.

Other advice:

General Job/work Advice from 80,000 hours

This is a super summary of work orientated processes and ideas you can use.

Paul Graham (start up founder of Y Combinator) on how to do what you love (2009) but still insightful:  http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

My Grants programme

If you are interested in a micro-grant for positive impact check out my programme. 

Conference: Find Your Epic

The greatest of meet-ups change you. Then you go on to change the world.

Occasionally, a snowflake falls on the mountainside and an avalanche occurs.

The best meet-ups are an avalanche of ideas and a meeting of minds.

Again, I’ve been challenged by the observation that life is messy. Yet what unites and binds us as humans still remains greater than our divisions.

For all the polarization in the world, there are still places to meet. Respect. Life. Chaos. Arguments. Hugs.

I heard about an  extraordinary range of commitments to long-term social and environmental value. From the country and city level – particularly the cities – but at all levels. And as we argue I hear the importance of discourse of conversation.

I heard reflections on the state of the UK union. There are real chances it might split in the future, but whatever the outcome how do can still heal and come together.

I heard very moving stories of the “Troubles”. A joke on how the people could only underplay the loss and conflict that threads through human lives. To be a “mixed marriage” is to be from two communities from different religious backgrounds. Fathers and sons died. Mothers and daughters died. Families grieved. There was a healing, a tentative wound closure – and that in the hurtling crisis that is Brexit the social cost in Belfast could well be tremendous. Sad on where we’ve arrived. Moved on how we lost and healed. Hopeful slithers as good people continue to try for peace. 

I witnessed an astonishing evening of music. A classical rap fusion, led by Dessa - a female vocalist of sublime word-smith, voice and heart. It’s genre-crossing live music between a rapper and the  BBC National Orchestra of Wales.  Dessa reflected it’s not often you can wear a fancy cape out and about. I think it’s even rarer to bear witness to such an unusual music fusion. Took me to a place musically I’ve never been and like all sublime art, leaves you changed when you emerge. (A track from Dessa below).

A conference is part content. A conference is all people. The greatest meetups have the greatest people. It’s not our individual heights but our collective complexity.

I heard about how to run hospital groups in America and the pros/cons of a Medicare for all.

What it’s like to be a Burner at Burning Man and how not to die.

How to make classic rum. The  freshness of sugar cane. The art of distillery. How to age gin.

What being a First Assistant Film Director is like – the person who runs the set onsite.

What it means to protect your synagogue. How Jews feel under threat.

What filming stories for Instagram Stories is all about. 

What intermittent fasting is like

What it means, and how you can get to adopt in the US. And a picture of adoption and story to make me cry.

What Cities are doing, what power grids and doing, what endowments are doing in the fight in the climate emergency.

I learnt about the neuroscience of poverty, the challenges in protecting children online, what the international development community are attempting to do; the latest advances in dementia and brain research.

I discovered a community theatre practice centered around rural life in America. The hopes, dreams and challenges of farmers and the like.

I heard about book writing and Hollywood film making.

The challenges of UK special education and the ethics of Downs syndrome testing.

I ended up abseiling down the side of a hotel for charity as part of giving back. (See above)

I heard about what can make our brains better (altitude and high intensity training).

I heard about Goalball. A sport geared to those with disabilities.

… and through all of this the music, dance, food, drink, conversation of life.

The constructive clashing of life – when we humans meet in these activities they are the concentrated renewable energy that fuel our discussions - our debates - our loves - our passions - our fights - our peaces.

We argue, but we stand together.

So – it’s messy – there are questions without answers. Lines are crossed. Redrawn. Fudged. Drawn again.  It’s gloriously messy and absolutely worth saving.

I know. We know. In an age where matters may seem divisive. Good people and still meeting, still connecting; listening and exchanging.

As we joke….Let it BAP. There won’t be an answer, so let it BAP.

(Do sign up to my monthly newsletter below, if you’d like to keep in touch).

Extel 2003 to 2018, for SRI, Responsible Investing.

This is the 2018 IRRI Survey results - published by Extel Surveys and SRI-CONNECT. I snuck in at 20 for “most positive contribution to sustainable investment and corporate governance in 2018”

 This survey has its origins in the Extel survey, where the first survey was done in 2003. I won the no. 1 slot back in 2003 for best sector analyst for integrated SRI analyst. 

Now that RI, ESG, Sustainability and its adjacent areas such as green finance and the like, has on the face of it taken off I reflect that we’ve achieved some things, but not as much as we might have hoped for.

Running Effective Meetings

I had an awkward moment at a moderately important board type meeting recently. At 11am (as I had written to everyone beforehand more than once) I said I had to leave. The meeting had run 2 hours which was the agenda time allotted. The Chair asked where I was going? As if to say "isn't this meeting the most important matter in the world?"  I replied "to an event I had committed to several weeks ago, to which I had told you" and promptly left.

There are many types of meeting and different types of effectiveness. I now Chair and have chaired several types of these semi-formal to formal decision making and oversight meetings and have some thoughts on making them effective.  They are of a different timbre to creative meetings and confusing the type of meetings I see leads oft times to ineffectivness.

Making these meetings efficient and productive takes preperation time. 

Ideally the chair needs to work the CEO or other key decision makers in the meeting to ensure the agenda points and clear and prioritised.

Once the points to raise, discuss and decide upon are known. The Chair needs to carefully allot or review the alloted time for those agenda points.   This is a crucial skill.  Too little time will mean the meeting will not run well.

At this point, you need to decide if there is then too much in the agenda and adjust accordingly.

This (1)  time setting (2) priority setting and then (3) agenda adjustment are 3 crucial areas the chair should resolve.

Appropriate papers then need to be sent with enough time in advance for people to read (although I will note another a completely different type of meeting which will not use advance papers - this meeting has members read papers all together and make a decision with the same knowledge base).

If the meeting members are not reading the papers in advance, you need to tell them and then potentially remove them from the board/commitee if they do not have the time to commit. 

Ensuring board preparedness is an item that you should have assessed on a regular basis. As is  self evaluation and skills audit if this is a formal board and meeting structure.

At the meeting, you need to be deadly efficient at keeping the time alloted correct yet allowing enough debate to flow.   This is where member prep and time allowance come together.  Members unprepared can take time up with unnecessary clarifications.

Still in your quest for effectiveness you must not abandon intriguing points and useful ideas.  However, when these interesting points arise but not directly relevant to the topic you need to capture them and park them.

If seen this called a nugget harvesting or the parking lot system. 

Note the idea nugget. State you are closing this nugget topic but noting it down to be followed up appropriately.  Putting it in the parking lot.

If a decision is needed to be made.  The decision maker needs to make it.  It might not be the chair but you have to make sure the decision is made.

There may be a case for delaying the decision due to a lack of information.  However in a well run meeting all the appropriate papers should been prepared.

You will never have 100 percent of the information.  Making decisions under uncertainty will be a mark of the quality of your decision maker.   Having all the information prepared will be a mark of the strength of your team and also the strength of your oversight.

Keeping to time. Ensuring decisions are made. Action points are noted.  Good ideas go into the parking lot for follow up.

Allowing members to leave on time is another mark of an effective meeting.

The chairs job is not finished here. The chair should follow up effectively on parking lot ideas, also with the CEO or specific board members or presenters on any points or decisions that need to be made.

Putting it all together you have:

-Effective preparedness

-Time Management

-Make decisions

-Save good ideas

-Follow up

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More thoughts: My Financial Times opinion article on long-term investing and how to engage with companies.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try:  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or Nassim Taleb's commencement address; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Or Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Cross fertilise. Read about the autistic mind here.

Interviews are useless

I am not a fan of the usefulness of interviews. The research on job type interviews (unstructured) suggests they do not work as intended. The research on structured interviews is modestly positive if very well structured.  This was struck home to me as I sat through a semi-structured selection process for a networking group. All 8 of us in the group were fascinating (and vouched for by someone in the network), but in practise the group interview only assessed how well we could present ourselves in a narrow, artificial way with  bias to those good at presenting, and with some extravert factors. (I say that as someone who does have presenting skills)

I believe it would have been better (or at least equal and less hassle) to use a random process. This was further reinforced in the pub later where the natural flow of conversation between the 8 of us was an order of magnitude better.

Still, the unstructured interview is not going away any time soon, but – gentle reader – if you take one message from this, is to realise interviews very limited effectiveness in judging any thing to do with a job.  See below for the academic study on it, plus NY times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-uselessness-of-job-interviews.html

http://journal.sjdm.org/12/121130a/jdm121130a.pdf

(Note, from my reading one of the more effective ways of testing someone in a job, is to give them that job for a trial period – although this is impractical in many instances, it’s one of the driver for the value of internships and one of the problems of how to give internships)

Will Smith on Failure. Fail Often. Fail Forward.

Fail Forward. Fail Often.  "Failure is a massive part of being able to be successful". 

Will Smith echoes JK Rowling on the benefits of failure, and also billionaire investor, Ray Dalio. 

Dalio's views on mistakes sound very much like Neil Gaiman's view on mistakes, one written by a story teller (I take a look at Gaiman's commencement address extolling mistakes in an earlier post) and the other written by an "investor-philosopher".

Will Smith probably has a larger following than Ray though...

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If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try:  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or Nassim Taleb's commencement address; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Or Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude or investor Ray Dalio  on Principles.

Cross fertilise. Read about the autistic mind here.

More thoughts:  My Financial Times opinion article on the importance of long-term questions to management teams and Environment, Social and Governance capital.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man.

Whistleblowing

“I once read a statement by Ed Snowden that there are things worth dying for. And I read the same thing by Manning, who said she was ready to go to prison or even face a death sentence for what she was doing. And I read those comments and I thought: that is what I felt. That is right. It is worth it. Is it worth someone’s freedom or life to avert a war with North Korea? I would say unhesitatingly: “Yes, of course.” Was it worth Ed Snowden spending his life in exile to do what he did? Was it worth it for Manning, spending seven and a half years in prison? Yes, I think so. And I think they think so. And I think they are right.”

Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon papers, a top-secret study of US govt decision making on the Vietnam War) said that in conversation with Edward Snowden.

Read some of the transcript in the guardian here.

I don't think I have whatever it takes to do what Snowden and Ellsberg did, although I guess with some of these matters, you don't know how you react until the choice is in front of you.

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If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try:  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or Nassim Taleb's commencement address; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Or Charlie Munger on always inverting.  Or Ray Dalio on Principles.

Read about my questions to a dying man, on how to live a life well lived.

Or, a thought about the narrative of Bitcoin.

The Art of Thoughtful Disagreement and Persuasion.

Megan in her Ted talk below gives thoughts on how to persuade someone away from their world view.

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church and was picketing with signs like “gays are worthy of death” at the age of five.

She left 20 years later because strangers on Twitter changed her mind.

“Initially, the people I encountered on the platform were just as hostile as I expected,” she says. But slowly that changed. They started to ask about her beliefs, and she asked about theirs. Their conversations planted seeds of doubt, and slowly her entire worldview shifted — eventually driving her to leave the church (and the beliefs that came with it) behind.

Her tips below and her ted talk.

1. Don’t assume bad intent.

Assuming ill motives almost instantly cuts us off from truly understanding why someone does and believes as they do. We forget they’re a human being with a lifetime of experience that shaped their mind, we get stuck on that first wave of anger, and the conversation has a very hard time ever moving beyond it.

But when we assume good or neutral intent, we give our minds a much stronger framework for dialogue.

2. Ask questions.

When we engage people across ideological divides, asking questions helps us map the disconnect between our differing points of view. That’s important because we can’t present effective arguments if we don’t understand where the other side is actually coming from and it gives them an opportunity to point out flaws in our positions.

But asking questions serves another purpose; it signals to someone they’re being heard. When my friends on Twitter stopped accusing and started asking questions, I almost automatically mirrored them. Their questions gave me room to speak, but they also gave me permission to ask them questions and truly hear their responses. It fundamentally changed the dynamic of our conversation.

3. Stay calm.

This takes practice and patience, but it’s powerful. When my husband was still just an anonymous Twitter acquaintance, our discussions frequently became hard and pointed, but we always refused to escalate. Instead, he would change the subject. He would tell a joke or recommend a book or gently excuse himself from the conversation. We knew the discussion wasn’t over, just paused for a time to bring us back to an even keel.

[The staying calm is harder in real life, one advantage online might have; but if you can stay calm it can really help the conversation more forward.]

4. Make the argument.

This might seem obvious, but one side effect of having strong beliefs is we sometimes assume that the value of our position is, or should be, obvious and self-evident; that we shouldn’t have to defend our positions because they’re so clearly right and good; that if someone doesn’t get it, it’s their problem — that it’s not my job to educate them. But if it were that simple, we would all see things the same way.

As kind as my friends on Twitter were, if they hadn’t actually made their arguments, it would’ve been so much harder for me to see the world in a different way. We are all a product of our upbringing, and our beliefs reflect our experiences. We can’t expect others to spontaneously change their own minds. If we want change, we have to make the case for it.

[This is where the case for engagement also comes from, divesting from the argument means it can be harder to affect change]

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If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try:

Ursula K Le Guin on literature as an operating manual for life;  

Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;

Nassim Taleb's commencement address;  

Charlie Munger on always inverting;   JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.   

There is also Anne Lamott on writing and truth as paradox.    And Oprah on gratitude and service.

Plus Sheryl Sandberg on grief, gratitude and resilience.

5 lessons Autism has Taught Me

Some thoughts on what we can learn from autism, ASD, written in the self-help leadership style.

Everybody is somebody's weirdo

What unites humanity is vast and wonderful.

In the tapestry that is being human, you will always find someone who will seem odd to you. Likewise, you will always be peculiar to someone else. That is no reason for fear or hatred.

In finding out how oddball you are to some people, you can grow a wider appreciation of your own biases.

We all have them. We are all human.

Patience is genius

A quick decision particularly over questions of limited materiality (a Jeff Besos type 2 decision) is efficient. However, I have found I have won out in many situations by exhibiting patience. More patience than my competitors. I can out-wait most. Some psychologist have called this "grit". Economists talk about taking time horizon risk. I call it what you learn by losing going toe to toe with an autist.   

Patience is a winning strategy

"Because everyone else does it" - is never a great reason

Autists reveal what are social norms because they often flout them (I won't go in to theories of why, just the empirical observation that they do). This in turn reveals that much more of the world is built upon social norms than I had thought.

We do things because other do things. Lemmings. Herd mentality. All well documented. Yet it goes deeper to matters you would not question until an autist throws it, into stark relief.

Why do boys wear blue and girls pink? They did not 80 years a go. It's a social norm created by marketeers. Why do we shake hands ? (In fact, in many cultures, we do not). Why don't we speak truth to power ? Most autists I observe do not lie. If a person is fat, why not say they are fat ? Is it more harmful to turn from the truth (of course, white lies have their place in typical society, but what effect does that have?) Question if something is right, do not rely on the fact that everyone else does it.

Follow your interests - you may discover the extraordinary

Autists often obsess. People on the autistic spectrum also seem to create break throughs or invent non-standard thinking more regularly than typicals. Gladwell has written about the 10,000 hours plus it takes to reach a 'genius' level.

You are unlikely to have a novel breakthrough just ploughing the same furrow. Neither will you master anything unless you keep at, perhaps long after others have fallen by the way side (cf. Patience as a strategy).

Autists will sail steadfastly obsessively on beyond where I thought I could tread. That inspires me to more, even if I have no comprehension of what that obsession might be. Prime numbers, Disney cartoons, the cracks in the street, the music in the air, train couplers....

Sure, if you like, go fail conventionally.

That is not the way of the autist.

How people react to autism/difference reveals the character of their humanity

Post an interview, some CEOs and managers will ask how the candidate treated the support staff along the way to the interview. I've heard many repeat the adage of how someone treats a waiter or receptionist reveals a true character.

This is heightened when facing difference. While we can be trained to be polite to waiters and receptionists, there's a routine we can follow. Throw in unexpected difference, an autist, a different culture, a deaf person, a conflict...

Grace under pressure

We can all learn that, and be better people for it.

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