Month: February 2021

It’s easy to say, “This is a conspiracy” when we don’t understand how things work.

For instance, during the ten year run of Apollo space missions, 400,000 people worked on the projects including engineers, scientists, technicians and laborers. In that group, you also had 12 people who walked on the moon, six pilots and six more who orbited.

The truth is, it would have been easier to land on the moon than it is to create a conspiracy of this magnitude.

The problem is our brains have a difficult time suspending disbelief and sitting with the tension it creates. That tension demands resolution. Instead of changing our minds we cherry pick the information to fit the narrative.

This is the problem with intellectual debt. We trust the system that has been built once we have seen how it works and ignore why it works. Over time, however, that debt accumulates. There are consequences of not learning about our rapidly evolving world.

The Ellsberg Paradox goes like this. You have a bucket of balls. There are 90 balls. 30 of them are red and the rest are either black or yellow.

So here is the choice you get to make:

Option 1) You get a $100 if you choose a red one or

Option 2) Receive $100 if you choose a black one.

Which one do you choose?

It turns out that if you do the math, the chances are identical. Yet, most people still go with Option 1 for the red balls. Because we prefer to take on the known risks rather the unknown. We say to ourselves, “With my luck, there are probably not any black balls in the bucket.

I can’t escape the lesson here: All alternatives lead to uncertainty. There are no paths that we can choose that will lead to a guarantee. We desperately want to the control the outcomes of our lives. So much so that we are willing to trade almost anything for an illusion of control.

LeBron James, arguably the best basketball player of all time, has a record that many don’t know about. And that is the fact that he also has 4,500 plus turnovers. The most in NBA history.

What does that mean?

It means that if you are going to play basketball, you are going to have turnovers.

And if you are going publish a new blog post every day, you are going to have some that are below average.

And if you are going to ask someone out on a date or speak up at a meeting or give a speech, you are going to make mistakes.

It also means that just because you made a mistake it doesn’t mean you don’t belong. On the contrary, if you are not making mistakes you are not trying hard enough.

A while back, a student was struggling to figure out the basic movements on cross-country skis. Eventually, we figured out that the boot they were using was simply too big and it caused them to have their ankles continuously buckle.

We tried tightening the boots and it helped for a while. As we were wrapping up, this student was really struggling to finish. It had been a difficult guiding day with the weather (below freezing temps, fierce wind, rain and snow) and we all wanted to get back to the van.

The voice in my head began to complain, “Why can’t she just do it.” In that moment, I had lost my empathy. This student wasn’t complaining, was trying their best, was thrown into the deep end of the pool on a difficult day to learn how to ski.

Me complaining in my head wasn’t going to speed this student up. So how was it helping?

It wasn’t.

The voice in our head is selfish. It doesn’t care what others want. Bargaining with it doesn’t do anything to make the situation better.

Fortunately, I was able to check myself and we helped this student finish in their own way. Little did that student know on that day, they were the ones that changed me.

The cost for starting Pivot Adventure was enormous. We didn’t have a map to follow. No step-by-step set of instructions. No guru to converse with.

It required countless hours of research, so much emotional labor and a lot of money for someone like me to get it off the ground. Add in the pandemic and overcoming the sheer number of mistakes I made for starting a business for the first time, it almost didn’t work.

Yet, I hear quite often from people how much they wanted to start something like that.

So why? Why didn’t they do it?

Because of the barrier to entry.

Sometimes the cost is small like buying a ticket for a roller coaster.

Sometimes the price is large like doing 9 years of medical school to become a doctor.

The larger the barrier of entry is the more we want a guarantee that something is going to work.

Yet, there is no guarantee. There is no genie coming out of the lamp to fix things. No one has a crystal to know what the future holds. And you certainly are not going to win the lottery.

So we hesitate. Our western mindset says, “If this won’t work, why should I commit?”

The way around this is simple but hard to apply.

Ask yourself, “If this were to fail, will I still be glad that I did it?”

If not, then pick something else. And if you have the guts to say YES! (an emphatic yes), if this is something your soul must pursue, then go.

There is no guarantee that what you pursue will also provide a living. There is no guarantee that just because you put ten thousand hours into something that you are now entitled for people to notice. (In fact, 99.99999% of the people won’t.)

But if you can change one person, just one, then you’re on your way to making a splash.

We are all familiar at what takes place at a Talent Show.

Someone goes on stage and sings a song or juggles or does a magic trick.

But these are not talents.

Talents are things you are born with like having a 7 foot wing span. Genetic features in the code that we can’t change. Either you are born with it or not.

On the other hand, most of what we do is a skill. A skill is something that can be taught and learned and practiced.

No one is born with the ability to speak a language. We practice it.

No one is born with the ability to tell a joke. Again we practice.

And no one is born with the ability to play the piano or to lead or write a blog post or to dance or to stand up for inequality. These are skills we cultivate.

So, why do we call it a Talent Show? It should be called a Skills Show.

The technology journey in the last 10 years has been nothing less than extraordinary. We are on our way to connecting everyone in the world all at the same place.

But the question we have to ask ourselves is: What is Facebook for? Is it to connect or to zap our attention so that someone out there can make a profit?

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, 70% of the most active Facebook groups are so toxic they can’t be recommended. 70%!

Which means there is too much information out there for any one of us to absorb. So, we must choose which voices we are going to listen to. Which also means we have to sift through a lot of material before we find trusted sources. This is the price we pay when we give everyone a digital media channel and a microphone.

So here are some basic rules for social media that everyone should follow:

1. Before you click like or repost, check other sources to verify. Remember fake news travels six times faster than the truth. So, if it sounds outlandish it probably is. Prove it before you share it.
2. Turn off all your notifications. This is a no brainer. Companies are working really hard to mine your attention, keep them at arms length.
3. Speaking of arms length, create friction to enter these apps. Maybe that means leaving your phone in the kitchen or moving the apps off the home screen or having to log in each time to use them. Create friction.
4. Set up time limits in your settings. Usually, people can pick reasonable amount of times to spend on an app. Just make sure to follow through.
5. Turn off the phone before 60 minutes before bed. It will help you sleep at night. The world is better not staring at a screen.
6. All of the research shows that the world is the safest it has ever been despite the pandemic. There is no existential crisis.

Cognitive load is real. And when we fill our head with garbage, garbage is what tends to come out.

Everyone imagines handling that experience differently. Everyone wishes they would have stood up to that bully or had the guts to ask that person to dance or tried out for that team.

Yet, regret doesn’t have to be this empty void. Regret can simply mean that the experience left us with the feeling of wanting us to do better. An experience we can look back on and learn from.

The thing is, each of our high school experiences is one mistake laid on top of another. Because when we are doing something for the first time, we are faking it. Because no one goes into it already have it mastered.

It turns out it isn’t just high school but also our first job, going to college, first time riding a bike…you are not that good the first time through.

And how do you know you had a good high school experience anyway? Was it the grades? The popularity? Or was it what you actually learned?

I can safely say that memorizing when the War of 1812 took place isn’t a good measure. What mattered was when we did something for the first time.

That feeling is how we know when we are alive.

Opening new doors doesn’t come very often the older we get. But that is a choice we make. A choice to play it safe, to dial it back. As a result, we lose what it means to be human.

When is the last time you did something for the first time?

Mental health challenges continue to skyrocket. More than half the teens meet the criteria for a mental health disorder. Half! The number one cause of death for teens is now suicide.

Last year, the school districts in Salt Lake County and Utah County have averaged more than one referral every other day to school counselors for suicidal behaviors.

The mental health system is broken for teens. The typical talk therapy session is $100 to $200 per 50 minutes. That is not enough time commitment each week to make a meaningful change. And it isn’t an environment where teens feel like they can open up and share. On the other end, wilderness therapy and residential treatment facilitates are over $50,000. The medium family income in UT is $71,000. Simply put, that is 70% of their income. Plus there is plenty research to show that congregate care doesn’t actually works for teens.

Youth today are losing the battle of stress and anxiety; they can’t do it on their own. Families are stuck, they are scared and are looking for answers.

That is why we created Pivot Adventure. Pivot Adventure is an adventure-based mentorship course for teens. We specialize in helping teens who are struggling with depression, anxiety, and isolation build resiliency. Students participate in adventure activities with a mixture of mental health professionals and outdoor specialists. Topics are focused on improving their internal narrative (the story they tell themselves), identifying external conditions that get in the way and working through the conflicts of interest.

Pivot Adventure is changing how we improve mental health for teens.

1. Everyone who wants to join has to apply to get in. If you are not enrolled in the process then you are unlikely to change. Note: This is different from being reluctant to start. We are all reluctant to start any weight loss program or to start the first day of school but we still show up to see what will happen next.
2. As mentioned above cost is a huge factor. It shouldn’t cost a second mortgage to send your teen to the desert. And because we are a nonprofit through our donations we have been able to put many teens through our resiliency training course on scholarships.
3. The use of deficit based model is a problem. Therapists have to diagnose their patience in order code it and send it to insurance companies to get paid. That model is a problem. Because what we know is that life is long. And people do change over time. We also know that all labels are a human invention. By putting labels on someone we are now seeking out the evidence to fit the label. Another note: That doesn’t mean, for instance, that a teen struggling with clinical anxiety shouldn’t seek the help from a qualified counselor. But for every teen that struggles with general anxiety Pivot Adventure may be the place for them.

Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around. That is why we are on a mission to provide growth opportunities for all teens regardless of what zip code they were born into.

Of course, none of us would hesitate to jump in the pool to save someone who was drowning. That’s is what we are looking for donors like you to jump in with us to save these teens. Your contribution can help transform the lives of 50 teens. We are leaning in and counting on you. Is that something we can talk more about? Reach out to us by email.

What we fear is writing something and people not liking it.

(What does that say about me when people don’t like something I tried really hard to produce?)

We then create a narrative that I don’t have anything to write down that is worth saying.

That is silly.

We don’t get talker’s block. A plumber doesn’t get plumber’s block. And a parent doesn’t all of a sudden forget to parent.

No one is blocked.

Shed the excuses of why we can’t create. Forget about the reasons why we might look stupid and instead do the work.

No excuses. Put away the tired for a moment. No narrative. Simply, do.

Difficult creative work is for anyone who cares enough.

People like us do hard things like this.