Hand someone an iPhone from 200 years ago, they wouldn’t even know what to do with it.
Network effects only work when there is a network to draw upon.
One fax machine is useless until someone else gets one.
Technology and tools and money often feed our egos–we think we are more sophisticated than we are.
It’s easy to think we have come such a far way. But are we evolved or are the tools just better?
We are all products of our time.
It’s almost certain that 200 years ago, I would have been a farmer or perhaps a blacksmith or an ice dealer.
I would not be running a nonprofit that helps teens improve their mental health through adventure activities.
If I was born in a different place, I would eat their food, worship their God and play their games.
We are all products of our time. So much of what we do is based on where we start.
Extremism is born from the absence of duality.
The extremist wants to extinguish this tension that opposing ideas create.
He works overtime to keep things as they are not what they can be.
COVID-19 vaccines have been a marketing problem.
12 people are responsible for disinformation of vaccines. Just seeing a couple posts about vaccine misinformation can cause an 8% increase in vaccine hesitancy.
Even with 7 billion vaccines administered, people are still hesitating. Data is not enough to change our minds. They amplify a story we are telling ourselves.
Even though data isn’t enough, we still need to understand it to craft the right kind of story.
Recent posts on COVID data:
Our world on data
Nassim Taleb
A learning a day
I agree with Rohan Rajiv that in 2022 with vaccines becoming available to most and the development of the anti-viral pill we will return to a new normal.
Isn’t to write an email or to have a meeting.
It certainly isn’t to have a review or to work on the logo.
The next step is to do the difficult work that you are afraid to do.
That is always available for us to choose each day.
Jacqueline Novogratz recounts how she created a gift drive of Christmas presents to a family in need. Excited putting the gifts together, they had a sinking feeling walking toward the house when they can see that this particular family had struggled with poverty. Perhaps, they went over the top? What if this embarrasses the parents? Too afraid to see them, she left the gifts at the door and took off.
It’s easy to get in this cycle of doing things towards people. Change is much more powerful when we do things with people.
We all need to be rescued. Even if we think we are the ones who play the role as rescuer.
But what kind of grace are you giving the others?
It’s easy to see our flaws and imperfections because we truly know what kind of effort we are bringing to the table.
Yet, we can only guess what everyone else is bringing. And if someone’s doing less then we often assume they must be bringing less effort.
Give the A to those around you. If not, you are giving them less than what they probably deserve and won’t hear what they have to say.
We all are rational actors. Not because we see things objectively, but we keep talking ourselves into any narrative we create.
Is it more of the same? Predictable, safe, and reliable?
Or is it uncertain? Full of possibility?
Most organized people have a plan. The opposite, however, isn’t unorganized. It’s to go without a plan. These travelers are not so rigid to stick to something that was decided in the past. They don’t think the world owes them for preparation.
Plans are overrated and are worthless when we are doing something great, daring, and unknown. Just do the next step that appears. Repeat.
Anyone can pretend to be a climate activist. Just hit repost and send a signal to your followers what you stand for. Or eat vegetarian or drive a Prius.
Much harder to be a climate activist. You have to be stubborn in this culture. Pursuing a goal each and every day. Most importantly ignoring what many of us were taught at such a young age at school–to be compliant.
Bending the culture towards a more just world, you can’t be half in doing something like that. It’s serious work.
And it the same when we are talking about artists too.
It’s a lot like watching your favorite sports team win or lose. If you won, you want to boast about it, and if you lost then well time to lick your wounds.
And now what?
We wait for the next urgent thing to pop up on our Facebook feed. This isn’t news, it’s entertainment. (Dogecoin proved that.)
Meanwhile, nothing changed. Because posting your thoughts in the moment isn’t going to change the status quo. Action does. Clicking send is not going get people to pause and think. Only further fuel the cycle of sports fandom.
We send the virtue post to let people know what side we are on. I’m afraid we also tell ourselves a story that we are helping when we are actually just hiding. We click the next thing because we are unhappy with the direction things are going for us.
Start a movement. Not another post that is likely to be forgotten.
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