Month: February 2025

A cluttered phone can slow down the performance of your digital device. So can an untidy mind.

Don’t underestimate the power of the delete button. Apps, relationships, a job…you have more say than you realize about what you allow in your life.

No law says you must have a smartphone or a certain job. Sometimes, all you need is ten seconds of courage to delete it. Courage often doesn’t need to be sustained like we think it does. Instead, I am just pushing through moments of brief discomfort.

And when something is deleted, you leave space for something else.

People are not the past. That was the old me.

If you want to become a runner, just start running. The moment you decide to start, you are now a runner. Obviously, not a good one at first. But “good” is different from the label we put on ourselves.

We are who we decide right now. The person we are is what we do next.

Ideals are essential. They give us a direction for people to go. They serve to compare the “now” to “what could be” in the future.

Ideals, however, can interfere with decision-making. If the ideal choice were always available, we would take it.

Unfortunately, that isn’t how life works. Often, we are met with less-than-ideal choices in less-than-ideal circumstances.

So, what do we do?

Instead, we are pragmatic. We make the best choices and move forward, hopefully, towards better. Sometimes, that is ten steps back, about facing, running away, or persevering. Ultimately, what matters is that we try again. Progress doesn’t always look linear. Rivers don’t flow in a straight line, and neither does progress.

Food spoils. Buildings eventually change. And so do cultural phenomena. Game shows died with streaming. And it is time to lay the rest of the All-Star game for the NBA. Saturday Night Live has survived 50 years—an incredible run by any measure. Seinfeld still survives and is relevant even in the cell phone era.

We can’t expect the things we do to change the culture to last forever. This is good news, too. Dogmas, caste systems, the status quo, old tropes, false proxies…they all die, too.

A good idea isn’t enough to consider. You must also look at the possible lifecycle of the change you seek to make.

It would be rude to pull out a newspaper and start reading it while in the middle of a conversation with someone. Culturally, however, we don’t feel the same pressure when pulling out our phones and scrolling while having the same conversation. We are still figuring out these rules. But what I think is worth noting is how much of a hold these devices have on us. If we ignore real connections right in front of us instead of the chance to find them online, we are kidding ourselves about what this tech is.

“Sorry, this might be important,”—phrases we would never have said in an analog world. Thirty years ago, unless the phone rang, there were fewer interruptions. You turned off the TV when the company came over to give your full attention.

Something is missing today. It’s not an external component but a promise to give someone your attention. We are so used to having our attention hacked that we can’t see how much it affects our outcomes.

If you haven’t tried in a while, delete social media from your phone—not your account, just your phone—and see what happens. See what you notice.

Generally, when problem-solving, you probably have your answer if you need to squint to see a path through.

If all these things need to be aligned and you need a couple of breaks to go your way to make something work, it probably won’t happen.

That’s not to say something isn’t possible. Projects are more fun; however, when they are not just possible but when they are probable too. The answer might be to step back and work on the tangibles before factoring in the intangibles.

Culture is everywhere. And yet, it is as invisible as the air we breathe. It dictates behavior, expectations, and decision-making.

If you want peace and quiet, go to a library. It is challenging to ask everyone to keep it down if you go to a bar downtown on a Friday night. Because the expectations are different depending on the establishment, that’s the culture at work.

Forces, often invisible, that tell us and signal how to behave—showing up in blue jeans to an interview may be appropriate for a groundskeeper position. But if you want to work on Wall Street, you must talk/walk/dress/eat/spend a certain way.

People like us do things like this.

External problems can be fixed externally or internally. Internal issues are different. Buying a new pair of shoes can temporarily make us feel better, but retail therapy doesn’t fix the internal problems we face.

You can plant seeds but if the soil doesn’t create the right conditions, there is no chance for growth.

Last I checked, we can’t place a square peg in a round hole.

Humans seek safety, status, and affiliation; they want to be heard and understood; they want to be missed when they are gone; they want connection and validation.

Ironically, the more we work to manipulate and control the people around us, the less we are to achieve what we seek. Instead of laying the groundwork for relationships to grow, we create the conditions we fear the most: distance, isolation, and disconnection.

A conductor doesn’t play every instrument. She leads and keeps a beat for everyone else to follow.

In other words, the harder you push, the harder they pull.

The difficulty with relationships is that status roles, affiliation, and fear get in the way and cloud so much of our thinking. After a while, we can believe we need to best the people around us. Someone doesn’t have to lose for us to win. Moral envy kicks in when we think everyone must struggle like we do. The reality is we all struggle. We all suffer—some worse than others. But heartache and pain can cross any imaginary lines we draw. Perhaps there is so much tension or friction in your relationships that you are framing it all wrong: Don’t play games you can’t win.