Josh Allred's Blog

If your employer was going to take your retirement contributions away if you don’t lose 20 pounds over the next 90 days, how motivated would you be to get on the treadmill?

The problem with most diets is that there is nothing on the line.

If you fail, you can try again later.

“I’ll start again on Monday” (or the New Year, or after the holidays, or on the first of October…)

We don’t have enough willpower to just get up and change our status quo. We can’t do it on our own.

Here’s the good news though. One of your greatest assets that all human beings possess is our ability to adapt.

It’s possible to create incentives. To nudge ourselves out of our comfort zone while leveraging our environment.

For instance, you can buy a gym membership and block out Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 6:00 am to 7:00 am to go to the gym. What were to happen over the next 18 months if you were to do that?

That might not be enough if you stop going to the gym and are wasting money on a gym membership. But what if you wrote a check to your favorite non-profit and handed it to your best friend to send in if you don’t reach your target goals? (Apparently, that works quite well.)

The question isn’t How am I to do this? No, start with the question of How do I raise the stakes so that I will feel the pressure to perform at my best?

If you are looking for mistakes that other people are making then you are training the people around you to hide them.

Is that how you want to lead an office (or a classroom or a home)?

Which do you put an emphasis on:

Doing things right

or

Doing the right things?

2016 left people believing that it was the worst year ever.

It’s quite a time to be alive if you think about it. On one hand, we live in the wealthiest, safest, comfortable, most technologically advanced society in human history.

And yet…

Yet, optimism wanes.

The world is closer than ever before to destroying itself. Democracy, climate change, nuclear stockpiling continue to be the most pressing problems.

Compounding it, we live in an era of fake news, AI algorithm bias, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, businesses that are too big to fail…

But then you have, Greta Thunberg, the leading voice on climate change. She’s 15 years-old with Aspergers, OCD and selective mutism.

There’s Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for speaking up against injustice.

And Yash Gupta, who started SightLearning, a non-profit that collects used glasses and redistributes them to the 12 million children that do not have access to corrective eyewear.

Tell me again, what do these young people have that you don’t?

It’s worth asking the question:

Why were there so many painters during the Renaissance movement?

How does one city produce so many rock groups in the ’60s?

Why were so many great poets born in the 19th century?

It’s because revolutions make heroes just as much as heroes make revolutions.

That when the time comes to change things, people gather and show up to tip the balance of what is to what could be.

We see it with our youth.

Our future is in good hands.

We focus so much of our lives around productivity. It is what we have been taught from such an early age.

It is what capitalism thrives on. Finish one task before we start the next. Be present. Avoid interruptions. (It takes 23 minutes to refocus.) Scale. Do the same thing you did yesterday but a little faster and a little cheaper.

Yet, when our significant other calls, do we drop everything to pick up the phone? When your kid asks if they can go on a walk with you, do you put stuff on hold for them? How often are we caught saying, “In just a minute”?

Interruptions are an exception for the people we care about. Because they are not actual interruptions or inconveniences. They are the why behind all of this in the first place. Aren’t they?

It’s funny because, over time, we convince ourselves that we are doing this for them in the first place. That someday we will have fun once we have everything all set.

And then, you are reminded that time is short. It’s later than you think.

Build slack into your system for today. For now, is the only moment we are guaranteed. Now is not later.

Two touching posts (here and here) below from parents that lost their 8-year-old a month ago. Thank you for sharing and reminding us what this is all for.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

It’s really difficult to have an argument with someone who isn’t there.

But what would we be without vulnerability and intimacy? What happens when we don’t allow anyone in?

Yes, we reduce friction when we build up walls but life without conflict has no meaning or purpose.

Bring people close.

Embrace the messiness and challenges that come with it.

There are two ways to go about this.

The first is, I’m going to say something obnoxious knowing I will get a reaction out of people.

They have names: trolls, critics, politicians…

And then there is the generous skeptic who is asking a question that people are afraid to answer.

The generous skeptic that knows you and is willing to say, “You can do better.”

We need more generous skeptics that are willing to say the important things to get under our skin so that we can do better work.

Getting under our skin reminds us that there is no time to waste.

My message to you today:

Do scary, important work.

Go.

It’s not that we don’t know.

Of course, we know that if we want to lose weight we have to exercise and eat healthy food.

Of course, we know that if we want to get out of debt we have to stop using the credit card to purchase consumer goods.

It’s that, in the moment of temptation, we forget.

We can’t remember all the time.

Which is why we need to be constantly reminded who it is we are trying to become in order to get there.

How big of a paycheck?

How much status?

Perhaps, you are not missing anything.

The question isn’t how much more do you need.

No, the question is, when are you going to stop making excuses and begin?

At the turn of the 20th century, we had invented so many productive machines that many speculated that someday their grandchildren (i.e. us) may never have to work again.

Instead, we have become less productive while spending more hours at work.

Worse, because we live in a plugged-in world, everyone, especially Millennials, is expected to be available 24/7.

Here’s the thing, there is zero research that supports that spending more time on something makes you more productive.

The problem is when we don’t disconnect there is a subconscious level of stress that hangs on a person’s soul.

“What if there is an emergency and they need me?”

Urgent isn’t the same as important.

We are not performing our best at work when we are thinking about home (or the weekend). And we are shortchanging our loved ones when we occupy our minds with work.

We can significantly reduce cognitive load by doing one thing at a time. Better yet, by choosing to do less.

The Fortnite World Cup went to a 16-year-old American.

The prize?

3 million dollars.

Someone has to win.

The thing is, someone has to win the lottery too. But if you are banking on the cosmic odds to play in your favor, you should find a different game to play.

Winning the lottery isn’t about putting in more time and more effort for a better outcome.

It’s a trap.

A trap made to seduce people into thinking that this will open a door someday to do the important work you have to do.

The odds are against you to play video games for a living or to win the lottery. It’s a race to the bottom. One that you can’t win.

Let’s not confuse leisure with the stuff that is worth paying a price for.

You have important work you must do right here and right now.