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Every day, we make decisions that have good or bad consequences for our future selves. (Can I skip flossing just this one time?) Daniel Goldstein makes tools that help us imagine ourselves over time, so that we make smart choices for Future Us.
It's obvious that humans are all different. It's obvious that even within your family, you are completely different than your parents and siblings. You might like basketball, they may detest sports. You may be a musician, your brother has trouble spotting a treble clef. Why, then - do we make some of life's most important decisions in the exact same way?
Take relationships for example. How do we generally approach a relationship; whether professionally, personally or romantically? The first determinant of this is the way that our parents act around each other and other people. Are they quiet and shy, staying at home on Friday nights are rarely having people over for company? Or are they loud, outgoing, and always surrounded by people? Chances are part of your social behaviour stems from this pattern. How does you father act around your mother when he gets home from work? How strict were your parents when it came to social interactions with other kids your age? Were you allowed to "follow the crowd" or were you taught to think differently?
What is the result? Generally the way that we approach & treat other people stems from our experiences with people growing up. Obvious? Yes - but important to note. It has a lot to do with how we perceive & interpret the world around us. In fact, nearly every important decision we make is not based on empirical, unbiased data - but instead on human emotion, bias and perspective. This is why we "guess" what is best for us in life. This is why we make decisions in almost the exact same way. What do we mean by "guess"? Let's dig a little deeper.
Offline Influences:
The most likely reason you are in a relationship with the person you are, believe in the religion you do, eat the food that you do and choose the career that you end up in are based on your offline influences. They shape nearly every aspect of our life.
So what's the problem? If we've been doing this forever, why does it need to change? Well - it's great, expect for the fact that humans are generally very bad at predicting what is best for us. Around 60% of marriages end in divorce, many more are unhappy but not legally separated. Most people are unhappy in the career they are in (or else Sokanu wouldn't need to exist) and the method that we select a career in the first place is totally broken. We eat foods that are horrible, both intentionally and unintentionally, with no thought of how it will affect our future. The conclusion? We are very bad at predicting & doing what is best for us.This is why making most important decisions based on what other people "think" is not always a good idea. Everyone in the world grows up and has a certain "filter" on how they see the world. People only see things that fall into their realm of perspective. Due to this, each person has a certain level of "bias" they carry around with them. So when your parents, friends or teachers give you advice on what to do with your life, you are basically getting three different pieces of bias that are smashed together that come out as "advice". Hopefully most of this advice is good, but some may not be.
The major problem is that as we grow up, we don't really ever get to know ourselves. It's not like we can live within a contained vacuum for our entire lives, so we must be influenced. The real challenge is not letting that influence sway who you are intrinsically. When this happens, we begin to "guess" what is best for us in every major decision.
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Guessing is not the optimal way to choose a career. Just because your friends and family are teling you there is a lot of money in the financial industry does not mean that you should be in that industry. Don't be indifferent to the major decisions in your life. Don't let everyone else make decisions for you that influence the rest of your life. Take every single piece of advice you get, absorb it, and filter it. Throw out what doesn't apply to you, and keep what does.
Being this analytical is not a natural thing to do. Luckily, the world is shifting towards more of a personalized model. Want to know what to eat for your blood type? Read this - http://www.dadamo.com/bloodtype_O.htm. And (very) soon, if you want to know what career to go into based on who you are as a person, Sokanu will help. More and more services are trying to get away from this "guessing" game and give you back the advantage.
The happiest people on the planet take control of their own destiny. They make decisions not alone on an island, but with the help of others. They are masters of filtering and knowing their own path. But the one thing they don't do is "guess" what is best for them. We should all try to start learning more about ourselves in order to become happier people.
80% of the world lives on less than $10.00 a day(1). 50% of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. The fact that you are able to sit and read this article is a semi-miracle. Our ability to read, interpret and process information is a gift, not a right. We are lucky in so many ways - yet people continue to complain about their "lot in life", regardless of how bad that lot really is.
The chances that you were born in North America is extremely low. If you were born into a "modern" society, one that values freedom, education, health, innovation & diplomacy, you have already won. You have won The Ovarian Lottery, the greatest leg up you can have in life.
The world is filled with people who love to complain. They complain about how terrible their marriage is, how badly behaved their children are, how soul-sucking their job is, and frankly - how life sucks. And you know what? They are right.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”
― Henry Ford
Most people sit around and wait for their "lucky day", the day where all of their dreams come true. They sit and pray, hoping they win the lottery, so all of their problems will be solved. What they don't understand is - they've already won. Just by being born here, by being alive past the age of five, by having the chance to be educated in a public school system - you have won. You are in the top 20%.
Life is hard - we know this. Next time you start to complain about how hard your career or life is, think of this.
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What are you complaining about again? Remember - you have already won. Billions of people would trade anything to be in your position. You are the envy of the majority of the planet. You have already won the lottery. Now don't waste that winning ticket.
Sources:
1. http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
Apologies for the long delay in writing, have been busy. However, I wanted to share a concept that I have been reading about, called Fanatic Discipline, from the book Great By Choice. It is not new or revolutionary, but is an awesome reminder for all of us.
What Is "Fanatic Discipline"?
It's almost January, that time when we all make our resolutions for the new year. We want to eat better, lose weight, spend more time with family, grow our careers, get better grades in school, etc... Yet by February most of us have done nothing towards these goals, with no intention to do so. Why? The easy answer: it's hard.
Let's take working out as an example. On January 1, you say that you want to spend more time in the gym. So on January 2, you are up bright and early to go for a run. It's a beautiful day outside, so you don't mind running 5km. However, on January 3, it's cold and it's rainy. So you decide to take today off, and double your amount tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, and it's rainy again. Who wants to run in the rain? So you wait until it gets nice out - and you run 10km. Still pretty good, right? After a month of up and down, you slowly stop running altogether. After all, life is busy and running isn't that important.
On the other hand, you could approach the problem as: "I want to run 730km this year". What does that mean? Simple - you run 2km a day, no matter what. It's raining? Too bad. It's sunny? Reign yourself in. This is the definition of discipline, doing something consistent for a long period of time.
20 Mile March
Jim Collins calls this tactic the "20 Mile March". It means you march 20 miles, no more and no less, every single day, no matter the excuses or conditions. When it comes to business, it means that you have absolute focus on one task that you execute on. No "chasing shiny objects" or "taking a day off" or "trying something else". The mark of a great leader is to be consistent in whatever task you undertake. It's extremely hard - but then so is being successful.
In our personal lives, we have a hard time getting to where we want to go. We want to achieve success and be happy, yet that seems so far off for most of us. The truth is, most of us lack the abililty to discipline ourselves into a routine in order to get us there. Most of us are inconsistent.
Inconsistency Kills
In business, most companies die not because of lack of money, or bad economic climate, or poor products (although all of those help). Rather, they die due to inconsistency. It's very hard for a CEO to say to her troops "we are going in this direction with absolute focus, and we will adjust small details along the way". It seems simple, but most CEO's instead find themselves weaving all over the place, going from idea to idea, person to person, etc...
Being inconsistent is the cause of most failed resolutions and personal goals. Flipping from object to object in our lives is a surefire way to never be really good at anything. Being "good at a lot of things" is often worse than "being great at one thing", especially when it comes to our personal lives. But combating inconsistency is often harder than it seems.
"Fantatic"
Fanatic discipline is the thing that separates great people & companies from average ones. The ability to have laser focus on one goal, break it down into a 20 mile march, and be consistent is the definition of being "fantatically disciplined". And those of us who are able to never lose sight of the goal, and keep pushing forward are the ones who will succeed.
So, for yourself, your family and your team - try to create this "zone of focus" in your every day life. Take an hour every night to read about the new career you are trying to get into. Make a goal to take one successful person in your field out for coffee each week. Set a goal of how much weight you want to lose, and break that goal down into "20 Mile" segments. Life is a long journey, but we are always able to break it into manageable chunks. And in each of those chunks, we should be disciplined enough to let nothing get in our way of achieving our goal. Practice consistency in both your personal and professional life.
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I want to leave you all with an article that you should read. It's about Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard and a very famous author. This article goes through his struggle to find his "purpose" in life, and how he used fanatic discipline to find it. I recommend it to anyone who is going through a period of transition in their life. http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/1
As neuroscientists are learning more and more about our body's hidden frontier, we have gained fleeting insights into our own intuition, habits and seemingly unexplainable preferences. Can we solve those mysteries by creating a complete computer model of our brain? Or, is the brain an unsolvable puzzle? Two leading neuroscientists discuss these question and more as we look into the neurology of the brain.
Jobs At Sokanu
Sokanu is the place to find your passion in life. Our mission is to connect every single person with the career they are meant to be in. We believe that the way the world approaches career discovery needs to be fundamentally changed. At Sokanu - we care about two things; building a great company, and helping every single user find what they are meant to do.
We're looking for people to help us achieve our vision. We are committed to building a cutting-edge technology company where people love to work and can be as productive as possible. After all, if we are helping people find what they love to do - shouldn’t we be intensely passionate about the work we are doing? We have a culture of optimizing for learning and growth as we strive to continually improve as individuals and as a team.
We are located in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia - and are working with some of the smartest people in the field of career discovery. We work very, very hard each day to achieve our mission - and will stop at nothing to achieve it. If you are interested in fundamentally changing the way humans approach career development; using neuroscience, psychology, technology and design - please contact us! We are currently hiring engineers and product designers.
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Engineering
We are focused on building a culture with strong engineering values and goals because we believe that it is the key to building a great company and product. We use continuous deployment that gets checked in goes live to production within minutes, no matter what time it is. As a web developer at Sokanu, you will be responsible for building, optimizing and maintaining the platform, as well as laying the foundation for a scalable, flexible, data-driven platform.
What We Look For:
Send examples of your work, code samples or resume (or your Github profile) to jobs@sokanu.com
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Product Design
At Sokanu, we believe that design drives emotion. And we can only succeed if we manage to deliver an environment that is conducive to learning, discovering and growing. People need to emotionally resonate with the product - wanting to share it with their friends and spend a lot of time exploring the content we offer. We are a design-focused company, from the psychology of UX work all the way to pixel perfect code. You will help shape and drive the product every single day.
What We Look For:
You should be comfortable with autonomy and ownership of large areas of the product but open to and interested in gathering feedback. An ideal candidate will have the potential to grow into a strong leadership role over time.
Send examples of your work, code samples or resume (or your Dribbble, Github, Forrst, etc... profile) to jobs@sokanu.com
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”
― Maya Angelou
I was watching the video below last night and was inspired to write a post about it. The video is of Facebook COO and power woman Sheryl Sandberg interviewing Oprah Winfrey. Either take the time to watch the video now, or return to it later, but make sure you watch it.
While there are a number of gems in the interview, one point really struck a cord. Sheryl was asking about Oprah's mission - which is to help every single person find their "true self". She asked "Oprah, do you really believe that every person can be successful?"
When you think of circumstances around the world, and the abilities that people are born with, the easy answer is "no". But it all depends on how you define success. As Oprah said, "Not everyone can be the COO of Facebook, or a talk show host, but they can be successful as the person they are meant to be.
Obvious? Yes. But I think it's a really important point. Not everyone can be the COO of a massive company or a talk show host, but that's okay. None of us are Oprah or Sheryl either. You are you, so you can only be what you are meant to be, nothing else. What if you think you aren't meant to be anything? You haven't found that something yet, because we here at Sokanu also share the belief that every person is meant to do something amazing.
I have written about this before, but the reality is that almost every single one of us lives our life through someone else's lense. We all "want to be like XYZ" when we grow up, but of course everything about that person makes them unique. Should we look up to people as role models? Absolutely. But we shouldn't dictate our lives through their past actions. Ask any successful people why they are successful, and they will probably say "it's because I've made 1000000 mistakes". I'm betting if they had the chance to redo some of their life, they wouldn't choose the exact same path.
Every person is born with a unique set of genes that define who we are. We are then brought up in a certain type of environment that molds and shapes those genes. Based on that, by the time we reach a certain age, we can begin to understand "what makes us tick". Our only goal should then be to define what we are meant to do, and how to go about accomplishing that. No, you can't plan your life out from day one, but you can have an understanding of what direction you need to go in.
Every single person can be successful, in their own capacity. We have to continue to remember that success is relative. But if you are not waking up every day knowing you are meant to do something great, then you need to set out to discover that feeling within yourself. Oprah talks about meditating and getting in touch with "your inner self", and while you can call it whatever you choose, it's about understanding who you are at a deep level.
So how do we go about "finding ourselves"? Of course this is the ultimate question, and is different for every person. But I'd like to try and offer at least some concrete advice to get started. I'll break it down into two main categories.
1. Self-discovery
This is really, really hard and time consuming. This is where you a) have the time and b) have the resources available to spend the time looking at who you really are. This is in the form of books, seminars, tapes, shows, courses, school, etc... Every action you take gives your brain an indication as to what is wrong/right for it.
I always suggest reading these two books to get started:
*Note: both of these books were written quite a while ago and you should be able to find them for free online
2. (Accidental) Activation
The second method is what I think everyone should be aiming for, but it's much more of an art than a science. I believe that we all have "activation genes" that are awakened based on certain experiences that we have in our life. These genes can be "awakened" by reading something in a book or magazine, watching a video, talking to someone over coffee, or any other number of things.
You don't have full control over this, since we have so many random events that happen to us day to day. Maybe you will become an opera singer after watching a performance on TV, or maybe a physicist after seeing an picture of an equation on a blackboard. But you can try to have as many experiences as you can within the realm of things that you enjoy, in order to try and activate those genes. Some products and experiences are trying to create these experiences for you (Sokanu is one of them)
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Overall, please take the time to watch the video above. No matter where you are from, how you were raised or what you think of yourself, every person is put on this earth to do something amazing. You need to look deep inside yourself in order to discover what that something amazing is. Yes, we all can be successful - it just needs to be in our own way.
This is a guest post by Daniel Wong.
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The Confusion About Happiness
Do you want to be happy or “not unhappy”? These might sound like synonyms, but they’re really not. The difference between happiness and “not unhappiness” is really the difference between frustration and fulfillment.
All of us want to find happiness in our career, health, relationships and finances. If we’re not careful, however, we’ll discover how not to be unhappy in these areas, but we won’t learn how to find real happiness.
Take your career, for example. The factors that make you a “not unhappy” employee are very distinct from the factors that make you a happy employee.
Here are some "not unhappy" factors: a comfortable office chair, pleasant co-workers, a reasonable boss. Without these things, there’s no doubt that you'll be unhappy. For example, I can’t imagine how unbearable it would be if you had a horrible working relationship with your direct superior.
But just because all the “not unhappy” factors are in place doesn’t guarantee that you'll be happy. No one goes to work thinking, "I'm SO happy that I get to spend eight hours sitting in my super comfortable chair today!"
It’s evident that being extremely “not unhappy” doesn’t result in you being happy. As an employee, you need “happy” factors in order to be happy. Here are a few of them: the belief that your work makes a real difference, the feeling that you're part of something greater than yourself, the fact that your work is appreciated.
The Happy Employee
It puzzles me that, in the business world, a vast majority of incentive schemes are geared toward making employees "not unhappy." These schemes are often related to pay, benefits and privileges. Many companies think that enabling their employees to be as “not unhappy” as possible is the key to building a happy and motivated workforce.
Don’t get me wrong; higher salaries, pleasant working environments and other “not unhappy” factors are important, but companies should focus on “happy” factors if they want their employees to be engaged and productive.
Can you imagine an employee who finds deep meaning and purpose in her work not giving her best for the company every single day?
As you’ve probably already realized, finding happiness in your career is a challenging task. But this quest becomes much simpler when you understand which factors—to you, personally—fall in the “not unhappy” category, and which factors fall in the “happy” category.
To help you in this process of discovering a career you love, I invite you to answer the questions below.
All of us have blind spots, so you might miss out some factors. But I trust that this exercise has given you new insight into what you’re looking for in an ideal career. Keep in mind that, in general, “happy” factors are a lot harder to come by than “not unhappy” ones. No job is perfect, so seek to maximize your “happy” factors while setting reasonable standards for your “not unhappy” ones.
Is The Aim Of Life To Be Happy?
Despite all of this talk about happiness, you’d probably agree with me that the ultimate aim of life isn't merely to be happy. Developing traits such as kindness, courage, generosity, patience, integrity and commitment is more important than being happy. But in order to acquire those traits, you’ll inevitably need to go through moments of unhappiness.
If given the choice, however, between being happy and unhappy, all of us would choose to be happy. Since that's the case, it’s vital that we not confuse what makes us "not unhappy" with what makes us happy.
This applies to your career—and also to every other area of your life. Don’t settle for “not unhappiness” when happiness is what you really want.
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Daniel Wong is passionate about helping young adults to maximize their education, career and life. You can read his blog at Living Large and find him on Twitter.
