Surprisingly good read, only distracted by a bit of her self aggrandizing.
Susan Fowler had her 15 minutes, or more like about 2 years of fame when her blog post about the internal horrible practices going on at Uber. She brought to light and confirmed the sad truth of the dishonest, greedy, factory-like people mill that Silicon Valley has become.
I feel we need more of these stories, all of these stories, so we are lucky that she was willing to tell this story. There was probably a lot of personal pain Susan endured to relive some of her terrible experiences. Uber HR was just a shield for management, not a safe place for employees to try to be treated fairly.
My only criticism was her several stories about how she was a super-human who could learn any subject in a few months, deserved several “extra” college degrees and even felt she was a super-engineer no matter what. Could’ve done with less of that.
However, this book is pretty amazing, and her contribution to helping women in tech seek equality cannot be underestimated.
I had boss say to me early in my career, “Just be who you are, quit trying to be someone else.”
At the time it really pissed me off. Who the hell did he think he was giving me pop psychology?Maybe someone had just told him that so he was projecting. Screw him, I thought. What an asshole.
However, over the many, many years since he told me that, it’s echoed in my mind a hundred times. It’s probably the best piece of wisdom he ever gave me.
So I check myself every once in a while now.
This time we are currently in is temporary, yet it will change us permanently in some ways. Sooner than we think it will be gone. For the rest of our lives, we’ll be able to say we went through the Coronavirus, like people who experienced WWII or 9/11.
We are in the middle of a tragedy, and I’m very sad for all the suffering, pain, dying, and general disorientation we now face daily. But I’m also relieved for some of the things this time is giving us. Slow down, quiet, peace, time to reflect and possibly change some things.
Some of the best major changes in life happen as a result of a crisis or great loss. I know, I’ve had my share –– we all have. We can safely now tap into these thoughts, reflect, be honest with ourselves. It’s like repartitioning our hard drive (brain).
Our Inner Thoughts
Deep down we are all individuals, alone with our most inner thoughts that no one else knows. Usually there’s too much going on to stop and truly think about life. When an opportunity does present itself to shut off the noise –– on a hike, meditating, in our own backyard thinking.
As the world is now starting to “open up” again, this unique time will be gone forever. So make the most of it.
It will be back to the noise and grind and hustle. Will it be different? Most likely. But it won’t be as peaceful as it is right now.
So use what you have left to study who you really are, what you really want.
“Be as you are. As you see I am I am.” – James Taylor, B.S.U.R.
If you’re reading Linkedin on a Saturday. you’re probably thinking about it. One way to start the change is to adjust your speed, even a little bit. Whether up or down, the change flushes out the cache in your brain and gives you new energy.
SLOW IT DOWN
Right now we’re all slowing it down. I think that’s a good thing, breaking the zombie patterns we’ve all been in for so long, slogging our way through life’s daily routines. It’s all been stopped now, for the first time ever in our lives. Amazing.
I’ve had many times in my life when it was a good time to slow down, usually after an intense run of a few years in a growing company. When helping companies to grow faster and grow correctly without blowing up, my pattern is usually a lot of travel, a lot talking, frenetic schedules, pushing as hard as feasible on several parameters.
I see posts from people in different phases of their career where they advocate one of the above — “You need to speed it up” or “You need to slow it down” or “ Work Harder” or “Work Less”. Or “Here’s how to meditate” or “Drink More Coffee!!”
The truth is that it’s different for everyone based on where they are in their own cycle of life. Almost every time after slowing down for a few months, taking a well need rest for my mind and body, I realize it’s time to speed it back up, get out there more. I’m always surprised and have to psych myself into speeding up again. Moving slower and becoming more present and silt can become intoxicating. But it doesn’t “pay the bills” as they say.
Many years ago, Tim Ferris wrote one of the most popular business books ever, “The Four Hour Work Week”. In it he advocates trimming back the unnecessary busywork thing in life to give yourself more free time. The cover is a drawing of someone lying on a hammock between two palm trees, the iconic vacation lifestyle. With his constant self promotion and social media activity I’m guessing he no longer actually works only fours per week, but I get the point, and was doing many of the things he said for years before his book was published.
I’m famous among my business associates for cutting out any fat from business meetings, conversations, etc. At first it pisses them off, but then a few months or years later they often tell me they “get it”. I don’t believe in business for business’ sake type time wasting meetings.
One hobby/aspiration that helps to slow it down is art. Either making or studying some type of art, especially if it’s non-digital art, will give you a whole different view of your world and compartmentalize work and business. By design many art activities are slow and quiet and contemplative. Pop into a museum in New York or L.A. and everything changes.
So slow it down when you can. Disconnect, meditate, sleep.
SPEED IT UP
Then there are the times when you need to speed it up, move faster, be more productive. After this quarantine is all over, it will take some work for all of us to speed it back up. Our “speed it up” muscles are atrophied a bit.
I enjoy this phase as much as I enjoy slowing it down. Recently I visited a model city of the future, a “smart’ city where they showed us the advances in lifestyle that can increase your productivity through better eating and more exercise, as opposed to drinking Red Bull and working more hours. A smarter way to speed it up. At first I wasn’t sure I agreed but then I kind of got it. Eight hour days at higher productivity instead of twelve hour days with burn out as a result.
Moving faster, steadily increasing your speed, becoming more efficient, being “on” when you need to be. These are all healthy things for your productivity and creativity. many very successful people are called “Manic” types. The manic sessions are where they create, see beyond, and usually bother the people around them. I sometimes get these bursts, try to limit them ,but allow them to take over once in a while. I’m writing this right now because of a creative surge I felt this morning from reading a great article on predictive analytics. I felt that I should not only consume great stories but also try to write something useful, and to do it quickly.
Part of speeding up is to reduce the amount of time spent. Elton John was famous in his early days for spending very little time writing his songs. During the making of the Yellow Brick Road album, h e would receive lyrics for three to five songs every morning from his writing partner Bernie Taupin, then create finished songs within a couple of hours. Many of these songs went on to become his greatest hits.
Slow it down, speed it up. Try being more conscious about doing this and you may find a new rhythm and balance to your life. Enjoy this forced relaxation right now, as we’ll probably never see such a thing again.
peace or happiness. I’ve always loved Bukowski. He wrote about and lived in L.A., in the same neighborhood I grew up in.
Tim Ferris just sent this quote out on his newsletter, brought back memories:
“Either peace or happiness, let it enfold you. When I was a young man, I felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated. I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing. I was hard as granite, I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman…. I challenged everything, was continually being evicted, jailed, in and out of fights, in and out of my mind…. Peace and happiness to me were signs of inferiority, tenants of the weak and addled mind. But as I went on … it gradually began to occur to me that I wasn’t different from the others, I was the same… Everybody was nudging, inching, cheating for some insignificant advantage, the lie was the weapon and the plot was empty…. Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. The less I needed the better I felt…. I re-formulated. I don’t know when, date, time, all that but the change occurred. Something in me relaxed, smoothed out. I no longer had to prove that I was a man, I didn’t have to prove anything. I began to see things: coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a cafe. Or a dog walking along a sidewalk. Or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose, it was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself and its eyes looked at me and they were beautiful. Then- it was gone. I began to feel good, I began to feel good in the worst situations and there were plenty of those…. I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards of happiness…. And finally I discovered real feelings of others, unheralded, like lately, like this morning, as I was leaving, for the track, I saw my wife in bed, just the shape of her head there…. so still, I ached for her life, just being there under the covers. I kissed her in the forehead, got down the stairway, got outside, got into my marvelous car, fixed the seatbelt, backed out the drive. Feeling warm to the fingertips, down to my foot on the gas pedal, I entered the world once more, drove down the hill past the houses full and empty of people, I saw the mailman, honked, he waved back at me.” — Charles Bukowski
Sometimes you just need to think. People do all kinds of things to avoid thinking. They procrastinate, rationalize, take a break, sleep, argue, whatever.
You can Judge, Label, Belittle All so you don’t have to think. Too much of it going on these days.
The result is negative energy, slowing yourself down, when you need to Move Faster to accomplish your goals and move on other things.
Maybe you never so this, but most of us do once in a while. Try to catch yourself, retrain yourself.
The above was the result of a CEO training where we used stream of consciousness to try to quickly tackle a problem identified by the group. It evolved into a discussion about using defensiveness as a weakness when trying to manage difficult employees. Criticising people who work for you can be extremely damaging, and something they never forget.
“In Greek thought, inspiration meant that the poet or artist would go into ecstasy, or furor poeticus, the divine frenzy or poetic madness. …” — Wikipedia
Why Inspiration?
Inspiration is the catalyst of almost all great things, and it often comes from trying to be just a bit different. I indented the paragraphs in this book to be a bit different.
In the startup world, all great products and business ideas come from inspiration — “Hey, what if the world had ____ ?” That surge of feeling, happiness, the light going on, endorphins, and sometimes even anger, creates a momentary heightened intelligence and vision.
The dictionary defines inspiration as “ a sudden burst of creativity.” Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia about the history of inspiration:
Ancient models of inspiration.
“ In Greek thought, inspiration meant that the poet or artist would go into ecstasy or furor poeticus, the divine frenzy or poetic madness. He or she would be transported beyond his own mind and given the gods’ or goddesses’ own thoughts to embody. ”
When you’re going about your process of trying to innovate something new in the commercial world, defining your processes, putting your time in, trying to be as clever as you can, you can easily feel like you’re diluting or leaving behind your original inspiration. This happens to me sometimes, and I try to protect myself from it.
“You’ll often wonder why you’re not coming up with the amazing idea, the killer app, the silver bullet. But, with the right ingredients, that’s exactly how inspiration comes along. If you combine all of the above with optimism, sincerity and enthusiasm, that’s where the amazing discoveries happen. You can’t predict or control exactly what or where they will be, you have to, as Nike says, “JUST DO IT.” Challenge yourself, be a little bit scared.
![Furor Poeticus [Poetic Madness]](https://tomnora.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/furor-poeticus.jpg)
