#17 | My Self Image

I recently showcased my site to a couple of my entrepreneur friends. They gave me some interesting feedback. Summarized, they wanted to figure out how to collaborate but felt like my content would relate to 3% of the population in terms of ambition, and only 1% of the total population that is both in the tech field and ambitious. That's a small target audience.

Maybe that’s true. I thought about that comment, and I thought about something Mrs. Boring told me in our early courting days.

I had told her that I felt I was a role model for my peers while growing up. I grew up in a poor neighborhood where gang activity was commonplace. By the time I made it to high school, a good handful of my elementary school friends were dead, in juvie, or dropped out. The first year after high school, it felt like non-stop stream of shooting and deaths; house parties, bad deals, whatever.

From a young age, I learned how to navigate away from the trouble and carve out a safe environment. Isolate away from the bad influences and focus on the people with futures. By the time high school came around, I had a highly curated group of friends.

I wasn't an outstanding student, but I did well. I wasn't valedictorian or salutatorian, but I tutored both. I didn't stay out of all trouble, but I stayed out of most. I wasn't the most honest, but I still had a strong moral compass. In general, I had a lot going for me on many different fronts. Overall, I had it down. At a certain point, I realized that some of my friends looked up to me in a certain strange way. We all had our path to travel, but it was apparent I was going to make it out. So I learned to put up an image of myself that we could all strive to become.

Fast forward to today. I still do the same thing but for different reasons.

Almost every productive person knows some form of Begin With the End in Mind. Before starting anything, it’s best to visualize what the end goal is. Write it down. Plan it out. Create it first mentally and on paper, then create it again in real life.

Between what Mrs. Boring said and my entrepreneur friends' perspective of this site, it made me realize that I’ve applied that same concept to myself. When I think about what I’ve written on this site, the picture I paint of myself is more “perfect” than I am. Although I do get things done, I’m also lazy, lounge around, get tired, and have plenty of imperfections. I include a glimpse of that in what I write, but that’s not what I want to portray.

Since this site is mostly for myself, I want to paint a picture to myself of WHO I want to be. This person might change over time. He probably changes almost every time I write a post. But the direction of this person stays the same. To be a better person, who gives more to those around them, who remains focused and productive and executes on their goals, who lives a happy and fulfilling and productive life.

That’s not to say the portrayal I describe on this site isn’t me. It’s just the best possible version of me. It's the version of me that I aim to be, that I want to be when I'm all grown up.

It’s fresh and exciting to think about it this way. It helps to frame the personality traits I want to enhance, the bad habits I want to minimize, and perhaps will point out areas of myself that are just absent altogether.

(Written 2019.03.27)

#16 | Parenting & Leadership

Some days, especially on the most challenging days, I start to feel like my role as a leader and manager is very similar to the role I play as a parent. I entered management and fatherhood around the same time. Maybe that’s why I feel this way. Or perhaps it’s common for everyone. I’m not sure.

About a month ago, I was complaining to Mrs. Boring about trying to lead some senior members of the team. I frequently claim I would rather have an eager and optimistic average mid-level team member than a stubborn and uncooperative genius senior-level team member. This time, she drew a connection that sparked something. I had said that senior-level people are hard because they know enough to get things done but not enough to know the best path forward. They frequently don't take into account all angles, including business, politics, technology, culture, etc. Their original preferred path forward frequently doesn't work. Her response was describing a senior-level member of the team as a teenager. They think they know everything, have a hard time taking constructive feedback, and love to debate everything with the assumption that you aren’t informed enough to be in the know.

Amazing. I loved the metaphor. Since Mrs. Boring first mentioned it, I’ve been mentally expanding the metaphor. I finally decided I should put this down on paper. This metaphor isn’t meant to belittle employees or the relationships between leaders and their contributors. Instead, I’ve found that it’s beneficial to relate my team members to something I can understand easily to better lead them. It also helps to classify each team member, since titles seldom match contribution levels and frequently lag. Knowing what I'm working with turns me into a better leader.

Here is the metaphor.

The Kid-Team Member Metaphor
This metaphor involves having a clean room. With a clean room, you can have a clear mind and be more satisfied with your surrounds and more free to put your attention to more significant activities.

Junior Team Member
These team members are like a 5-year-old. I’m able to tell them to keep their room clean. They don’t understand. So I explain why it’s important to keep it clean and how a clean room should look. Everything goes over their head. The best option is to go into the room with them and help them keep it clean. I can tell them what pile to pick up and where to put it. They are helpful. It might take me an hour by myself to clean it, but with their help, we can get it done in 30 minutes.

This relationship is useful if I need to be in the room anyway. If we’re both working in there making a mess together, then having the help to clean up is very appreciated. Plus while I’m there working, I can also provide enrichment activities to help them grow faster.

In the end, they are beneficial, as long as I already intend to be in the room. If I’m not, then the place will naturally get messier with no one cleaning it up. They need a grownup in the room with them, or else they are more of a detriment.

Mid-Level Team Member
This person more relates to a 10-year-old. At this point, I can tell them that it’s important to clean their room. I can start them off with a clean place. I can then leave them alone and trust that for the most part, they’ll keep it clean. If I want to change their direction, I probably need to go back and help them pivot. But once they have their new direction, they can get it done.

The work this team member does is solid. It’s usually very close to what they were asked to do. Occasionally they surprise you with something exceptional. Most of the time, you’re just happy that they finished what you asked them to do. Frequent checkups are needed, but it’s just for touch-ups, not disaster control.

Senior Team Member
There are two types of people in this group, but both relate to teenagers.

Senior Team Members that share my values: These are the people who I either coached, mentored, or came from a similar environment. These are the holy grail individuals. They already have a clean room. That means I can go in and not spend time on basics like how to keep the place clean. Instead, since I have access to dozens of other rooms, I can work with them to figure out how to make their rooms even better. We can start digging into exciting things like upgrades, decorating, or room expansions. We can figure out ways to optimize and share that knowledge with others. And when I leave the room, I can trust that they’ll keep the place in order and keep being productive. They help make me better as I help make them better.

Senior Team Members that do not share my values: These individuals cut their teeth somewhere else. They frequently don’t understand why a clean room is essential. Their last environment didn’t care about that as long as they produced, which is fine if they are productive. But if they aren’t, then I need access to the room to see what’s going on. But I can’t, because the door won’t even open due to the mess. I can sit there and debate night and day about the basics of a clean room, but they disagree. They think they are killing it, regardless of the reality. They think they know best and want to be left alone. Unfortunately, they have a minimal set of experience and visibility, and so although they might be doing okay, in comparison to other rooms, they could be underachieving or worse. These individuals can still be productive, but they take a lot more work in first changing their values before getting real productivity out of them.

Managers, Leads, & Architects
To expand the metaphor higher, these individuals are the parents. They can see all of their kids’ rooms. They have more experience and can help guide others. Even if they don’t have more years of experience, they get to watch multiple rooms at once so get to see an accelerated rate of experience. The good ones can go into a room and point out how each team member can do things better, depending on the individual’s level.

Directors
And at the top of this metaphor would be the directors. These are the landlords. They can see multiple houses which let them see large scale trends. They might no longer care if a particular room is producing as long as it’s not taking the entire household down. But they care if the whole unit is being productive and can give insights to the parents if adjustments are needed. And they can provide upgrades to the entire house to increase everyone’s quality of life.

(Written 2019.03.22)

#15 | The Imaginary Audience

I tried doing some experimenting for audience growth over the past couple weeks and discovered something interesting about myself. I don’t need an audience at all.

I tried a couple of things. First, I went on Reddit. I created an anonymous Mr. Boring profile with references back to the site and subscribed to several various related subreddits; personal finance, productivity, minimalism, financial independence. I started commenting on existing threads and started a couple of threads. The thought was that I would learn how to make intriguing content while also building a brand and following. Once I felt confident that I had both, I would start plugging my site and see if I could get some readers.

The other path I tried was I reached out to a handful of the content creators that I follow. I didn’t ask them to guest post or see if I could guest post for them or even ask them to help spread the word. I just asked for feedback to see how I could do things better.

After going through both of those exercises, I started questioning why I was taking the time to do those things. Doing that outreach was very far out of my comfort zone that it felt like good practice, but that was the only real value I could see. I know some people want to become influencers, some people want to be heard and have a voice, some people want to be the center of attention, and some people do it for a living or to help them channel their energies. All of these are fine, but none of them related to my beacons. I didn’t need an audience to accomplish any of the things I’m set out to do.

But then why maintain the site in the first place? That’s an excellent question. I’ve gained value from creating content for the site. I can’t deny that. Let’s deconstruct that a bit.

I’m a big fan of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Creating content for this site has forced me to do Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind. All of my goals and ambitions are nothing new. But I haven’t put my current goals down on paper before and tried to organize them. They were only flying around in my mind, hoping to see the light of day. With this site, I’ve started to write out plans on how to achieve what I want to accomplish in life instead of just winging it and letting persistence push me through. On top of that, by organizing my projects and starting a weekly update, I was able to see how much I was overloading myself — double whammy by writing it all out.

The other way it’s helped is the imaginary audience. Let me explain. I don’t know if this is normal, but as a little kid, I would always imagine I was talking to someone when I sorted out my thoughts. It was usually someone I liked or respected. However, it was often someone who I wasn’t close enough to so that I could share my thoughts in real life. The internal dialogues I would have would always be one-sided. They would involve me explaining to this person what I was thinking and what was going on with my life. It’s not that I didn’t have friends that I could talk to about stuff. I just preferred not to tell people the innermost thoughts. I didn’t trust people to share that information. What I put out to the rest of the world was always more fine-tuned and structured. Or at least I thought it was, even if the reality is what I presented to the world was very similar to my internal dialogues.

I’m an introvert. I’m guessing extroverts tell their life story to real people all the time. Instead, I keep my life story to myself and let my actions represent my story to the world. I prefer it this way. I don’t burden people, even close friends or family, with that constant energy drain. Active listening takes a lot of energy, and I wouldn’t want to put that on other people. The reality is probably worse; that most people would only pretend to listen. Internal dialogues are so much better.

This site is an internal dialoguing on steroids. Thinking about what I’m trying to write to my audience, an audience that I know is non-existent from checking my analytics, let’s me sort through my thoughts. I’m able to toss them around, massage them, refine them, and then put them down on paper to get them out. I even discreetly discuss them with real people to distill them even more before sitting down at the laptop. It’s provided focus and direction to these internal dialogues.

If I were to turn the site off, I would lose my outlet. That’s not something I want. Not now at least.

(Written 2019.03.17)

#14 | Project Consolidation

I’m excited right now. This blog, which has now grown into a full site, has already proven its weight in gold. I started it so that I could gain mastery in Boredom is my Goal as a life philosophy. Although I feel like that’s happening, it’s helped me to channel my focus into accomplishing all of my other life goals.

The latest example comes from the last two posts and the one I’m writing now. The first post was organizing my projects into a consolidated and more straightforward approach. I now have visibility into my core life ambitions. During the process, I realized that I was overbooking myself so I eliminated some fat by removing some projects.

The second post was about defining out my approach to the project organization and setting up a weekly self-accountability system. Yesterday (from when I wrote this post), I posted my first weekly update. While composing the update, something started bugging me. Today it hit me. I’m still overbooked purely based math.

At work, I have established my teams in a similar organization pattern that I'm now doing in my personal life. When I first started, I would assign one engineer to one project. That seemed logical. But I quickly saw that the result was that too many projects were ongoing and when project scope deviated or expanded, no one had time to assist. After a few discussions with the team, we shifted to a two engineer to one project approach. This approach changed the game for them. It helped to develop collaboration but also limited the number of focus items. Easier for the leads to track. Easier for engineers to help each other. We completed projects quicker which countered the fact that fewer projects were ongoing.

I was at that same moment personally. I had four projects: building an Earthquake Kit, setting up a new set of IRAs, taking my food and exercise to the next level, and starting a new philanthropy effort from the ground up. Let's look at the math of that. I have a full-time job, so I'm looking at maybe 5-20 hours max a week. Split between four projects, and that's 1-5 hours a week per project. Spread that out over five weekdays and two weekend days, throw in everything else like family, this site, reading, and other non-project activities, and it's obvious it's too many projects to juggle.

The lack of progress against all projects would demotivate me. I would try to focus on only one or two projects. Feel guilty about ignoring the rest, try to binge-work to close some out to get progress, burn myself out, and be right back into wishing I could live a Boring life. I had set myself up for failure and writing everything out made that painfully obvious. It was time to trim down even more. Let’s take a look at whose four projects.

The first to go is taking my food and exercise to the next level. Although I could lose about 10 pounds, 10 pounds isn’t going to do anything drastic. I already eat healthy enough plus my wife is on a big healthy eating kick, so that helps. I can also exercise more, but it’s been raining every week for months. Since my exercising involves being outside, it’s a bit hard to get into an exercise routine. This project is out.

The Earthquake Kit is pretty essential considering I live in earthquake country. However, I’ve made that gamble since I moved to Los Angeles 9 years ago and I’m willing to take that risk a bit longer. This project is also out.

That leaves IRAs and Philanthropy. I’m tempted to reduce this down even more, but I think this will be fine. The IRAs project will be a lot of waiting; waiting for the accounts to open, waiting for the funds to accumulate, waiting for the funds to transfer. Which then puts the Philanthropy project as the main focus. That feels right.

I’m excited to see where my ambition energy goes from here — baby steps to greatness.

(Written 2019.03.11)