About a half-dozen times a year, my extended family and I pay a visit to the family cemetery. We put new flowers on numerous graves and speak with our departed. Some are more recent, like my father. But the oldest family member we visit died 110 years ago, in 1914.

We’ve been doing this as a family for so long that when the tradition started, it was started by people who knew Otto personally and beseeched her own descendants to not forget to tend to him when she no longer could. The tradition passes on, and our family line is strong. We tell the stories, passed down and passed down, as if we knew him ourselves. He died a century before my children were even born, and they know stories about him and put flowers on his grave, the latest in a line of five generations to do so.

May I be so lucky that some day my great-great-grandchildren are telling my old legends and still visiting my grave. May they be so lucky to still have such a family with whom to do it.

When called out on behavior that adds friction to a relationship, people sometimes say, “Sorry, that’s just my personality.” Cue eye rolls here, but let’s work with it.

The problem with that statement isn’t really the statement itself, it’s the timing. Imagine you’re in a meeting with your new boss. You’ve only been working for them for a few weeks, and in this meeting they tell you about ten things they think you’re doing wrong. Their tone is harsh, their pace is fast, and you’re left feeling like you made a bad decision joining the team. But hey, you’re proactive and want to bridge the gap, so you send them an email asking if there are any deeper concerns about your role on the team that should be addressed. And then you get back an email that says: “You’re a great addition to the team! I’m glad you’re here and I think you’re doing a good job. Don’t mind my tone during the meetings, that’s just how I manage, that’s just my personality, it doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re doing well.”

At best, you’re getting some big mixed messages and might be unsure how to proceed. At worst, the email comes across as insincere, only being sent as “damage control” after their initial tone puts you off. Let’s be clear: the manager shouldn’t do this. But I like to work with the world I’ve got and not dream about ideal ones that will never come to pass. So in this world, the one where people probably aren’t going to radically change their personalities or management style overnight, what can you do?

Change the timing.

The whole thing about the tone of that meeting was especially disruptive because it came along with specific criticisms or feedback. If you had gotten, much earlier in the process, an introduction that explained the style that would be coming, then it would be easier to decouple that style from the feedback itself. Imagine an early email from the manager that said something like:

“Welcome aboard! I just want to introduce myself a little more to you, and let you understand aspects of my management style. I’m fast-paced and tend not to sugarcoat, but I have a high degree of trust in my people. When there’s constructive feedback to give, I tend to give it a big burst and if I’m feeling frustrated with a larger problem, you can definitely hear it in my voice. But I promise you now, that’s not frustration with you, just with a larger circumstance – one that we’re working to solve together. I’m also very honest, so if I do have frustrations or challenges with you directly, I’ll absolutely make that clear. What this means for you is that I may jump on a call with you and quickly rattle off ten pieces of feedback, and my tone might seem short. If/when that happens, I hope you’ll remember in advance that none of that is an indicator of your specific performance, it’s just me getting my thoughts out as efficiently as I can. I absolutely encourage you to send me any follow-up emails with questions for clarification and/or action plans after that. I also encourage you to give me a similar description of your own working styles so we can adapt to each other and be an effective team!”

Now again, let me reiterate: the best course of action would be delivering feedback in a better way. But in a world where that doesn’t happen, wouldn’t getting that email early in the relationship help a ton? Wouldn’t it majorly take the sting or uncertainty out of that call later when it happens?

(Plus hey, people always get points for self-awareness with me. That’s probably true for most people!)

So here’s what you can do: Be proactive, and send yours first. Imagine as a manager, bringing a new person onto your team and they start off with a friendly “user guide” on how they tend to show up, respond to things, etc. A way to distill what often takes months or years of working together to intuitively know into an up-front, low-ego reference. They’d love it! And then it’s easy to ask them for one back. And now suddenly, you’ve eliminated 90% of the stress and emotion from future interactions.

Working together is hard, but we can make it easier.

There is a direct connection between low stress and high productivity. Here’s how to make that connection and benefit from it: Understand what matters.

Not all the time, but certainly most of the time, I see people stressing over things of absolutely no real consequence. Now obviously this is in large part a by-product of my living in the First World in pretty safe circumstances. But awareness of that is actually one of the things that helps keep me focused on what matters! Other people in my “bubble” also live in safety and comfort in the United States, but many of them just stress themselves out all the time.

This applies to their home life, their work life, all of it. Almost everything you’re stressing about has no actual bearing on the true results or goals you care about, no matter what they are. And that’s largely because people are bad at identifying real goals to begin with.

If you take the time to identify what you really want, and what’s really important, it becomes much easier to eliminate things that aren’t directly contributing to it. And that takes away 90% or more of the things you’re stressing over. You get laser-focused and more relaxed!

It’s so fascinating to me how much of civilization turns on how efficiently we can move a box from Point A to Point B. Think about how much of your life involves getting stuff from somewhere to somewhere else – your commute, the way you buy groceries, how you visit distant friends or family, how Christmas presents get to your house. Billion-dollar companies run on no better of a proposal than: “We can move this thing slightly faster or more efficiently than the next guy.”

And so much of what we do is motivated by avoiding that very thing! Advancements in remote work and 3D printing and home exercise equipment – it’s all based on the idea that moving stuff around is so onerous that we’ll do a whole lot just to avoid some of it.

We even have entire institutions that do nothing but police which cubes can move to which points. Nations are built on it. Customs, borders, all of it – it all can exist because moving cubes around is so important that controlling it can control whole civilizations.

Some day, some scientist will crack the code on the whole “teleporter” thing, and that will be the absolute end of the society we know. I can’t even fathom what our civilization would look like if the logistical task of pushing cubes around vanished. It took so much work to put a cube on the Moon, and look how excited we were! Imagine the possibilities of just flinging them wherever we wanted.

Love is a verb.

The “feeling” you have that you associate with love is nice. It’s pleasant, until it hurts you. But it isn’t love.

Love is the stuff you do. Love is an act. It’s the way you shape your life around those people. The way you offer up parts of your life to improve theirs. The way you become present.

It isn’t what you say or feel. It’s what you do.

I don’t think that everything can be measured. But I do think that far more can be measurable than most people realize. And I also think there’s a pervasive tendency of people to try to define success around things that they aren’t willing to do the work to measure.

Here’s what I don’t like: Throwing resources into a hole. And if you commit juice to a task without knowing how to measure the results, that’s what you’re doing.

What’s the easiest way to avoid this? Don’t make your mission objective an action. Make your mission objective a result. People do the reverse all the time! “My goal is to start a non-profit to advance this agenda.” That’s a silly mission! What’s the result you want? What does it actually look like for that agenda to be advanced?

Call it SMART goals, call it OKRs, whatever framework you want to use – aim for a result, people. Not just something to do.

Sometimes people give you half of what you want. You want a promotion at work, and you’re given a smaller raise and bump in title than what you sought. You ask for a discount on an expensive item, and the seller gives you a smaller one. You ask for someone to put their faith in you, and they tentatively give you a little more leeway, but not full trust.

Try very, very hard to avoid feeling insulted by this.

It’s very natural to feel slighted. I know I often do. But I try to remember: They gave me something. And they moved in the direction of the situation I wanted. The journey isn’t over, and expecting it to happen in one step may have been my mistake. Acting insulted is a good way to make the other party regret that they did anything at all, and reduce the likelihood that they’ll continue.

Instead, demonstrate that they were right to do what they did, that you appreciate them meeting you halfway, and that you understand that they didn’t have to do anything at all. Be worthy of what you’ve received in their eyes, and the rest will come.

Without knowing what will come, sometimes we are shown kindness, as a precursor to being shot into space, never to return. The world can bring the most unexpected dangers upon you.

To look ahead to a future in which that might happen and face it is bravery of the highest order, even if you remain completely unaware of any specifics. Tomorrow may be your last day on Earth. Eat your meal, sleep in your bed, let people love you in their way, even if it falls short – fall short – of what you’d have dreamed in a perfect world.

We don’t live in a perfect world. We don’t even orbit one.

I heard a great comment today from someone who had recently had a frustrating experience. She referred to having “surplus energy” after the event. Our brains generate emotional responses to all sorts of stimuli, and even after the situation has been handled, those emotions don’t just instantly go away. That’s “surplus energy.”

Regardless of whether or not the emotion was helpful in the moment as a guide to your actions, the moment is over. You now have to do something with that energy – ideally, something helpful. Any engineer will tell you that energy that doesn’t get directed properly becomes “waste heat,” and waste heat can absolutely destroy a system if not managed properly. If you’ve ever had a car or computer overheat, you’ve experienced this firsthand.

There’s no single right way to productively direct this surplus energy, but it does have to be directed. You can’t just let it rattle around inside you, or you’ll overheat. Different energy in different people can create the need for different responses – maybe I need to take a walk in nature to blow off steam from an unpleasant personal interaction, but someone else needs to vent to a friend.

The key is to recognize the need and be intentional. Identify it. Say, “The moment is over, but I still have surplus energy from that event. What should I do with it so I can get back to my day?” Even asking the question can prevent a spiral.

And hey, you can always try doing what I do – write!

A man walks into a therapist’s office. He wants to talk, of all things, about his sports car.

He drives a big, loud, expensive muscle car. It rattles the windows in his neighborhood and costs a ton to maintain, but he drives it all the time. He’s had many different ones and has driven a car like it for years, but lately, some people in his life have been complaining about it and pushing him to drive something more sensible. In a moment of introspection, the man decided to talk to a therapist about it.

The therapist suggests that they should explore why the man drives these cars, as a starting point. So they talk about it a bit. The man opens up, and this is what he admits:

“If I’m really being truly honest, all the way down, I drive these cars to impress women. I’ve never been lucky with the ladies, so I drive these cars as a way to impress dates, flirt, ‘pick up chicks,’ whatever you want to call it. It’s all about that.”

The therapist makes a note, and considers this for a moment before responding. “Has it ever worked? Have you ever impressed a single date, picked up a single woman, or gotten even a flirtatious wink from someone who saw you behind the wheel?”

The man doesn’t have to think long. “Nope, not even once.”

“Why did you start driving these cars? What made you pick this method in the first place?”

The man thinks back, and responds: “I’ve never been great with dating, but a long time ago I was in an especially bad patch. I saw this handsome, funny, rich, smart, confident guy effortlessly pick up a girl he’d been chatting with, and he was driving a sports car. So I bought one to do the same.”

The therapist takes a moment to reflect, and then offers the explanation.

Often people will see a particular action or behavior lead to a certain result in a specific situation. Without a lot of additional context, they’ll adopt that behavior because they want that result, but they miss all the other factors that also contributed to the outcome in that situation. In fact, the behavior they adopt may not even be one of the contributing factors at all – in this case, it’s quite possible that a handsome, funny, rich, smart, confident guy might have done even better without a loud, annoying sports car. Even if that’s not the case, certainly all the other qualities contributed. You can’t just layer one aspect on top of a totally different starting set of circumstances and expect the same results.

Then, pure inertia keeps us committed to that behavior, because we never stopped to evaluate whether we were getting the results we wanted. We take it as a given that the behavior we’ve adopted is contributing to the results we’re seeking because we saw the two correlated. If we’re not getting the results, surely it’s not because of this! And humans are bad at noticing costs. In this case, you didn’t even notice that you don’t even enjoy driving those sports cars. You could have stopped long ago.

If you truly want to be “good with the ladies” – or whatever your goal is – you need to then work backward from that and ask “Is the thing I’m doing to achieve that goal actually getting me closer to it?” And even if you can come up with a scenario where it is, the next question is “Given the cost and effort, is this the best way to get to that goal?”

Let’s call this “The Understanding Turn.” You’re making a turn – a U-turn – around the goal. It’s a simple formula, but requires very deliberate attention:

1. “Why am I doing X?” – To get to Y result.
2. “Is X actually getting me to Y result?” – Maybe a little, maybe not!
3. “If I start from Y result, what’s the best way to achieve it?” – Probably Z!
4. Stop doing X, start doing Z.

So much of life is reactive behavior in response to limited information, and that leads us to what turn out to be very strange decisions when examined this way. But taking several large steps back and making the U-turn can put you exactly on the straightest path to your goal.