Imagine that you want to become better at baking, and a great baker you know is willing to talk to you. If you ask “How do I become a great baker like you,” you aren’t likely to get very helpful advice. Their advice will likely be generic and broad, stuff like “Practice every day,” etc. But that’s because the question was generic and broad, and so there wasn’t anything to latch on to.

Instead, bake a cake yourself, give them a slice, and ask them what they would improve. You will get detailed, relevant, and extremely helpful information – info which you can understand even better in the context of having just made a cake!

The point is that discussing actual work will always yield more relevant and specific insights than talking general theory. Get your hands dirty, and then show the dirt to the master. They’ll have more to offer you; more to say than they could about clean hands.

(Yes, I know it’s “Ides.”)

There’s a silly little prank/riddle you can try on your friends. You say, “How would you pronounce ‘Y – E – S?'” And they’ll say, “yes.” Then you say, “Okay, how would you pronounce ‘E – Y – E – S?'” And since you’re reading this instead of hearing it, you’ll get the gag immediately: The word is “eyes,” but many people will get tripped up by the odd juxtaposition and say some nonsense word pronounced “ee-yes.”

Some people won’t fall for it, of course. But it’s not really about smarts, per se. Instead, the people who don’t fall for it are generally very high-visualization. Some people will see the physical letters appear in their minds, and those people will then recognize the complete word “eyes.” Other people are non-visualizers, and those are the ones who will get tripped up.

So this trick doesn’t really suss out smarts, but it does detect high-visualization thinkers, which is neat!

If you’re going to eat something, kindness to that thing comes in the form of quick, painless, purposeful death. No waste, no unnecessary cruelty. But it’s life does not have to conform to a standard of “niceness” that only I would have the context to understand anyway. Don’t kid yourself.

I took my girls to a “Daddy-Daughter” dance tonight – their ages are such that this will be the only year where they’re both in the window to go. We had a wonderful time, in no small part because they wanted to have a good time. They decided not to be embarrassed or bored or anything like that. They decided in advance to dance and have fun and let their lame dad hang out with them.

Always decide in advance to have a good time. You’d be surprised how often that’s all it takes.

People don’t plan to be wrong enough.

I don’t mean “intend to be wrong.” Intent or no, you’re going to be wrong sometimes. People don’t plan for that; they don’t insure against it. They just operate with a life plan that requires them to be flawlessly correct about everything.

This is why people lose their money or their jobs or get in car accidents. They aren’t planning for the times when they’ll be wrong.

If you see someone driving with only a scant few feet between them and the car in front of them while doing 70 on the highway, that person’s life plan requires that they are flawlessly able to predict and react to any sudden movements from the car in front of them. That’s a bad life plan, because they can’t – they’ll be wrong, and it only takes being wrong once in that scenario to give you a very, very bad day.

Don’t live your life in such a way that only works if you never make a mistake. Give yourself zones of safety, trusted people to double-check your thinking on important decisions, and backup resources. Intend to be right, but plan to be wrong.

There’s a really hilarious sight gag from The Simpsons, and I’m going to use it to illustrate a point:

If someone ended up eating rat poison at this community center… whose fault is it? And is that really a good question?

Here’s a simpler version. Let’s say you accidentally put salt in a recipe that called for sugar, and the resulting food was inedible. That’s your fault, right? After all, you made the mistake. But what if your roommate put both sugar and salt in identical, unlabeled glass jars?

Fault is fuzzy. What matters more is why – because “why” is how we get to something not happening again. Assigning blame doesn’t make the sugar easier to distinguish from the salt in the future.

What you often need to do is move upstream from the accident to what’s called the “latent error.” The systemic cause of the accident, baked into the system. If a busy intersection has poor sight-lines and no traffic light, then accidents are inevitable. Figuring out who’s to blame in each individual accident isn’t nearly as useful as realizing that the very structure of the intersection is largely the cause of the accidents, and fixing it.

So don’t rush to blame, even yourself – and don’t rush to defend, either. Move back a few steps, and figure out what to change about the system. Don’t put the candy-shaped rat poison next to the candy in the first place!

“That person is so good at that. I wish I was good at it, too!”

How often have you thought this? It’s a pretty universal feeling, I think. We’ve all admired someone’s talent and felt a little envious. But often our envy could be put to positive use if only we directed it at the right thing!

See, when we look at someone else’s talent, it’s usually not the talent itself we’re envious of – it’s the results. If I look at a star basketball player and feel envious, it’s not truly skill at basketball I wish I had; it’s fame, fortune, attention. And that’s important, because I’m not ever going to be a talented basketball player. But if I actually wanted fame and fortune, there are ways for me to achieve that goal!

So instead of saying “I wish I could do that,” ask yourself what results you’re seeing that you really want, and then ask yourself what the best path for you to achieve those results is, given your own talents and ambitions. You’ll spend more time productively planning and being yourself, which are always good results to see!

I heard someone say recently that someone “wasn’t their boss,” and therefore they didn’t actually need to listen to them. It reminded me of when kids get told to do something by an adult and they respond with something like, “you’re not my dad.” And I thought: What would be the difference if it was your boss? Or your dad?

Here’s the truth: You don’t have to listen to them, either.

Obeying anyone is a bargain; an exchange you make willingly. There are benefits for obedience and/or consequences for disobedience and you’re weighing all of those against your desire to do something other than what you’re told. Very often, the best course of action will be to go along – especially in the case of your father (assuming he’s a good one!) or your boss (assuming you like the job!). But that won’t always be true, and you should remember that it’s always an exchange, even when the authority figure in question would much rather you simply kowtow reflexively.

Authority is built on this sleight of hand. You “have to” obey. When the authority in question has really dire consequences to mete out or really impressive rewards to withhold, they’ll be quick to say so, but not to bargain – to reinforce the idea that you “have to” obey. Because in general, authority doesn’t want you in the habit of questioning the deal. Sometimes the deal won’t be in the authority’s favor.

Today I introduced my younger children to the card game “Bullshit.” If you’ve never played it, it’s basically an entire game about lying about what cards you play, and calling each other out. (The kids had a blast being allowed to say the word – only while playing the game, of course.)

Lying is an important skill. Vital, even. Because only by knowing how to lie – practicing it, being good at it – can you start to develop an intuitive sense of when other people are lying to you. Those two skills go hand in hand. And since other people will lie to you in your life, being able to – accurately – call bullshit is an essential survival skill.

Stuff is great, and people who do stuff are awesome!

Today I went to the largest flower show in the country (world?). I did not previously know it existed, because “flowers” are not a primary interest of mine. And you know what? I had an absolutely awesome time.

The displays were incredible! There were so many plants, and so many people eager to answer any questions I had about them – and I had many! Everyone wanted to talk about their cool thing they were doing, and it was all great. People laughed and complimented each other. There were lots of people making things. I had so much fun I didn’t even get to do everything I wanted before the closing of the show!

My kids sometimes ask me if my job is fun, and I steal a line from comedian Dave Chappelle: “No, my job is work. I’m fun.” That’s the secret – all stuff is great. It’s just that you’re either the kind of person that can have fun in an circumstance, or you’re not. If you need specific stuff to be happy, you should try to change that. There’s so much stuff! So much fun! Don’t limit yourself to only a little slice. The world is too cool.