Imagine three bricks, placed end-to-end on a table.

You could pick up all three bricks without touching the middle one. All you have to do is hold onto the two on the ends, and press them inward against the middle one. As long as you’re applying enough pressure, you can pick up all three bricks.

In fact, you could do this with more than 3! Assuming your arms are long enough and you’re strong enough, you could put 2, 3, maybe 4 bricks in the middle and still pick up the whole line by just pressing inward on the outermost two.

The more bricks you have, the more pressure is required, of course.

So here you are holding like six bricks total, straining and sweating, supporting all this weight with your outstretched arms and keeping everything stable only through maintaining a constant application of intense pressure.

And then someone comes along and tells you to relax. That you’re working too hard, that you should just breathe a little. Maybe meditate. They see the look on your face and think “this person is going to give themselves a heart attack, they need to slow down a little.” And with all the best intentions, they try to get you to just de-stress a little.

BANG! CRASH! SMASH!

The whole thing comes down. That was load-bearing stress. It was keeping the whole system up. Your mental and emotional stability was being held in check like liquid oxygen, only because of strong external pressure. There was nothing under those bricks – as soon as constant pressure wasn’t being applied to them, nothing was keeping them in the air.

So if this is you, and you’re the one in the position, you really have three choices:

1. Just… let the bricks crash? That looks like different things to different people depending on how this analogy is working for you, but it’s probably never good. It probably means, at a minimum, a mental breakdown.
2. Keep the pressure up forever. You can do it, right? I mean, it’s not really forever. It’s like 40 or 50 years, tops.
3. Find something to put under those bricks so you can ease up on the pressure gradually and nothing will collapse.

Number 3 sounds like the best option, right? Here’s the thing – imagine you really were physically holding the bricks like I described above. Now imagine that while supporting this, someone asked you to go look around for a table or something to put them down on. You have to suddenly concentrate on yet another task, you have to move around while still maintaining the balance, you have to risk bumping into stuff. In the short term, #3 might actually be much harder than #2.

So lots of people just default down to #1.

The real solution is no longer available. The real solution is #0: “Don’t pick up all those bricks like that to begin with, idiot. What did you think would happen?”

If you have to move bricks, that’s the real advice. Pick them up one, maybe two at a time, and then find someplace to put them down. Someplace stable, and then you can go get some more and put them next to the first couple. And then you could build a whole house or something, brick by brick.

I have a term I sometimes use in professional contexts, and I realized the other day that few people actually know what I’m talking about when I refer to a particular individual as The Rabbit.

Here’s what I mean when I call someone “The Rabbit.” In greyhound races, all the dogs are motivated to race around the track because they’re chasing a mechanical hare on a rail that runs around the inside of that track. The dogs aren’t really racing against each other, they’re all just chasing the mechanical hare and one of them does it faster than the rest of them.

In any contest between people, sometimes someone will emerge (in my mind) as The Rabbit. The Rabbit is the absolute clear winner; everyone else is competing for second. (The greyhounds can beat each other, but none of them can actually catch the mechanical hare.) But The Rabbit is more than just a clear first-place leader. The Rabbit refers to someone who is a clear first-place leader and inspires others in the competition to be better because of them.

In every sales office there’s a top seller. But there’s not always “The Rabbit.” In order to earn that term (one of high praise!), they not only have to be the top seller, they also have to represent something aspirational to the rest of the team. The rest of the team has to look up to this person, want to be more like them, even want to beat their record – but they like them. They chase them out of admiration.

I’ve seen plenty of professional teams where the top performer was a huge jerk that no one liked, no one wanted to learn from, and had no interest in motivating or leading others. Those people don’t rise through the ranks, they don’t become leaders.

Why? Because the essential qualities that make you The Rabbit remain even when you’re not in the competition any more. You can lead others even when your managerial duties keep you from being in the same race as the people you’re leading. You can’t do that if you were never The Rabbit to begin with.

The most essential tool of leadership is this: lead by example. Whatever you wish your team to have, you have to have more. If any of the greyhounds were actually faster than the hare, the dog wouldn’t pass it and keep running – it would catch it, and the race would halt. The Rabbit sets the pace.

Whenever I discover that someone has a radically different viewpoint or opinion than my own on some particular topic, a few things always happen in my head, in roughly this order:

First, I double-check the disagreement to make sure it’s real. Sometimes there are miscommunications, differing definitions of terms, etc. If someone else’s position is radically different from my own, I like to be certain about it.

The next thing that happens is that I give some serious consideration to whether my own viewpoint should change. Philosophical positions have a sort of gravity to them, and when I encounter one of particularly deep conviction I think it’s hubris to not at least consider the possibility that I’m the incorrect one. I like to think I have good reasons to hold the positions that I do, but part of what gives me that confidence is avoiding echo chambers and listening to dissent.

Assuming I choose to remain in my own position, however, the next thing that happens is that I briefly entertain the notion of trying to sway the other person out of theirs. The instinct to do so is strong, but I generally fight down that instinct and resist the temptation to argue.

So then comes the last step, the most enjoyable one – I look for ways to profit from the disagreement.

Not just for me! I’m always looking for win/win scenarios. Opportunities to help each other and both gain more than we spent in terms of juice. The thing is, that’s actually less likely to happen with someone who is in agreement with you on most things. When you find someone who has a very different mindset than you, there are all sorts of things you can do for each other to take advantage of each other’s strengths and their ability to counteract your own weaknesses.

So don’t dismiss people who disagree with you. Don’t bother trying to change their minds too much, either. Just look for the ways you can each profit from the friction. Life is more interesting that way.

Imagine you were about to embark on some endeavor, but before you put in your first iota of work, you were magically granted a choice between two scenarios:

1. A 90% chance of success, but if you fail you’ll be pretty miserable and it could hurt your ability to learn from the failure or be motivated to try again. Or–
2. A 75% chance of success, but whether you succeed or fail you’ll be happy.

The reason I’m thinking about this particular choice is that I’ve come up against two philosophical concepts, both of which seem sound to me, but are in conflict with one another. I want to either reconcile the two or, failing that, decide on which I think is more helpful.

Concept #1 is a concept rooted in Stocism, which generally tracks pretty well to my normal operating procedures. The concept is that no matter what you try to accomplish, you should try your absolute best – but even in doing so, at least some percentage of the outcome is up to fate. Doing everything right increases your chances for success, but doesn’t guarantee it. So knowing that, you should be okay with the idea of failing because if it’s external to your control then worrying about it is a path of stress and madness. In this way, you can keep your focus 100% on what you can control, which is a more beneficial use of that attention. You take the right actions, and let the outcomes take care of themselves.

Concept #2 is a psychological concept that says once we mentally have a Plan B, we decrease our chances of succeeding at Plan A. For example, if you say “I really want to get all my laundry done today, but if that doesn’t happen, I at least want to get one load washed,” then you’re very likely to only get one load washed. Once the easier path to Outcome B presents itself, you’ll take that path. So a way to stay motivated is to remove any options but success for yourself. This may give you the best chance at success, but you’ve also taken away your safety net – both emotionally and very likely physically as well.

So therein lies the conflict. Pushing yourself so hard that you “burn the boats” may increase your chances of success, but they also dramatically increase the mental penalty for failure. (Sometimes the physical penalty as well, but ultimately this is a post about the mental state associated with this choice.) Whereas allowing yourself to be emotionally okay with failure is definitely healthier if you fail, but also increases the chance of that failure occurring in the first place.

There’s almost certainly a mathematical solution, but I don’t have tight enough data on the variables. If I knew exactly the difference in percentage chance of success between the two mental states, and could quantify exactly the increased mental harm from failure in the difference, and could exactly measure the increased benefits gained from X% more successes over my lifetime… well, if I could do all that I wouldn’t be a mortal man.

So instead, I seek a philosophical solution. On the surface, the question seems almost trivially simple to me: Which is better – to be more successful but less happy overall, or happy no matter what with a little less success? If that were really the question, it seems like anyone with two brain cells to rub together would pick being happy. What good is success if you’re not happy with it – and what use is the marginal extra success if you’re happy no matter what?

But I don’t think the question is that simple. For one, I have children. Children I care about deeply and to whom I want to bequeath a legacy of success. I want them to be set up for every advantage that it’s within my power to grant. I would sacrifice a large degree of my own happiness, present and future, to secure more for them – and as a parent, I’ve already done so plenty! So in one way, choosing a mental state that gives me more happiness overall but less overall success is like trading away their future happiness for my own present happiness.

Then, I think about whether or not any advantages I grant my children will make them happier in the long run – it may make them more successful, but if success doesn’t translate into happiness, then what benefit am I really granting them? Am I sacrificing present happiness for… no one’s happiness, mine or theirs?

But then, I start to question whether success doesn’t really translate into happiness. I know that people with yachts aren’t necessarily happier than people with holes in their shoes. I’ve never been made happier by material things like that. But I am much, much happier when I have less to stress about, and success certainly removes a lot of stressors. I can worry about my children’s future happiness all I want, but today I have to feed them.

And then, another thought pops into my head. About my parents. You see, my own children are too young yet for this to be a realistic question for their consideration, but it’s a valuable question none the less: How much does my happiness increase the happiness of my children?

If my parents gave me a million dollars, it would definitely change things for me. But if doing so caused them to be miserable, I’d hate it. I’d give the million right back if it made them happy again. So assuming my children ultimately grow to feel about me the way I feel about my own parents, then they’d value me being happier over me being more successful, even if that means they themselves have less.

But then, the other voice argues: it’s selfish of me to claim to want to be happier because it will ultimately make my children happier, when you certainly don’t know that’s the case. And besides, one of the values you want to instill in your children is always to work hard, strive, push–

–am I telling them to sacrifice happiness for success?

This is a departure from my normal posts. I don’t have an answer, or even a theory. This might be a question I work through for years. It might be a central theme of my entire relationship with my children. I don’t always know what’s best. But I’m always trying to figure it out, I promise.

If you really want your dream role, and they won’t hire you, I’ve given this advice: do anything you can to get your foot in the door. If Google won’t hire you as a developer, then serve coffee in their cafeteria.

Why? Because it’s far easier to change the nature of a relationship with an organization than to forge a new one. Internal interviews are easier to get than external ones, organic networking (i.e. “water-cooler conversations”) is easier than getting five minutes with an executive when you don’t already have a connection, and demonstrating work ethic is easier than claiming you have it.

The caveat, of course, is that you actually have to serve the coffee.

I’ve seen people get 90% of the way there on this good advice. They find the company they want to work for, they identify where they want to be, and then they claim that they’re willing to start at the bottom to work their way up. But then they forget the “work their way up” part. They make the mistake of thinking that the transition from entry-level customer service associate to CEO will take place overnight, and they treat the role they’re using to get their foot in the door practically as an afterthought.

Working up from the mail room is an awesome plan. And you shouldn’t plan to stay in the entry-level role forever. Heck, that’s why it’s an entry-level role. But once you make that plan and get in on the ground floor, you have to totally recalibrate your thinking. You have to say: “Now, for at least the next 12 months, I’m going to absolutely crush this.”

Because the mail room clerk that gets the shot at the role they really want will not be the mail room clerk that’s constantly talking about the role they really want while totally shirking their current duties.

You have to serve the best damned cup of coffee anyone at Google has ever had, if you want to leverage that into a shot to try out for a different department. It won’t always work (and so you should know when to cut your losses and change direction!), but it will never work if you don’t serve the coffee first.

There are big things in life, and there are little things.

Many people, myself included, think we have a pretty good handle on the big things, but admit we often slack on the little things, if we’re being honest with ourselves.

When presented with a Big Decision, we think we’ll react well. But that’s because we think Big Decisions are different than they are. We think Big Decisions will be single-moment, high-impact, obvious-choice problems. Betray a friend’s trust or don’t? Take advantage of a vulnerable person or not? Things like that. But that’s not the case.

The real Big Decisions are just the little things, with twenty years of hindsight tacked on.

You can’t discount any decision as inconsequential. You should behave well, according to your values and ideals, in every moment. This is incredibly, incredibly hard.

It’s hard! But you should do it anyway. Here are some ways I’m doing that, and maybe they’ll work for you:

1. Don’t retroactively defend your impulse decisions. We do that too often – we do something without thinking about it, without considering its place in our overall value structure, on instinct or base desire. But then when we realize it, we make the mistake 10x worse by trying to justify it. You grab a candy bar instead of a healthier snack and then afterwards say “well, I’ve had a rough day and I deserve it and I’ll do extra sit-ups tomorrow and blah blah blah.” Don’t. Just say, “I ate a candy bar when my deeper consideration would have prevented it. I made a mistake. I own it, I’ll try to do better.”
2. Examine those decisions. Okay, you ate the candy bar. If you defend it, you’ll do it again. If instead you say, “what conditions led to my impulses getting the better of me,” then you can truly work to prevent that from happening again.
3. Find the thing that makes you happier than the mistake. To keep with the candy bar example – for some people, it’s stepping on a scale and seeing the progress they’re making by cutting out sugar. For me, it’s holding my children – and thinking about my father’s failing health due to diabetes. I’m happy when I imagine myself as active with my grandchildren as I am with my children. Happier than a candy bar could ever make me.

Doing this with every little decision can feel daunting, even exhausting. But pick one to start. Build the habit from there. Do it… or at least consider it.

I love the way a good soundtrack can enhance not just a movie or television show, but your life.

As a movie buff, I have a great respect for the spectacular soundtracks. When a movie (or show!) cultivates a really amazing playlist to accompany it, I think it’s the difference between merely good and true art. A lot of my new music comes from soundtracks.

But I also love the actual effect those things can have. There was recently a video floating around of wives playing the NFL theme on their phones and then taking videos of their husbands running into the room – theme music triggers something in us, like Pavlov’s dogs. Even that great scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where Roger can’t resist finishing the “shave and a haircut” bit.

Repetitive auditory triggers work wonders on us, and that’s why all of those gags are funny and effective. It’s why incredible composers and great film music editors alike can elicit emotions from us. And it’s why you can program yourself for better behavior.

I keep a number of playlists on hand that I associate with different activities – deep creative work, chores, working out, sleeping, etc. I always play those when I’m doing that activity. As a result, playing that particular playlist makes me want to do the associated activity.

I don’t mind being as easy to program as Pavlov’s dogs were. In fact, I relish it – because I control the programming. We are all products of our stimuli – so make sure you’re the one with the remote control.

My Beansprout, age 8, broke her thickest board yet in her karate career. Pretty danged impressive!

What’s more impressive is how she failed the first few times before recovering and getting it right. Her form was fine; but she didn’t shout.

In the tradition she studies, it’s called k’ihap – that sharp shout you use when you want extra power. Despite eight-year-olds seemingly shouting pretty much constantly, training to remember this specific shout at the specific time when you need to maximize your power is actually somewhat tough.

There’s a lesson there for all things – you’ve always got a deeper well to draw from. You really can give 110% when you need to, because you can use every muscle in your leg and maybe still fail. But add a little more from your lungs – from your heart – and maybe you’ll get there.

Like she did.

Reading good things puts fuel in my creative tank.

Reading garbage is like putting sugar in the gas tank. It’s not just bad, it’s worse than reading nothing at all. You’d rather have an empty tank than a polluted one.

When I read good things, I have good insights. When I read garbage, the most I usually come up with is “anti-garbage,” which isn’t the same as good stuff.

Telling someone not to do bad things might be correct, but it’s not as helpful as giving them examples of good things to do.

Which sounds better: telling someone that they’re kind, or telling someone that they’re not a jerk?

One is a “reverse negative.” It’s not really an insult or anything, but it’s still thinking about them in very negative terms. It uses a negative (being a jerk) as the anchor point, and then basing your evaluation of them in terms of distance from that negative.

I don’t want my brain constantly trying to put distance between my thoughts and negative space. I want my brain engaged with the task of getting me closer to positive space. All the time.