I’ve mentioned on occasion that I’m a fairly big board game geek. Well, that interest led me down a fascinating rabbit hole of information about the earliest board game historians know about. They call it the “Royal Game of Ur” after the city where it was discovered in the 1920’s or so. It’s an early precursor to backgammon and checkers, and it’s about 4,500 years old. Historians had to decipher the rules from old cuneiform tablets.

Of course, now you can buy a replica for like forty bucks!

So, obviously I did that. And I’ve already played it twice with my oldest daughter. Having a kid is so amazing from a build-your-own-friend standpoint. Without the massive pressures and responsibilities adulthood brings, they have enough time and mental bandwidth to both totally explore their own things and be really interested in all of your things too. So I get to train her to love my hobbies like board games and camping while she still has tons of time to explore her own, like karate and collecting snow globes.

When I was a kid, like all kids, I told anybody who would listen every thought that popped into my head in real time. I especially loved talking about my various interests and hobbies to anyone who didn’t get away fast enough. Then, some time in adolescence, I started being more guarded about who I shared with.

My hobbies and interests weren’t very mainstream. I always worried about what sharing them would say about me. That persisted well into my working years, as I was trying to prove myself to be competent and professional – the last thing I wanted was for anyone to associate me with anything other than work. I’d still talk about my hobbies, but only in circles where I knew people were already very likely to share them. Game shops or specific internet forums were great, but otherwise no.

But here’s the thing – that’s a lonely life. It’s so much easier, when someone asks “so what do you do for fun” to answer – “I find the most complicated board games I can and study strategy guides for them. I teach myself bush-craft skills and then go camping and mess them up. I write a weird daily blog. And I get my kids to like all that stuff too so I have permanent partners for all of it.”

I’ve met some great people that way. People who became really excellent friends, but at first the only thing we shared in common was some angle of one of these hobbies.

So listen – when you find a cool video late at night about an ancient board game they dug up out of a Mesopotamian ruin, if you think that’s awesome, tell someone about it. Buy a copy and ask them to play. Share your weird thing.

I promise, I absolutely promise, that if you have no one else to share it with you can share it with me. I’ll never judge, I’ll always be into it, and I’ll think it’s awesome.

Someone always does.

In a post earlier this week, I mentioned how people are great at comparing two things and making a judgement, but bad at evaluating a single thing in a vacuum.

The reality is, it’s not just that humans are bad at that. It’s that there is no objective value of a thing. It’s either better or worse than something else, that’s it.

Imagine you caught a fish, and you’d never seen a fish like it before in your life. It was totally new to you; you have zero information about it other than the fact that it came up on your line. You decide to call it a “Todayfish,” because that’s when you discovered it. Your fishing buddy asks you, “Well, is it a good todayfish? A bad one? Is it big or small for a todayfish? Is it a real beauty of a todayfish, a prime example of all that is todayfish-ness, or is it a sorry excuse for a todayfish?”

How would you know? You don’t have any idea. So instead of pondering these questions, you just take it back and fry it up. It’s delicious; you have a very enjoyable meal.

Now just as you’re finishing up, some stranger walks by who just happens to be an absolute expert on Todayfish. They’re actually called “Speckled Purple Strait-Leapers” and the one you caught was a disgusting example, according to this stranger. Most Strait-Leapers are way, way better and you should have thrown yours back.

Would this bother you? For some people, it would. For some people, the knowledge that what they just ate was a low-quality example and much better versions exist would actually retroactively reduce their enjoyment of the delicious meal they just devoured. For a wise person, however, they’d just shrug and say, “well, it was delicious to me.”

Today, my oldest daughter graduated from the “kids” karate class into the lowest tier of the full adult classes. She’s been taking her lessons via Zoom, creating her own training studio right in our living room while video calling with her instructor. A masked and gloved (and proud!) Master handed over her brand new (and heavily disinfected) belt. This wasn’t weird to my kid; she was just proud.

Instead of a summer water park, all three of my kids spent the afternoon in the back yard, playing with sprinklers and other garden hose attachments to take advantage of the beautiful warm weather. The lack of a better option didn’t bother them, because they don’t really know about them. They just enjoyed their day.

Humans have an absolutely amazing ability to adapt to their surroundings and environment, rolling with whatever punches and changes are thrown their way. But that’s not their best feature. The best feature is that once they’ve rolled with the punches, once they’ve looked around at the new circumstances, humans are absolutely amazing at being able to just say “Okay, this is the thing now. Let’s play.” Even the most cynical of us rarely dwell for long; we build new sandcastles as the old ones wash away.

It couldn’t be better.

I’m not a big fan of 10-point scales. In fact, I don’t even really like 5-point scales for things. But mostly that’s because I think people don’t use them well.

For instance, ask someone how they feel about something on a scale of 1 to 10. Assuming they don’t absolutely hate it, they’ll generally pick somewhere between 5 and 8, and most likely either 6 or 7. No one ever picks 3.

Let’s say they pick 7. If you ask them, “what would have to improve to make it an 8? What would have to be worse to make it a 6?” they won’t have answers.

People are good at comparing two things, but they’re not great at evaluating one thing in a vacuum. Most “evaluation scales” should just be 1-3. You hate it, you love it, or “eh.”

People are good at comparing two things, though. If I were to give you two examples of something, even if they were pretty similar, you could probably decided which you prefer. Most people do this every day, for really minor differences in impact. Think about the million different ways people drink some variety of “hot caffeine,” even though that’s really all it is, and you get what I’m talking about.

The upshot is that in order to really have a meaningful 10-point scale of something, you’d need ten different examples of that thing. Then you could rank them in order from best to worst. Once you’d done that, you could number the examples and now you’d have a way to evaluate new examples by ranking them against the existing set.

When you ask someone to rank something from 1-10 and you don’t both share a calibrated scale like that, it’s sort of like asking someone “how many hogsheads does it take to fill a swimming pool?” Most people don’t have any idea what a hogshead even is (though the answer is interesting!), and so they’d be guessing at best. So when you ask someone to rank a product or idea on that scale, what you’re really getting is a filtered version of their current mood, guesswork, and other factors making the data not very helpful.

Define your terms! Create and calibrate a scale when asking others – and even for yourself, that can help you think more clearly. Look around at your current situation with regards to work, your home, anything about your life. Rank it from 1-10. But then think about what would have to change for your ranking to go one step higher or one step lower. What does each step actually look like, distinct from the others? How can you get there?

Those marginal improvements can make a world of difference, and give you an actionable way to get to that perfect 10.

Your life is like a colony of bees. Each day is a drone. Your purpose is the Queen.

In service to the Queen, you can lose tons of individual drones. That means you can lose many days that seem to slip by you, days where you don’t get to relax, days where you feel overwhelmed, days where you didn’t feel like you won. As long as the Queen persists, it’s okay. As long as you’re still working towards that purpose, it’s okay.

But if you lose the Queen, all the drones in the world don’t matter. You can have infinite days stretching out towards the horizon, but what good do they do you without a purpose, some meaning behind them?

Honey isn’t the goal. Honey is the by-product of working towards your purpose. Honey is all the sweet rewards, whatever they may be. You don’t get them by seeking them. You get them by driving towards your purpose.

No day makes or breaks you. Your purpose lives on.

Some ideas, some pieces of knowledge, are worth a fortune over the course of your life. Some talents you possess are your bread and butter.

What’s valuable to you can be valuable to others. Try this thought experiment:

Think of the most valuable single category of knowledge you possess. Maybe you know how to work a piece of equipment that’s complex and produces valuable results. Maybe you know an awesome investment strategy. Maybe you know the secret to writing really well. Whatever your valuable idea is, write it down.

Then, underneath of it, write a list of every person on the planet who doesn’t know what you know.

What? Don’t have enough paper?

Okay, write it down in broad categories. For instance, let’s say that my valuable idea is the fact that I know the secret ingredient to an amazing marinara is one particular spice that’s only common to my area. I could quickly fill my list: “People who don’t live in my area. People who have never had marinara before. People who don’t even know what marinara is,” etc.

The point is, it’s a lot of people.

Think about that. You have an idea that’s valuable enough that it may even be the foundation of your primary income source. And the vast majority of the billions of people on Earth don’t know it.

That’s the real value of your idea. If you want to scale, share.

There are good reasons to be humble. The obvious reason is because rudeness doesn’t win you many friends. If you’re not humble and you’re wrong, you suffer great embarrassment, and even if you’re right, a lack of humility can push people away.

But there are other reasons why humility is good strategy.

How much other people are willing to bet on you is a relatively easy formula to follow. Each time you make a prediction that turns out correctly, you gain a little credibility. Each time you make a prediction that turns out wrong, you lose some. Once you have enough credibility, you can get enough people to bet on you that you can practically make your predictions come true.

(Don’t believe me? Look at Warren Buffet. He was right enough times that now when he says “Company X is a good stock buy,” their stocks go up – because he said they were a good buy. People invest because Buffet said they should, and that in turn makes him right.)

But here’s the interaction between humility and correctness: if you’re a huge loudmouth, arrogantly making your predictions, then you gain a little credibility when you’re right, but you lose a lot of credibility when you’re wrong. Conversely, if you make your predictions with humility, then you lose very little when you’re wrong, but look like a modest genius when you’re right.

Why? Well, think about it. Someone makes a prediction where they say, “I’m experimenting with a new market for my product and trying out a few things in terms of the ad campaign. I’m not sure if it’ll be a home run, but I’m eager to learn and I think this will be a great experience either way.” Then it turns out that the ad campaign is a huge success and that market loves the product. The person who made the prediction looks great, don’t they? They had a home run in their pocket the whole time and they were still modest about it and eager to do the right thing. That’s someone you want to work with, bet on, invest in.

Meanwhile: “This next campaign I’m running is going to be AMAZING. You’d be an absolute idiot if you don’t get on board with this. You’ll be kicking yourself for years if you don’t do as I tell you on this, believe me. I’m a beast at this, there’s no way this won’t blow up” If that campaign fails – heck, if it’s even only a moderate success – the person is now at the center of a whirlpool of sharks who will be so, so happy to point out his failures. They won’t trust him again, no matter how he tries to hype it up.

The boy can only cry “wolf” so many times before the villagers stop coming, and you can only bet on a wolf so many times and lose before your pool of investors runs dry. Stay humble even when you’re sure you’re right, and you’ll keep your reputation high whether you succeed or fail in specific instances.

My oldest daughter made a cheetah out of a bunch of scrap crafting material and then painted it up. I think she did a pretty excellent job! Along the way, she also learned a bunch of interesting facts about them, which she was happy to share. She also learned a ton of more important foundational lessons, like how to look at a pile of junk and make it take a particular shape in your mind and then manifest that shape, and how to find out information when you don’t even know what you don’t know.

She’s a smart, crafty, funny kid. Today cheetahs, tomorrow anything – this kid’s thirst for knowledge and adventure is boundless.

There’s a saying in business: “Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.”

It makes sense! If you want quality work quickly, you generally have to pay out the nose. If you want quality work cheaply, you have to wait in line behind everyone else that also wants that. And if you want something quickly that you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for, it probably won’t be that good.

That’s a general rule and of course there are exceptions – my local pizza place, for example, is inexpensive, fast, and amazing. But it’s definitely a good general principle to be aware of as you’re evaluating your options for a particular good or service.

And it’s generally a good thing that the market is flexible like that! My needs change from day to day and project to project. One day, I may need a solution quickly and I’m willing to pay top dollar. Another day, I may also need a solution but be short on liquid funds so I’m willing to take a lower-quality solution in order to get it cheap. For one item I may be willing to wait a long time because it isn’t urgent but I’d like what I do get to be of excellent condition, but in another instance I may need something very quickly. So overall, it’s a good thing that for any given product or service, there’s usually at least one option in each of the three broad categores: “Cheap & Fast; Not Good,” “Cheap & Good; Not Fast” and “Fast & Good; Not Cheap.” That lets everyone get what they need based on their particular circumstance.

But imagine one of those axes was fixed. For instance, imagine a mandatory 30-day waiting period was put on every product and service you could buy, thus removing any business’s ability to be “Fast.” Now, there’s only two measurements: the Bad-Good axis and the Cheap-Expensive axis. By removing only one axis, you put two out of every three companies out of business, because only the company that focused on being “Cheap & Good; Not Fast” has any competitive Edge. All of them are “Not Fast” now, so you’ve got one Good company, one Cheap company, and one Cheap & Good company. That’s an easy choice!

But not only do you put 2/3 of companies out of business in this hypothetical, you also do a lot of damage to the consumer. Sure, everyone gets great products at an affordable rate now. But there are many, many purchases where no matter how cheap and how good they were, they’re useless past a certain point. If I’m baking a cake for a party tomorrow and I suddenly realize I don’t have a cake pan, I don’t really need it to be of fine quality – the super-basic one from Wal-Mart will do, but I need it tonight. Waiting 30 days for the best one doesn’t help me; it’s not the right fit for my circumstance. Likewise, if the heater goes out in my house in the middle of winter, waiting 30 days for an inexpensive fix is not a better choice for me than getting an expensive fix tonight.

The other issue is one of supply. Let’s say you’ve got three Widget companies. One sells Good, Cheap Widgets (but they’re very slow to fill orders and deliver); one sells Good, Fast Widgets (but they’re very expensive) and one sells Cheap, Fast Widgets (but they’re very basic and the lowest quality of the three). Regardless of their production styles, none of them can produce infinite Widgets in finite time; there’s a limit to how many Widgets the population could buy from them at once.

So now down comes the decree that all Widgets have to have a 30-day waiting period. Since before you had to wait 30 days for Good, Cheap Widgets, but you could get the other two kinds in 48 hours, suddenly everyone places their orders with Good & Cheap. Why wouldn’t they? “Fast” is no longer an option. Except that’s more orders than Good & Cheap can fulfill (hey, they can’t re-order supplies any faster, either!), so suddenly there’s a huge back-log. Instead of 30 days, it’s months and months to get a Good & Cheap Widget because there simply aren’t enough.

Now customers are forced into one of two bad situations: Buy Good & Cheap Widgets but wait half a year or more to get them, or buy “Just Good” Widgets (that are neither fast nor cheap) or “Just Cheap” Widgets (that are neither fast nor good). Fixing one axis made literally every option worse.

All it takes is fixing one axis in place, and the whole thing falls apart.

The more flexible a system is, the more robust and resistant to damage it is. The better it can serve the greatest number of varied needs. When architects build skyscrapers, they build in the ability to sway in the wind – because if they can’t sway, they break.

Rigid things break, whether they be physical objects or complex systems. Let things adjust.

I love that phrase, “ahead of its time.” Describing something that’s just too good for society to really grasp it yet, so it languishes in obscurity.

I think all invention is timely in nature. Consider the transistor. One of the greatest inventions ever – and by the way, like all great inventions, you never think of it as such. All the inventions that truly revolutionize society do so by becoming so ubiquitous that you couldn’t even conceive of life without it, so it becomes as invisible to you as the air you breathe.

Anyway, back to the transistor. If you’d invented that in Roman times it would have been useless. But in the 1940s it changed the world. I guarantee you that you couldn’t even imagine a world without them, so pervasive are the effects of those little things.

All invention is reactionary, made to solve a problem that has only existed for five minutes due to a change in our lives brought about by the last invention. We build and improve and build and improve, but timing is everything. A year too late or too early changes the very nature of an idea.

So keep your eyes open! The problem you’re destined to solve with your new idea may not even exist yet – but it will, and that’s the time for you. If you try to force it when it isn’t ready, you’ll be relegated to the book of almost-was called “Ahead Of Its Time.”

“We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.”

I’ve seen that mistake play out again and again. Come on a little trip with me and let’s talk about why.

Have you ever heard of the trolley problem? It’s a philosophical thought experiment. There’s a trolley barreling down a track and it’s going to hit and kill 5 people who are tied up in its path. You can’t stop this. But you can pull a lever that redirects the trolley onto a side track where it will hit and kill one person instead of five. Do you do it?

There’s no right or wrong answer here, it’s just a thought experiment to discuss the nature of active versus inactive harm – you see, the answer of “one death versus five deaths” might seem obvious at first, but the subtle second layer is that the first five deaths you had nothing to do with – but if you pull the lever you’re directly responsible for that person’s death.

But let’s look at this from a different angle. Instead of looking through the lens of moral action, let’s look through the lens of societal self-preservation.

Imagine the scenario again, but this time lets add cameras and a crowd. Thousands watching, potentially millions more will see recordings of the terrible event. If you do nothing, 5 people die – but nobody knows who you are. You’re just one person in the crowd, unconnected to this tragedy. But if you rush forward and pull that lever, you save five lives – but you’re branded a murderer, blamed for the one person’s death, your face plastered on every news site.

Changes the calculation somewhat, doesn’t it? Maybe it doesn’t change what, in theory, you should do. But for many people it changes what they would do.

People are often motivated by the desire to be blameless more than by the desire for the best outcomes.

In 2012, my parents’ house was destroyed by the local fire department. Not by a fire; by the fire department. There was a small fire in the corner of the garage; perfectly manageable by a small amount of water. Instead, the fire department soaked the entire house for hours. I don’t know if you’ve ever soaked a house for hours, but… it destroys it.

Why did they do this? Because if they soak the house and it gets destroyed, they don’t get any blame. After all, they did what they were supposed to do. But if they don’t soak the house and by some crazy event the tiny fire actually reignites and spreads to the house, they will get blamed for not doing their jobs. Their motivation wasn’t to save my parents’ house, it was to avoid blame. Whenever someone is forced to make a tactical call between several options, nine times out of ten they’ll choose the option that produces the lowest likelihood of blame for themselves.

I don’t mean to be cynical or overly critical of that fire department in particular. In fact, I understand them completely. People respond to incentives; that’s just the way it is.

How does this relate back to the original quote?

Because in a lot of dire circumstances, the correct thing to do is nothing. Not to panic, not to change, just to do nothing. But even in circumstances where doing nothing is the decision most likely to produce good results, it can also be a decision that bites you hardest in the ass if you happen to roll snake eyes and get the bad result.

So in a crisis, people decide that they just have to do something, even if nothing is the best call, because “doing something” insulates them from blame for the worst result even if it’s actually increasing the likelihood of that result. And once you’ve decided that you have to “do something” not because it’s a good idea, but because action is necessary for optics, you’ll do pretty much anything that looks suitably “decisive.” Hence: “We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.”

The hardest thing to do, even (especially!) when it’s the right thing to do, is nothing. “Tactical Nothing” is a really difficult move to pull off – it requires confidence, calm, and a true faith in statistical reasoning. But if you’re focused on the long run, it pays off.