“How much credit should you seek” is a different question than “how much credit do you deserve?”

Something I reflect on pretty frequently is that I don’t like to think of opinions, thoughts, or ideas as “good/bad” or “right/wrong.” Rather, I like to think of ideas as either helpful or unhelpful.

Consider the following idea: “You are 100% in control of everything that happens to you. You have the ability to work through any obstacle with your choices and actions.” Is that idea right? Pretty obviously not. Even though I believe you have a great deal of control, only a fool would say it’s absolute. So the idea isn’t right, but is it helpful? I say that it is. Think about two opposite ideas: “You are 100% in control of your destiny,” as above, and “you have zero control over your fate; everything happens to you as a result of predetermined factors or other people’s influence. You can’t affect your own life in any way.”

Neither of those ideas is correct, but one is certainly more helpful than the other! If you believed the first idea, you’d work very hard in your life. Sometimes you’d put effort into lost causes, but most of the time you’d be a driving force for improvement and change in your life. If you put all your stock in that second idea, you’d be a hopelessly lost cause yourself, never trying (and therefore never accomplishing) anything.

So let’s get back to that idea of credit. There are a million situations where you could imagine deserving credit for something, but seeing how it would be more helpful to you to share it. Maybe you did the lion’s share of the work, but the other people who contributed less than you are nevertheless in a position to help you with your future goals. Is the value of “the credit you deserve” worth more to you than the value of the help you may receive?

One of the hardest things we ever have to give up is the concept of entitlement. Especially when, by all accounts, we actually do deserve the thing we feel entitled to.

There was once a man who saved up all of his money and invested in gold, purchasing a large bar of the stuff. Then he sailed across the ocean with his bounty, ready to use it to settle in a new land. A storm suddenly appeared and the man and his gold were thrown overboard. The man, unwilling to give up what was rightfully his, clutched his gold and refused to let go, even as it dragged him below the depths and he drowned.

That was his gold. He “deserved” it, as much as anyone can deserve anything. The gold being his was a “right” idea that was very, very unhelpful. That can be like credit – something you deserve, but will drown you if you cling to. Be careful about what you don’t let go of.

Deviating from the norm in some capacity or another is almost always a strength, if you build the right framework to make it one.

First, a potentially controversial opinion: Statistical models about people are helpful. It’s helpful to know what the “average” person is likely to do, think, feel. It gives you a baseline that lets you live your life in a way that would be impossible if you could literally never predict anyone’s behavior.

I live in New Jersey, in the United States. That means (among other things), that if I walk into a store to purchase something, I have a reasonable expectation of what language that transaction is going to happen in, what comments will or won’t offend the people I buy from, and so on.

Now, I should make really, really clear that I’m not saying that the average, predictable model is the best of all possible versions of this (or any) scenario. I’m absolutely not saying that anyone should be forced into this model. Just because it’s useful for me to be able to predict that an interaction with a stranger is probably going to happen in a certain way doesn’t mean that it has to go down like that, or that I have any good reason to be upset if it doesn’t.

In fact, if everything fell right in the middle of the statistical average, this would be a boring and unproductive life. I hope the world continues to be wild.

But if you’re one of the people who does something that other people might not expect, there’s a good way to make your life easier. Consider yourself to be the one responsible for managing that deviation.

My father used to tell me that the way to avoid car accidents was to be predictable. Never do anything that would surprise any other drivers. Don’t stop suddenly, don’t turn without signalling, and so on. Allow others to predict your behavior easily and the interactions with those people (in this case, navigating around each other in cars) will go much more smoothly.

That’s good advice for life. If your goal is smooth interactions with other people, then be predictable in your social behavior. Don’t get mad about stuff that would surprise someone. Don’t veer into strange conversation topics without warning. In other words, when you want to deviate from the norm, signal first.

This isn’t you asking for permission to be you. A turn signal isn’t signaling you requesting permission to make a left. It’s you saying that you’re going to turn left, and you want other people to be aware of it so that turn goes smoothly. Sure, you could just turn without signaling – but then you might get hit, and if your goal was to not get hit, you messed up.

If you have a peanut allergy, a phobia of dogs, a traumatic reaction to loud noises, or a certain kind of common social interaction that you don’t like, then your life gets a lot easier if other people know about them. Some people are very gracious and will ask if anyone has a peanut allergy before even opening their own lunch, but you can’t count on that. The number of ways people can differ from the average is nearly infinite, and even the best-intentioned can’t check for all of them. Each of those things can be a strength – even a peanut allergy, which seems to be 100% negative, can give you insights into other people’s struggles or maybe steer you to delicious new recipes that you’d have never discovered if you could default to easy peanut butter sandwiches – but if you don’t “signal” then you’ll spend a lot of your life getting rear-ended by people who expected you to go straight when you were turning left.

Be unique. Be different, be weird, be fun, be cool. Please, don’t ever stop – the world needs you so much. But put a framework in place that gives the maximum possible benefit to both you and the world from that uniqueness. My impression is that people don’t want to do that because they sometimes don’t want to be seen as unique, or they fear that their uniqueness will become a weapon used against them by people who do want to “enforce the average.” Those aren’t invalid fears or thoughts, but I challenge you to give the world a chance. To beat the metaphor to death a little, I don’t think the people going straight are mad at the people turning left – they’re just mad at the ones who don’t signal first.

P.S.: It should go without saying, but it probably doesn’t: If someone does signal, you are the best kind of person if you do everything you can to make that go smoothly for the person who did so.

We count time in many ways, and most of them aren’t very scientific.

We count a lot of arbitrary things annually. A year is a convenient measuring tool, but nothing about the number 365 suggests that it’s an ideal block of time for learning or experiencing or developing.

We worry about deadlines, are eager about weekends. We waste fifteen minutes on nothing many times over, but would often kill for an extra fifteen minutes first thing in the morning. We think about how long it takes for a cup of tea to cool.

Our value of these moments varies wildly. I won’t watch a YouTube video that’s over eight minutes, but I’ll happily read for hours. I’ll spend a whole weekend on some leisure activity but I don’t like taking 20 minutes to make myself lunch.

These are the rhythms of your life, and it’s worth putting them in some sort of harmony. Think about the things in your life that you mark time against, and make sure that they have a flow to them that’s complementary. Don’t ignore the value you can gain by moving even a single minute from one activity to another. You can find great treasure hidden between breaths.

It is amazing to me just how much better you can get at something on only your second attempt.

There are just so many “first-time” mistakes that are literally just that – things that you only do while learning the most basic elements of a task. As soon as you’ve experienced even one cycle of actions and results, your understanding is an order of magnitude greater. Compared to someone who’s never done something, the person who’s done it once is an expert.

Despite this, the fear of those initial mistakes makes people not attempt the action at all. Or discourages them after that first attempt. “I made so many errors,” they say, “I must be terrible at it, so once was enough.”

Quitting right before it gets good is silly! The first-time mistakes don’t last, and once they’re out of the way you can have such a blast. That wall is paper thin – go break through it!

I was speaking with someone yesterday about various impressive accomplishments one could achieve. He pointed out that many impressive accomplishments were no longer unique; even climbing Mt. Everest, while amazing, isn’t a win you could solely own.

Life offers you two solutions to this conundrum. One is to be the absolute best at some broad thing – climb Everest the fastest or something. Difficult in a world of so many people! Option Two is to narrow your focus. You might not be the only person to summit Everest, but maybe you could be the only one to do it blindfolded.

I’m not recommending that directly, of course. I’m just saying that one way to be the absolute best at something is to pick a niche.

Not only is it easier to be the best in a narrower field, but you’ll actually be more distinctive for it. The news doesn’t cover when people climb Everest any more. But it sure would if someone did it blindfolded.

Sometimes, there are huge things stopping us from moving forward, and we can’t see what they are. We think the way looks clear, and we’re confused when our forward momentum is halted – perhaps suddenly! Not only can the sudden stop be unpleasant because you thought you’d get to Point B and you didn’t, but in addition you might have even suffered some loss from the impact. Maybe you sank money into an investment and not only didn’t you get the return you wanted, you lost your stake. Maybe you thought things were going really well with the new person you’ve been seeing, and when it falls apart you’re not only left confused as to why, but you’ve also invested time and emotional effort that’s now lost.

There are some simple steps you can take that, while they can’t prevent this, can at least soften the blow. Don’t be too careless – if you charge ahead heedlessly, you can hit a wall you didn’t even know was there. Trust the opinions of a few others whose intelligence and insight you respect, and seek advice with some regularity. If you always go it alone, you only ever have one angle from which to view things, and maybe from another the wall wouldn’t have been quite so invisible. Don’t invest more than you’re willing to lose in any one endeavor; but remember, you can often bear greater losses than you think. You’ll earn back that money, and you have more emotional effort to give, and you’re not out of time yet.

And if, just if, you work in an office that has floor-to-ceiling glass paneling directly next to doorways, just… maybe watch where you’re going? Your face will hurt less.

I am extremely solutions-oriented. That can be both a strength and a weakness, and my goal is to make it less of the latter while retaining it as the former.

One of the “weakness” aspects of being solutions-oriented is you tend to view all problems as fundamentally “solvable” and thus approach them with that framework. That doesn’t always work out. Some situations are negative without necessarily having a solution, or perhaps the solution is just to support someone going through it.

I, on the other hand, have my sleeves permanently rolled up. I work. I’m not the “moral support” guy, I’m the fix-fix-fix guy. I’m aware of it, and so I’ve been trying for a few years now to get better at really actively listening and trying to judge when the other person or people need solutions or just need to bend an ear for a while. I’m proud to say I’ve actually been pretty successful, but I still have plenty of room for improvement.

I was talking to a truly brilliant co-worker of mine today, and she told me something that might seem obvious to people that aren’t me, but it was a radical departure from my standpoint. She said: “Don’t guess. Ask. Say, ‘I have some ideas for solutions that may work for you, but I want to make sure you need that first. Do you want to hear those or do you want to talk out your concerns a little more?’ No need to try to figure it out on your own.”

This is stellar advice! It’s a great communication tool even if, unlike me, you’re never wrong about whether or not someone wants solutions. Even if you can flawlessly figure that out for yourself, asking permission to offer solutions or ask more questions really helps the other person feel heard, understood, valid. It can help create a bridge between your intentions and their perception, which is always a good thing. And it can improve the quality of the solutions you offer!

This is such good advice for me that I’m legitimately excited for the next time I hear about someone else’s problem. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but hey – one problem at a time.

What tools do you use to understand yourself?

The study of the human mind is fascinating. One of the reasons is because it’s studied through so many different lenses – we look at the mind’s capabilities, what it will do in a business setting, how it impacts relationships, its health, its propensity to violence or addiction. People study broad trends and try to extract meaningful information about individuals from those averages.

What factors make someone a great leader? Prone to crime? A supportive spouse or awesome parent? Good at baseball? Terrible at appreciating art? A mathematical genius? An angry loner?

No one can know you as well as you know you, but there are two problems with considering yourself an expert on yourself:

1. You’re the closest to the subject matter, sure, but that’s not always good. There’s a lot to be said for clinical detachment when it comes to honestly evaluating something.
2. Just because you have the most intimate exposure to the subject matter, doesn’t mean you have the tools to evaluate what you should.

I can say “I know myself better than any psychiatrist!” but that’s obviously hubris. There are a million terms, trends, tools and techniques I’m completely ignorant about that would peel away layers of uncertainty.

So I look for tools I can use. I like personality tests, self-assessments, things like that. It might be dangerous to put too much stock in any one, but using many can give broad trends that smooth out the spikes. Anything to look “under the hood,” so to speak.

Just because you drive the car every day doesn’t mean you know how the engine works, but at the same time you do have information a mechanic can’t have; you know all the subtleties of exactly when the weird noise happens or under what conditions the gear slips. You know the symptoms better, even if you don’t possess the tools needed to diagnose the actual problem.

It’s worth seeking out those tools, but don’t ever forget that you’re driving. The best approach is a blended one – evaluate yourself as carefully and critically as you can, and seek outside tools and expertise when you reach the limit of your own evaluation. How else can you improve?

Where do you do your best work?

For as long as I’ve lived on my own, I’ve always maintained a dedicated office space of some kind. When I was young, my father ran a business out of the home and had converted one of the first-floor bedrooms into an office for his work, and to this day that room in that house is still his “office.” He’s long since retired, but he still has a room configured that way. It looks exactly the way you think it would look, being the home office of a man who spent his entire career working with audio/visual equipment and electronics.

Mine were always significantly neater (I’m far more of a minimalist than my father), but I also always kept a space like that. I didn’t have my own business like my dad did, but at many points in my career I did various freelance things, and even between them I’ve always liked having a specific space for writing and other projects.

When people make decisions about their careers, they’re often motivated by things other than (or in addition to) salary and job description. The “side perks” are often equally important, like commute time or office culture. One of these perks that is more and more desired and sought-after is the ability to work remotely at least some of the time. That was never high on my list of priorities – I didn’t have strong feelings either way about it. Despite this, I’ve found myself in roles where I work 99% remotely for the past half a decade.

Since I already had a home office (I always do), and didn’t really seek out remote work for that reason, I haven’t given a lot of thought to my work environment. I just worked where I was. But in those five years a lot has changed. My number of children tripled, and the amount of stuff they have has increased by a factor of approximately 100. The amount of noise they make has increased to a level incomprehensible by man.

So for these and other reasons, I’ve decided to try out a co-working space. I’m sitting here right now! I found a great little one less than ten minutes from my house, with a very reasonable price point and all the amenities I need for my work and other projects. In fact, I came here late last night and had some of the most productive few hours of work I’ve had in a while (it’s available 24/7, a huge selling point for me).

The additional benefit was not only high-productivity work hours, but when I got back home I just… didn’t work any more. A historically difficult thing for me. But I just didn’t unpack my laptop.

The problem you run into when you don’t make deliberate decisions about things is that those decisions get made anyway, they just get made in fuzzy default ways by the universe. So me just sort of sliding into “working from home” as my default without taking the time to really establish what that means, especially in the face of a growing family, meant that there were a lot of negatives. The lines between when I was working and when I wasn’t became less clear. I was both always working (bad for the home life) and always available for my family (bad for work productivity). So in many ways I got the worst of both worlds.

Now I’m aiming for a “best of both worlds” situation instead. A co-working space means I can put clear bright lines between my work time and my home time, but the fact that I still technically work remotely means I still have 100% flexibility to be available to either as I need. If one of the kids has a doctor’s appointment or something, I don’t need to be “in the office,” but it being otherwise available to me means I can be at work when I’m at work and home when I’m home.

December is going to be intense on both the work and the home fronts, so a little structure sounds wonderful. What environment do you craft for yourself to maximize your sanity?