be the verb

Be the Verb

“If you want to be the noun, you have to do the verb” - Austin Kleon

When I came across this Austin Kleon quote recently, it hit home. December was a sub-par month for progress on things I’ve told myself are important. As Austin points out, saying they’re important isn’t enough. I needed to do them. Writer is a verb I’ve dreamt of describing myself with since kindergarten. Allison was drawing the most beautiful apples and would be an artist. I sat nearby drawing maps of fantasy lands and hoping to write about them for a living one day. Things haven’t followed that plan, but I still want to write.

Unfortunately, my writing has been hamstrung by my apprehension to share. Not unreasonably I wanted to make sure it was ready for others. The problem was that I never got to that point where I felt comfortable, so I have shelved more than 90% of my thoughts.

Said another way, my fear that there existed a possibility that someone might identify a flaw in my argument, meant that I could not share it.

(Side Bar: Ben Thompson’s great article on net neutrality touches on this idea of the cost of reacting to a potential future harm.)

The fact that I’m likely right that most of my thinking is flawed is actually beside the point. There are a lot of reasons to write and this site is not about convincing anyone of the right way to think about any problem. The whole premise behind the Made Time Revolution is that things change. This site tracks my experience in thinking about those changes and log the evolution. While I could hope that I have the answers at the start, it’s unlikely.

If I don’t my thoughts and experiences down on paper, I preempt any opportunity to evolve. When I don’t write, I become the player Gretzky disparages when he says “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Paul Graham penned an excellent essay on… essays. In it, he touches on the failures of the standard way to teach writing and explains how he writes to understand.

“If all you want to do is figure things out, why do you need to write anything, though? Why not just sit and think? Well, there precisely is Montaigne’s great discovery. Expressing ideas helps to form them. Indeed, helps is far too weak a word. Most of what ends up in my essays I only thought of when I sat down to write them. That’s why I write them.” — Paul Graham ( link )

Resistance And The Importance Of Mindset

There’s a difference between thinking about a problem and writing out your solution. Paul points this out in his essay and Gregory Clotti expands on the idea in ”The Psychological Benefits of Writing Regularly“.

“Writing helps eliminate ‘it sounded good in my head’ by forcing your hand; brains forgive fuzzy abstractions, prose does not” - Gregorry Clotti

That clarity is a double edged sword. Because it’s on paper, there’s much less ambiguity about what’s said. Any questions can be resolved by re-reading.

I took this clarity too far and generally assumed that every idea written was fixed and firmly held by its author. I can think of a lot of reasons for why I interpreted the world this way. One that came to mind is a childhood lesson on integrity and the importance of sticking to your word. In most cases, this lesson served me well. Not fully understanding the rule and its limits, I applied it generally. In the case of writing, it was unduly limiting.

Unlearning those lessons and changing behavior has proven difficult. I read Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset several years ago along with dozens of other books and articles that featured the importance of mindset and deliberate practice. It didn’t matter. I knew that a person could change their perspective, but I resisted publishing ideas that might be wrong (immediately or in the future). It didn’t matter that I knew I was harming myself and my ability to grow.

Every time I press publish, I go through the same internal debate of whether it’s worth publishing. Most of the time I publish despite the dread I feel. I can do this by building inertia through an internal dialogue to push past what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. It’s easier because I write here. This site is a safe zone. I need less inertia here to overcome Resistance. That is actually a big reason why this site exists.

Turning Over A New Leaf

January may be in the dead of winter, but they are full of promise and the potential of a new year. In the spirit of the season, now feels like as good a time as ever to rededicate myself to pushing myself beyond my comfort zone.

This means making more time to think and then taking the time to put those thoughts on paper. This year, I hope plan to be wrong a lot more.

I plan to make this easier on myself by changing the way I interpret being wrong. Being wrong no longer means an absence of integrity. It means opportunity. And, if I seize that opportunity and change my mind when I realize I’m wrong - that is a mark of integrity.

There’s the added benefit that being wrong is also a great way to learn. It is not the only way, but it is one of the best at delivering feedback fast. This speed provides more opportunities, all of which need processing. In my case, it took years to process that I was misinterpreting consistency by listening. Hopefully, I learn from this and am faster next time. After all, as Emerson points out - being wrong is not so bad…

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

What’s something you’ve changed your mind about?

Be the Verb

“If you want to be the noun, you have to do the verb” - Austin Kleon

When I came across this Austin Kleon quote recently, it hit home. December was a sub-par month in terms of my progress on things I’ve told myself are important, but as Austin points out, just saying they’re important isn’t enough. I needed to do them. Writer is a verb I’ve dreamt of describing myself with since kindergarden. Alison was drawing the most beautiful apples and would be an artist, while I was thinking of fantasy lands and hoping to write about them for a living one day. Things have turned out differently, but I still want to write.

Unfortunately, one of the things that has hamstrung my writing has been my aprehension to share my thinking. Part of this is because I wanted to make sure that it was ready for others to see, but I never got to the point of being comfortable, so I would shelve 90% of my thoughts. I clearly wasn’t following Jeff Bezos’ advice and making high velocity decisions ( Amazon’s 2016 Letter to Shareholders - pg. 3 ).

Said another way, my fear that there existed a possibility that someone might identify a flaw in my argument, meant that I wouldn’t even share it. (side bar: ben thompson has a great article on his blog that touches on this idea of the cost of reacting to a potential future harm in this way when he discusses net neutrality).

the fact that i’m probably right that most of my thinking is flawed is actually beside the point. there are a lot of reasons to write and this site is not about convincing anyone of the right way to think about any problem. in fact, the whole premise behind the made time revolution is that things will change - and this site is meant to track that evolution. as much as I might hope and wish that i have the answers at the start, it’s extraordinarily unlikely. if i don’t put some of those thoughts down on paper, then i preempt any opportunity to evolve and am the player Gretzky disparages when he says you “miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Paul Graham penned an excellent essay on this (h/t/ Rohan) in which he points out that one of the reasons to write is to understand what you’re thinking citing Michel de Montaigne’s 1580s book “Essais”

“If all you want to do is figure things out, why do you needto write anything, though? Why not just sit and think? Well,there precisely is Montaigne’s great discovery. Expressing ideas helps to form them. Indeed, helps is far too weak aword. Most of what ends up in my essays I onlythought of when I sat down to write them. That’s why I write them.” — Paul Graham ( link )

Resistance And The Importance Of Mindset

There’s a difference between thinking about a problem and writing out your solution. Paul Graham gets at this notion in talking about why he writes. So does Gregory Clotti in a really thought provoking medium article on “The Psychological Benefits of Writing Regularly”.

“Writing helps eliminate ‘it sounded good in my head’ by forcing your hand; brains forgive fuzzy abstractions, prose does not” - Gregorry Clotti

That clarity is a double edged sword however. Because it’s on paper, there’s much less ambiguity about what’s being said. Any questions can be resolved by re-reading. One of the consequences of this is that for the most part, I assumed that every idea written was fixed and firmly held by its author. There are a lot of reasons for why I interpreted the world this way - but one is probably a lesson on integrity and the importance of sticking to your word that I learned as a child, but probably didn’t fully understand.

Unlearning those lessons and changing behavior has proved difficult. I read Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset several years ago along with dozens of other books and articles that featured the importance of mindset and deliberate practice. It didn’t matter. I knew that a person could change their perspective fundamentally, but I resisted publishing ideas that might be wrong (immediately or in the future). It didn’t matter that I knew I was harming myself and my ability to grow.

(While this may seem counter-intuitive since I have several previous posts on this site, every time I press publish, I go through the same internal debate of whether or not it’s worth publishing. Most of the time I publish despite the dread I feel by building up inertia to push past what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. That’s one of the purposes of this site: to give myself a relatively safe environment to share and use that as inertia.)

Turning Over A New Leaf

January may be in the dead of winter, but the month is full of the promise and potential of a new year. In the spirit of the season, now feels like as good a time as ever to rededicate myself to pushing myself beyond my comfort zone. This means making more time to think and then taking the time to put those thoughts on paper. This year, I hope plan to be wrong a lot more. This will require that I practice a new way to interpret being wrong. Being wrong doesn’t mean that I do not have integrity. I’d actually argue that if I change my opinion when I am wrong, that is a mark of integrity.

Being wrong is also a way to learn. It may not be the only way to learn, but it certainly is one of the fastest ways to get feedback, which is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition to growth. And, as Emerson points out - it’s not so bad.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson