I don’t know what I’m wrong about

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With all of the reading and learning that I do, there is a clear path for much of it. I find areas that are new to me, dig in, and try to learn more.

In many cases, though, my gaps aren’t readily apparent and I simply don’t know what I’m wrong about.

In her book “I Never Thought of It That Way“, author Mónica Guzmán shares this story:

“Is it safe to assume all sixty-three of us are wrong about something right now?” David Smith asked the virtual, pandemic-era class I joined one evening. In Zoom squares on my screen, heads considered, then nodded. “I think so, because we’ve been wrong about so many things before,” he continued. But there’s a problem: we don’t know what we’re wrong about. “That simple observation, ‘I’m wrong, I just don’t know what about!’ should produce some humility,” David Smith said. “Some willingness to listen.”

Willingness to listen is certainly a big part of this, but surrounding yourself with people willing to share is equally important. If you’ve positioned yourself in a way where observations like that are shut down, people will stop sharing them with you and you’ll no longer have that opportunity to learn.

Online it’s the issue of “unfollow me if you disagree“, but I find I gain even better insights from conversations in person. A good example from a few years ago was when a member of our team corrected me on a story about Matt Lauer; I was sharing bad information (that I was confident was accurate), and I had no idea that I was wrong. I was very politely corrected, and become less wrong in the process.

All of us frequently don’t know what we’re wrong about, so the willingness to listen (along with the willingness to share with kind candor) can make us all better people.

Ruinous Empathy

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I talk on here a lot about empathy and kindness, which are both great virtues to embrace but both of which can be troublesome if overused.

The idea I’ve shared a few times comes from Gary Vee’s concept of “Kind Candor”. If you’re simply kind to everyone and never speak the truth, it can be big trouble. In her book “Radical Candor“, author Kim Scott has a similar term that she calls “Ruinous Empathy”. From the book:

“Ruinous Empathy—you’re so fixated on not hurting a person’s feelings in the moment that you don’t tell them something they’d be better off knowing in the long run.”

She gives a great example on her website:

Ruinous Empathy is seeing somebody with their fly down, but, not wanting to embarrass them, saying nothing, with the result that 15 more people see them with their fly down — more embarrassing for them. So, not so “nice” after all.

I had a similar situation come up a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was repeatedly mispronouncing a word, and I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. I didn’t want to come across as being a jerk in pointing out the flaw, particularly because I’m sure there are various words that I consistently mispronounce all the time. In the end, I let them know, they fixed it, and all was good. It wasn’t a big deal in either direction, but I’m glad I was able to help.

If I’m mispronouncing something or if I misunderstand a situation, I hope you’ll take the time to let me know. If you do, I’ll be less wrong than I was before, which is always good. Just be sure to leave a bit of kindness in there when you straighten me out.

It’s very doable to be the most knowledgeable

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Bill Gurley’s video “Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love” from a few years ago is fantastic. I could probably find 25 ideas worth writing about from it, but I’ll limit myself to just a few.

If you’ve not seen it yet, here is the video and I strongly encourage you to take the time to watch it:

In the video he talks about a lot of ways to improve yourself, but a big one is knowledge. You can pick any subject that you want and you can absolutely become the most knowledgeable about it. Bill says:

“You have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable in any subject you want, because it’s right there at your fingertips, and it’s free.”

A bit later he clarifies more. While you can indeed be the most knowledgeable, that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be the best in your field (though it sure doesn’t hurt). He says:

“It isn’t always easy to be the smartest or the brightest, but it’s very doable to be the most knowledgeable.”

If there is something that you’re passionate about, go get it. With the tools at your fingertips, you can find enough free information (Google, podcasts, YouTube, etc) to last a lifetime. Dig in, soak it up, and become the best in class at what you want to do.

There may be others that have more natural aptitude for a particular area, but if you work to be the most knowledgeable you’ll be hard to beat.

Do your own research?

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The phrase “do your own research” has exploded in popularity in recent years, as you’ve likely noticed. Here is a chart showing the popularity of the phrase on Google over the last 15 years:

At first glance it’s seemingly a good thing, and ultimately it can be. However, there are a few major problems with that statement.

First, the word “research” is dubious. When people talk about “doing their own research”, it almost certainly has nothing to do with any kind of actual research, but rather in watching an obscure YouTube video that fits a particular narrative. I use some fairly research-helping heavy tools when digging into a subject, and I wouldn’t consider myself a researcher by any reasonable use of the word.

Second, statistics show that people who use the phrase “do your own research” are the ones that are least likely to actually do any kind of research. They use the phrase as a weapon, not as proof that they’ve actually dug into the topic at hand. This episode of the “You are not so smart” podcast digs deeper into that.

Lastly, it can be foolish to even attempt to do your own research on most things, as the majority of humans aren’t equipped to be able to do it. From this article on Forbes:

The reason is simple: most of us, even those of us who are scientists ourselves, lack the relevant scientific expertise needed to adequately evaluate that research on our own. In our own fields, we are aware of the full suite of data, of how those puzzle pieces fit together, and what the frontiers of our knowledge is. When laypersons espouse opinions on those matters, it’s immediately clear to us where the gaps in their understanding are and where they’ve misled themselves in their reasoning. When they take up the arguments of a contrarian scientist, we recognize what they’re overlooking, misinterpreting, or omitting.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t explore both sides of an issue. I often do, and I encourage you to do the same. However, rather than pretending to do research, find authorities that you can trust in their field and make use of the research that they’ve already done.

Three years of daily blogging

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I wasn’t sure I’d make it month, much less a year, but here we are at three years of blogging every day.

While my purpose for blogging remains the same, I’ve added a few more things to help force me to revisit the things that I read. Outside of the blog, we now host a monthly (free, virtual) book club to discuss some of the books that we all enjoy.

Additionally, I’m a few months into my new podcast where I chat about the books that I read with others. That’s gone particularly well, not just in terms of audience, but in what I’m getting out of it. Both of those additions are forcing me to frequently revisit books that I read in the past, helping to strengthen the lessons that I gain from them.

For those of you that haven’t followed this blog very long, here are some posts that give perspective on why I’m doing this.

Why I’m Writing Every Day
Some thoughts on why I decided to start doing this.

Get Writing in 2021
Some related thoughts from Seth Godin on why you should blog daily.

Blogging beats journaling
Why I blog in public rather than journal in private.

To write more, read more
How I find ideas for new posts.

How I plan out my future posts
Some thoughts on getting my posts organized.

WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin
A great (free!) plugin that I use to help lay out my blogging schedule.

Sharing the posts I write
My daily plan (at least at the time) for sharing posts after they’re published.

Three years down, and many more to come!

From Google Podcasts to Snipd

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If you’ve read many posts on here, you know that I get a lot of great info from podcasts that I listen to. As with reading books, I find that “getting” great info is just the first step, and I need to follow it up with ways to remember and use that information.

I’ve used Google Podcasts for years, but I’ve recently made a switch to Snipd. Google Podcasts does a fine job, but (like most podcast apps) required manual effort to note things of interest. If was driving, I frequently paused the podcast and then said “hey google, take a note, remember x from the x podcast”. It worked pretty well, but could be a little cumbersome.

I also listen a lot while doing yardwork, and it was similar. With yardwork, I’d often pause and then just jot the note down in Google Keep.

That worked well enough, but led to another problem; if I wanted an exact quote from the podcast, it could be tough to find. Most podcasts don’t provide full transcripts, and scrubbing through a 90 minute show to find a single clip could be painful. Enter Snipd.

Snipd

At it’s core, Snipd is very similar to every other podcast app. You subscribe to shows, add ones of interest to your queue, and then listen to them.

The beauty comes in when you hear something that you want to reference later. If you’re using Android Auto or Apple Carplay, they have a single button that you tap to save a Snip. If you’re listening on your headphones, a triple-tap (which typically means “go back 10 seconds”) will now save the section you’re listening to.

Now, you may have the same concern that I did — what is it actually saving? The chunk of audio before the tap? After the tap? What’s being saved? Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter; it saves the audio around the tap, but makes it super easy to listen to a slightly early or later chunk if needed. It puts you in the podcast at that location so you can listen again to what you wanted to save and then make use of the clip elsewhere. They also use AI (in their paid version) to help bring more context to each Snip.

The free version is quite powerful (and the paid is just $9.99/mo for more AI features), so I encourage you to check it out and give it a shot.

Understanding those that confound us

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In an increasingly polarized world, there are more people than ever that hold beliefs that confound us. Whatever side of any issue you might be on, you’re undoubtedly amazed at “those people” on the other side. However, the more we can understand where they’re coming from, the better off we’ll all be.

In her excellent book “I Never Thought of It That Way“, author Mónica Guzmán shares this insight:

That’s because, to be totally frank with you (and if it isn’t already obvious), one of my deepest personal convictions in life is that understanding the people who confound us is always, always worth it.

If you’re able to do that, two things can happen.

First, you’ll have a greater sense of why people believe that way, which may strengthen your own conviction and give you the ability to better express your views.

Second, perhaps you’ll shift your own ideas a bit. When I talk about “those that confound us”, it’s often people that I already know and like. If they believe something different from me, I want to understand it to make sure my views are straight.

Maybe it’ll strengthen my current views or maybe it’ll challenge them, but either way I’ll come out of it a little better than I was before.

Learning from history is a form of leverage

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Attaining greater leverage is often a solid goal for businesses to pursue. I shared last year that Greg McKeown considers reading to be a great leverage-building tool:

“Reading a book is among the most high-leverage activities on earth.”

In a recent episode of the “Founders” podcast, host David Senra took it a bit deeper and said that learning from history is a form of leverage. His podcast is all about history and the lessons that can be learned from those that have gone before us.

Most reading can be considered to be a great form of leverage, with some specific sub-genres (like history) that can help even further. Personally I try to keep my reading fairly broad (as I share over on my new podcast), but any reading you can manage to squeeze in is going to be a benefit to your life and your business and will give you additional leverage in both areas.

Advice is often an average that hides the distribution

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I love seeking advice from others. In almost any area of my life there are people that know far more than I do, and learning from them is an amazing thing.

Advice is tricky, though, as it usually defaults to the average response for any given situation and ignores the distribution. In the great conversation between David Senra, David Rosenthal, and Ben Gilbert, this came up and their insights were fascinating. Check out the full episode for more, but the general argument was that advice often points to the average, but knowing the distribution can be very important.

As I shared a few weeks ago, what is the average of a left-hander and a right-hander? The average is right in the middle, but the distribution is pushed way to the edges (just 1% of people are ambidextrous).

Or look at how many books the average American reads each year. The average (mean) is 12 books a year, but the median is only four, which means there is a really strange distribution. You have 28% of Americans that read zero, a bunch in the single digits, and then outliers that read dozens or hundreds a year. If you asked me “how many books should I be reading?“, I’d have no way of giving you a solid number. My general answer is often “one book every week or two”, but the right answer could be way higher or lower than that.

Tight distributions

For other questions, the distribution is much tighter. If you were to ask me “when should I get my child a cell phone?“, the answer likely falls in a tight window (generally around 12 to 13 years old). It certainly can vary from that in either direction, for good reasons, but the vast majority are right in that range. By age 13-14, 91% of teens have a phone (via Pew).

Averages can be misleading, sometimes by chance and sometimes by malice, so always take them with a grain of salt. If you get advice, it’s likely focused around an average, so take some time to see what that really means.

Access to knowledge is good, but creating it is better

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We live in an amazing time, where all of the world’s knowledge is just a few taps away. It’s fantastic! Having access to that kind of information 24/7 would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago.

However, access to knowledge (and even consuming it) pales in value to creating it for yourself. It’s like I mentioned a few months ago related to the “Founders” podcast, where David’s value in creating the show is easily 100x the value I get from listening to it.

I recently watched a video from Ryan Holiday about his process for writing books. I enjoy what he writes, and his process is fascinating. You can watch it here:

Part of what you’ll notice is his immense system of notecards. He has tens (hundreds?) of thousands of cards and it’s a fantastic system.

I was thinking “wow, it’d be great to just have access to those cards to dig around his brain”, and it would be! Spending some time in his office just unpacking his thoughts on various books and readings would be fantastic.

However, it’s like the Founders link above — access to his cards would be great, but the 100x value is in him creating the cards.

I’m constantly looking for more ways to share the things I learn (like this blog, Meetups, podcasts (1,2), etc). I sincerely hope you find value in the things I create, but my main focus is to help clarify my own thoughts so I can slowly become a better leader and a better human.

I’ll still listen to every episode of Founders and read everything that Ryan Holiday produces, but I’ll continue to work to generate content of my own to help get those ideas to stick. You should likely do the same.