#59 - Refusing more motivation and thinking in interactions

Plus: Some tiny thoughts

New readers, hello! For all those who are subscribers of this free newsletter, thank you! Welcome all to issue #59 of Curiosity > Certainty 👏

The Medici family ruled Florence during the Renaissance. They were known for their patronage of the arts and of artists—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, and others.

Times have changed but the arts continue to need patronage. Patronage brings distribution; distribution, readers. What has evolved is the currency of patronage. When a thousand things are calling out to us, attention is the most vital unit of patronage. Thank you, dear readers, for giving me your valuable time.

On to this week’s thoughts…

Please don’t be any more motivated

If you’re a keen learner, if you’re unafraid to chase new challenges, and yet you find yourself struggling to see progress, the problem is not what you’ve heard. 

You may be too motivated to succeed.

The most driven fail at new challenges not because they aren’t trying hard enough. 

At this point, they’re likely to do one of two things. Stop trying altogether because it’s too painful. They often do so by dismissing the challenge as sour grapes. 

Or seek external motivation. Watch Youtube interviews of people who’ve done it. And tell themselves that they just need to try harder. The lift may last an afternoon or more. Soon, they’re back to running aground. 

If you find yourself nodding along, let me show you a third way. It’ll get you out of a state of constant anxiety and make the process of learning more fun. 

It’s based on the concept of flow. Flow is a period of deep focus where we lose the concept of time. We move on from one task to another unself-consciously, propelled by the energy our own actions generate. 

I’m not saying you must get into flow to learn. I’m asking you to use the idea behind it in your learning pursuit. 

How? By calibrating the challenge level to your Goldilocks point. Attempt something small first. Get it done. Then move to something bigger, harder. Rahul Vohra from Superhuman calls this setting yourself goals that are ‘achievable and rewarding’. 

Tip: Do not calibrate your goals to others when you’re starting out. What is a worthy goal for you may be too easy for someone else, or vice-versa.  

I remember feeling out of my depth in calculus class at age fifteen. I’m feeling that way right now as I learn how to build a website using Webflow. 

Low skill-high challenge causes anxiety. Setting yourself an achievable goal pushes you from anxiety/worry to arousal. This is intrinsic motivation. TED Talks or anything with a rousing background score and lots of clapping is external motivation.

In learning, action comes first. The reward comes after. If the action’s too hard, you can say goodbye to the reward. 

At that point, you don’t need more external motivation. You need a goal you can get to and build on from. 

This is just my way. How do you learn?

We think in actions but life unfolds in interactions

Have you ever made a decision thinking it’s the best one you could have made only to be blindsided by unintended consequences? A common mistake we make is that we think in actions when outcomes arise from inter-actions. 

Imagine you’re debating between going back to business school and switching jobs. A typical approach to the decision would be to assess the pros and cons of both options. That’s thinking in action. You take an action and that leads to an outcome. But then what?

Every action has feedback.  

Most don’t account for feedback. You think of life as a game of darts. Keep throwing and adding to our score. That’s not accurate. You’re in a game of tennis. Life returns your serve. Are you in a position to rally?

Someone who can anticipate the future even a few steps ahead has a huge advantage in life over others.

Second-order thinking drills thinking in interactions into you. For every action, it makes you ask ‘and then what?’ What opportunities and problems will emerge?

In the MBA vs job example, school going well could mean you win a scholarship, upskill, and build the right network. School going poorly would be a low demand for the skills you learn and a huge debt that could limit your job choices later. 

At this point, you should ask ‘and then what?’ What are the chances of a scholarship for your profile? What’s the school’s placement record? What’s the variance in salaries? What’s the tuition workload like? Will it allow you to take a part-time position to reduce your debt? And so on.

What if it’s not a personal decision? What if you’re setting the path for growth for your organization? An area where the difference between action- and reaction-based thinking blows up is in incentive design for a group. Say you’re the CEO of a middle-sized company and you want to grow. A typical CEO, as Ben Horowitz once was early on, will draw up SMART goals for each function, estimate the costs, and budget. Only to realize, if he’s a smart one like Ben turned out to be later on, that his action has gamified the budgeting process. Each unit head’s now trying to expand the importance of their function. Your global goal of growth is now reduced to the local incentive of ‘who can eat more’ for your leaders. Because you did not anticipate the response. 

The difference between action and interaction, being prepared and surprised, first- and second-order thinking is one question: ‘And then what?’

Tiny thought #1

Sticking to something suboptimal in your life is like letting that drippy tap be. You’re going to feel the best in the moment when you don’t have to get off the bed to have it fixed. 

Making a meaningful change in your life for the better is like getting up in the middle of the night to fix that damn dripping tap. You’re going to feel the worst the moment you decide to fix it. But God knows how much peace it’s going to bring you every night when you hit the bed.

Tiny thought #2

Content marketing & thought leadership are but instruments to beat Daniel Kahneman’s Focusing Illusion - “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.” Sales folks live this. Many a great client meeting has led nowhere afterward.

(This is a new series where I pen down tiny thoughts that I may later expand on. Let me know what you think!)

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Thank you, dear reader, for reading! I would love to how I can make this newsletter more useful for you. Stay well!