Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.

Last year, feels like a great year. A turn of events and everything came crashing.

There’s a meaningful project that I’m working towards.

I feel more connected to myself. Being more open and sensitive.

Along with that, I made a commitment to improve my family relationship.

Then late Dec, my grandma passed away. I flew back, took a break and felt misaligned since.

General lesson

• It sucks right now, and you need to rest.
• Rest till I reach cold boredom (feeling great without needing to achieve anything).
• Diagnose issue before solving.
• Face up to the brutal fact and emotions.
• Release emotions from the body, and come back to see if there are lesson to learn.
• Meditate and back to the body.
• Separate what’s in my control vs not.
• Accept what’s not in my control.
• Call friends and ask for help. You are not alone.
• Feeling alive comes from feeling great in peace.

Storytelling (NPR-style) is hard

I underestimated the level of effort needed to create NPR-style content. I was enamored with Start Up and Millennium podcasts. As one of my story producers grew busier, I was left with expectations that my resource could not meet.

• Find another story producer.
• Find an easier content format that can hit the same goal.

Content > learning

As I ceased the content production, I lost motivation to study coaching. Initially, I thought it was due to the funeral. Or maybe the coaching takes too much out of me. Finally, I think it’s because I enjoy creation more than learning. Learning was support for creation.

• Diagnose the issue before finding solution.
• Find a coach to help me unpack.

Doing too much

Learning + creating + working + traveling = intense.

As I travelled from UK to France, there was the language barrier to contend with + weekly traveling + winter, add layers of difficulty and caused decision fatigue.

On top of learning about coaching, I was also learning about story-telling. I generally enjoy learning, but there’s a point of “too-much.”

• Travel slower. A city a month.
• Find another story producer.
• Pause.

Grief well

After coming back to Singapore, I had 2 weeks break from the podcast and coaching. Not realizing I was running on the past week’s momentum.

I had a cognitive expectation of doing and achieving. I did not adjust my expectation, then I grew anxious when I did not do those expectations.

• Journal to unpack.
• Rest till rested. From hot boredom to cold boredom.
• Allocate a “no schedules plan” for 2 weeks, till cold boredom.
• 15min of awareness meditation daily.

Failing sucks. I hope I will look back at this article when I face another failure.

And I hope there’ll be more failures.

When you are poor, people ask you for money. You say, “I need it to pay rent.”

When you are rich, people ask you for money. What excuse will you give?

Are you a bad person if you reject a $10 donation request? What if you got hundreds of these requests a month?

People get disappointed, angry, or enraged when you turn them down.

• Where to donate? How much?

• How to offer help? How much?

• How to choose the next project? What’s your scope?

These are boundaries and constraints you set.

Invisible to others are there to save yourself first.

So that you have fuel to save the world.

“I feel stuck about my job and I’m not sure I can do this anymore.” It could be that doing something new is scary. And when we shine a light on what’s scary. It’s disappear like the boogeyman. We can start plan for the few worst-case scenarios instead of being paralysed with fear.

“I dislike this person.” And get busy building a wall and manipulate everyone else around me to hate this person. Not knowing that, it is hindering a vulnerable conversation of the real issue.

“I really want this thing. I see everyone who hinders the goal as an enemy to defeat.” Could it be that people are minding their own business and you are banging into them because of your high velocity.

To know the layers of the repercussions from our actions. The layers of different intentions. We benefit ourselves (and the people around us) when we are aware.

Stuck figuring out what to do with your life? We can blame Passion.

Dave Evans correctly points out that “what’s your passion?” is a dangerous question. When we use a question to judge and organize our life, we empower its hidden beliefs.

(1) We all have a passion

(2) You’ll know it early in life

(3) Your passion won’t change

(4) It’ll make you money

(5) The world will let you do it

The alternative is to look for clues in your interest. Talk to people, prototype and learn.

Designing Your Life is a great place to start.

Netflix has no OKRs (Objective and Key Results). It has “freedom and responsibility”.

This is not entirely true. Reed Hasting later added processes for employee safety and sexual harassment, customer data privacy, and financial reporting. Stating its importance in “high-volume, low-error” or safety-critical environments.

Comparing it to Intel, where OKRs are the backbone of the management success, Netflix believes that OKRs stiffen creativity and create operation overhead.

When your product is creative, beware of the tradeoffs.

The same is true for startups who have yet to a product a people love and recommend.