Michael Gravel

Yesterday, I read a tweet from a guy I recently started following on Twitter. I’d rather not name names, but for the sake of some background, this gentleman is involved in Toronto’s startup community. Here’s the tweet:

No project should be considered a success with a pathetic success criteria of: finished on-time & on-budget. #ZeroEngagement #OldSchool

All bravado aside, I understand the sentiment. “One time and on budget” is simply the way to mediocrity. The less kind part of me simply dismissed this tweet as Type-A hubris. And again, I get it. In business these days, “standard” just isn’t good enough. It was “just a tweet”, but doesn’t it just build higher the pile of impossible standards that we set for ourselves?

In every corner, every time we turn around, we’re told we’re not doing enough, not reaching far enough, not getting enough done. It seems that the new “societal insecurity” is about not doing enough, or, perhaps more directly, not doing more of what we love. Is your company as successful as Facebook? Well, thanks for coming out. You’re not pursuing your passion? Sorry kid, time to go home.

This post by Kevin Fanning likely says all this better than I can:

I was having dinner with Mary-Kim the other night and we talked a lot about how much more successful as writers we would feel if we didn’t give a shit about our families and lives. I might have gotten farther faster as a writer if that’s all I ever did or thought about, but like, so what? Is that a good model for how a person should live their life?

Is it just me and my aging brain, or are we putting WAY more pressure on each other these days? And if so, how can that be a good thing? How about forgiving ourselves? How about doing the best we can day-in-day out? Simply delivering “on time and on budget” might not be good enough in some cases, but for some it’s a major victory.

Recently, we in Edmonton were welcomed into spring with a storm that dumped 30cm (12”) of snow. I fired up my snowblower to clear the walks. My garage is behind the house, so I had to bring the snowblower through a gate to the front. I got to the gate and tried to open it. Wouldn’t budge. I didn’t notice at first, but a buildup of ice and snow on the ground and around the hinges prevented easy opening. I cleared the snow by hand and tried to chip away the ice. In a moment of great frustration, with the snowblower whirling beside me, I gave the gate a violent yank. Crack. The gate frame came away from the hinge, broken. Not only did I foolishly damage my gate, I now had no easy way to get the snowblower to the front. The only thing I could do was take the snowblower through the alley and around the block. And if I was doing that, I figured I might as well clear my neighbour’s walks along the way. My impatience and lack of foresight had produced an act of ostensible kindness. However, the extra distance covered in my journey burned more fuel than usual. Also, the sheer volume of snow meant that the blower’s motor was under a greater-than-normal load, burning slightly more fuel. Had I remembered to check the fuel level before setting out? Of course not, I’m just doing my walks. Guess what? Choke, sputter, clang, stop. Out of gas 2/3 of the way through the job. Nice.

In all, this snow clearing episode was a lesson in humility, patience, and the importance of considering dependencies, which in this case were:

1. Make sure the snowblower has enough fuel
2. Make sure the gate can be opened

How many times have you started out thinking that a task was “easy” only to be blindsided by unseen or unaccounted-for dependencies that you should have been aware of? I guess that old “fool me twice” idiom takes a while to sink in for some of us.

I ask that question of everything. How much does it cost to:

shop at the more distant but less expensive mega-sized grocery store?
work late every night?
skip the gym tonight?
change suppliers for a critical supply item?
be late for every appointment?
be always accessible via technology?
not try something you’ve always wanted to?
lower your standards to make more money?
not ask the question you want or need to ask?
give disinterested, indifferent service to clients?
change your look once in a while?
keep the course and don’t do anything different?
not forgive yourself for the past?
make something for someone else?

Value is important, but I think about cost all the time.

A few weeks back, I undertook a simple exercise. For a single day, I took note of how many times I had a negative, angry, or cynical thought, or came across something that produced a negative reaction. I told myself that I didn’t have to act on these observations, I just had to make them. As you can no doubt guess, the results weren’t encouraging. I discovered what I had feared: I was one angry individual.

I started tallying the instances, but I had to give up out of sheer volume. Another driver annoy me on the commute? Angry. Barista botch my coffee order? Angry. Co-worker tell me about their house plans? Sneer. By the end of the day, it became obvious that my default state was one of negativity and cynicism. At any given moment I had my anger at the ready. By taking notice of my anger, I was able to realize how much energy was required to sustain it. Why was I so angry? Why was cynicism my default?

The real answer likely requires therapy, but I think the immediate answer is plain: Fear. Cynicism, negativity, and anger are easy defaults. They allow one to not care about anything too deeply. They allow one to hold the comfortable positions of smartass, no-man/naysayer, and detached cynic. They allow one the easy comfort of building and contributing little or nothing. It’s tough to see the good or positive in things and situations. It’s harder to build than it is to criticize or tear down. It’s easier to hold back out of fear than it is to give and contribute. Putting positive work and demeanour into the world involves real labour, exposure, and risk. It involves the possibility of ridicule and appearing foolish. It also involves the possibility of making a small corner of the world a bit better for others, or even for one other person. A funny thing can happen when you set out to impact the world positively. You can end up making yourself positive in the process.

We are what we put into the world. We decide how we behave, and we are how we act. Our defaults are changeable. Our positive contributions are possible, permissible, and necessary. Time and other people won’t wait for us to swap our negativity and cynicism for positive contribution. The naysayers and no-men will always be there and will always be vocal, no matter what we do. Will we stay safe and play to them, or will we risk more by playing to those who need us to be better? I believe I’ve made my choice.

An incomplete list of things that should still be around and more popular.

• Cellphones with solid hardware buttons (i.e. old Nokia)
• Devices with knobs and switches that don’t need to be “programmed”: Appliances, TVs, stereo equipment.
• Wind up alarm clocks with bells
• Plain stonewash straight leg jeans made with heavier denim with triple-stitched seams
• Cars with exterior metal bumpers, two-knob stereos, and user-repairable/accessible parts
• Handwritten letters
• Goodyear welted oxfords (flat leather welt)
• The sunday paper
• Men with a code of honour
• The simpler days of the web, before FB, Twitter, iPhone, app store. It was messier, but more honest.
• Recipe cards for recipes
• Marginalia
• Waiting for stuff, and hunting around to buy music

You will find no shortage of lists containing advice on how to succeed. Here is a list of self-defeating behaviours that rear their heads in my life. Most of these are related or intertwined, but I think there are subtle points of distinction. I post them here not to revel in my shame and ineffectualness, but to help myself get better.

Any of these sound familiar?

1. Reluctance to try something new unless I know can be excellent instantly. Related: Why bother playing if I know I cannot win; only play games I can win; thinking that I have to be excellent at something to even try it.
2. Create a project so complex and ambitious that it cannot be accomplished, and do not allow leeway for a modified or diminished scope. Then give up, because if the project cannot be done to its ideal end, why bother?
3. Purposely over-estimate how long something will take to accomplish, despite historical evidence that my time estimates are always wrong. Inevitably, after the task is done, I wonder why I put it off for so long.
4. Holding myself to an impossibly high standard, and hating myself because I can never live up to it. Related: granting other people more slack than I grant myself.
5. Taking comfort in my role as the class smartass – the one who sneers at others who are actually doing the work. This keeps me safe. I never have to strive because I have set low everyone’s expectations.
6. Failure to realize that making change in my life requires changing many parts of it. For every YES I wish to say, a dozen NO’s must also be said. Related: Assuming that any change can be implemented effortlessly, with no real sacrifice or adjustment; assuming that change in one area doesn’t mean change in others (it always does).
7. Thinking that I can do anything worthwhile alone. The hero complex. It’s an attractive thought – doing something by myself, for myself, and, when I get to the podium, thanking nobody but myself. This is beyond foolhardy – it is simply not the way important work gets done in the real world.
8. Believing that “the way I am” is inalterable. A big barrier. Truth is, behaviour and attitude are changeable, and they MUST change for any progress or change to occur. In my life, I have quit smoking, quit drinking, lost weight, got my diet under control, and started a sustainable fitness routine. Not all at once (took me ten years), and with varying levels of success. I’m not stating that as a boast, I’m stating it as proof that behaviours once thought to be immutable CAN be changed.
9. Not recognizing that fundamental change is not an unequivocal victory. There are always casualties. Quitting drinking and smoking altered my social sphere drastically – I still miss going to the pub or having a puff with colleagues. My fitness routine kills six or seven hours per week – two weeknights and a weekend afternoon are given over to fitness. This means I can’t see friends or do as many events as I used to. It means saying NO to many other things.
10. Fear of appearing incompetent. Everyone wants look like they know exactly what they are doing in every moment. As we get older, it may become harder to open ourselves up to new endeavours, partly because we feel that we’ve reached a certain level of general competence. It can be painful to try something new. Both young and old have this fear: the young because it makes them look inexperienced (they are), and the old because they should have outrun incompetency by now (they haven’t).
11. Thinking that natural talent and ability are enough to succeed. Everyone is good at something, but it takes much more to fully flush out those talents and abilities: A good mentor (other people, as mentioned above), a positive, supportive environment, and most of all, tons of hard work and practice. These are all cliches, and they’re all true. The gutters are lined with talented amateurs.
12. Failure to allow for a revised destination. From where I am to where I want to be is never, ever a straight line with predictable checkpoints along the way. The destination always changes. It MUST change. In fact, if the destination doesn’t change in some way (perhaps becoming a broader endeavour, or focusing in on a narrower part), it may be a good sign that I’m off the rails.

What holds you back? Let me know →

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