Each year on my birthday I send out a detailed [feedback survey] about me to all of my friends.
I ask quantitative questions, like how much people would recommend me to others, qualitative questions like what would expand my comfort zone. Some questions are staples, like my metric tracking (Presence, Power, Warmth and more), while other questions are temporary and change every iteration.
Many of my results will change, but only slightly, suggesting that I am stable in how I exist within the world. Sometimes I’ll have people be open and honest, vulnerable or sincere in a way that you rarely see in day to day life.
I’m glad to say I’ve been a trendsetter on this. My Birthday survey idea has been duplicated by people at Behaviourworks, the UN, and more. There’s a chance you’re reading this article right now because someone else is keen on getting feedback on themselves!
It is so difficult to actually understand how we exist within the world, and hearing the insights of others around us is a powerful lens through which to consider how we are.
Now, some of you, hearing this idea will hate it, some of you are probably curious, and some of you probably love the idea. Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, whatever you’re feeling right now, I’d love to hear the [feedback].
]]>So, as with all things in depends on the circumstance, and questions for connection, are different than questions for understanding.
One of the question types that I’ve enjoyed previously, and still get a lot of value out of today is that of Viral Questions.
A viral question in this context is one that potentially facilitates future questions.
Some of my favourites are:
Each of these questions has the potential for you to connect with or attend something else, where you can again, repeat the question, allowing you to meet more cool people, attend more events, and experience more.
]]>However it can be challenging at times to try and identify whether or not someone knows what they’re talking about.
I’m aware that many people trend towards a black and white approach for how to treat intellectuals and whether what the intellectuals are saying is true for everything or false for everything. I’ve started using a thought process I’m calling probabilistic reliability.
Instead of evaluating an individual as either reliable or not, trustworthy or not, you simply apply a probability to someone.
80% of what person A says turns out to be true.
30% of what person B says turns out to be true.
This allows you to navigate the difficult situations of when you encounter someone who at one point says something informative and useful, and at other times says something false or misleading. You have a system that allows you to accept partial belief sets from someone, rather than just accepting everything or nothing.
Another aspect to consider is the idea of knowledge scope.
I place a very high reliability score on my doctor for my health, but I would set a much lower score for how much I would trust him in regards to rewiring my apartment, or the right software for handling the version management of my website.
The most famous example of this is Economics Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman who is quoted “By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
You can absolutely trust someone in their area of expertise without being beholden to their beliefs and opinions about everything.
Now of course you might not like this system, but then again, I’m totally happy if you only take on board some of the ideas I present. That is, after all, the point.
]]>It reminds me greatly of the ideas of scarcity and how quickly humans will adjust to either an abundance or scarcity of each resource.
When there was a water scare in Melbourne I briefly switched to just drinking boiled water.
When I switched phone plans I survived a time without any phone credit.
Each of these made me acutely aware of how much I was consuming and how much I had left.
Another example that feels very relevant is friendship scarcity vs friendship abundance.
When you’re experiencing friendship scarcity you’re likely to be very emotionally invested in every friendship you do have. This can potentially have negative consequences in how your emotional investment may make you seem much more attached in the friendship than seems appropriate to the other friend, or alternatively cause you to be overly accepting of behaviours that aren’t actually beneficial to you and your life goals.
On the flip side of things, if you’re immersed in friendship abundance there’s a chance that you’ll fail to recognise the value of the friendships you currently have, because of a perception that you can easily make many more friends, allowing valuable friendships to atrophy.
One scarcity that I suspect many people relate to recently is that of battery scarcity on their phone. You may be flippant in burning through your battery before you realizing you don’t have a way to charge it.
I suspect a benefit comes from reflecting on the many resources we have in our life and imagining how we’d act if we had each of these in scarcity or in abundance. It should give us a greater appreciation of what we have and a clearer idea of what we want to aim for.
]]>Connection Scaffolding is the structure that brings a relationship together in the first place.
It can be a mutual interest, such as a love of Simpsons, mutual activities such as rock climbing or mutual location such a neighbourhood.
The most effective scaffoldings are those that bring you together again and again. This is why your close friends are often former schoolmates, housemates or workmates. When circumstances bring us together we are likely to build friendships.
One thing to be aware of is that scaffolding doesn’t have to last, but it’s also important to recognise when it’s being beneficial.
The strength of your connections can be legitimately challenged by a change in employment, a change in residence or a change in finances.
This is one of the things that makes Class Reunions such a fascinating experience. You’re likely to see people that you had very strong associations with but it’s likely you haven’t maintained close connections with many of them after the scaffolding of school was removed.
Connection scaffolding can also be used as a method to strengthen existing Relationships too. Work out what potential scaffolding you can add to a friendship to strengthen a connection. Read the same books, play the same sports, attend the same events.
Just because the things that made you friends in the first place aren’t important any more doesn’t meant you can’t replace it with something even better.
]]>For a long time I’ve struggled with reflecting on what I like in terms of gifts.
In the past I’ve created lists that suggest potential items, and I’ve even searched for functional wishlist apps that are relatively easy to use.
Ultimately I’ve narrowed down my ideal gifts to a few traits that are fairly good as a universal guide for what I like in a gift.
First and foremost, the majority of my purchases are online now, either on Google Play or other digital services, meaning a digital purchase allows me a gift which I can take anywhere simply by having my existing devices. The main things here would be vouchers for Google Play or Amazon. It can even be just a flat out prepaid debit card and I’ll probably use it on something online anyway.
An alternative option is something that is consumable, a meal or event voucher, snacks or experiences. I’m quite driven for novel experiences so cool events or activities are definitely something I’m keen on, especially if we can do it together!
During 2013 after my Funeral I travelled the world with just a carry on backpack. A good way to think about gifts is “would I bring it with me in that backpack?”. Travel friendly devices such as Headphones or an ebook reader are a perfect example of this.
As I suspect most of my friends know, I’m very keen on becoming the best me I can become, so personal or professional development classes or courses are also great to help me work on becoming an even better version of myself.
One of my friends gave cash as a gift once, and he pushed back at a suggestion from one of the attendees that he should have gotten a gift card instead. “I did get a gift card, this is a gift card for Australia!” In reality, many of the things that I want to add in my life fit outside of what is easy to gift (Renewing my domains through my website provider being the most salient example at the moment) and by providing liquid currency you can better enable me to get whatever what item or activity I’m saving for just that little bit closer.
Many people resist asking what to give as a gift and many resent being asked because they perceive the acting of choosing a gift to be an indication of how well someone knows them. I am not one of these people. I am more than happy to be asked what to give me and then to offer up a long list of suggestions.
Even just the process of reflecting on this list has helped me refine and identify what items bring me joy and which I can leave behind or donate.
]]>I originally imagined the idea after a long arduous trip to a camping site.
There are 3 levels of support that I can envisage.
Level 1 is simply offering emotional support for a challenge you are facing. This can be as simple as just listening, and helping a person feel heard. Often someone who’s keen to help will skip past this level, and just switch straight to level 2, when really it’s about acknowledgment of the difficulty, rather than seeking a solution. In the camping situation this is someone listening to me rant about the difficulty of the journey to the campsite while I set up my tent.
Level 2 is active advice and suggestions. More than just listening to my problems, this is someone suggesting what they think is the best course of action for me to succeed at my current goal. In the camping situation, this would represent being given advice on how to construct my tent, potentially talking me through the process, suggesting what I should look for when picking where to setup and what to be wary of.
Level 3 is offering ownership (either partial or total) over a problem. I think this is a rarer form of support because it has a higher risk of either encouraging a sense of helplessness or being unwanted. I think it often fails to happen because the person who wants it hesitates to ask if someone will just do something for them, and the person who could do it doesn’t want to feel like they are imposing. I think level 3 is the easiest to go wrong. In this case level 3 would represent someone taking the tent out of my hands and just constructing my tent for me.
I’m hoping that with this model people will be better able to work out both what kind of support they need and what kind they feel comfortable offering.
]]>Instead of trying to re-engage back as they did in the before times, they’re instead slowly returning back to regular social levels over a steady rate.
I actually think this is a really good strategy for most people. After extended time in lock down I think many people will have unconsciously adjusted their tolerance for social engagements per week, or acceptable crowd levels.
I’m hyper aware of my own sensitivity right now around crowds.
CoVID provides a great opportunity for us to be much more conscious about how we’re socially engaging and with who.
Below are some of the methods to consider if you’re considering social titration.
Catch up with people, but for a shorter time, stick to 1 hour lunches rather than 3 hour dinners, or a coffee catch up rather than a lunch. If all you can handle is a five minute walk between here and the end of the street then settle for what works.
Limit your proximity. You don’t have to do all your catch ups in person, you can do zooms, phone calls, text message convos or even old fashioned penpals. Just because the world is rushing back to in person doesn’t mean you have to. Each of these methods has their own challenges, but you want to make sure you’re considering each as a potential way you can request to socialize.
Consider the size of catchups. For some, catching up in smaller groups might be easier because it’s less likely to prompt a negative crowd response, but for others it might be better to go to larger events which dilute the responsibility of having to carry the conversation.
Finally, question whether you actually want to socialize in this situation at all, just because a person wants to socialize with you doesn’t obligate you to socialize with them. You can use this social reset as a great point to reflect on who really brings value to your life and preference them in terms how you want to occupy your time.
I remember reading an article which talked about how you should assume that every new thing you let into your life could be highly addictive, and therefore you should calculate the maximum amount of time it could consume.
If you fall in love with Die Hard, it will take you about 10 hours to work your way though all of them.
If you fall in love with Star Trek on the other hand, you’re looking at hundreds of hours before you’re done.
If you fall in love with World of Warcraft then … Well, there’s no actual limit to the amount of time you could spend on the game.
Some new interests are finite (such as Die Hard) or restricted (you can’t ski in the summer), but some are potentially infinite time sinks.
I’m of the opinion that you should limit your exposure to these infinite hobbies unless you’re really happy with the worst case scenario.
If you spend a huge amount of your future life jogging then that will probably be a net benefit on your life, if, on the other hand, you spend a huge amount of your future life on gambling, then that’s much more likely to have a massively net negative impact on your life.
Perhaps a good shorthand for this equation is to mix the analysis with that of identity.
Take whatever hobby or pastime it is that you are considering and look at those who’ve been most compelled by it. Do you want your future self to be more or less like them?
]]>When I suggest to a friend that we catch up (almost exclusively on Zoom at the moment for CoVID reasons) I’ve become aware of different interpretations. Some interpret this as a an offer “Hey, if it works for you, let’s sort out a time to catch up”, while others interpret it as an obligation “Hey, I’ve just added a new todo item for you to schedule with me”.
I really like the idea of communicating the distinction, especially around social requests and interactions.
A few years ago I had a penpal where we would write long emails back and forth between each other, but what I realized was, because it was essentially our only interaction, it slipped into a mutual recognition of only writing when we felt like it, only writing when it was enjoyable. Sometimes that meant we’d reply back and forth several times a day, and sometimes that meant we’d spend weeks living our lives before getting back to it. This felt very much an offer based interaction.
I can also recall telling a friend that a few of us were going to see a movie, only to be inundated with a series of extremely apologetic messages about how they wished they could make it, and how they knew I’d already invited them to something else which they’d also declined, and they were going to make it next time. This felt very much an obligation based interaction.
There are times when either makes sense. If I went to an event on the basis that a friend is giving me a lift back home, and it’s now closing time, my asking to be let into the car as they prepare to drive away is definitely an obligation request. Along similar lines, when your boss at work asks you to do something, it’s very much an obligation as well.
But most of the time, at least for me personally, I aim for most of my invites and suggestions to be seen as offers, rather than obligations. It feels particularly nice to add positive experiences to a person’s life by including someone, but a lot of this magic is lost if they’re participating because they feel like they have to.
I can think of a example however when I did the opposite. when planning my Funeral I invited my friends and stressed to them that this was extremely important to me and I really wanted their attendance. It’s important in my mind that you really only do this when a particular invite is really significant. If you’re constantly giving out obligations, it’s unlikely to be well received by your friends.
Ultimately it’s much more validating to know that someone is interacting/writing/meeting/zooming because it’s what they’re excited to do rather than they feel they have to.
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