Do the hard things.

I write about choice a lot, choosing your pain, accepting life inevitably involves pain.

The "pain" is obviously a difficult thing to experience, but then the work to overcome it- is the hard thing.

So, taking a step back, if pain is inevitable, and overcoming it is the choice of "doing the hard thing" to be made (obviously or not), then let's ask why we do the hard things?

Obviously if you're in the hole, you could choose to stay there, the other choice being to do a hard thing.

But what if we're not in the hole? What if it's a nice early morning and we don't have to do anything at all. Why choose to do a hard thing now?

Two outcomes to putting yourself across the hard things when you have the chance:

1. You gain the good things on the other side of the "hard thing" (resilience, self-confidence, tenacity etc)
2. When hardship finds you, you know you've crossed to the other side before.

"Do the hard things" is both a call to service every day for you to choose, and an encouragement to those who don't have much choice.

Audience is your "who".

The intended recipients of your external actions and activities.

How do the audience know this thing, this action, is for them?

A wise friend once said to me, you don't choose your audience, your audience chooses you.

If you're confused about who you are, your audience, whoever they understand themselves to me, will also be confused.

Your audience only has the choice to choose the you that you allow yourself to be.

So, in a roundabout way, you, are your audience.

Example, if you are loud, brash and outgoing, people who are looking for and connect with a loud, brash and outgoing type, will tune in. If you're quiet, reserved and introverted, likewise your quiet and reserved audience will find their way to you.

And maybe that's why people are so afraid to be themselves. They may come face to face with the reality they don't really like this show, this storyline.

But therein lies the value and opportunity to address the only thing you have control over- you.

You can change what you don't like, or you can resolve why you don't like your self.

I think once you find yourself, your real self that you can accept and be at peace with, you find your audience.

Breadth vs Depth, when it comes to knowledge and experience is a "Space and Time" concept to me.

Explain

Knowing a little about a lot means covering a lot of space over time, but it's shallow. It goes wide.

Knowing a lot about a little means using a lot of time in the same space, but it's deep. It goes... well, deep.

That 't' for time is the same in both regards, one gets great cover, the other gets great depth- both pay the same time.

So which do you choose? A variety of life? Or a depth of life?

The internet has given us so much variety, choice, a grand expanse the surface of which stretches further than the imagination can see. And that's where we tend to stay, forever skating the vast surface area, seeking more and more areas beyond the horizon. Always moving, always new.

And we lose sight of the deep. We don't look down, we're forever looking across.

If we did we might see the abyss under our feet, we'd see we could go further than we'd ever thought possible, without taking another step.

Don't go long. Go deep.

"You cannot fix cultural issues with technical solutions."

You would think this is obvious, self-evident and self-explanatory.

But a lot of organizations will misidentify where the real issue is and go on a wild goose chase wondering why the ever increasingly complicated thing they're building is never getting any closer to being delivered.

This is something you come to understand the more you deal with all the moving parts in an organization, and realise that the level of tech in the solution is irrelevant if the culture sucks.

And by "culture" I mean organizational culture, how the company sponsors, encourages and empowers their workers to deliver what they need to deliver- business outcomes.

Once to get to this point, where you identify that the problem is a cultural one and not a technical one, you can stop wasting time making more technically complicated sh!t and get to work.

Like the 12 step programmes to classic problems that have been around for eons, the first step is recognizing what the problem actually is, then you have half a chance of making the right changes.

I had to go looking for it because I was sure I've written about compromise before (or at least the work "compromise").

And I did, but I called it Trade-off...

I have a lot going on, a lot of it seems important- I know, honestly, a lot of it isn't.

And the word "compromise" came to mind as I went about all the things I wanted to get done.

On the one hand, if I were to "give in" to letting some things go, of putting a stop and "calling it" on some of these activities, projects, just things that I'm doing.

I felt that would compromise my integrity. I said yes to a bunch of things. I held myself to a standard of service, of quality. And now I was contemplating not delivering? Am I compromising my values?

But then, as some kind of sense started to dawn on that episode of my mind, I saw compromise as an act of grace, of love, for myself and the truly important things in my life- which I don't have many if I'm being really honest. Like, how many do you really need?

So maybe today's post is not a concise reflection, conclusive, insightful... just thoughtful observation and contemplation on what it means to compromise.

Looking up the etymology: "from Latin com (together) + promittere (promise).." coming together to form a mutual promise.

Doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that then huh ;)

Pain is inevitable. Life is pain.

Dramatic much?

Well, what do you consider pain then? A terminal illness? A broken leg? Heart break?

How about disappointment? Insecurity? Anxiety? Uncertainty? Depression? Losing someone close to you? A heated argument? Are these not all things we will experience at some stage in life, maybe often? Repeatedly?

But this is just life, and as you can see life, is pain.

We get one "out" though- the power to choose.

For example when deciding to go for a goal in life, you get to choose which pain you experience- the pain of failure if you try, or the pain of regret if you don't? You don't get to escape pain, only choose which pain you accept.

Because you have no control over the things that happen to you, but you always have control over how you respond to it- you get to choose.

Choose wisely, but you can always, always choose.

Why do we say more than is necessary? Why do we write more than is needed to explain or convey the message?

We may not know the topic well enough. We may understand it enough to apply ourselves, but probably don't know it well enough in a "taught" format.

We may feel we need to add a lot more information because the other person may not have all the context or background information. We may feel like providing more information because we personally find it interesting.

And for all these things "we may" be or "it may" be, the only thing that's clear is we don't know ourselves or other people perfectly to know exactly the right information, said or written in the right way, so that our message is anything but concise.

I spoke with an old high school friend, who has traveled and lived teaching at high schools around the world.

He asked me what I thought of ChatGPT and told me how it has been helping him create lesson plans, write reports and everything in between.

I told him I'd been using it as a "study buddy" and coding machine to quickly fabricate pieces of code I needed for various projects I had been working on. And right there, are two different industries where AI is having an immediate effect on productivity without a great deal of fuss i.e. instructions, or courses to go through to eventually apply to what I do in order to reap the benefits we were after in the first place.

Inevitably the thought comes up, what is this going to do with the roles and industries it will inevitably eliminate?

This isn't a new cross-road for technology (any technology really, think of horses before cars came along). When a new technology and "era" is emerging, naturally it starts out with a lot of FUD, first questioning the validity, then the morality and uncertainty of said new technology.

And we are right to question, to discuss and debate what the pro's and con's are of anything that has the potential to create significant impact on society. Change is inevitable. That much we know. I'm not smart enough to know to what degree those changes will impact which parts of society, just that it will. And the mainly hopeful outlook I have on that, is just from the experience of watching an industry adapt to new tech roles coming in with the advent of the DevOps philosophy. It was out with the old (or rebrand, depending on how sh!t your company was), and in with the new. And I think on balance, it was a good thing. We obsoleted things that needed to deprecate, and ushered in an era that helped things move forward in how we did tech.

Nothing lasts forever. Change is inevitable.

Adapt.

It's better to be true to yourself and find only a few like-minded souls than be someone you're not and succeed at being that.

Freedom with the few, or imprisoned by popularity.

Seth Godin says to find your "minimum viable audience", to be on the hook for your niche and find ways to 100% serve their very specific, particular wants and needs.

Don't do the "masses". Select for your few.

Nobody cares. Do it anyway.

It's a thought that needs to be repeated. Daily. Hourly?

That we are insignificant in the grandest scheme of things. That isn't a diminishing, or demeaning concept or way of thinking of oneself. But a liberation from the most inane sense of grandiosity that imprisons us and our "true" selves to exist and live out our purpose.

And the purpose is not "grand". It just is is. End of.

Everything we ever needed to be who we were meant to be, was inside us all along.

Do it anyway. Nobody cares.