Masterclass

A masterclass is a class for a great teacher to teach experts or to teach other teachers. At the end of my life, I often wonder, what masterclass to I want to teach?

It is a window into the heart.

Masterclass 1: The Process of Becoming Good - Being a good person is a human’s most noble pursuit. But it does not just happen. It cannot be plucked from a tree. Becoming is a process. I cannot claim to be a good man, but I do claim that I have spent my whole life trying to discover and refine a process that gives me a damn good chance. This is a workshop to help you build your own process.

Masterclass 2: Building thriving communities - We operate in this world as a participant in organizations. A minority of organizations are communities where people - any everything they touch - thrive. The rest are merely just built. This is a class on how to intentionally build systems and feedback loops so that your organization becomes part of that small but mighty, virtuous, thriving minority.

The other cool thing about a masterclass is that if you think about it early enough, you have your whole life to qualify yourself to teach it.

Everybody, even our foes, will have heartbreak

My (wife’s) Uncle Mark posted a link about a colleague of his who had a sudden cancer diagnosis and died shortly before his daughter’s wedding. Even as far as tragedies go, it’s really heartbreaking.

I didn’t know this man or his family. But I assume I would like them.

But even if I knew the guy and hated him, it would still be a terribly heartbreaking story.

I don’t know why my mind went there, but it dawned on me that even people I really don’t like will have some devastating heartbreak in their life. In our human life, it is inevitable.

Realizing that, opens my heart to them even if just a little.

Landing On Mars

I’m forming a landing party and going to Mars. Will you come?

Full disclosure: I’m not actually going to Mars (shocker). But let’s play out this thought experiment as if I were.

Before making a decision you’d ask me a lot of questions, some would probably be these:

• Are you serious?

• Why are we going to Mars?

• Are we coming back?

• How are we going to make the journey safely?

• Why are you asking me, and what would be my role in the mission?

• Why should I trust you to make this happen?

• When are we going and coming back?

• If I agree to this, what do you need me to do now?

In organizations and community we ask others to go to Mars all the time. We just call them new “projects” or new “programs.”

Those new projects we want to start are not as audacious as actually going to Mars. But to those we want and need to bring along, it might feel as if it were.

And because it feels like going to Mars for them, we need to answer those questions and build up their trust in us before we ask them to enlist. If we don’t, we should expect them to say no, and they honestly ought to.

“Leader” is a title, leadership is taking responsibility

I could prepare, read, study, interview experts, take a standardized test, get a degree, get a fellowship, and then get a placement and then take responsibility for something.

That would make me a leader. It is one path.

On the other extreme, I could take responsibility for something today that needs responsibility taken, and then take responsibility for getting better at it. Even something really small. Then I could do the same thing tomorrow, the next day, and the next day.

That would make me a leader today, and an even better leader tomorrow. That just puts me on the hook today, instead of 5 or 10 years from now.

Title or not, we’re not leaders until we take responsibility for something that needs responsibility taken. The second we take responsibility, we instantly become a leader.

Marriage and the long tail

The internet gave us unlimited choice in a slew of markets. Not just a lot of choice, but unlimited choice.

It’s not just Amazon, there’s unlimited choice in much more intimate domains, too. Like places to live, religion, politics, and marriage. For marriage though, reviews, algorithms, and no-questions-asked return policies can’t help you.

In a world of unlimited choice, if you venture beyond the safety of the harbor, if you swing for the fences, if you skip the consensus pick…

If you venture into the murkiness of the long tail, you must listen with radical honesty to your heart and what calls upon it. You need to know the depths of your own soul. The only ones to whom you can turn, are the others who know your heart better than you.

In a world of unlimited choice, we must know who we are. I know of no other way.

Timeless

The Mona Lisa isn’t just a painting of a woman smiling. A pair of Levi’s isnt just a pair of pants. Shakespeare didn’t just write some plays. Amazing Grace and Ave Maria are just some spiritual songs. The Gettysburg address wasn’t just a speech.

None of these are particularly fancy. There are plenty of comparables in their respective domains, too. And yet somehow these things are different. Not cool, not hip, not sexy, but still something special.

They tapped into something deeper than trend, or the zeitgeist. They are simpler. They have stories about them that transcend the trivial concerns of a single generation. They exhibit outstanding craftsmanship.

They are timeless.

A marriage, a family, a company, a team - even a blog. These could all be timeless too. But to be timeless, we must give up trying to be a lot of other things.

An American Dream

Our country seems so big, and with so many people. Too big, sometimes. What could possibly be a common aspiration that most, let alone all of us, have?

My best guess at what we might all want is not fancy. But it is something.

I hope, for myself and for us, that we be blessed with at least one of these four things: the chance to be a good friend, part of a good family, a good neighbor, or to contribute something generously to the greater whole.

And maybe this is not the dream of our whole country. It is probably not the new American Dream. If it isn’t, I hope we are blessed with the wisdom and good sense to hope for something greater than ourselves.

It seems to me that if we don’t dream about something greater, we will dream instead about small things. Namely being wealthier, cooler, or more handsome than the next person. Dreaming about ourselves scares me, because it generally seems to devolve into madness and violence.

The question that changed my life

What I do as a father is not glamorous.

I give Bo food. I carry him around. I make sure he cleans up messes. I wipe up urine. I wash his dishes. I put on his socks. I read him stories. I keep him from jumping off things. I give him hugs and kisses. I make him use his words. I comfort him when he’s upset. I take him with me to the grocery store. I wipe his tush.

What I’m trying to do as a father, is a much different question. I’m trying to help him feel loved and safe. I’m trying to help him learn to be a good person. I’m trying to help him discover some of life’s joys like reading, friendship, love, family, service, and faith. I’m trying to give him a model of how to treat his spouse, his parents, and his children. I’m trying to create the space and courage for him to be himself.

What we do and what we are trying to do are radically different questions. The first question (what we do) is about the very specific actions we take, the second question (what we’re trying to do) is the generous, positive impact we hope our actions make for those we seek to serve. In organizations - whether it be companies, families, churches, community groups, or teams - the nuance here is often lost.

And what a tragedy that is.

Because for a team to be high-functioning both questions have to be answered, very specifically. More often than not, the question of what we’re trying to do is what’s forgotten. Which is a damn shame, because that’s the question of the two that motivates and inspires us to be the best versions of ourselves.

But answering that second question, I admit, is very difficult because it requires us to imagine a future that does not yet exist. I’ve found, however, that once you struggle through the nuance it is absolutely transformative.

Who is my life for? Who are my people?

It has been hard to admit that I am, in large part, a jack ass. I hope I am less so now.

For so much of my life, I prided myself on volunteering and serving. And some of that effort was sincere. But so much, too much, was signaling to others that I was generous, kind, and other-oriented.

This became clear when Robyn and I married, because for the first time any selfless act I made was actually sincere. After marriage I began to actually understand what it meant to live for someone else, and put the needs of someone else before my own. I realized that what I thought was selfless before was merely signaling.

I hope this attitude has cross-pollinated to friends, family, and neighbors. Only time will tell.

And yet, even though I know that I have a tendency to virtue signal, my heart still yearns. To serve, it yearns. To contribute something beyond my own family and friends, it yearns. To leave an anonymous gift, with even a small, lasting impact, it yearns.

I used to wonder what impact I wanted to make. But I think the better question is for whom?

Who do I care about so much that I will take time and energy away from my family? Who do I yearn to serve so intensely that I will intently listen to them and humbly offer to help after really understanding them? Who am I that committed to? For whom does my heart yearn? Who are my people?

An easy answer would have been my heart yearns for people like me. I couldn’t even if I tried, because I have no tribe.

I am Indian, but not really culturally. I am a theist, but not baptized nor a practicing Hindu. No political party has a philosophical underpinning that sits well with my conscience, and if it does it’s priorities are not aligned with mine. I am male, but not particularly masculine. I am a minority everywhere in the world I land, even at home as a resident of a majority-minority City. I can’t help people like me because I am a misfit, always. I don’t even know who people like me are.

My life, I believe, is not my own. It is not for me. I don’t even know if I want it to be for me. I am the residual claimant on my own life, if anything.

And if I believe, my life is for people beyond my family - which I do - than who? Who is my life for?

This is the hardest question I have encountered in many years. I don’t even know how to start answering it, yet. But I can’t help but feeling that it’s critically important one. My gut tells me it is a question worth a struggle.

The Married Mindset

Being married is not the same as dating. It is not even the same as being engaged. The difference is the vows, and what a difference those make.

Robyn and I made the vows traditional for Catholic and Hindu marriage. I like them. They’re simple, bold, and no nonsense. Marriage vows are no joke and they shouldn’t be. That’s why, I might add, I find marriage to be so great. It implies something specific, difficult, and extraordinary.

I was recently talking with Christopher, my brother-in-law, about the difference between being married and being engaged. When I asked him what he thought, he had a beautiful thought, which I’ll try to replicate.

The difference between marriage and engagement, is that there is no emergency exit. It’s on you and your spouse to take care of that marriage and grow that marriage. It’s not something you lease and can take back to the dealership when you have problems, it’s something you build together with your spouse, and have to maintain together. And you promise do it forever, however long forever is.

His real wisdom, however, was in reflecting on how the mindset of a married person must be different than an engaged person. The married person must have a vision. He or she, must be planning and thinking ahead, together with their spouse, on how to build that marriage together. The married person must be proactive and solve problems that arise quickly. Because at the end of the day, there is no out - you must grow together and adjust to life, together, in perpetuity.

And that’s what I found to be the key to his wisdom: timescales. The engaged person thinks on the timescale of getting married - there is a concrete end date with a concrete goal: getting married on your wedding day.

The married person must think on an indefinite time scale and must simultaneously build a unique vision of marriage together with their spouse. And, unlike an engagement / wedding plan there is no checklist to follow. Every couple has no choice but to write their own, one-of-a-kind, handbook.

Marriage is fundamentally different. And it’s much, much harder.

99% of the time, I am grateful to be a happier person

I am a happier person than I was a year ago. That’s a good thing. But my writing has suffered.

For brief, rather very brief, moments, I miss my intense feelings of anxiety and sadness. It was much easier to draw something meaningful into my words - my art - when my feelings were intense. I never liked being overwhelmed by my emotions. But damn, did they make for good copy.

99% of the time, I am grateful to be a happier person. But it presents a challenge. I have to dig much deeper to write. When I am not emotional, I must open my heart wider to bring words from it.

It’s not a dilemma, per se, because being healthier and with more peace is not worth sacrificing for my writing. It just means I must work harder as an artist. It’s a worthy, albeit bizarre, challenge.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

How the iPhone taught me to be a better father to my son

The iPhone won. But that’s okay, because it taught me how to talk to my son.

Bo, our son, is fixated on my iPhone when it is around. My usual tactic was to take it away so that he would do something else instead of stare at a screen. Our parents faced the same problem, except instead of smartphones, they tried to restrict television and video games.

The problem with taking the phone away is that it doesn’t work. Bo does not just forget about it just being in his hands. Trying to force it from him only creates a power struggle between us. And no matter the outcome, it drains both of our energies.

Why does the iPhone win his attention? It’s really well designed.

First, it’s extremely responsive. I don’t think that the problem with screens is that they distract us, but rather that the screen is undistracted for us. The screen is fully focused on Bo. When he picks it up, it is ready for him. When Bo pushes a button, it does something. The iPhone is completely ready to react to Bo and it does so consistently.

It’s also kind and gentle. I’d even call it emotional - because of the colors, the lights, the sounds, and the way the screen seems to effortlessly glide. Even the haptic feedback is subtle and will calibrated. Nothing about the iPhone is jarring. It doesn’t yell at Bo, nor does it shock him. It is calm and predictable.

I don’t think in cliches like this, but I eventually thought something like, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Instead of taking the phone away, I began interacting with Bo, more like the iPhone does. I’ve tried to be more emotive, attentive, and consistent. With more touch and sound, and with more immediate responsiveness. With more peace and patience. More than anything, I try to be undistracted. I actually think it’s working. We both have more energy when we play together.

It is bizarre to think of it this way, but the iPhone taught me, very specifically, to be a better father. It upped my game. This is hyperbolic, I know, but the iPhone can appeal to basically all of the right senses to win my son’s attention.

But it cannot love. And if I do the basics right, like the iPhone taught me, I don’t think it will “win” in the long run.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

The art of being adamant about small, but transformative things

One of the things I do very deliberately when I am in public is to pick up single bits of trash I come across. I want the sidewalk to be clean And it’s really very easy.

I always hope that someone notices me doing it. I don’t want credit, but I will admit that I feel nice when the act is appreciated. What I do want people to think having a clean sidewalk is normal and caring enough to pick up a single piece of trash to keep it clean is normal, too.

A key question is: what critical mass of a community needs to be adamant about something for the culture to change? Some folks say 3.5% and others say 25%. It seems to depend on what the objective is, like whether you’re spreading an idea or a behavior.

The good news is, both estimates are much less than 100%. From what I’ve gathered and observed, the key is to be adamant about doing the very specific action for it to catch on.

These are worth being adamant about, to me. If we had even 3.5% of the population doing these, we would have a very different community:

• Picking up a single piece of trash

• Saying “hi”, “good day”, or nodding to people that pass

• Running or riding a bike through the neighborhood

• Shoveling snow promptly

• Keeping grass cut (though I admit to slacking on this)

• Saying thank you when I am a customer

• Asking emotional questions and sharing emotional stories when asked

If a small group of people are adamant about something, it tends to happen. This makes it really important then to be adamant about something. And carefully considering whether those things we go to the mat for make things better, or make things worse.

A question for the comments: What’s something that is worth being adamant about?

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

I am the last one up tonight

I didn’t need to be, but I am the last one up tonight. Well, Riley and me.

But I am, because I was watching a movie and (not really) working.

You are asleep. Your little Paddington Bear is snuggled up on your chest. My last acts before bed are easy. First, I put a blanket over you so you and Paddington wouldn’t get cold. I will crawl into bed and try to pray a little. Then I will kiss your mother, who is already sleeping, goodnight - as quietly as I can.

It took me awhile to really understand it, truly, but I know that these are the most important jobs I will ever do. No matter how I earn a living. Nothing could be more important than being your mother’s husband and you and your brother’s papa. Nothing.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

The beautiful, boring, lunch with Bo

I had the afternoon with Bo today. We had a late lunch because his nap extended past 1pm. I had an apple for dessert. Which is funny because when you’re above 30, an apple can actually count as dessert.

In any case, I asked Bo if he wanted to have some too. Bo enjoys fruit as much as I do, so he responded with a characteristic “ya.”

I cut a plane of it off the side and made it into small pieces, about the size of corn kernels.

And then about halfway through eating his slice of apple, he gently put a tiny piece between his thumb and forefinger and leaned in my direction, offering it to me. I opened my palm. He placed it inside. I ate it. It was nice, and very nice of him.

This, in our household, was not a special moment. it was business as usual. It’s not uncommon for Bo, or any other child I suppose, to offer a bit of food to his father. It was something so small, and so fast. Nobody would ever instagram a moment like that, and even if I tried I wouldn’t be able to - the moment passed too quickly. I took a breath in, and by the time I let my breath out the moment was over.

But in a given day these are the moments. They are small. They go quickly. They are not notable. By and large, nobody else will ever know about them.

But they are my life. These are the glimmers I will remember when my brain and body start to fail. All these little moments built up, a sinew that binds my mind and spirt together. Probably 98% or more of my life is these moments, that are boring and un-momentus as it were.

But I love them. The memory of how Robyn’s flip flops clap as we walk our boys down the sidewalk of our street on a Sunday morning. The particular way the water tastes from only our tap. The way Robyn squeezes my big toe when I need to move my leg for her to rise from the couch. Riley’s semi-frequent snoring. The very distinctive crackling of mustard or cumin seeds in the pan when my mom makes a vegetable for dinner. When my father would giggle at his own jokes, in the rare instance that he tried really hard to make one.

The extreme-vast-majority of my life are these little moments and idiosyncrasies that come in an out like a beating heart.

Which is perhaps why I have slowly lost interest in living in a way that produces notable moments. Living moment to moment, I’ve found is a distraction from actual life. I do treasure big moments when they come - like marriage, the birth of a child, or an accomplishment I’m proud of at work. But that is not life.

Those are merely milestones. Life is everything in between. I’ve been coming to a conclusion that the measure of my life is how I choose to act during the mundane but supremely special moments of everyday life. What’s difficult is that everyone else (that doesn’t really, really matter) measures my life by the number and magnitude of big moments I have. Because that’s all they can see, they’re not around for the small stuff and therefore can’t measure it.

Letting go of everyone else that doesn’t matter is so hard, because the big moments that those people care about are so much easier to measure. I think the key is listening. Because by listening we can focus on being the best person we can be in the 98% of moments that nobody else will ever remember, singing the songs that are playing deeply within our own hearts, and letting the big moments be a gift and a surprise when they arrive, rather than an aspiration.

I think Sister Mary Clarance and Ferris Bueller both had it right.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address, pick up the RSS feed, or catch me on twitter @neil_tambe.

Reading for fun

Why read?

The practical crowd may argue that literacy is important because it’s a necessary skill to function in society and earn a living. Reading is fundamental. We can’t be productive compliant members of society if we don’t read.

Womp. Womp. Womp.

What a terrible way to convince someone to read who doesn’t read or can’t.

Here’s how I would persuade someone instead.

East of Eden changed the way I see myself and the world. I love pulling up Wikipedia on anything from Roger Federer to the Fermi Paradox, to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Reading to my son at bedtime is arguably the best part of my day, every day. You can read mysteries, or about your own family history. Talking to other people about books is so fun. Reading has made me laugh and cry so damn much, and it’s great.

You can read a letter from your mother and father, long after they are gone. Or you can read a letter from your wife, that makes you feel full of love and soul, over and over and over again. The letters I have from Robyn are among my most prized possessions.

You can read poems or ancient religious texts that make you feel more human.

I do care about literacy. I think 100% literacy is an extremely important goal. But come on. How can anyone think they’re going to convince someone to care about reading by talking about how it can help them get a job or get into a famous college? There are so many more emotionally resonant ways to persuade someone that reading is awesome.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address or pick up the RSS feed. 

Parenthood has made me less happy, and I’m cool with that

I’ve come to embrace the research which suggests that being a parent is bad for our individual happiness. Parents I now, myself included, have a lot of things that get in the way of being as happy as we were before.

Parents get crummy sleep. We stress about money. We have less free time, because we are tending to a kid. We don’t exercise as much, generally speaking. We don’t get to hang out with friends or go on dates as much as we used to. We also feel terrible pain and anxiety when our kids are going through struggles. We are split between work and home more intensely than our childless peers.

With all that added stress, no wonder parents are less happy, or at least not happier than non-parents.

But, that’s okay. I’m willing to have my happiness decline, because I’ve gained so much - patience, intimacy, love, silliness, peace, and confidence. And probably more. As a parent, I’ve traded happiness for so many other things.

I’ll take it. Happiness is such a temporary state of being anyway.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address or pick up the RSS feed. 

I don’t need to be special

I don’t need you to give me special treatment. I don’t need you to pronounce my name correctly. I don’t need you to hold the door for me or even smile as you walk by.

I don’t need you to give me preferential college admissions or pay me dollar-for-dollar the same as the next person. I don’t even need you to stop asking if I’m “a doctor or in IT, right?”

I don’t need you to realize that the white woman walking next to me is my wife. I don’t need you to do me a solid with the restaurant manager. I don’t need you to let me into the golf and tennis club. If it’s easier, you can keep assuming that that Indian person you met really does look just like me. You can keep believing yoga is all about “working out” if it suits you.

I don’t need a political party to pay attention to my individual needs. I don’t need a candidate to look like me, either. I don’t need you to understand the tenets of Hinduism or my complex spiritual upbringing.

I don’t need you to give me a trigger warning. I don’t need you to sugar coat the truth. Even though it would be fun, you don’t have to invite me to your party or get to know me and my individual story.

All these things would be nice, but I don’t need to be treated specially. What I would like is to be treated with respect and decency. And if we disagree, I’d like to resolve it peacefully.

If you could do that, it would be enough for me.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address or pick up the RSS feed. 

Breaking the cycle of this foolishness

I am finally understanding why I felt the way I have (anxiety and sometimes debilitating stress) as an adult. There’s finally data (check out this Knowledge Project Podcast with moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt for a flavor) which is showing that that social media, isolation, helicopter parenting, etc. are having an effect on us (millennials and zillenials).

I’ve grieved my history and am trying to move on - I don’t want to feel like a victim anymore.

But how?

There is meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, journaling and reflection, exercise and perhaps more strategies.

But how do you undo decades of acculturation and mental programming?

We know the causes and the effects of the stress, anxiety, or depression many of us feel - or are at least starting to know enough. But what to do? What does it mean? What comes next?

I think we heal in the best ways we know how. I think we resist the causes of our collective demons. I think we look out for each other, because I honestly don’t think older generations care, or if they do, they don’t know how to help. I think we meditate, pray, exercise, seek therapy, journal, quit toxic environments, or do whatever works for us.

But Robyn also brought up how we can raise our son and future children differently. We don’t have to obsess over what they’ll “be” when they grow up. We don’t have to let them have a Facebook account when they’re in middle school. We don’t have to shield them from every damn situation where they might struggle. We don’t.

We can break the cycle of this foolishness, and that may be a greatest gift we could give our kids. And as Robyn pointed out to me today, that may also be the best way for us to learn how to heal too.

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address or pick up the RSS feed. 

Reverse Recruiting

I imagine how much different life in our country would be if when people went to work, important, valuable, sustainably profitable work is what actually happened. I care about this a lot, because I deeply believe that wasting human potential is inefficient and immoral.

To be able to have these sorts of workplaces, I believe it’s essential to have the right people are in the right roles.

I believe that life is built in the off season. When applying that belief to talent management, it suggests that the best time to recruit is when you don’t need to fill a job in a hurry. Wouldn’t it be so much better - both for companies and candidates - if we already had a pool of interested candidates that were a skill-set and culture fit, before the job were ever posted?

If that intuition is correct, here’s how I think it could actually be put into practice. Imagine if there were a mechanism like the college common app, except for jobs and hiring. I’d love to hear what you think, especially if you’re an HR professional (or have ever been part of a frustrating hiring process).

Here’s how it would work:

• First, the candidate takes everything that you would find on a LinkedIn profile and import it into a profile. This could be supplemented with a portfolio of work, confidential letters of referral, or instruments like StrengthsFinder.

• Second, the candidate identifies companies they would be interested in working for, were an opportunity available. They’d also identify broadly defined functional areas they were interested in.

• Next, the candidate records video answers to a mix of general interview questions - both prepared and extemporaneous. Some questions could be added that are specific to the companies they are interested in working for.

• Then the companies take over. They could review and filter the profiles of interested parties and build a pool of candidates for different functional areas. For individuals they think are great fits, they could connect individually or hold invite-only recruitment events a few times a year.

• Then, when a job comes up, the process is improved in two ways:

  • It moves faster for the company and for the candidate, because there are loads of people that are already through what would be covered in a first-round interview

  • There’s a better fit for both parties because the initial pool of candidates has been built over time, rather than in a hurry when a job is posted. Quantity drives quality.

Again, the whole goal is to have the right people in the right roles, 100% of the time. Do you think this idea actually solves that problem?

—

On September 30, I will stop posting blog updates on Facebook. If you’d like email updates from me once a week with new posts, please leave me your address or pick up the RSS feed.