Setting Your Own Expectations

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The industrial era taught us as employees to wait around for someone to tell us what to do. Hell, the contemporary education model taught us that. We spent the better part of our lives under the pressure of other people’s deadlines, rubrics and expectations. As we get older and “treated like adults,” people tell us what to do less and less. In life, at home and in the workplace, very few people will babysit you or outline a clear path for your success. It’s up to you to do both of those things.

If no one is setting expectations for you, outline your own and hold yourself accountable. If you’re unemployed and single, you have no choice but to do this (until of course the feds knock at your door). If you’re employed and getting no love from your supervisor, take a chance on that lack of structure to build your own world. If you’re not yet buried in a bureaucratic mess of paperwork and process, build your own. Strategize your own roadmap for success.

How do you think people build huge businesses from scratch? They unlearned to wait for other people to set expectations for them and did their own thing when and how they wanted to. They found a way to give a damn on their own terms.

Writing As A Form Of Clarity

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While writing will always be open to interpretation, it’s far less open to interpretation than body language, reactions, passing comments, whispers on the wind, moral values, historical precedent or anything else equally abstract under the communication umbrella. Laws are not common unspoken understandings between citizens and the courts; laws live on paper in writing. Life at home, operations at your organization or cooperation in your community often improve when words grace the page.

If you hope to bring clarity to a situation, put it on paper. Outline it on paper. Announce it on paper. Rules, feedback, expectations, values and goals all work better when written and preserved. They become real. Sure, words can be misunderstood or interpreted in many ways. The best writers learn to use this to their advantage. When it comes to clarity in writing, less is more – with fewer words (specifically adjectives), there’s less room for wandering interpretations. Memos are good. Assumptions are bad. Dialogue without recording serves no concrete or lasting purpose. It disappears and distorts. The written word by itself does not distort.

The Feedback Boomarang

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People criticize or applaud others regularly and seem to forget that human beings are defensive creatures. They will criticize or applaud you back. If they cannot return the favor directly, they’ll find another way – often behind backs. It’s only human.

If you feel entitled to give feedback, you should be willing to receive it. Take that notion a step further: dish out feedback expecting to get some back. Managers do themselves a disservice by sitting high and mighty over direct reports that have no forum to return the feedback favor. I mean to call it a “favor” because employees have great insight into their boss’s management style that could seriously help the manager grow and improve. When feedback is a one way street that only cascades downhill, the genuine reciprocation of ideas and flow of information that helps a machine accelerate forward collapses. Honesty, inspiration and purpose all suffer when the feedback loop breaks (or never existed in the first place).

One Note Relationships

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Most of the people you know only relate to you in one environment. Work, dinner, parties, video games, home, yoga – one environment. A few more may follow you to a second environment. Very few – perhaps only a small handful – cross all boundaries. These people are your true friends – the relationships that cross time and space. We feel comfortable keeping people in little compartments of our lives, but it is important to let people out of those boxes and into other parts of your life. If anything, as an experiment. Who knows? You may connect with them on a different level. How can that be a bad thing? If you want to take a relationship to the next level or layer the connection more intricately, invite single note relationships to other places that play key roles in your life.

It’s Communication’s Fault!

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Human conflict, drama and gossip are all very funny things. Call me idealistic, but I do not believe that deep down people genuinely dislike other people. Bad relationships form out of misinformation or no information at all. We’ve all been gifted with perspective and egos, but they often do us the disservice of helping listeners misinterpret a speaker and inspiring speech to skew with bias. It is very, very easy – even more so for the most mindful, brilliant, sociable or well-spoken people – to misunderstand each other. Dialogue, body language and writing are all very delicate things. If you find yourself in a sticky situation with another human being, give him or her the benefit of the doubt and blame poor communication first. Try to get the other person to do the same. Get on the same page about miscommunication and you are one step closer to working it out. It’s not the other person’s fault – do not blame him or her. It’s communication’s fault.

What Do Black Beans, Honda Civics And The Black Keys All Have In Common?

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They remind me of my brother. Today’s your birthday, Kyle. Happy birthday. You badass.

And while I’m at it, another 23 things that remind me of you (get it – because you’re 23 years old?):

  1. Jedi Outcast
  2. Hard Days at Preschool
  3. Tuvok
  4. Guitars
  5. Goodwill
  6. Richard Cheese
  7. Klondike
  8. Auburn Lane
  9. Galactic Battlegrounds
  10. Pretentious Artwork
  11. Scrambled Eggs
  12. Xeriscape
  13. The Onion
  14. Pokémon Red
  15. Ghana
  16. 7-11
  17. Cinnamon Applesauce
  18. Canadians
  19. Vietnam
  20. Weird Al
  21. Vinyl
  22. Calvin and Hobbes
  23. Hippies

Intuition Takes Courage

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You know that gut feeling? The one that tells you to do or say something? The one that hits you like a hockey puck and knocks you over – almost without your permission? Yes, they call that intuition – and it’s a special gift. In the prehistoric days, intuition was the essential mechanism that kept us alert and alive in the wild. Today, it serves a far less animalistic purpose and yet still informs our judgement calls.

Acting on intuition can be a terrifying thing. No information, no data and no time to support your gut. What if someone judges you for it? What if it gets you into trouble? Takes you down the wrong road? What if you misunderstand your inner voice? What if you’re wrong?

You may not be right. But there’s no way to know ahead of time. That’s why they call it a risk. Many situations do not have time or the infrastructure for the kind of research most decisions call for. Sometimes you just need to listen to your belly and do something. It takes balls. Or ignorance. Or blind luck. Whatever it is, you don’t have time or reason to think. Just do it. And see what happens. Intuition can be a magical thing if used diligently.

30 “Breaking Bad” Soundtrack Selects

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Perhaps the most stunning slice of entertainment to grace any screen in the last five years, Breaking Bad continues to grip, shock and awe. While lost in the drama at the edge of your seat, you seldom notice a major element that contributes to this show’s brilliance: the soundtrack. Blessed by the talents of ZZ Top, Norah Jones, Beastie Boys, Nancy Sinatra and many, many more, the tracks the music supervisors were able to lock for the show are themselves an impressive feat and well worth a listen on their own. To celebrate the premiere of the fifth and final season of the show this upcoming Sunday, I listened to every song used in every episode to date (156 in total) and selected my top 30 for your listening pleasure (iTunes and Amazon links below). In order of my play counts:

  1. Black – Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi (feat. Norah Jones) [S4, Ep13] Amazon
  2. Horse With No Name – America [S3, Ep2] Amazon
  3. Waiting Around To Die – The Be Good Tanyas [S2, Ep3] Amazon
  4. Goodbye – Apparat (feat. Soap & Skin) [S4, Ep13] Amazon
  5. Catch Yer Own Train – The Silver Seas [S1, Ep6] Amazon
  6. If I Had a Heart – Fever Ray [S4, Ep3] Amazon
  7. The Hole – Glen Phillips [S1, Ep2] Amazon n/a
  8. Truth – Alexander Ebert [S4, Ep1] Amazon
  9. We Are Born When We Die – Apollo Sunshine [S4, Ep12] Amazon n/a
  10. Tush – ZZ Top [S3, Ep3] Amazon
  11. Windy – The Association [S3, Ep12] Amazon
  12. Out Of Time Man – Mick Harvey [S1, Ep1] Amazon
  13. Magic Arrow – Timber Timbre [S3, Ep2] Amazon
  14. Who’s Gonna Save My Soul – Gnarls Barkley [S1, Ep7] Amazon
  15. Into the Night – Benny Mardones [S2, Ep4] Amazon
  16. DLZ – TV On The Radio [S2, Ep10] Amazon
  17. Boots Of Chinese Plastic – The Pretenders [S4, Ep7] Amazon
  18. Rocket Scientist – Teddybears (feat. Eve) [S3, Ep5] Amazon
  19. Good Morning Freedom – Blue Mink [S2, Ep9] Amazon
  20. Enchanted – The Platters [S2, Ep11] Amazon
  21. Didn’t I – Darondo [S1, Ep4] Amazon
  22. Uh – Fujiya & Miyagi [S1, Ep5] Amazon
  23. Shambala – Beastie Boys [S3, Ep13] Amazon
  24. Crapa Pelada – Quartetto Cetra [S3, Ep13] Amazon
  25. The Peanut Vendor – Alvin “Red” Tyler [S2, Ep5] Amazon
  26. Sabado en el Parque – Grupo Fantasma [S3, Ep11] Amazon n/a
  27. It’s Such A Pretty World Today – Nancy Sinatra [S2, Ep4] Amazon
  28. Dead Fingers Talking – Working For A Nuclear Free City [S1, Ep1] Amazon n/a
  29. Without You – Sasha Dobson [S1, Ep3] Amazon
  30. Negro y Azul: The Ballad of Heisenberg – Los Cuates de Sinaloa [S2 Episode 7] Amazon

Pros & Cons

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Seems like such a silly little tool, but do not underestimate the power of pros & cons lists in helping you navigate difficult decisions. Simply getting your thoughts down on paper can help you better-objectify the situation. If you take the list seriously and generate genuine pros and cons in your brainstorming session, the visual key to how many thoughts land in each column can really help you clear the air and see the right choice. If you take your time and add to the list over a longer period, you will be surprised how objective the tool can be. I use pros & cons lists to assess almost all of life’s big decisions. As far as I can tell, none of them have failed me yet.

Opportunity Over Routine

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Sometimes it is not easy to pick between the comfortable and the random. We all have routines in some shape or form and find them difficult to break. Only when you break routine can you put your character to the test and grow as a person. The unknown may seem risky or distant from relevant – but you’ll never know for sure until you try. When forced to choose, always opt for the new opportunity (after, of course, you’ve done your due diligence). You have far more to gain from mixing up your life and taking chances on faith than keeping everything normal and under control.