Picking a team

Do work with people you respect

One of my key lessons this year has been learning to create and work with a team. When building a team, one of my key metrics now is to select people based on their unique, even eccentric, perspectives. In relationships, respect is crucial for maintaining goodwill, especially when there’s substantial room for healthy conflict and risk-taking. Team members who share key philosophies—or even a quirky, forward-thinking vision—make collaboration easier, even in the absence of consensus. When you agree on the big picture, it’s easier to trust each other’s differing approaches to getting there, making every step of the journey an exercise in negotiation.

When shared beliefs and values begin to diverge, it’s worth considering your options with fresh eyes.

Cold showers

During October, I decided to run a random experiment and stick to taking nothing but cold showers, regardless of the weather. Why would anyone do this? The idea was shared with me by my brother, who went through a month-long experience of taking showers at 5 a.m. at the advice of his therapist. I was intrigued by this (I love body hacking and will try most things at least once!) so I decided to challenge myself to see if there was any merit. It also just boiled down to challenging myself to get outside my comfort zone and see if I could improve my performance and health by living differently! My findings:

Finishing

I want to share an observation that I made and have wanted to put into words for a while. A lot of times we talk about starting something, going for our dreams, never quitting or (eventually) quitting without paying attention to the process of executing. I think in-between start and result, process is something that needs a lot of thought, especially the means to create a long streak of consistent results or action.

Uses

My workspace is a constant work in progress. I believe designing a workspace is an exercise in setting the tone and values of your work. We all design our workspaces, either intentionally or otherwise. Of late though, I have been making calculated moves to eliminate things that don’t work well and replace with stuff that sets an ambience that inspires creativity. My elimination process has evolved to identifying a weakness, deep diving into potential fixes, then buying something with a money-back guarantee, and friendly return policy (pro-tip). My list is not a recommendation list, but a collection of things that work very well for me, YMMV. Here we go:

I changed jobs, again!

Last year was a busy and also difficult year for most people. I hadn’t realized how hard it hit me until someone pointed out that I had written just one blog post the whole year! Of couse with Covid and major shifts in how people could socialize and work together, everything was so unpredictable. The one thing that I was still very happy about though, was the work I was doing over at JaSure. Since the beginning, we had been a remote company so we didn’t suffer in terms of culture when work moved to Zoom and people’s homes. Actually, I have worked remotely for close to 5/6 years now so it’s fair to say remote is ALL I know at this point.