Here are posts from April 2023:
Drawing insights from fear04/25/23 2:35 pm
I recently gave a talk to a company that’s about a year into a big acquisition it made. After a lot of work, they’re finally launching an integration that brings a bunch of functionality from the company they acquired into their original core product. And people are scared.
The Tech/Engineering team is nervous because they’re wondering whether the integration will work. Sales is anxious because while they’re experts in the old stuff, they have far less expertise in some of the new stuff. And the customer success team is worried about supporting clients on a new kind of journey from where all the CX experience is.
Worried. Nervous. Anxious. All these words that describe how we’re feeling about this new integration are variations of a core human emotion: Fear.
We fear uncertainty. We fear the unknown. And with good reason, by the way!
Fear keeps us safe. At least, fear certainly kept us safe when we were all hunter-gatherers with limited access to shelter. If you heard a growl out in the woods, you needed to run, hide, or fight. That fear served you. It was your brain warning you that immediate action was needed.
The challenge is, our brains perceive fear the same way whether it’s physical peril or mental duress. Whether it’s maybe a hiding grizzly bear or it’s a big new technical integration, the brain feels fear the same way.
Maybe you fear getting on the phone with a challenging client or a difficult customer. You see that customer call on your calendar, and maybe you get a general sense of dread, or a knot of fear in your stomach, or your heart starts racing. All of these are physical fear responses. But there’s no growling bear this time — there’s just this impending call with a challenging client.
So the question to ask is: Why are our brains and bodies responding this way?What are we afraid of?
This isn’t just a thought exercise. It’s the crux of this post.
I absolutely believe that we can make fear work for us, but that’s only remotely possible if we first understand our fear.
This really matters, because fear is really good at holding us back. Here’s a super low-stakes example that’s probably also really relatable:
You’re attending a talk, and the speaker asks the audience if there are any questions… and is met with dead silence. And it’s awkward. For the speaker and for the attendees alike.
And now the speaker maybe gets nervous too, by the way, and they start making things MORE awkward for everybody. “Really, no questions? Nothing? Don’t be shy…”
But the speaker asks for questions, and no one has any. Is it simply because the speaker a brilliant genius who eliminated the possibility of questions by virtue of sharing their insights and ideas so perfectly? Probably not. What’s really happening is… Nobody wants to raise a hand because of what happens when we do: Every head in the room turns to look at us. All eyes — including the speaker’s eyes — are on us. We are suddenly the center of attention.
And now we actually have to ask whatever our question is, while everyone’s staring at us. Maybe we’ll stumble over our words. Maybe our question is stupid. Maybe it won’t make sense. Maybe the speaker already answered our question so we’ll feel dumb because we missed it.
Maybe there’s an obvious answer and literally everyone else already knows it, so I’ll look like a fool. One of my own fears is always that my question just won’t make any sense and the speaker will stare at me like I’m an idiot.
All of these fears — of looking foolish, or feeling foolish, of having all those eyes on us — they limit MANY of us from raising our hand when the speaker asks for questions. So most of us don’t raise our hands.
So this is a big issue with fear: It holds us back. This fear of embarrassment or shame or looking silly prevents us from asking a question. And that’s really not great! We might learn something from our question. We might inspire a whole new line of information from the speaker. We might be posing a question that others in the room share our curiosity about. Our asking a question might unlock fear for other people, so they feel comfortable asking their questions, which could lead to more of these potential positive impacts.
That’s the problem with letting fear stop us. It limits us.
So what we need to do in these situations is investigate our fear. To interrogate our fear. It’s a self-reflective, introspective process. We have to look inside and ask ourselves what exactly is it that we’re afraid of — and why?
And the trick here isn’t just asking yourself why once. You need to channel your inner four year old. You need to ask why repeatedly, as many times as it takes, until you realize you’ve hit the root.
So: back to this difficult customer, and the way we can sometimes feel nervous or fearful when we’re about to get on a call with them. Or when the call starts. We have to ask ourselves why are we nervous?!
Maybe the answer is, I’m nervous about getting on a call with this difficult customer, because I’m afraid that the challenging customer might be rude.
Okay. Fair. But channel that inner four-year-old. Ask why again. WHY am I afraid that the customer might be rude — so what? Because they might yell at me.
Okay. Why again. Why am I afraid of that? Why am I afraid of getting yelled at?
Because it’s embarrassing to get yelled at. Or because it feels bad to be yelled at. Or it’s triggering. All true, and it does stink to feel those things, so I get it.
Or maybe I’m afraid of getting yelled at because an angry customer might demand to speak to my boss. Or I’m afraid of the possibility that an angry customer might choose to cancel their contract.
If I plumb enough why’s, if I really push into why why why, I realize that a big part of my fear of talking to that difficult customer might be… I don’t want to get in trouble. Or I don’t want to cost the company a customer who gets so angry with me that they threaten to cancel their business relationship entirely.
If this particular fear deep dive resonates with you, your job isn’t to figure out how not to feel fear; fear is human, and you can’t eliminate it. Instead, your job is to understand the fear, and if it’s this specific fear journey — that a difficult customer could potentially complain about you, or even cancel — it’s worth talking to your boss. I’m willing to wager that at most companies, you are more important than a one-off difficult customer.
It’s also worth noting that sometimes, your difficult customer may be acting the way they do because of their own fears — which could be about looking foolish to you, or displeasing their own boss, etc.
Understanding your own fear — and remembering that fear can be driving other folks you interact with — can be both calming and empowering.
Don’t try to swallow or vanquish your fear. Instead, try to explore it better understand where it’s coming from.
[Paying subscribers: Don’t miss today’s other post about practicing fear responses.]
More thoughts on directness — including support, protection, and sexism04/19/23 10:52 am
Last week’s post on the importance and power of being direct blew up. I talked about how being direct saves time, shows the team that you’re working to cut through unnecessary, wasteful discourse, and makes everything more efficient.
But there are two other aspects to directness that I should have included and didn’t. I’m fixing that now.
The first is the importance of providing backup. Sometimes we’re not feeling brave enough to be the direct one initially. A colleague steps up and says, “Glinda, you arrived late and don’t have the context for this conversation; we already discussed and handled your questions. Let’s keep this moving forward and get you caught up later.”
Damn. Well done, colleague. You’re saving time, you’re being polite, and you’re protecting a roomful of people who were hearing Glinda look to rehash stuff that already been decided, just because she didn’t get to the meeting on time.
But the work isn’t over. Ideally, you can find a way to provide backup or support to your colleague, to show gratitude for their directness. A few approaches, depending on the situation:
“Jordan’s right, Glinda. I can give you the Cliff’s Notes later this afternoon.”
“Thanks, Jordan. I want to make sure we cover these three items in the time we have remaining.”
“I agree, Jordan. Glinda, we need to move on for now, but I’m sure someone can get you up to speed later today."
You’re changing the world, one interaction at a time. You’re reinforcing Jordan’s good behavior. You’re modeling to others in the room that doing so is worthwhile, and that Jordan’s actions were great. You’re paying directness forward. This is a good thing.
The second key point I missed arose from a comment on my original post, which I’m reproducing here in its entirety:
Great post, and I've shared this around a lot. But I'm getting comments from a friend who says this is NOT her experience as a woman. When she's direct, she gets a lot of feedback that she's "brusque" or "short" or "difficult," or her tone is "overly aggressive."
I’ll be direct about myself: I’m a man, and I missed this hugely obvious reality in my initial post. I’m sorry about that.
Here’s an expanded version of my reply to this comment:
I hate — but also recognize — the workplace sexism flagged here. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s a great point to address.
For what it's worth, I got much better at directness after seeing others model it, especially including some powerful, strong women.
I recognize that I don’t have all the answers here, of course. But I also don’t think that it’s enough for me to write “As a man, I don’t like this, but I don’t know the best solution.”
So I have two main thoughts: One is, as per the above, men who see women saving time and sanity through directness need to provide support and backup in real time. “Thanks for saying that, Jordan. Great point. I’ll email a recap, Glinda, so you’ll be up to speed.” It’s beyond unfair that a woman can get labeled negatively for speaking directly; it’s sexist and wrong. Everyone else on the room should provide support, and that includes every gender represented in a meeting. But men should absolutely speak up in support and not shirk this responsibility.
But I wonder if there's an approach where your friend can at least directly take on the potential negative perception while being direct about the other thing, too. I want to emphasize that it absolutely sucks to even have to consider doing so, but there is that desire not to get assigned those crappy, unearned, sexist labels, here's an example of the approach I'd consider:
“Glen, I'm going to be direct, but my aim isn't to come off as brusque or short. We need to optimize this meeting and make sure we're getting the best use for everyone's time. We’re asking you detailed questions, and you’re giving gruff, one-word answers. I think we should reschedule so that we can give the rest of the team some time back now."
Let me reiterate: It sucks that anyone would need to do this extra couching. But truthfully framing direct feedback as explicitly for the benefit of everyone else makes it harder to mislabel directness as negative.
The skill and value of being direct04/12/23 1:56 pm
I’ve written before about the power of decisiveness: Endless hemming and hawing and wishy-washiness in meetings makes everyone crazy, hinders productivity, and just generally stinks on ice.
I have strong opinions on this.
The summary of that aforelinked post is basically: When a decision needs to be made, and that decision is a coin flip, just make one. Endless debate about the trivial is a motivation suck.
There’s an important corollary to this rule, and this one was significantly harder for me to internalize: You need to learn to be direct. I cannot oversell the power of directness.
Many of us — maybe not enough of us! — aim to default to politeness. I like politeness. I support and encourage politeness. But many of us polite folk allow that politeness instinct to limit ourselves, to avoid directness. That’s a problem.
Here’s an all-too-common, real-world example: You’re in a meeting — a scheduled one, or an impromptu one around some cubicles — and someone is behaving poorly. They’re acting inappropriate, or aggressive, or petulant. Maybe they’re acting huffy from a prior meeting that left them pissed; maybe they’re just in a bad mood.
I’ve seen this person in many meetings, and I’ve seen the situation completely and totally ignored. That gives the power to the angry person, and makes the whole meeting awkward, unnecessarily tense, and less productive than it should be. There is power in having the confidence to call out the crappy behavior: “Glen, you’re giving off a heavy ‘I’m in a bad mood’ vibe. If you want to step out, I’m happy to send you notes on where we land later.”
or
“Glen, we’re asking you detailed questions, and you’re giving gruff, one-word answers. I think we should reschedule.”
or
“Glen, I understand you disagree with the rest of the room. But you’re the only one fighting on this; the rest of us are all in agreement. At this point, are you venting, or do you actually have confidence you can change everyone’s mind?”
Did your eyebrows shoot up reading any of these examples? It’s a lot to say in the room, in real time — believe me, I know. And honestly, depending on the room (or virtual room) you’re in, you may even contribute to the tension for a moment; directness can feel awkward.
That said, your labeling of the otherwise-ignored behavior gives you strength, and it both comforts and inspires the rest of the team. You’re demonstrating your own confidence, and you’re caring for the rest of the team who’s dealing with the offender’s less-than-stellar behavior.
It’s important to note that this directness needn’t be limited to people behaving jerkishly. I had a friend recently share a story about someone completely misunderstanding some information and spending 10 minutes of a 30-minute call going deep on how to solve an issue that didn’t exist — all going off that initial misunderstanding. Everyone else on the call understood what was happening, but no one stepped in. Be the person who interrupts: “Dave, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think you’re misunderstanding the situation. Ellen was saying we do have enough pre-orders. So let’s move on in our agenda.”
If you directly curb strong-willed Dave’s monologue, you’re a meeting hero.
Being direct doesn’t mean being mean or rude. And it’s not about bullying. It’s about commonly but clearly — directly! — labeling what’s happening, saying what needs to be said, without tiptoeing around. Businesses crave efficiency, and directness eliminates inefficiencies.
By the way, this direct approach even applies to saying “I don't know.” Rather than guess at an answer, or make one up, or spend five minutes tap-dancing around the fact that you’re not sure, a simple “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” is direct and saves a ton of time.
Think of directness as a gift to yourself and the people around you. You’re saving time, eliminating confusion, and protecting folks from bad, tiresome, or unnecessary behavior or delays.
You should stop procrastinating04/03/23 4:15 pm
By the way, paying subscribers can get this post as a video instead; that’s here.
Maybe you were a crammer in school. Or you finished your papers with just minutes to spare before they were due. I understand the satisfaction of finishing a project at the last moment, of leveraging the drive of urgency to finally at long last get the darn thing done. I’ve been there.
Your life will improve if you find ways to stop procrastinating. It’s so much more effective, productive, and satisfying to just do the things you have to do.
There are countless books and features about the habits of highly effective CEOs. They wake up early, or they work out, they delegate, whatever.
The most effective people you know are effective because… they’re effective.
Quick sidebar: I’m a Peloton guy. There’s a Peloton instructor who talks about how people always ask her how they can go faster on the bike. And her advice is, the only way to go faster is to go faster. Because the trick is, you can already go faster, it just sucks at first until you get good at it. You have to force yourself to go faster, for increasing amounts of time, to make going faster suck less.
If you’re a habitual procrastinator, you won’t necessarily kick the habit in one day. But you can do better, almost immediately, if you make the decision to get more done sooner.
I’m not getting into the added stress or weight on your mind or mental anguish of delaying work you know you have to do; if you’re living with it already, you know that pain. I’d like to convince you that retraining yourself isn’t nearly as hard as you think.
There are many reasons why people procrastinate. Ignore why you do it. Instead, figure out how easy you can make it to dive in and actually start doing the work. For me, that means knowing exactly what I need to do. (If there’s a lot to do, just pick one thing.)
I put the work that must be done on my calendar. It’s so easy to fill up your day with meetings, and then in-between meetings to get lost in your inbox, or to dive into any task, even if it’s not the important one.
Put the important task on your calendar. As I write this, today’s calendar included several hours of meetings, but also a 30-minute block to send out a contract, a 60-minute block to get work done for a client, a 45-minute block to write and record a silly song about my name, and 30 minutes to write and publish this very post.
I know myself. I know that sometimes when Current Lex sees calendar assignments left by Past Lex, it’s possible to ignore them. So I also play mind games with myself: I can’t eat lunch until I get the contract out. I can’t listen to music until I finish this post. I will only start dealing with my swelling inbox after I get the client work done.
Setting personal deadlines — embracing a mentality like I’ve only carved out this block of time to do this work, and the rest of my calendar is spoken for — can perhaps recreate the feeling of urgency that drives last-minute procrastination. But it does so without nearly the same level of stress. It’s so wonderfully nice to get things done and cross them off your list. Lightening your mental load is a gift.
The trick to stop procrastinating is to force yourself do to the work. It sounds obvious — because it is obvious. Set yourself up so it’s easier to do by knowing what’s important and giving yourself time to do it. Your future self will thank you.
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Lextra Credit: Practicing how you handle fear04/25/23 2:34 pmEarlier today, I published a free post about fear. Read that piece first, and then come back here and read some ideas on practicing how to get more comfortable feeling and processing fear in real time.
You work out that muscle by repeatedly getting outside your comfort zone, ideally sometimes in lower-stakes scenarios, so you can practice feeling — but not being incapacitated by — fear.
For example, perhaps you are vastly prefer ordering food online, because you hate talking to strangers on the phone. If that’s you, motivate yourself to call in your next lunch order. Experience the feeling of talking to a stranger and having to emphasize your substitutions live on the phone instead of relying on a checkbox. Feel that fear as you navigate talking to a stranger — survive it, and work that muscle.
This is an easy one to practice because there’s no true peril involved in talking to the person taking your order at a restaurant. The stakes are low, so you’re forcing yourself outside you’re comfort zone but without exposing yourself to anything dangerous.
If you want to get more advanced, check out “Rejection Therapy.” Rejection Therapy was created by a Canadian entrepreneur named Jason Comely, who later sold the concept to a guy named Jia Jiang. The idea of Rejection Therapy is to practice experiencing fear — particularly the fear of rejection — by desensitizing yourself to it. Typically, the advice is to do this every day, for 30 or even 100 days.
Rejection Therapy involves things like asking a stranger if you can borrow $100, or ordering a burger at a fast food restaurant, and then going back up to the counter to ask for a burger “refill.” Strangers aren’t likely to loan you $100. Burger refills aren’t a thing (sadly). So you’ll be told no, and you’ll feel fear and stress and anxiety going into these awkward interactions, and during them… and you’ll be okay.
(Obviously if you’re going to practice with approaches like these, it’s important not to make innocent strangers uncomfortable, so you're focused on being kind, patient, and understanding when you inevitably hear no. You’re leaving them with a fun story to share about the weird question they got; you’re not out to upset them.)
It’s hard to practice being afraid. But finding ways to get reps in prepares you for when the stakes are higher.
A poll for paying subscribers04/21/23 2:39 pmI want to know what content Your Intermittent Lex’s paying subscribers most hope to see. Can you tell me?
There are stringent caps on Substack poll answer length, so I’ll explain the options a bit more below. If you just want to vote, vote! Otherwise, read below the poll for additional context.
Audio or video copies of articles: That’s where I make an audio or video recording of myself reading a free-to-everyone article, but the recorded version is just for you.
New audio or video exclusives: I don't know what these would be, but original recorded content that’s NOT reading aloud something I already published here.
Transcripts of talks: One of the things Lex Friedman consulting does is give talks to other companies/teams. I could share transcripts from some of those talks.
Other written original posts: Exclusive written content, just for paying subscribers.
No paid posts needed: Choose this option if you pay me just to pay me and don’t care about bonus content. And let me emphasize, if you pay because you DO want bonus content, that’s of course one hundred percent okay and legit.
This poll is non-binding; I just want a clearer picture of what you fine lot are hoping for.
Video: You should stop procrastinating04/03/23 4:14 pmHey, friends. Here’s the video version of a free post I made today about procrastination.
Maybe you were a crammer in school. Or you finished your papers with just minutes to spare before they were due. I understand the satisfaction of finishing a project at the last moment, of leveraging the drive of urgency to finally at long last get the darn thing done. I’ve been there.
Your life will improve if you find ways to stop procrastinating. It’s so much more effective, productive, and satisfying to just the things you have to do.
There are countless books and features about the habits of highly effective CEOs. They wake up early, or they work out, they delegate, whatever.
The most effective people you know are effective because… they’re effective.
Your Intermittent Lex is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Quick sidebar: I’m a Peloton guy. There’s a Peloton instructor who talks about how people always ask her how they can go faster on the bike. And her advice is, the only way to go faster is to go faster. Because the trick is, you can already go faster, it just sucks at first until you get good at it. You have to force yourself to go faster, for increasing amounts of time, to make going faster suck less.
If you’re a habitual procrastinator, you won’t necessarily kick the habit in one day. But you can do better, almost immediately, if you make the decision to get more done sooner.
I’m not getting into the added stress or weight on your mind or mental anguish of delaying work you know you have to do; if you’re living with it already, you know that pain. I’d like to convince you that retraining yourself isn’t nearly as hard as you think.
There are many reasons why people procrastinate. Ignore why you do it. Instead, figure out how easy you can make it to dive in and actually start doing the work. For me, that means knowing exactly what I need to do. (If there’s a lot to do, just pick one thing.)
I put the work that must be done on my calendar. It’s so easy to fill up your day with meetings, and then in-between meetings to get lost in your inbox, or to dive into any task, even if it’s not the important one.
Put the important task on your calendar. As I write this, today’s calendar included several hours of meetings, but also a 30-minute block to send out a contract, a 60-minute block to get work done for a client, a 45-minute block to write and record a silly song about my name, and 30 minutes to write and publish this very post.
I know myself. I know that sometimes when Current Lex sees calendar assignments left by Past Lex, it’s possible to ignore them. So I also play mind games with myself: I can’t eat lunch until I get the contract out. I can’t listen to music until I finish this post. I will only start dealing with my swelling inbox after I get the client work done.
Setting personal deadlines — embracing a mentality like I’ve only carved out this block of time to do this work, and the rest of my calendar is spoken for — can perhaps recreate the feeling of urgency that drives last-minute procrastination. But it does so without nearly the same level of stress. It’s so wonderfully nice to get things done and cross them off your list. Lightening your mental load is a gift.
The trick to stop procrastinating is to force yourself do to the work. It sounds obvious — because it is obvious. Set yourself up so it’s easier to do by knowing what’s important and giving yourself time to do it. Your future self will thank you.
Get new posts via email.