No Pollyanna

I have never seen a long-term track record showing sufficiently compelling evidence of any investor’s ability to time the market. Swapping in (equity) and out (cash/bonds) to predict the ups and downs. Instead, my belief in equity comes from something more fundamental. Equity is a slice of ownership in a business that is doing something creative. With management and staff who can respond dynamically to the challenges presented. Who can make the most of any situation. Solving real problems. Adapt, adjust, accommodate. The growth makes sense to me. The risk management makes sense to me. It’s not a game or crystal ball. I am close to a perma-bull. An optimist who believes it is “time in the market, not timing the market” that makes the difference. But I am not a Pollyanna. You only have to read “When Genius Failed” and “Black Swan” to understand the danger of Tails. Unpredictable, extremes that change everything. 1000 years of mediocre returns will beat several extraordinary lives, with intermittent calamity. Spectacular is over-rated. Sustainability matters. Time matters. Compounding matters.

Pollyanna - Unfailingly Optimistic Outlook

Clarity and Transition

It is only possible for us to think of one thing at a time. We can do lots of things at the same time. Multi-tasking happens when it is not at the conscious level. But we can only think one thing at a time. Like playing a guitar, it then boils down to the clarity of the sound that comes out with each thought, and the smoothness of the transition. How much control do we have over which particular thought we are focused on, how long we focus on it, and what comes next? How much attention do we give to the various things we are conscious of? In the meantime we carry on doing things. Life goes on without a pause button. Josh Waitzkin talks of “numbers to leave numbers, form to leave form” for his approach to learning. Using numbers and form to get a picture of each thought, and how we swap between them. Stepping back and practising the clarity and the transitions. Eventually, the numbers and form soak in. They become deeper. The healthy mental approach becomes the healthy automatic behaviour. Life still goes on, but a little more musically.

Mental Health

You don’t “go on a diet”. Diet is what you eat. We all eat. The question is, what is the quality of food you put in your mouth. The same is true of Mental Health. I don’t believe working on proper Mental Health is something you do when you have had a breakdown. It isn’t something you do when your relationships aren’t working, or you are wrapped with anxiety and behavioural problems because of a horrible childhood incident. Proper Mental Health is just one vital part of living a full and meaningful life. Making sure we are aware of the quality of our maintenance and upkeep. It’s all connected. What we put in our mouths. How we move our bodies. How we draw in and release breath. How we sleep, process, and recover. Looking after Mental Health isn’t a sign of weakness. It is a sign of the resilience and endurance necessary to release your own special creativity.

Calling Cape Town

I started seeing a psychologist once a week about a year ago. I have always been transparent and honest with my friends, read about mental health issues, and have regularly kept a journal, but never actually spoken to a professional. I am a bit of a cheap bastard a lot of the time (spending is firing my money), and friends are “free”. I also worried about finding someone with a resonant world view. I know therapists aren’t supposed to bring their stuff, but it is hard not to. I eventually found someone through a friend. A South African lady I talk to once a week via Skype. It has really helped. Constructive listening where I have permission in a container to release the voices in my head and heart. “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always”. It is hard to pick the words even in intimate relationships to be fully transparent. There is too much on the line. Having someone I can speak to in depth about anything is a real privilege.

Jelly

Our bodies are not simply transportation devices for our heads. It is easy to think the thoughts we are conscious of are where our best thinking is done. Magic lies when knowledge is embodied. When our heads are clear, and we can just lean into a task we have mastered. That requires proper exercise. We get this for kids. Managing screen time, indoor time, time on chairs, and various other activities that turn us into jelly. It is important that we are equally good at parenting ourselves. Prioritising things like play, stretching, dance and sport. Not as a way of creating balance. Not as a side order. As a key part of fully engaging with whatever meaning we are trying to create.

Monday Feeling

I am highly suspicious of transformational events. Let's see. Books like "The Happiness Hypothesis", "Blink", and "Thinking Fast and Slow" talk about our intuitive and conscious decision making and behaviours. We tend to identify with the Narrator in our heads. The voice that is a combination of lawyer, a PR officer, and a grumpy old man. Our interaction with the world is significantly more deep soaked than that. We carry with us people and events from the past. Friends of mine with kids talk of remembering childhood engagement with their parents while playing with their own kids. Situations they haven't experience for decades are now repeated from a different perspective. Words and phrases are gradually layered with meaning as they connect us to the world. Then covered up. Then popped up. Much of our behavior becomes automatic. So when anything "changes", I am keen to wait till Monday to see. Then next Monday. Then Monday a year from now.  Meaningful change is seldom fast.

Afterthought

Somewhere between narcissism and self-negation, sits self-care. We over-simplify into Good and Bad. Our stories, conversations and play all reinforce the things that make us work better together. One of the things that made us work better together in a world of scarcity is hard work. Effort. The ability to prioritise and focus on things that add explicit, demonstrable value. To avoid things that are indulgent. Self-care is mostly internal. Proper exercise. Proper diet. Proper relaxation. Proper breathing. Constructive and caring thought patterns. None of this is externally obvious. We can't see the growth. We can't count it. So we don't prioritise it. Every day, we get up and go to work. Till we can't because we haven't looked after ourselves. Self-care is not indulgent. It shouldn't be an afterthought.

Endurance

'Hara Hachi bu' means eat until you are 80% full. Life is not a sprint. Part of the skill of Endurance is the ability to hold something back. Full Commitment may seem like you need to give everything to every situation. That is short-sighted. Truly caring about things means you detach a little. Detach 20%. Keep a little bit of space. This enables you to keep things ticking. To focus on the basics. The mechanics. Eating, breathing, relaxing, exercising and building constructive patterns of thought. Then you can dive into the relationships and creative exercises that give life meaning.

Presentation Zen

Saucepan

Half of our job is looking after ourselves. Even if we care deeply about something, half of our job is protecting that ability to care. My friend Galeo introduced me to the idea of being a 'Half-hearted fanatic'. I use a tool I learned through Yoga. 5 simple points. Proper Exercise. Proper Breathing. Proper Relaxation. Proper Diet. Postive Thinking and Meditation. These are all things we do anyway. We have to do them to survive. But do we do them properly? Consciously? Sometimes the thing that drives us becomes such an obsession that we forget to survive. Life is water, but if it slowly boils, the frog figures that out too late.

Check the Temperature

Perma-Resilience

I have always been an underlying optimist. A Perma-Bull. I grew up religious, and as the world threw difficult 'then how come this' questions at me, I still loved the idea of an underlying 'bias to good'. A belief in progress. A belief in survival. I believe less in cause and effect than I ever have. I think stories that explain things are added after the fact to give us comfort. What happened is just one version of what could have happened. The world is complex, ambiguous and uncertain. What I do still believe in is our capacity to cope. I believe in our resilience. I believe in compounding resilience. The more hardship you have faced, provided you don't break, the more you will be able to deal with in the future. Believing what you do is only one small contributor to what happens doesn't mean it doesn't matter. What you do is the only thing that matters. The important thing is making sure what you do creates connections. Links in the story. Resilience.

A view back to earth

Five Points

Even in our own version of Utopia, we would likely be uncomfortable, anxious, and dreaming of alternatives. Reality can't compete with our imaginations, and emotions. The best I think we can do is find more beautiful questions. In the mean time, it is easy to spin our wheels, and feel stuck. The Yogi who brought Sivananda Yoga to the West felt it was best to keep it simple. While you are searching for difficult answers, set a solid base by answering 5 much easier, beautiful questions. Are you exercising? Are you breathing well? Are you making space for proper relaxation? Are you eating properly? How is your mental health? Proper exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet and positive thinking is a great base for coping with whatever life throws.

Beyond Comparison

We think in focused contrast. Vedanta, the yogic philosophy, argues that we are only able to have one thought in mind at a time. The issue is that we hop around. Worry becomes a spin cycle of concerns. The main concern is the contrast. What the thought is, and what we wish it was. How the world is, and how we wish it was. Spin. Chew. Spin. Chew. Spin. As humans, our thoughts are limited by our biology. Our senses. Our surroundings. Our understanding. The way we piece together the information we have received. The conversations we have had in order to put that information together. The emotions on which the information sits.

The way we have seen the world determines the way we see the world.

The whole method of yoga is 'chitta vritti nirodhah'. The stilling of these thought impulses. Thought fluctuations. Wobbles. Waves. Between expectations and our observed reality. Worry, dreams, desires and goals can be strong motivators. A little dissatisfaction keeping us moving. 

These all work rather well while we are getting to the point of 'enough'. While we are on a path that has a fixed end point. Getting a roof over our heads. Food in our bellies. A place to clean our bodies. A sense of safety. This dissatisfaction becomes an obstacle once we get beyond what we need. Then comparison fails us. Then the impulse that says - hungry, cold, scared - becomes a negative. The impulses become holes.

Enough is far less than we think it is. Not in a 'holier than thou' way that people should be self-sacrificial heroes. I don't believe in heroes. I believe in examples. I believe in relationships. One of the key tricks to stopping those mind-wobbles is stopping those comparisons when they are heroes rather than examples. Relative thinking is very human. We can train ourselves out of it in the same way as we can train our muscles to get stronger and faster. Where our muscles become tools we control, rather than them controlling us. A key to that mental fitness is gaining a strong sense of comfort in what enough is. What enough looks like. What it feels like. 

We are very resilient. We can cope with a lot. We can handle suffering and get back up. The extra should be a bonus we celebrate. Strengthening that resilience doesn't come from reaching up, it comes from looking inside. From learning about others. Not from stories of outliers to aspire to, but stories of real people doing real things. Talking to each other. Seeing each other. Walking with each other.

Comparison is often very focused. We don't look at someone's entire life. We look at their job, their skill, their art, or something where they edge ahead of us. I have often benchmarked myself against people. A friend who runs about the same speed. One who gets similar marks in a subject. A buddy at the same age. A colleague in a similar role. That then becomes a measure of whether I have 'done well'. This is dangerous, because in the lost perspective of all the things you aren't comparing, you lose the things that are most important. 

There are lots of things that can't be compared, but can be lost. Relationships. Stories. Meaning. These all exist beyond the measurable. Beyond the measurable is the stuff that really matters. Beyond Comparison.

Inhibiting by Prioritising

In saying 'I think, therefore I am', Descartes lifted our identity into the world of our heads. If you cut off your hand, are you still you? If you lose both legs? What makes you you? Is it our thoughts? Do we lose someone when their thoughts start to fade? A division in Eastern and Western philosophy is the role of the body in philosophy. There isn't a separation between the mental and physical. In Vedanta, the philosophical arm of Yoga, everything from exercise, breath, and food to relaxation is fair game. Existence wraps all the connection and relationships. Our identity is all inclusive.

By elevating thought, we can inhibit it. If we prioritise it to the neglect of other things. The broader practice of Yoga also focuses on thought. The stilling of the mind ('Yoga chitta vritti nirodha'). It all starts with being able to sit comfortably. To sit comfortably starts with having control of the body. Having control of the body starts with what you eat, how you move, and learning to relax.

The irony of only focusing on 'the most important thing',  is that you may never reach it. The simple things, the basic competencies of life, are the first step on the journey.

Starting with the Basics

Do Stress

Stress builds happiness. Excessive stress causes anxiety and pain, but insufficient stress causes boredom and stagnation. If I could, I would tweak our standard question of 'what do you do?' to 'what are you working on?'. Having a problem/question/dream you are working on is part of the magic of life. It means you are engaged. Positive Psychologists call periods of this good stress 'Flow'. When we are in flow, we stop worrying about whether or not we are happy. We stop pursuing happiness because we are doing happiness. We don't find it, but realise it found us.

Passion and Compromise

Normally there is no clear answer. There are tradeoffs. That is very annoying because being able to do something with confidence is a challenge when you have nagging doubts. Pesky what ifs.

One of my favourite books is 'Catch 22'. The lead character is caught in a dilemma. Yossarian is a World War II bombardier who is desperately trying to get out of the war. Normally if you think thousands of people you haven't met are trying to kill you, you are crazy. Unless it is World War II and you are a bombardier. In order to convince the powers that be that he should be released from duty, he needs to convince them that he is crazy. Too crazy to fly. But if someone wants to leave, they are obviously not crazy and so they have to stay.

A form of this 'Catch 22' can appear in the work place. You are working with other people and so the nature of the beast is that there are going to be many views. To get things done, there have to be compromises. As soon as there are compromises you can feel slightly less attached to the outcome. The more compromises, the more apathy. To give your best to something, you need to be passionate. You need to care. There needs to be something that draws out your creative spirit and gets you excited. But normally those creative spirits are less willing to compromise and apathy clips their wings a little each time they do. 

The answer seems to be in detachment. It is somewhere in between compromise and passion. It isn't apathy. When it comes to a workplace situation, I think the best way to detach is to think of it like a game. I can remember one particular situation where I was walking along particularly rattled by some project that was being worked on. Thoughts going round and round but not going forward. I also happened to have watched Game of Thrones the night before. I decided to play a mental game and think of the situation as GoT, with 'Physical Me' as an Avatar. 'Real Me' was watching the game. The outcome was important, but it didn't affect Real Me. The rest of the walk was more pleasant. Perhaps because of the mental exercise, perhaps because the episode of GoT that had come to mind was particularly good. I think there were dragons.

This was a brief experience and I am no Jedi Knight of detachment. I know I am at my worst when I either desperately want something or am too attached to a result over which I don't actually have control. I know being comfortable separating myself from that result is the way forward but I am not particularly good at it. I blame an artistic temperament. I am unwilling to let go of the fire that gets rattled. I have a friend who is the Luke Skywalker of this detachment in the workplace. He really cares, but is able to detach enough to be ridiculously good at getting things done. This allows him to navigate personalities and situations without getting too rattled.

Whenever I hear friends 'download' about work frustrations, whatever the work, whether medicine, business, teaching, or charity work - they often relate to some variation of this compromise/passion trade off. They are rattled. The Catch 22 is to get things done, it feels like you have to not care. If you don't care, the flame to get things done dies. My friend Mr Skywalker shows one way. Detachment seems to be the source of the force. The force is strong with him.

Great Expectations (by Lianne Wood)

Guest Post: Lianne Wood (nee Wicks)

Lianne is a buddy from university. She has been reading my blog when she gets a gap, and was keen to write a post but had decided to write to me two nights ago to say she didn't have the time. Instead she wrote the post. I am really glad she did. Finding time for the things we want to do is tough. Finding time for those annoying little admin task that we don't want to do is tough. Almost everyone I know is really busy. Time is priceless and is the one thing we all have exactly the same amount of each day. Lianne is a physio. I am a big believer that sorting our bodies out so we give them every chance to function as well as possible is a core foundation of happiness. So I am super chuffed to get her insight. Lianne has always had the positive mindset that she identifies as making such a difference in her patients. Add that to being great with people and it is no surprise that she has found a path that brings her joy.

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Great Expectations

by Lianne Wood

I am a physiotherapist and have been one of those fortunate enough to love what I do. I had the opportunity to run my own private practice in South Africa, and have now been working as an extended scope physiotherapist with a special interest in chronic pain and spinal conditions in the UK. The mainstay of my job in the Spinal Disorders Unit is to assess patients when they are referred to us, assess whether they need further investigations (blood tests, imaging etc.) and then to decide if their diagnosis is an operable one or one that would be best managed by conservative therapy (i.e. physiotherapy etc.).

Every day I meet patients who have terrible spines on imaging and yet are in a minimal or manageable amount of pain. And then I meet those who are in terrible pain and yet have nothing to find on imaging. Of course, there are always those in between, whose symptoms match those on scans, and they are the ones we offer injections to or surgery, and sometimes they still choose to continue with physiotherapy or no intervention as they are mending on their own.

Which brings me to the question, what makes the difference between these essentially two separate groups of patients? It's something we as a health profession have tried with no real success to understand, and it seems to confirm that we are indeed holistic beings, with emotional affect and psychological impact on our being. Now by all means, I do not mean to detract from those that are in severe pain, but it fascinates me how some people have found a way to cope with severe pathology and have apparently minimal impact on their life. Is this a case of them having better support systems in their life so that they can cope with more? Is it a case of them having an inherently greater capacity to cope with more stress/pain than others? Is it simply that due to the pathology being more severe, the body has compensated over time and therefore the impact on the body as a whole is less?

I know there is no one answer to these questions, but something I do see time and time again with my patients, is that often what brings them the most relief is helping them to adjust their expectations. If they know what their diagnosis or prognosis is, very often they are then happy to continue managing their pain, as long as they have the peace of mind that they can understand its natural course. Sometimes this is not so simple, and I end up having to help them to understand the complexities of chronic pain (read more about this here - a colleague's brilliant blog on language and chronic pain) but sometimes it is as simple as being heard and reassured.

Which brings me to the thread of this blog, is our happiness determined by our expectations for ourselves? Early on in my undergraduate studies when I was still wrestling with who I was and who I wanted to become, I was told that the career path I took wasn't important. It was what I did with that career that made the difference to my happiness state. I can honestly say there were many days in my early career when I wished I had studied something else, challenged myself in different ways. However, the more I have embraced my career path, the more it has rewarded me and given me incredible satisfaction, both intellectually and emotionally. I do think that our expectations are key to our happiness, and if these can be managed appropriately and realistically, be it with regards to our health, careers or even love, we are much more likely to be happy with ourselves and our lives.

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In writing a blog about several topics in which I admit to being a complete beginner, I am going to have to rely heavily on the people I am writing for who cumulatively know most of what I am likely to learn already. I would love it if some of you found the time to write a guest post on the subject of happiness or learning. The framework I use for thinking about these things is what I call the '5 + 2 points' which includes proper (1) exercise, (2) breathing, (3) diet, (4) relaxation, (5) positive thinking & meditation, (+1) relationships, (+2) flow. Naturally if you would like to write about something that you think I have missed, I would love to include that too. If you are up to doing something more practical, it would be awesome if you did a 100 hour project and I am happy to do the writing based on our chats if that is how you roll. Email me at trevorjohnblack@gmail.com 

Smile & Go Seek (by Rob Grave)

Guest Post: Rob Grave

Rob is that guy who walks into a room and lifts the mood. Not as the world's biggest extravert but when a friend is down, or has done something they regret, or is just gatvol, Rob is the man you want around. I have known Rob to have tough times but he is a poster child for resilience. We met at university and keep in regular sms contact when the Boks are playing. Rob and I travelled to New Zealand together for the Rugby World Cup in 2011 and we fed off each other's positivity to try bounce back and enjoy the knockout stages without our boys on the field. Rob stayed at my place in London for a bit and it was the contrast of his smile and regular runs to my slothly couch dwelling that got me to pop down the road to the Yoga Centre. I can't exaggerate the positive impact that had on my life.  Rob's guest post keeps it simple but it is kind of like an insight into Wolverine: Origins. Rob's super power is his smile.

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Smile & Go Seek

by Rob Grave

Question - why am I generally happy?

I can remember two interesting incidents when I was very young which I think went some way to shape this.

1) The first one was when I was having a haircut for school, probably about grade 2 or something. I noticed a small round sticker on the mirror I was staring at. It said "Smile, it's contagious". I remember trying this out. I would smile at the lady cutting my hair, and she'd smile back. I'd smile at the lady sitting next to me having her hair cut, and she'd smile back. That little sticker was right. And it generally always has been ever since.

2) The second incident was a bit of a lesson in counting your blessings. It again involved being at school, and as any young kid, there are patches when you hate school. Maybe hate is too strong, but you get the gist. So there I am sitting in the car park waiting to get fetched by my mom, seething about some terrible injustice that school had inflicted upon me again, when one of the other mom's saw me and asked how things were going, and after chatting with her she said, "Gosh you boys are so lucky to be at this school". For some reason that stuck with me, and made me realise that if I tried hard, I could actually find many positive things about school to be grateful for, and that made me feel better.

The Four Yorkshiremen - Rob was lucky

Both those lessons stuck with me, and help me to maintain a positive attitude and happy demeanour in day to day life. And they both seem to be self fulfilling prophecies because as you smile at people and they smile back, you actually start feeling happy as you feel surrounded by happiness. And if I find the positives of the situations that life throws me in or that I choose to be in, even if it's simply "this situation is tough and is teaching me a valuable lesson", then I often feel much more empowered to carry on through.

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In writing a blog about several topics in which I admit to being a complete beginner, I am going to have to rely heavily on the people I am writing for who cumulatively know most of what I am likely to learn already. I would love it if some of you found the time to write a guest post on the subject of happiness or learning. The framework I use for thinking about these things is what I call the '5 + 2 points' which includes proper (1) exercise, (2) breathing, (3) diet, (4) relaxation, (5) positive thinking & meditation, (+1) relationships, (+2) flow. Naturally if you would like to write about something that you think I have missed, I would love to include that too. If you are up to doing something more practical, it would be awesome if you did a 100 hour project and I am happy to do the writing based on our chats if that is how you roll. Email me at trevorjohnblack@gmail.com 

Biggest Fan

'I am my biggest fan'. I liked those simple words coming from an artist friend describing how her walls are covered with her own art. We should be our biggest fans since we have so much control over what we end up doing. A wariness of arrogance or a fear that we will be found out often stops us from doing things. Fans don't have to worry about being humble. They are not talking about themselves. Perhaps in the cacophony in our heads, we can permit one or two all out cheerleading, supporting fans. As a South African with British links, I am always nervous of things being fake. I try and approach this hesitance with 'fluffy positivity' by having conversations with my younger cynical self.

A younger cynical self not a fan of fluff

Even cynical Trev was all about figuring out the best way to do things. There are things we know and much more that we don't know. There is a big gap in between and much of that gap is filled with stories. Once you accept that you can't know everything, you are often wrong, and the world is more complicated that you think - you still have to act. In acting, we have to take account of those inner voices and how they are motivated. We are quite good at this with others. I discussed in 'Parenting your Elephant' how good we are with children and helping them learn. We are patient, compassionate and supportive. Well, when we are good parents/uncles/teachers etc. We also typically attempt to be good managers, leaders, colleagues etc. Then sometimes we switch this off when it comes to ourselves and focus on all the things we are doing wrong. That is not the best way to do things.

Be your biggest fan.

Do Things

'Sometimes you just do things'. Scott Jurek is an ultramarathoner who has won many of the sports most challenging events on multiple occasions. In 'Eat & Run' he tells his story, but it could easily double as a textbook for what I am looking at in this blog. Although criticised as oversimplifying things, I always liked Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers' for the simple idea that it takes away the excuse of not having the talent for something. Even the talented have to put the effort in. Jurek takes it beyond talent or physical attributes. His claim is that in ultras it is something else that matters. It moves to the space of a deep inner struggle and playing fields are levelled. 'Born to Run' talks about the success of women, for example, in competing with and often dominating men at the highest level. Ann Trason was a pioneer (and also happened to win the Comrades Marathon).

What I like about Jurek's approach is how holistic it is, and how imperfect. He was learning all the way. He never stopped reading and took every opportunity to tweak. It seems fairly common click bait to 'debunk' the 10,000 hours concept popularised by Outliers. Even one of my favourites, Maria Popova, does it in 'Debunking the Myth of the 10,000 hour rule'. There are plenty of things that people can have spent 10,000 hours doing and still be awful. Think driving. Think sex. Think discussing tough issues. The point (which Gladwell made) is purposeful practise. Anders Ericsson is a leading academic on the subject and works with multiple people to understand the deliberate acquisition of expertise. The key is being conscious. While our automatic performance is very powerful, allowing us to delegate much of our activity to our elephant as soon as we are good enough. If the rider can stay awake, observe, and train the elephant, then the magic starts.

Jurek's rider is always watching. His tale looks at all the seven points of the framework I use for looking at happiness (see here). Rather than delegating anything, he delves into it. The exercise bit is obvious - he is running. He also discusses the impact of breathing properly and the effect it has on energy levels. Most ultrarunners are happy to eat whatever. Pizza, Oreos and Soda seem a staple diet. 'Despite' being an uber-athlete, Jurek's has eaten only plants since 1997, and has been vegan since 1999. 'Eat & Run' has a recipe at the end of each chapter, and he credits the way he eats as a key to his superior athletic performance and recovery. His rider watches everything that goes into his mouth, and watches the effect that it has on his body. Part of the challenge of running long distances is regularly running through a mental checklist to observe the body and ensure you are relaxed (easy, light, smooth... fast) but it is also a case of relaxing the thoughts. The final challenge, and the one that levels the playing field, is the mind. It is positive thinking. It is finding the ability to go on. To just do things.

In that 'time when everything seems hopeless, when to go on seems futile, and when a small act of kindness, another step, a sip of water, can make you realise that nothing is futile, that going on - especially when going on seems so foolish - is the most meaningful thing in the world'. - Scott Jurek 'Eat & Run'

Beyond those 5 points, 'Eat & Run' dives deep into some deeper emotional struggles. He talks of the relationship with his mother, father, loves, close friends and the community. He talks of how he processes some dark places. He talks of loss. The book is deeply moving and subtly asks some great questions.

Finally, the book is about flow. In pushing yourself to the edge of your ability, slightly beyond your comfort zone, but not over the edge - worries melt away. You are doing something amazing. You aren't even conscious of you anymore and you get a deep sense of fulfilment. Flow is the reward for a life of purposeful practise.

A wonderful book.

Ueber Alles. Uber Everything.

Nassim Taleb takes an interesting approach in his books. He directly insults, on a regular basis, the people who are reading his books. He knows a bit about who buys and reads what he writes and he says openly that they are the people who he is complaining about. He 'jokes' and tries to make it clear. As in... I am talking to you. The person reading this. He says you will laugh and think he is talking about someone else. Another MBA. He then proceeds to point out, with jibes, what he thinks are the likely holes in your thinking. Most readers will read this and think he is talking about someone else. It is difficult for us to self evaluate but we are quite good at seeing gaps in other peoples thinking. That is why feedback is useful. Painful to take, but useful.

    

Taleb's books are fascinating and I will definitely talk about them at some stage. One of my biggest frustrations is our faulty definition of risk. This is partly the theme of his first book 'Fooled by Randomness'. Without basic training in statistics, many people can get fooled by seeing random things happen which they think aren't random. We look for patterns and can make really bad decisions based on stories which simply have no evidence. His second book 'The Black Swan' talks about how things you can't see, control, and largely can't prepare for can be a really big deal. He also says we waste a lot of our time planning around 'noise', i.e. things that aren't important, and don't act in the right way for things that are. In 'Anti-fragile' he argues that by avoiding good noise or rather good stress, we set ourselves up for big falls. Strong things benefit from stress rather than falling apart. So as a theme for all three books, he is saying that we focus on the wrong things. I agree with that, and enjoy the way he describes some difficult concepts (although I don't agree with everything he says). I am not sure I would want him at a dinner party though. He would likely insult most of the people very quickly. Perhaps if the dinner party was with Richard Dawkins and Russell Brand and I could just sit back and watch the fireworks discussion going on. That would be good fun.

I will take a leaf out of his book(s) and talk directly to you though. Part of what I am trying to do with this blog is get people talking. We moan about Social Media and how it works but the truth is no one controls Social Media. We do. If it isn't working there is absolutely no one to point the finger at. The founders of Twitter had no idea what it would morph into. It is still morphing. We get to choose how to do that. The same thing is happening to lots of other things. They are being ubered. Ueber Alles. Uber everything. But as Will Wilkinson says, perhaps Uber for the proletariat. Social media is whatever we want it to be as long as we are brave enough to speak. If we can get over the Picasso Problem and realise things aren't for marks, there is no teacher waiting to correct us, there is no bully waiting to tease us, and people want to hear our story we can make things what we want.

So I am talking directly to you. Yes, the person reading this. I want you to write a Guest Post of about 500 words on anything that you think is interesting. I write about happiness and learning as a framework, but that is all it is. A framework. Thinking of happiness in categories like exercise, diet, breathing, relaxation, positive thinking, relationships, flow and learning just helps me keep a little focus and cover as many bases as I can. I don't claim any expertise though other than some experience at looking at complex things and trying to get to the bottom of what matters. To strip out Taleb noise. I write mainly for and to the people I know, so if you want to have a cup of coffee, I can write up the post for you. I may not have seen you in years, but I am still talking to you. I have lost contact with lots of awesome people and would rather write for friends, old and new, than random people. If like Rob, a limerick is the way to get started - do that. If you want to send me stream of consciousness to work into a post, do that. Best case, you start a blog of your own. It is tough to get people reading it if you don't write regularly, but I can solve that problem for you and we can pick a guest post when you have something you think needs a bigger audience for a conversation.

Broadcasting is over. Let's start a conversation.