There’s just something about finding a sentence or phrase that speaks directly to the part of your brain that needed convincing.

So when I see a good quote, something that speaks to me or illuminates a concept that I needed to see more clearly, I take notice and try to capture it somehow.

If you read what I’ve been writing on this site recently, you’ve probably detected a theme: Growth.

I like getting better, building good habits, chasing the next goal, getting fitter, more financially secure, growing my skills and career.

Growth feeds me.

But if I don’t balance what I want in the future with the recognition and gratitude for what I have now, what’s the point?

So, I’m grateful to these people for finding a way of speaking to me, of communicating with the part of my brain that needs the occasional reminder to stop, look around, and be truly grateful for where I am. To be aware of just how little I need, and content with what I have (or less) during my pursuit of the next milestone.

You’ll never have enough if you need to have more than someone else.¹

There will always be someone better, richer, stronger, smarter, more successful, and so on. I won’t ever win that game.

Instead, my focus should be on myself, my own standards, and my own pace. What someone else has should be completely irrelevant to my happiness.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Epictetus

It’s so easy for us to become preoccupied with what’s next, what’s different, what’s missing … that we neglect to enjoy the here and now.

Take parenting, for example. If I spend all my time being sad that they’re not babies any more (or wishing they were older), I’ll miss the amazing moments that come in the toddler years. And when they’re teenagers, I’ll be sad that the toddler years went by so fast. What a terrible way to live life!

You are watching people go through withdrawal from the emotional addiction to the myth of certainty.

Ashley C Ford

This quote came in the form of a tweet toward the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it really spoke truth to me.

There is no such thing as certainty. No matter what your vision is for the future, it will almost certainly be different.

Part of the task of becoming emotionally resilient is realizing that we have to evolve to meet the circumstances we’re given. Don’t waste time thinking about things you can’t change. Adapt, adjust, accept the reality of your situation, and take action within that reality.

Happiness is a state of mind

excess ≠ success

Paul Jarvis

If I want to be happy and successful, I won’t find it at the bottom of a pile of stuff, no matter how nice or expensive.

This one pushed me to think … really think … about what makes me happy, and how I define success for myself.

Remember when you wanted what you currently have?

This one hit hard. How easy is it to treat what we have now as a given? To forget that, once upon a time, we dreamed of what we currently have, and might have thought of it only as a dream, a fantasy that we never believed would actually happen.

I want to be mindful of my current position in my timeline, and intentionally recognize how far I’ve come, with gratitude for the people and circumstances that helped make it possible.

If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.

Epictetus

Repeat this with me: I do not need to meet anyone else’s definition of success!

What makes me happy might be completely different than what makes you happy. We’re different. That’s OK.

Don’t let your progress become pride. Otherwise, you have just traded one set of vices for a new one.

Daily Stoic

I still can’t get over how often I see people go from “I’m learning” to “I’m an expert” online.

I want to share my experiences, but it’s all too easy to cross over from wanting to share something that helped you accomplish something difficult, to bragging about what you accomplished.

Pride is a vice, too.

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.

F. Scott Fitzgerald , The Great Gatsby

I should regularly take inventory of the circumstantial and relational “shortcuts” that helped me get to where I am. “No man is an island”.

Rather than feel shame or guilt for advantage and privilege, why not adopt a posture of gratitude for them?

The secret of contentment is the realization that life is a gift, not a right.   

Martin Luther

Being grateful for every day, every breath, leaves very little room for complaint.

This fundamental perception, that life is a gift, can frame a view of the present moment that emphasizes a deep appreciation for what we have, eclipsing most dissatisfaction over what we lack.

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.   

Socrates

I as I accumulate more life experience and observe people around me, this proves more and more true every day.

People who are content with what they have, be it a little or a lot, manage to stay content as their circumstances improve.

People who are chronically discontent seem to never change, no matter how much their circumstances improve.

It is not our circumstances that create our discontent or contentment. It is us. 

Vivian Greene

And finally, this really is the fundamental principal I should constantly revisit.

It’s not my circumstances. It’s me.

It’s not how much money I have. It’s me.

It’s not my family. It’s not my education. It’s not my house. It’s not my job. It’s not a stage of life. It’s not politics or media.

It all starts with me.

If I ever find myself failing to be grateful and content, I need only look within. Can I choose to pay attention the good all around me? Can I recognize the things that bring me joy, and those that rob me of it? Can I pursue happiness for my own sake, and no one else’s?

Ultimately, contentment is a fundamental virtue, and a necessary value. Without it, how can I find any satisfaction with personal growth and achievement?

I hope these quotes help you as much as they did me.

¹ I heard this in a YouTube video once, wrote it down, but didn’t save the video URL, unfortunately. Frustrating.

The post 12 thought provoking quotes to inspire gratitude and contentment appeared first on Nathan Rice.

We simply do not have enough willpower in reserve to do all the things we know we need to do.

So, the brain forms habits to offload the task of “choosing”.

Think of habits like train tracks. Once you’ve done the work to lay them down, you no longer have to steer … just push ahead, and the tracks will guide you directionally.

Unfortunately, not all habits are good. Our decision fatigue and limited willpower makes it incredibly easy to fall into bad habits.

I’ve spent the better part of the last decade trying to break my bad habits and form good ones to replace them.

And although I can’t claim to have bested my demons completely, I’ve made some progress in some key areas that I feel have set me up for success on autopilot.

It’s worth noting that this wasn’t necessarily easy. But there are ways to make it less hard, and I’ve tried most of them to varying degrees of success. Perhaps that would be a good subject for another post in the future.

So, here are 7 good habits that I’ve managed to make stick, and 3 that I’m still working on.

1. Waking up at 5am

I wrote about the decision to wake up at 5am recently, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but this is one that I’m particularly proud of, since I’m a night owl by nature.

Giving myself this extra time alone every morning actually enables many more habits (a keystone habit), so I felt like mentioning this one first made a lot of sense.

2. Tracking every dollar

Since I’m up at 5am, and after I’ve given myself a reward of quiet coffee time and a little brainless web surfing, I get to spend a little time looking at all the previous day’s spending, categorizing it, and making mental notes of the categories where I’m approaching my limits.

The point of a budget is to know where you want your money to go, but the only way to measure success is to track where your money is actually going.

And by looking at my money situation every single morning, I get the peace of mind of knowing exactly where I stand when I start my day.

A secondary benefit of this is that I’ve caught fraudulent spending, unnecessary subscriptions, and unpaid bills on more than one occasion.

When it comes to personal finance, ignorance is your enemy. You can’t fix a problem you don’t know about, so the first step to making better decisions with money is actually knowing where you’re spending it.

I find that by doing this every day (as opposed to weekly, for instance), I’m better able to remember what was purchased, so I can accurately categorize it. Categorizing multiple days of purchases at a time just never really worked for me.

So, I do it daily. It takes no more than 5 minutes, and it’s absolutely worth it.

3. Paying myself first

Related to #2, but I only do this twice a month (on paydays).

The reality is that if the money is there, we’re probably going to find a way to spend it.

So why not treat savings and investments like a bill?

This tip is on pretty much every clickbait list of “X ways to become rich” on the internet … and for good reason. It works.

You, your family, your goals … these are important things. I had to stop treating them like an afterthought, only getting contributions if there was money left over at the end of the month.

I now treat payday differently. My employer sends money to my 401K automatically. I contribute to Roth IRA accounts for myself and my wife. We put a set amount of money aside to save for things like replacing a vehicle, travel/vacations, and Christmas gifts. If we’re planning something like a home improvement project, we have an account for that too.

4. Weighing myself every day

By around 8:30am, my family is usually up and eating breakfast.

So I head down from my office and am able to do more “noisy” routines.

Over the years, my weight has fluctuated quite a bit. In any given 12 month period, my weight might swing 10-15 lbs.

I’ve tracked my weight for about 8 years now, and one thing that I noticed when looking at my logs from all these years is that the biggest swings upward are correlated with large blocks of unaccounted time. That is, months of not tracking my weight.

Notice all the straight lines? Those were periods of time where I stopped my daily weigh in.

Again, ignorance is the enemy here. Not knowing does me no good.

For the last year or so, I’ve captured my weight nearly every day. As you can probably see, this has been my most consistent year to date. Hard to argue with that.

5. Drinking lots of water

After I weigh in, I take a handful of supplements (fish oil, multivitamin, etc.) and fill 3 large bottles with water. I then drink one of them.

I don’t savor it. I just gulp it down.

The bottles sit on the countertop at the bottom of the stairs that lead to my office. I walk past them several times per day, and they taunt me if left full.

So I drink them.

I’ve been training for this kind of completionism since I was a wee lad playing video games. I’m not a quitter.

Do I need that much water every day? Probably not. But over-hydration makes me feel better than under-hydration.

Plus, a large bottle of water fill the belly, and can oftentimes defer a craving for a snack.

So, lots of good reasons for this one.

6. Walking every day

My job has me sitting, looking at a computer screen, and just generally not being active for most of the day.

Not good.

The easiest way I’ve found to counteract this negative reality is by carving out time, usually sometime between 10:30am and noon, to take a walk.

Sometimes I walk outside, but most days I just hop on a cheap treadmill I bought second hand for about $100. It’s seriously NOT fancy.

And because walking takes almost no thought, I’m able to use that time to do other things like listen to e-books, catch up on email, attend meetings (where I don’t need to talk), or even just be alone with my thoughts.

7. Resistance training

I’m no bodybuilder. But when we built our house in 2016, I made sure to include a space where I could have a simple weight set … some plates, dumbbells, and a squat rack.

It cost less than you might think, about $600 for the basics. It’s paid for itself many times over.

At 4pm most weekdays (unless I have a meeting during that block), I head down to the basement and spend a little time lifting heavy things, usually while listening to some music.

Like I said, I’m no bodybuilder. Progress is slow, but it’s time well spent. It burns some extra calories, but more importantly, it gives calories a job … build and maintain muscle.

Failures

While I have successfully integrated these 7 good habits into my daily routine, I’ve got some notable failures to share too.

1. Diet

I’ve yet to find a diet that I’m able to stick with long term.

I don’t do “moderation” very well, so I’m usually in “feast or famine” mode when it comes to diet.

I’d really like to find something the whole family could adopt, and that also supports my goals of longevity and slowly building lean muscle without putting on unnecessary body fat.

Or maybe it’s not that I haven’t found the right diet, but that I haven’t had the necessary discipline to stick with one.

Either way, I’m still working on this one.

2. Reading

I must confess, while I do listen to audiobooks while walking, I also listen to a lot of music, or watch a TV show, or surf YouTube.

I’d really like for my walking time to be exclusively used for audio learning, not mindless entertainment.

Still working on this one, too.

3. Writing/Blogging

Since June, I’ve published a new blog post every week, with the exception of 2 weeks for vacation.

Want to know a secret? I wrote a lot of those posts in a single weekend. Or at least the first drafts.

I really want to incorporate writing into my daily routine, but I’ve yet to figure out how to do this effectively. I have some ideas, but the first step is always the hardest for me.

Got tips for me?

I’d love to know what good habits you’ve been able to form. I’m always looking for my next challenge, so if you have ideas, let me know!

The post 7 good habits that stuck (and 3 that I’m still working on) appeared first on Nathan Rice.

I’m an introvert. I certainly don’t deny that. The “stay at home” orders were really not a problem for me or my family. I work from home. My kids are all young and are homeschooled. We live far outside the city. You could say we were very much naturally prepared for the new-but-hopefully-temporary “normal”.

But the extroverts, they weren’t handling it so well.

“I’m going stir crazy!”

“We can’t just stay cooped up in the house forever!”

“I’m really not handling this very well. I need to interact with people!”

Who can blame them? Being forced into a situation so contrary to your nature isn’t ideal. It can smother your creativity, suppress your productivity, and suck the fun out of work.

In other words, extroverts were now having to experience what introverts deal with every single day of “normal” life, pre-pandemic.

Out of sight, out of mind

It’s not hard to see that the world is optimized for social extroverts.

“Fortune favors the bold!”

“History is made by those who show up.”

And these are just the platitudes. It’s far more common for career advice to be centered around increasing your visibility.

“Networking is key to career growth.”

“Volunteer to give the presentation next time. You want the right people to see you.”

“Ask so-and-so out to lunch to talk shop.”

Or what about life advice?

“You gotta put yourself out there if you want to meet someone. Just walk up to him/her and introduce yourself!”

I’m not even saying this is bad advice, sometimes we need to be pushed to do something that doesn’t feel natural to us, to move beyond what we’re comfortable with. There’s a lot of growth to be had outside your comfort zone.

But extroverts are practically never asked to “be more like the introverts” in order to succeed. The world is set up to help them find success.

How can we, as introverts, navigate a professional world designed for extroverts? As leaders, are we ignoring a huge untapped talent pool by optimizing our work environment to appeal so heavily to extroverts?

Note: I realize not all of these options are available to everyone. They aren’t necessarily intended to be used in conjunction … more like a buffet of choices you can choose based on your needs and what’s possible in your situation.

Own you calendar

Every day at 4pm, I have a block on my calendar. It just says “Busy”. I use this time at the end of my workday, before heading into “home” mode, to be by myself and exercise (something I call “stacking”, but that’s a different post).

Though not sacred time, having a block already occupied makes people think twice before asking to schedule a meeting during that block. But at the same time, I can always make an exception in the moment and allow something to be scheduled during that block.

This time allows me to decompress and recharge after days filled with lots of talking (something I like to do, but does zap me of mental energy).

Redirect

If you find yourself especially sensitive to the demands of synchronous conversation (phone calls, Zoom, in-person, etc.), you can instead look for ways to limit those interactions.

If you were able to reduce each synchronous meeting by 10 minutes each, you might be able to eliminate hours of talk time from your schedule every week. Every little bit helps.

But how?

Try to get all the preliminary talk out of the way early by sharing an agenda document where you capture your thoughts about a subject well in advance of a meeting. Sure, when meeting with extroverts, it’s possible they ignore any such “straight to business” tactics, but it will likely work some of the time.

One way to approach this is to fire up your chat client of choice (or email, if that’s all that’s available) and ask “hey, I just saw your meeting invite. I want to be prepared, so can you let me know what this is about?”

When you get a “headline” response, find a way to ask for more detail (but be subtle), and look for opportunities to “talk” more asynchronously.

“It’s about the upcoming launch. I want to be sure we have all our bases covered.”

“Oh cool, got it. I’ve got a document that I’m using to keep track of everything that I’m preparing to do the week of the launch. Would you like me to share that with you?”

“Sure, that’s fine, but let’s still quickly meet to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“No problem, and if you see anything that I’m missing in my document ahead of our meeting, just let me know and I’ll add it.”

Obviously, the person above really just wants to schedule time to think out loud with you, and that’s fine. Remember, you’re not trying to optimize the world around the introvert personality. We’re just trying to meet somewhere in the middle, if possible.

Know yourself

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I were out taking some food to some friends. They invited us into the backyard to hang out for a bit, and, after 4 months of self-isolation, we decided to accept the invite. We ended up staying for several hours, and really loved every minute of it.

But the next day, after work, I told my wife that I had felt so tired all day. I described it as “almost feeling sick”.

I know this feeling well. I love my friends and family, and I love being with them.

But I know myself. And I know that when I’m a social glutton, they next day I’ll get the metaphorical “stomach ache”.

Recognizing the patterns in your own life can help you adjust and accommodate for them.

If you need to psych yourself up for an upcoming social interaction or presentation, take the time to do it.

If you need to chill after a day of wall to wall meetings, take the time to do it.

Know yourself. Take the time.

What can leaders do for introverts?

Although it’s nice to think we can simply plan and strategize for our own balance in the workplace, a bad leader can ruin even your best plans.

So how can leaders help introverts thrive in the workplace?

It wouldn’t be particularly useful to switch from over-optimizing for extroverts to over-optimizing for introverts. You’d be trading one extreme for another.

But are there compromises that could be made that would make the workplace more appealing to introverts?

At the end of the day, introverts want what everyone else wants: a fair shake at a successful career, a workplace that doesn’t feel like it was designed to torture them, and the kind of care and consideration that extroverts have enjoyed for all of modern workplace history.

Stop making “be a people person” a criteria for employment when what you really want is a great engineer, or accountant, or designer, or whatever. Hire for the skills you need, and if introverts aren’t “compatible with our culture”, then change your culture.

Have more (and better) conversations with the introverts in your organization. Don’t expect them to ask for it. Ask them what they need. Just be prepared to really hear them.

Consider if that meeting really could just be an email.

Learn to trust more, control less, and grow as a leader.

Keep pushing them to venture outside their comfort zone. But make sure you’re creating an environment that forces you to push extroverts to do the same thing.

By making a workplace that is more welcoming to introverts, without making it miserable for the extroverts, you open yourself up to all the wonderful qualities of introverted folks.

And hey, the world is changing. Remote work is becoming more and more common, and you might find that pushing yourself and your organization to create a more welcoming work environment for introverts will help prepare you for a future that isn’t so exclusively optimized for extroverts.

The post The introvert’s guide to navigating a professional world designed for extroverts appeared first on Nathan Rice.

Much to the surprise of his family and friends, John actually sold 8 houses in his first 6 months. He figured he must have a gift, effortlessly making deals and cashing checks.

After his 10th sold house, John decided he must share his secret formula with the world. After all, he had achieved instant success, success that absolutely must be a result of his intuitive greatness. And now, John believes that anyone is capable of this success, if they follow his step-by-step program, for the low low cost of only $397.

The only problem: it was 2007.

John didn’t really know what he was doing. He was selling houses in the hottest housing market in recent history, and the crash was coming. Soon, he’d be selling sand in the desert, and the “expertise” of an 18 year old just wouldn’t be nearly as attractive as before.

Beware the “eager teacher”

I’ve seen the parable above play out 20 different ways in the last 10 years, especially online where the barrier to establishing a training site is as low as ever.

It’s usually entrepreneurial types, fresh off their first month of profitability, who now think they’re a guru.

(OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but not THAT much.)

I’m wary of these types, but more importantly, I’m wary of becoming these types.

“Teach everything you know”

When I decided to start blogging again, I needed a home for my email list that I had built up years ago. After considering quite a few, ConvertKit stood out as the best choice for what I wanted to do.

After signing up, they did something I honestly didn’t expect: they wanted to send me a t-shirt, free. This one, to be exact:

It’s a noble sentiment, I think. My experience is unique, and if I keep what I’ve learned in my own head, that’s where it will remain.

But I don’t want to be like John, and hubris often masquerades as virtuous altruism.

So how am I supposed to prevent that? I am, after all, a human being with all the same weaknesses and tendencies to appease my ego.

“What worked for me”

“Teach everything you know” has an alarmingly conceited tone to it. We don’t really “know” very much. We think we do, and we probably do know some things, but it’s hard us to accurately tell the difference between what we know and what we think we know.

I don’t know that you should wake up at 5am every day.

I don’t know that asking yourself 2 simple questions will help you prioritize your goals.

I don’t know that you’ll have success in asking your boss what the expectations are for your role.

But they worked for me. And maybe they’ll work for you.

This site isn’t scripture. It’s a lookbook … a collection of ideas that may or may not work in your specific context.

And to the extent that a blog post helps someone achieve something that they couldn’t before, I can be proud of it.

But that’s still not the reason I write.

I write to be a better writer

Consistently producing content … vetting it against objective reality and my own experiences, editing, optimizing, publishing … is a moderately difficult task. I try to publish once per week, and that’s enough to both stretch me and keep me comfortably within the boundaries of achievability.

It’s an exercise in discipline. Consuming is much easier, and even though producing/building something does have a much more profound payoff, there is a delay between when you build the thing and when it actually feels good to have built the thing.

Part of my journey is to continually develop and strengthen my resolve to ignore cheap thrills and focus on more meaningful activities.

So I write. Not because I’m good at it, but because I’m not.

I write to get better at writing, and to develop the muscles needed to produce rather than consume.

I write to learn

More than anything else, the process of writing forces me to study the subject enough to be able to effectively communicate the lesson to myself, both now and in the future.

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

By writing, I get the double benefit of both having learned something deeply enough to write a coherent post about it, as well as having produced a reference piece, a letter to my future self, to remind me of “what worked before”.

And sure, maybe I’ll change my mind or have a better idea later. But so what? At least I’ll have a record of the change, and the path that lead to growth.

Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll write because I’ve developed into a good writer, or because I have some timeless wisdom to pass along to the world.

Until then, I’m not saying I don’t love you, dear reader … but I write for me.

The post I don’t write for you, dear reader appeared first on Nathan Rice.

But when I was a kid, around 10 PM each night Nickelodeon (a landmark of 90s kids TV entertainment) switched its programming from kid-centric shows to classic TV reruns. They called it Nick-at-Nite.

Being a bit of a night owl even way back then, I was introduced to the likes of I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Happy Days, The Dick van Dyke Show, and Mary Tyler Moore.

I don’t imagine Nickelodeon had me in mind when deciding to rerun these shows in the late night time slots, but for some reason my brain just didn’t want to fall asleep until around 2 AM (at the earliest). So from as far back as I can remember, when possible, I’d be awake late into the night, and sleep late into the morning.

My parents hated this. They told me I was wasting the morning hours sleeping. I figured I was getting plenty of sleep still, just in a different block than everyone else. Obviously, school made this more difficult, but most of my summers were spent in this cycle, staying up late watching Laverne and Shirley or Dragnet, and rolling out of bed somewhere between 10 AM and Noon.

This sleep cycle continued into adulthood, as I chose night school for my college education, and every one of my jobs allowed me to set my own schedule.

I’m telling you this because I feel like I need to establish my night owl bonafides. If there ever was an unlikely candidate to advocate for waking up super-early, it’s me.

The Problem

I’m not going to sugar coat my point here. I didn’t see a problem with my schedule. But in hindsight, I see a lot of laziness in choosing this schedule.

Waking up late was easy. Which made staying up late easy. Which made waking up late easy. And so on.

It took no discipline. I didn’t decide to keep this schedule, I let the decision be made for me.

Maybe as a kid you can overlook that. After all, it was summer break. I had no where to be, and I wasn’t hurting anyone.

But as an adult, this lack of basic discipline had a radiating effect on other parts of my life. My sleep schedule was very clearly a negative keystone habit.

[Keystone habits are] small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives.

The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

But it was by no means the worst thing I was doing. I had a plethora of other bad habits, and I needed to address those first.

But once I had made significant positive changes in other areas of my life, I had one last mountain left to climb. But why this? Why change my sleep schedule.

But, Why?

In late 2018, for the first time in my life, I was becoming genuinely interested in my career. I was well out of my 20s, and I started thinking more seriously about my future, and what I wanted out of life. My job plays a huge role in enabling the kind of life I want to live, so focusing on professional growth was becoming essential to the choices I was able to make personally.

So I needed time. Time when no one else was around, and I could focus on getting stuff done.

So I figured I’d do my deep work after the kids were in bed. After all, I was a night owl. I could work for a good 2-4 hours each night between 10pm and 2am, right?

Wrong.

Turns out that after having been awake for the last 12-14 hours, my brain just didn’t want to work. This was “wind down” time, and I was trying to get things done? Nope. It never worked.

People who take offense at hustle culture are quick to point out that you don’t get “more time” by waking up very early. They insist that you have the same number of hours in a day whether you wake up a 5AM or 9AM. And they’re right. But in my experience (and definitely not ONLY my experience), those first few hours after waking up, after taking a little time to “wind up”, are BY FAR the most productive hours of the day.

Why is that?

1. No interruptions: most everyone else is asleep.
2. Maximum energy: you’re fresh. No afternoon slump, no late day brain exhaustion.
3. Clean slate: you’re not putting out fires, but instead you’re able to define your own agenda and focus on future focused tasks.

After doing this for a few weeks, I noticed I was getting more done in the first 4 hours of my day than I used to get done in 8 hours before.

As a software engineer, this was a huge win for me.

But I was also able to accomplish some personal tasks in the early morning, too. I finally had the opportunity to try things like meditation and journaling. I could spend time reading, learning a new skill, or planning out a home improvement project. I could categorize the previous day’s spending in my budgeting software, while the purchase was still fresh on my mind.

I even watched a sunrise.

The benefits were clear. I still wasn’t a “morning person”, but I was starting to see the appeal.

But, How?

So, this is probably why you’re here, reading this post. You already know the benefits of waking up early, you know you’re not doing yourself any favors by sleeping in late, and you want to change.

But you don’t know how.

I don’t claim to have the secret. Only what worked for me.

So, I’m not going to give a full course on how to develop new habits, I can tell you that, for me, the key was understanding the Cue > Craving > Response > Reward cycle.

I’m not telling you that understanding this is going to be a magic bullet. Doing something you don’t want to do is going to take some discipline and willpower. But maybe we can exploit this natural part of human psychology to reduce the level of effort necessary to wake up early.

Here is my process:

The night before, I assemble all the necessary components to make a cup of coffee. I grind some beans, I prepare my pour-over brewer, and I fill my kettle. I set everything on the stove, ready for a single button press begin the process. I charge my iPad and I put it in my office, ready to browse Youtube.

My smartwatch is ready to buzz at 5AM the following morning. I use a Fitbit Charge because its battery life is 7 days, meaning I can basically leave it on all the time, charging it while I’m in the shower.

The first few days are hard. You haven’t yet connected the cue to a craving, but if you commit to NOT letting yourself have the reward if you don’t have the proper response, that connection will eventually form.

So, if you ignore your alarm and wake up late … no coffee for you. Literally walk to the kitchen and dump out the water and throw away the coffee grounds. Never, EVER reward yourself for failure.

But when you succeed, enjoy your reward.

For me, the connection happened quickly.

My wrist buzzes, and I pull myself out of bed.

Oftentimes, I actually wake up naturally about 5-10 minutes before my alarm. That’s a nice bonus.

I walk to the kitchen and start brewing my coffee.

For what it’s worth, the reason I use the pour over method for making coffee isn’t because I think it tastes better. I’m not even a little snobbish about my coffee.

Nope, the reason I use it is because it’s manual. I don’t have the option of having a timer make my coffee. I get to trigger my craving during the ~4 minutes it takes for it to brew. The method, each step in the process, the smell, the visual appeal … this all reinforces the craving that starts the minute my alarm goes off.

I take my freshly brewed coffee to my office and begin my day with a reward for making the right choice.

Once the caffeine kicks in, my day officially starts.

It only took a few days for the habit to form. And now I, Nathan Rice, a lifelong night owl, a Nick-at-Nite connoisseur, and someone who has absolutely no natural affection for mornings, am able to effortlessly wake up at 5AM every morning.

There’s no reason you can’t do the same thing.

If you want to.

The post How (and why) I went from being a night owl to waking up at 5AM appeared first on Nathan Rice.

As our teacher, Mr. Wilson, walked around the room, we noticed him stop at Andrew’s desk. He slowly reached down and calmly pulled a tiny sheet of paper from under Andrew’s arm, examined it, and continued walking around the classroom.

Andrew’s face was bright red. He was visibly upset, and although it was, admittedly, slightly amusing to the rest of us in the class, we all knew what he was feeling.

Humiliation, disappointment … fear of what would happen to his grade.

In school, the rules were clear … this was cheating. He gave himself an unfair advantage. He wasn’t taking the test from memory, he had all the answers hidden under his arm. That’s just not allowed.

But you know what? You’re not in school any more. The rules are different at work.

We think the people responsible for our employment and promotions expect us to figure it all out ourselves, to have all the answers memorized like we did in school.

But that’s not true at all. At work, you get to “cheat”. As a matter of fact, you’re expected to.

Your Manager’s Perspective

One of my favorite questions to ask your manager is “what does it take to be a top performer in my position?” (from this book).

This concept blew my mind. It totally changed how I approached my job, my priorities, and my career.

It’s like walking up to the teacher and asking “what’s the answer to question 5 on this test?“, and most of us are just as uncomfortable asking our manager/supervisor this question as we would be asking a teacher in school for an answer.

The difference is, your manager is happy to just give you the answer. You get to “cheat”, and it’s totally fine.

The answer to that question, of course, will vary depending on your position, your manager, or the nature of your work. But there usually is an answer.

Once you have your answer, it’s up to you what to do with it. You can use it to agree to a later discussion about compensation or promotion, to build your resume, or to simply measure and track your progress toward your own goals.

Your colleagues’ perspectives

The single most impactful things you can do at work is to ask yourself, every single day, “What can I do today that would have the biggest positive impact on the business or the people I work with?”

I manage software engineers , so that’s the lens I view this question through right now, but I’ve had many jobs over the years: sales, bagging groceries, customer service, IT support, web developer.

But once again, it’s hard to know what will have the greatest impact, or who needs help, or how to prioritize your work.

So, cheat.

And be direct, no need to be sneaky about it.

“Is there anything I can do today that would help you get your work done?”

Flip the script

Sometimes it’s you who needs help getting unstuck, figuring out a tough problem, or handling a workload that’s too big for you. What can you do then?

Cheat!

Ask for help! You’d be surprised how willing people are to trade a little knowledge from their experience for an ego boost, or even a simple “thank you, I was completely stuck, so I appreciate the assist“.

Always show gratitude, always give credit, and you’ll very likely always have someone willing to step up and help you.

Andrew is fine, by the way

I’m not sure what happened after class. I’m sure there were some consequence, maybe even a failing exam grade. And I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten about the incident in Spanish class all those years ago.

But, he’s married with kids now, working as an accountant, and seems to be doing pretty well for himself. And I’ll bet he’s probably still cheating, only now he’s allowed to, expected to.

The rules are different at work. Are you cheating enough?

The post Want to get ahead in your career? Cheat! (hear me out) appeared first on Nathan Rice.

Now that I’m responsible for a team of software engineers, I find myself in conversations that revolve around what success looks like, and the qualities of a top performer. And while there’s no such thing as perfection when human beings are involved, I have noticed some commonalities among the people that I’ve seen achieve the most success in the world of building software.

1. They’re honest

Being part of a team or organization means you have to be trustworthy. Without honesty, it’s impossible to build the kind of trust required to collaborate on a project. A reputation for not being able to accurately estimate how much time it will take to fix a problem or build a feature is a good way to ensure you never get the opportunity to do the kind of work that progresses your career and puts you in a position for growth.

And being in the habit of taking credit for other people’s work is far more likely to stall your career than it is to move it forward. Believe me, everyone notices that kind of thing, and it’s never appreciated.

2. They are curious

If you got into coding because you wanted a good job, that’s cool. I get it. Nothing wrong with that.

But if you lack the curiosity to explore new technology, experiment and try new (or newly learned) techniques, to leverage what you know to see what’s possible, you’re probably going to hit a career ceiling eventually.

Building software is a creative work, but it’s unique in that it is creativity in service of solving problems. Great software engineers embrace this work … relish it, even.

3. They communicate well in all directions

This isn’t unique to teams that build software. Communication is important in almost every line of work.

But when trying to coordinate engineers, support folks, product managers, marketing, and leaders up the chain of command, all while juggling the work and looming deadlines, good communication is a skill that instantly makes you stand out from the rest.

When working remotely (and I’d argue this is true for co-located teams too), a well written email or technical document is much appreciated by people from every department. It’s efficient (write once, share many times), effective, and can mitigate many of the issues that in person interactions present … like body language, tone of voice, misinterpretation, and our tendency to forget what what said in a conversation.

Master this skill, and people WILL notice.

4. They aren’t driven by ego

No one likes the one who brags about themselves, or steals credit, or exaggerates their share of the work.

It’s a terrible strategy, and it’s not the kind of attention you actually want.

5. They are driven to help

The exact opposite of ego, great software engineers are always looking for opportunities to help.

To help their team/teammates push a project over the finish line.

To help someone write better code.

To mentor someone through a difficult transition.

To share subject matter knowledge.

If you look around, there are always opportunities to help.

6. They leverage process

Great engineers tend to value efficiency. Why waste time arguing about an approach to a problem, over and over again, when you can spend a little time up front developing a value system that can solve problems for you?

Things like OKRs, the Agile Manifesto, team agreements, and even company values … these are all tools that good engineers use to deescalate touchy situations.

“That task doesn’t really help us achieve our stated objective for the quarter.”

“We can iterate. Let’s push this out and follow up ASAP to improve the UI.”

“That sounds like a good idea, but maybe it’s not necessary. Let’s ship what we have now, and get some user feedback before committing to do it.”

At Facebook, there’s a saying “Data wins arguments”. In other words, 5 people arguing from the perspective of their own individual gut feeling isn’t particularly effective or scalable. Instead, let’s just look at the data and save some time.

7. They care about their teammates

Things like peer reviews and 360 feedback have made it more important than ever that you develop an empathetic (and sometimes apologetic) attitude toward the people you work with. They’re human beings with complicated lives, and at any given time they could be going through something that makes work problems seem trivial.

Feeling trusted and supported can mean the difference between a good and bad day/week/month/year.

And when Murphy’s Law eventually circles around to you, you’ll be glad to have a teammate that supports you the same way.

But it’s more than just supporting teammates when they’re struggling.

Think about how much more valuable you are as an engineer if, by your influence and impact on your teammates, they get better at their job.

Maybe it’s teaching them a new skill they lacked before.

Or a trick/shortcut that saves them 2 hours per week.

Or a confidence boost that unlocks a willingness to take on a task or responsibility they would have previously avoided.

It could even be volunteering to attend a meeting and write up a summary for your team, instead of everyone attending the meeting themselves.

8. They enjoy the work

As I said earlier, becoming an engineer so you can have a healthy paycheck is totally fine. We all have bills to pay.

But this list isn’t about being “an engineer”. It’s about being a great engineer. And if you don’t really enjoy the work, you’re probably going to struggle with mustering up the motivation to do what’s necessary to continue learning, experimenting, and building great software.

This doesn’t mean you won’t have other interests, hobbies, and priorities.

But the likelihood of compartmentalizing “work” into a strict 9 to 5 box, and consistently growing as an engineer, is relatively low.

9. They’re “lazy”

A former boss used to say this about me all the time. But I was never offended.

“Nathan is lazy, but in all the right ways.”

I was never going to do something manually that I could have a machine do.

I was never going to waste time building something that I didn’t think had value. Or at least, I would have pushed back hard on it.

Having the experience and judgement to know what not to do makes you way more valuable than someone who just jumps into projects without giving it any thought.

This can come across as “lazy” to some, but it’s a good kind of lazy.

10. They get stuff done

Look, at the end of the day, you’re just not going to get very far in your engineering career unless you find a way to get stuff done. It’s the core of your responsibilities, and it’s what you should prioritize first.

Your job is to use code to solve problems, so the more problems you solve (without creating new ones) in the same amount of time or with the same amount of effort, the better.

Great athletes challenge themselves though intentional practice, to run a little bit farther or faster, to improve their accuracy, to perfect their form or develop new techniques, all in the pursuit of greatness.

Are you, as a software engineer, challenging yourself to work a little faster or a little smarter, to be more helpful and empathetic, to squash your ego and commit to honesty?

If not, what’s stopping you now?

The post What does it take to be a great software engineer? appeared first on Nathan Rice.

Now that she’s a bit older, I see that one of the easy things to forget is what a handful she was as a baby and young toddler.

We learned a lot in those early years, not the least of which was the fact that love and discipline, plus consistency and patience can be a truly magical combination for helping children navigate their emotions while building a deep and lasting bond with them.

But the ugly side of parenting is that you are forced to come face to face with your own worst flaws.

The mistakes I made as a parent are too many to count, but one thing my wife and I committed to early on was that if we made a mistake with our kids … overreacting, losing our temper, unfair punishments, misunderstanding, misapplication of blame, incorrect assumptions … we would verbally apologize to our children. We would kneel down, look them in the eye, and say the words “I’m sorry, that was wrong. I should not have done that.”

It’s such a humbling (humiliating?) thing to have to do. Me, the parent, apologizing to them, the kid … it feels strange. But it does get easier the more you do it.

Since making this a part of our family’s DNA, it’s amazing how often you notice the mental gymnastics some parents perform to avoid saying “I’m sorry” to their kids, and it’s a good reminder to me how important that small act, that simple phrase, really is.

Instruction + modeling = behavior forming

The best leaders I’ve experienced in my life were great at explaining what needed to be done, and also having the discipline and character to do it themselves.

One of Andy Grove’s 5 responsibilities as a leader in High Output Management is “being a role model”.

“Do as I say …” just doesn’t work.

If you’ve been given any leadership responsibilities, modeling the behavior you want to see from your team is absolutely essential.

Owning Our Mistakes

One quality of a healthy team is adopting a culture that encourages everyone to own their own mistakes.

Sometimes that’s missing a deadline, or shipping a bug to production, or forgetting to do something that you committed to do.

Sometimes it’s being accidentally (or purposefully) insulting, or taking something personally that you shouldn’t have, or snapping at one of your coworkers.

A team culture that allows for mistakes and encourages speedy apologies is a health metric that is at the top of my priority list as a leader.

But just wanting that kind of culture doesn’t guarantee it.

Telling your teams that’s what’s expected of them, coaching them to be generous with apologies and forgiveness, giving presentations or recommending books … none of that will be as effective as them seeing you, the leader, practicing what you preach.

Opportunity

So, back to the title of this post: when was the last time you said “I’m sorry”?

Guess what? You’re not perfect. You do make mistakes.

If, for some reason, you believe that the reason you haven’t apologized lately is because you’ve done nothing worth apologizing for, you have bigger problems.

If you aren’t apologizing, it’s not because there’s nothing to apologize for. You’re just so out of practice that you’re not letting things register as mistakes worth apologizing for.

Make it a practice to notice and write down every time you mess something up. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn what not to do, and to model what should be done after the mistake was made.

Own your mistakes as fast as possible, so you can mitigate and correct the damage done, improve your systems to prevent it from happening again, and try not to make the same mistake twice.

Mind how you respond to others’ mistakes

After enough time coaching your team to own their mistakes and say “I’m sorry” when they make them, and of course modeling this behavior yourself, you need to make sure you are reacting properly when people actually start to adopt the practice themselves.

Is your team safe to admit mistakes in front of you?

One of my favorite interview questions to use when chatting with potential hires is “tell me about the last time you made a mistake at work that you had to apologize for?”.

I like this better than “what’s your greatest weakness?”, because for one, it’s unexpected, and two, there’s little room to wriggle out of it with a clever answer. No “I care too much” or “I work too hard / too much” nonsense.

It sets the tone for the team they’d potentially be joining.

It’s OK to fail on this team. Expected, even.

No blame, no bravado.

We apologize, we own our mistakes, and we get better. And most importantly, having the humility to admit a mistake in front of me will never be something you have to be afraid of.

Don’t believe me? You will when you see me apologize as much or more than anyone else.

The post When is the last time you said “I’m sorry”? appeared first on Nathan Rice.

I took on tens of thousands of dollars of credit card, student loan, and tax debt.

I gained 70 pounds since graduating high school, because I ate way too much fast food and pretty much never exercised.

I binged entire series’ of television shows while pushing work off until the last minute.

I would stay up late into the night, and sleep away the mornings.

And because of all this, my wife and I “had to” put off starting a family until we could get our house in order.

Add to all that a sense of angst over current events and politics, my tendency to stress over the security of jobs, the financial crisis that lead to The Great Recession, and a barrage of 24 hour news cycles that can mentally fatigue even the most psychologically resilient among us.

If you’ve ever been in a situation like this (or even just a fraction of this), you probably know the feeling of wanting a change, but feeling like there’s just too much. How do you figure out what to focus on, and what to ignore?

I needed a formula

I’m a big fan of using decision formulas for quickly analyzing things. They’re somewhat subjective, and will need occasional tweaking. But at their core, they can be really useful.

Because I had so many things that I let go off the track, I needed a way of focusing my effort … a way of identifying things that need ignoring, and prioritizing things that need attention.

So I borrowed a lesson from Stoic philosophy, combined it with a question that I often ask other people when they ask for advice, and came up with something that I have found quite useful.

I also inadvertently mirrored part of Steven Covey’s “circle of concern / circle of influence” model, outlined in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Oops! He probably says it better. Oh, well!

Question 1: Is this something I can control?

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.

Epictetus, Discourses

There are so many things in my life that I can’t change. I don’t control the weather, I will not live forever, and certain people will just never like me.

But there are a lot of things that I can change. I can plan my activities around the weather, I can make choices that will allow me to live a bit longer, and I can choose who I spend my time with.

Was I in control of banks when they were giving loans to people who couldn’t afford them? Could I control the stock market?

Do I decide if a client chooses to move forward with a project? Or how much money they’re willing to pay? Or if they’ll pay me on time vs. ghosting me after I’ve delivered?

Probably not.

But do I decide what food I put in my body? Do I get to choose how I spend my money? Is it my choice whether or not I get some exercise today? Or stay up until 2:00 AM? Or sleep in until 10:00 AM?

It’s a hard truth to accept. No one did this to me.

It wasn’t the credit card company’s fault.

It wasn’t the restaurant’s fault.

It wasn’t Netflix’s fault.

It was my fault.

These were decisions that I had made, habits that I had formed.

And after letting myself be angry at what I had done, I saw the silver lining: if my actions caused the problem, I was obviously the one in control.

Question 2: How much do I care?

If I decided that it was something I could control, I then have to have a difficult, honest conversation with myself. And I really had to be brutal about it. No aspirational answers, just the raw unpolluted truth.

Do I care enough to do whatever it takes to accomplish this?

When people ask for advice about the usual subjects:

“I want my kids to behave better”

“I want to lose weight”

“I want to get my finances under control”

“I want a promotion at work”

“I want to find love”

“I want to spend more time with my family”.

… it’s possible that they want it, but not badly enough to do what it takes to achieve it. And you know what? That’s fine. It may not be the right time, or there may be more important things that should take priority. The point isn’t to feel guilty about your answer, but to be honest with yourself.

Acknowledging the potentially painful parts of a decision can help us honestly analyze our desire for change.

So, I asked myself …

To have any influence over politics, my best shot was to run for some sort of political office. Was I willing to do that?

Nope.

To fix my procrastination problem, I’d might need to give up my autonomy and get a regular job where I didn’t set my own hours. Was I willing to do that?

Again, no.

To fix my weight and health, I’d need to go on a diet and start exercising regularly. Was I willing to do that?

I tried, and failed, many times. Clearly I was not.

To fix my finances, I’d need to cut up the credit cards, sell a car, and go on a budget. Was I willing to do that?

Turns out, I was! What Now?

Focus!

If the answer is “no” to either of these questions, it’s no longer my focus. It’s a dead issue to me. I won’t be wasting a single minute of effort or thought on it until/unless I can answer “yes” to both questions.

And when the answer to both is “yes”, it’s time to prioritize and focus.

And I mean intense focus. Maximum effort, focus.

I was able to leverage the ability and the desire to change, and give myself permission to ignore the things that don’t pass the test.

And maybe after I’ve conquered one goal, I’d be able to revisit my list from before. Perhaps my answer to the 2 questions will change once I have a win to reference.

So, what happened?

It took me 2 years, but I did eventually pay off all my debt, save enough money to buy a house, and develop good money habits that continue to this day.

And then …

After revisiting my list, turns out I was willing to take a job with a little less autonomy and a little more structure. Great decision, exactly what I needed.

In late 2012, I took on my weight and health. In 6 months, I lost 50 pounds, and I’ve kept it off.

In 2018, I completely revised my sleep schedule. I now wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 AM every day, and I’m able to get more done by 10:00 AM than many people do all day, including my daily budget analysis, reading, writing, etc.

Each goal accomplished sequentially, one at a time, and only when I could honestly answer each of the questions above with a confident YES!

None of it happened because of super-human discipline. If white-knuckle effort was the key to progress, I’d be hopelessly lost.

Luckily for me, it’s about eliminating the unimportant goals to make room for the ones that really matter, then letting the power of focus and compounding take over.

The post How to tackle big goals by narrowing your focus with two simple questions appeared first on Nathan Rice.

Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.

Daniel Pink, Drive

I’m still very much learning about the less obvious things good leaders do, and how to integrate those things into my own approach and management philosophy.

But here is one of those obvious things that didn’t take very long to learn: few things you in a leadership position will be more patronizing, more insulting, more humiliating than micromanagement.

Nothing says “I don’t trust you” quite as effectively as looking over someone’s shoulder (physically, or virtually) while they’re working on something.

But is it a necessary evil?

Trust and Patience

Imagine being truly great at a sport. Top of your game, physically able to achieve success, game after game.

Then slowly, as you age, you begin losing the power to impose your will with a ball. No longer able to run faster or jump higher, you’re forced to move on from playing professionally. At best, it’s now a hobby.

But then you get a call. A team wants to hire you to be a coach, to help pass on your knowledge and experience to the next generation of able bodied professionals, and hopefully achieve the same level of success in coaching as you did as a player.

Unfortunately, the reality is that very few great players ever become great coaches.

Why is that?

I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to know that in the not-so-distant past, you were so instinctively great at something, having the talent to make split-second decisions with a ball in your hand, seeing what needs to be done and having the ability to execute in real time, suddenly expected to watch from the sidelines, as a coach, during pivotal moments of the game.

To execute as a player takes talent and practice.

To execute as a coach takes trust and patience.

These are skills that you just don’t naturally develop as a player, but they’re essential as a coach.

Trust: to know that when your players leave the huddle, that they remember what you said, that they have the physical ability to make it happen, that they believe you can see what they can’t and will draw up a plan that puts them in a position to win. Oh, and they won’t allow momentary hubris to take over when it comes time to execute the plan.

Patience: to have a vision for what should be. To understand that no one wins 100% of the time. Having the discipline to see failure coming, letting it happen (when appropriate), coaching through the difficulties, and pushing your team to improve iteratively.

The best time to fail

I’ll admit that I have very little tolerance for my own failure. I figure if I think long enough about all the ways something can go wrong, I can mitigate them all. If I just ask enough questions, or do the most research, or have contingency plans for every scenario, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Not only is this an unreasonably heavy burden for a single person, it doesn’t even work!

Failure is inevitable.

So when is it appropriate to let your team fail?

How do we optimize our failure for growth?

Fail when the stakes are low.

If you play sports, it’s better to fail in practice, scrimmages, pre-season, and the regular season, than it is to fail in the last seconds of the championship game.

If you’re a carpenter, it’s better to fail when building a birdhouse than it is to fail building an actual house.

You don’t run a marathon without training.

You don’t attempt to free solo El Capitan without first trying it with all the necessary safety gear.

Failure is the best teacher

I still remember the single question I got wrong on my written driver’s test when I was 15 years old. I’ll never forget it. I have no idea what questions I got right, but the one question I missed is forever carved on the inside of my skull.

Better I get it wrong at a desk at the DMV than behind the wheel, right?

And that’s the point. I missed it in the safety of a classroom. The stakes were low. If I failed the test, I’d go back home, study some more, wait a couple of weeks, and try again.

If I missed it on the road, I could end up in the hospital (or worse).

“Pushing down”

My friend Katie (who doesn’t blog) asked a great question in a recent meeting we were in.

“Is it possible to push any of these decisions one level down?”

Katie Childress

She wasn’t suggesting we push every decision all the way down. We can’t ignore the reality that not everyone in every position has all the context needed to make the right call.

Her point was that we sometimes forget to even consider if it’s possible to allow a decision (case by case) to be made by your team, rather than you, or your boss, etc.

Are we asking the right questions? What are the risks? If they fail, if they get it wrong, what’s the worst that could happen?

It’s a lot easier to “push down” a decision when the stakes are low. If they fail, so what? We learn a lesson, we course correct, and we try again. Repeat.

As repeated failure teaches us what not to do, success becomes a more and more likely outcome.

This is how your team earns trust, and learns to trust themselves, for higher stakes situations.

This is how your team can fail productively.

Which brings us back to autonomy

Throwing your team into a high stakes situation, with no experience, and expecting them to know what to do, how and when to do it, and thinking they’ll succeed (under the guise of “autonomy”) could be devastating to both your business and to the team’s confidence.

Being a good coach is about preparing and equipping your team, in low stakes situations, to have the confidence and competence to succeed in the critical moments of their work.

Don’t waste the low stakes moments.

Put ego and fear aside.

Let them try, and sometimes fail.

Then watch with pride as they pop open the Champaign bottle, hoist the trophy, and celebrate a hard earned victory.

The post Autonomy, failure, and “pushing down”; what I’m learning about leadership appeared first on Nathan Rice.