Book Short: 1776 by David McCullough

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"Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages." – George Washington

1776 is a magical book — but I’m hardly the first person to say this. McCullough does a stellar job at recounting the events of 1776 and the dire straits Americans found themselves in when fighting for independence from the British.

We get good glimpses of Washington the leader: delegating responsibility when he sees brilliance in his deputies (like Gen. Knox), being brutally honest with himself ("Seeing things as they were and not as he wished them to be was one of his salient strengths") but relentlessly upbeat to the people underneath him, and of course, never throwing in the towel. (For more I’ll have to check out His Excellency by Joseph Ellis.)

One side note on studying history: While I could never get into U.S. history in school in the chronological format (see: my dismal AP score), I have gotten engaged as I pursue it self-directedly in the spirit of a mind-map. In other words, I picked the most interesting period (revolutionary war) and now will emanate from there, pursuing tangents and preceding and subsequent events and eventually I hope to coalesce a complete picture around my revolutionary war starting point. An interesting difference in approaching the material…

1776 is accessible and fun — a must-read for anyone interested in U.S. history or in simply a defining year in the creation of a new country.

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Earthquake Zone vs. Hurricane Zone – The Anxiety of Certainty

Posted inRandom21 Comments on Earthquake Zone vs. Hurricane Zone – The Anxiety of Certainty

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

-Donald Rumsfeld, Department of Defense news briefing, "The Collected Poetry of Don Rumsfeld"

Say you’re trying to decide between living in California or Florida. Both are natural disaster hotspots. In California, scientists confidently predict that a big quake will hit sometime over the next 30 years, maybe today, maybe in 30 years. No one knows exactly when. In Florida, hurricanes reliably strike every year and cause billions and billions of dollars of damage.

When you live in California, you might spend a little time every few years checking your emergency supplies. However, no one in California regularly worries about earthquakes. You don’t walk around each day wondering if today is the day.

In Florida, there are designated "Hurricane Seasons". Residents know that during certain months of the year hurricanes will come. Meteorologists can forecast the timing of hurricanes and residents can prepare. TV stations interview residents beforehand and ask, "How do you feel about the upcoming hurricane?"

In Florida they trade certainty and the ability to prepare for the psychological anxiety that yearly hurricane seasons bring. In California they trade uncertainty and the inability to prepare for the psychological tranquility that comes with such unknowing.

Natural disasters may be equally devastating in both states from a destruction or financial perspective (the Big Quake will make up for several years of hurricanes), but from a psychological / stress perspective, I would argue they ravage Florida — or places where there’s certainty around a frequent, smaller event versus uncertainty around an infrequent, larger event — more.

All else being equal, would you rather live in a earthquake zone or hurricane zone? Is it possible to extrapolate this thesis into a larger point about how we deal with known unknowns versus known knowns?

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When You Look Into the Abyss, What Do You See?

Posted inReligion / Spirituality6 Comments on When You Look Into the Abyss, What Do You See?

Alan Shimel, Chief Strategy Officer of StillSecure, a Mobius VC company, has a great personal reflection up on his blog. I met Alan briefly the other week when he stopped by Seth‘s office (and my desk). In only a couple minutes of talking I felt the emotional warmth oozing out.

Why is he reflecting now?

There comes moments in all of our lives where we stop and want to bookmark where we are and reflect on who, what and why we do what we do.

It’s short, personal, and gratitude-filled. A key to happiness is to be aware of and express your gratitude.

He quotes the movie Wall Street:

“Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.” —Hal Holbrook, Wall Street

When I pause and reflect, I, like Alan, see a very lucky man indeed — a full plate of activities and adventures, wonderfully supportive friends and mentors, a loving and non-dysfunctional family, really solid roots (same bedroom, same house, same neighborhood in San Francisco my whole life!), and self-confidence that any time I come to plate I’m capable of hitting a home run. All the while, I’m lucky because I have significant challenges ahead of me — ones that will doubtless bring their fair share of failure and self-doubt, which, when cycled through, ultimately strengthens a person.

When you look into the abyss, what do you see?

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Book Review: One Person / Multiple Careers

Posted inBooks5 Comments on Book Review: One Person / Multiple Careers

Marci Alboher has written a great new book that came out yesterday called One Person / Multiple Careers. She sent me an early copy and after reading it I spoke with her on the phone.

The premise is this: From lawyer/chefs to police officer/personal trainers to mom/CEOs, more and more people are building careers filled with slashes. Sometimes “slash” people live a multi-tenent career all at once; other times they layer past experiences into their current job (in other words, they may officially be a full-time “mom” but they think of themselves as “CEO/Mom” by incorporating their CEO experiences into their mothering). However they do it, slash people usually don’t work conventional 9-5 jobs and usually are entrepreneurial in constructing their sense of self.

I have been an entrepreneur / writer / student for several years and hope I never have to give up my free-agent, slash lifestyle. Leading multiple “careers” at once is a most fulfilling path. After all, my theory is that around 50% of the seeds I plant never germinate, so I always need to be involved in multiple activities / careers — that is, plant many seeds at once — to ensure a decent number sprout.

Marci outlines good tips for building a customized career of your dreams by becoming a slash. Marci — thanks for sending this to me! Go evangelize the wonders of a slash lifestyle!

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Two Kinds of Blogs: Focused and Personality-Driven

Posted inWeb/Tech3 Comments on Two Kinds of Blogs: Focused and Personality-Driven

Chris Yeh presents his Grand Unified Theorem of Blogging:

The natural limit on the size of a blog’s audience depends on the degree to which the blog

1) sticks to a particular topic, and

2) creates a cult of personality around the writer.

Chris notes that we can’t read every post from every feed:

As a result, every blog reader will eventually find himself forced to winnow his feeds, to focus on those feeds that are richest in relevant content. The two basic measures we can expect him to apply are:

a) Does the post cover one of my preferred topics?
b) Is the post from someone I like and want to stay connected with?

The First Law of Blogging states that the more topics a blog covers, the lower the percentage of posts that will match up with the preferred topic set of any particular reader.

My blog is hardly "focused" — there are some themes, but it’s more general than most. This probably limits my readership (but it’s more fun for me). People, then, read my blog either because my eclectic set of interests happen to overlap with their eclectic set of interests, and/or because they’re interested in the author (me) and want to stay connected.

The maximum audience of a general blog like Ben’s depends on the extent to which he is able to build a Cult of Ben.

I would argue that "cult" blogs may have a smaller readership than a focused, rigorously topical blog, but the relationship between the author and readers is richer. In other words, because the ~2,000 people who read my blog regularly have decided to invest time in "Ben" (not simply in a sole topic like entrepreneurship), they feel like they know me, I feel like I know them, and it’s a more emotionally fulfilling exercise.

This being said, if your blog’s main purpose to make money from Google AdWords or be able to brag about having more than 10,000 RSS readers, by all means, the formula is clear: be focused, write a specialist blog.

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