Becoming Better. – A new blog for growth and development

The Beginners Creed

Sometimes, life gets in the way.

These last few months have yet again been a whirlwind, and while I’m thankful for every minute of it, some well-intentioned projects linger and languish. I’ve been thinking about posting again for a while, and today I’m feeling inspired to do exactly that! However, rather than something unique, I’m sharing a powerful idea that is worth re-reading daily – I’m posting it here so I can easily find it 🙂

The Beginners Creed was written by Peter J. Denning, who explained its origin in this article. It’s an excellent reminder that we are often our own ‘worst enemy’ when it comes to learning – and as long as we keep this in mind, we can intentionally overcome the self-limitations that our ego silently creates:

Cleveland that I love

And now for something a bit different.

A friend recently posted this link in an online community I’m involved in, the Cleveland Tech Slack: https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-places-to-live/32619 with the joke that “Cleveland is not in last place this year!” (it came in second-to-last place, only beaten by Detroit – at least we’re not Detroit!)

I was both amused and reflective about this – I moved away from Cleveland (#181/182) to San Jose (#5/182) in 2019, and had a few thoughts on how my happiness has changed since then, so I gathered them and shared them to the community.

In the interest of forever capturing how I feel right now, I thought I’d share it here, as well! Enjoy:

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3/10/21, Cleveland Tech Slack

Having lived in Cleveland for 33 years, then moved to San Jose, CA (#5) in 2019 – a few thoughts and anecdotes on this. First, obviously, it depends on what makes you happy. They list (1) Emotional & Physical Well-Being, (2) Income & Employment, and (3) Community & Environment, so I’ll go by that:

Emotional & Physical Well-Being

The weather here is ridiculous. I can go for walks/MTB rides just about every day of the year. There is no winter. The flowers are everywhere, all year round. We have hummingbirds that live on our porch. The hiking is delightful, and you’re surrounded by mountains, ocean beaches, and forests. Snow is something you visit for fun.
Moving here totally cured my Seasonal Affective Disorder, which hit me with depression like a truck every year in CLE.
As a result, I’m more physically active than ever before (easier to stick to routines without seasonal change!). I lost 20lbs, I’m eating healthier, more diverse foods, and I have more energy (battery capacity) than ever before, even during COVID.

Income & Employment

The amount of (tech) opportunities here is wild. I didn’t truly understand this until I moved here. Ever seen a David Attenborough rainforest documentary? It’s like that, but instead of verdant ecology, it’s cutting-edge technology. Driving down the street takes me past LinkedIn’s hq, 23andMe hq, Facebook offices, nVidia, you name it…it’s here.
Seriously, I randomly met a guy (he’s originally from North Olmsted!), standing in line behind me at a Mexican restaurant, who works at a startup as the Senior Design Engineer for creating Deep Learning hardware. You know, just casual stuff.
The money just scales differently out here. Again, I had to experience it to understand it. Fun exercise: If you’ve never done it, check out what your title/role makes at a FAANG, then realize that there are a lot more companies than just FAANGs who will pay competitive salaries – and probably remotely! Start applying!
The network opportunities out here are prolific. In less than two years, I’ve connected with enough high-level people to never front-door my way into a job again.

Community & Environment

The cultural diversity here is beautiful, and companies (especially FAANG) make a point to emphasize it. During training, I was in a room with 30 other people and I was the only white male. This would have never happened in Cleveland.
This also makes for a lot of awesome restaurants, shops, and services you wouldn’t encounter in Cleveland (no pierogies, though, which is a huge drawback).
Being a midwest transplant in a semi-transient neighborhood (lots of renters and FAANG employees who move around a lot) gives me a huge advantage – they’re all looking for connections, but nobody is bold enough to make them. Fortunately I learned how to be a good neighbor growing up in Cleveland, and we’ve made friends with everyone in a block’s radius – they’re from all over the world – and I can’t wait to throw parties to introduce everyone to each other.

With all that being said, there are definitely some huge drawbacks, especially as a native Clevelander:

I miss weather. Watching storms roll in over Lake Erie, snuggling with my wife over a fire when it’s snowy, hell even the random 70ºF days in the middle of winter – they were all a nice change and the diversity made me appreciate the nice days even more.
CA taxes are really high. I got a yearly 2020 bonus, and only received 59.8% of the money paid out. I don’t hate taxes, and I understand why, but that still hurts.
Pizza in California SUCKS. During COVID, my wife and I took a 3-hour road trip to Sacramento to eat at the closest Marco’s Pizza. And it was bliss.
I’ll never afford a house here – and don’t want to. Even with the inflated salaries, I figure I’ll need to live here at least 10 years to even think about affording a house. My 1200sqft rental lists for >$1.5 million. Disgusting.
On that note, constantly living in fear of the next natural disaster (fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) is definitely something on my mind (and another reason I won’t buy a house here). There are so many people here, and if something big happens, it’s going to be a mad house. I worry for our safety. Cleveland, by contrast, is safe.
Leaving all my friends, family, memories, and contacts behind was (and continues to be) really hard, especially during COVID. The homesickness is real.

Cleveland is home. That’ll never change. But taking the leap to move out here was totally worth it…for now. With all that being said, I’d be happy to talk with anyone considering a move out to Silicon Valley…but I’d definitely encourage you to look at remote positions first, because Bay Area salary while living in Cleveland is a path to early retirement!!

The curious technique successful people use to ‘connect the dots’

At Stanford University’s graduation ceremony in June 2005, Steve Jobs delivered an unforgettable Commencement address to graduating students.

In his speech, he shared a story about how seemingly-unconnected experiences ended up being critical to realizing his accomplishments, even though he didn’t know it at the time. His inspiring address is worth listening to in its entirety, but one lesson in particular caught my attention:

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
– Steve Jobs

As I considered this, I realized that for some accomplishments in life, the “dots” are handed to us; such as graduating college: “pass this list of courses to earn your degree.” While these accomplishments are still difficult, it’s easier for us to trust that our dots will connect to achieve an end goal.

More often, however, we aren’t handed a well-defined curriculum to follow – especially for our personal goals. Instead, it’s up to us to discover the dots, leaving us wondering whether they’ll eventually connect and lead us to a successful outcome.

This practice of “finding the dots” is full of uncertainty, which can quickly turn into stress, anxiety, or complete loss of motivation. In other words, it’s difficult to trust that what you’re doing will eventually get you to where you want to be.

So I asked myself: How can I increase my trust that my “dots” will connect? What can I do to help me stay motivated to reach my goals successfully?

Answering this took a great deal of introspection, but in the end I narrowed it down to just one answer – a simple, practicable skill that reduces uncertainty for anyone looking to “connect the dots” to achieve their goals.

To understand better, let’s take a look at the true story of my good friend Mike, who recently “connected his dots” to build his self-confidence and tackle a goal that many of us consider, but rarely act on: a career change.

Becoming Better, one post at a time

Creative writing is hard. It takes a certain headspace, focus, and energy level. To give myself the best chances of success in re-kicking off Becoming Better, I’ve set two immediate goals:

Generate at least two thoughtful posts per month. I need to balance creative writing time with my life and career, so I’ve given myself a soft landing and committed to writing two (non-meta) posts per month.
Leverage both short-and long-form posts. One of the reasons I failed in 2016 was the sheer amount of time it took me to write a single post. I was full of ideas, but as I started writing them out, they exploded in size and scope. A topic I thought I could explain over a few days’ writing ended up taking weeks, which kept happening until my ideas piled up and I lost all momentum. Creative writing takes time, but not every topic needs a long explanation. This time around, I’m committing to both short- and long-form posts, which I can flex to my available time.

One of my main intents is to improve my storytelling, so each post will have some aspect of story to go along with its idea/concept. It’s an excellent opportunity for both of us to learn a lot, and I’m excited to share it with you!

“I’m in Focus Mode”

When I was in 2nd grade, I was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). This curse/blessing continues to this day, and learning how to manage it in each moment has become an exercise in mindfulness and frustration.

To explain ADHD simply, my brain has a great deal of difficulty controlling its attention. My focus bounces around like a butterfly weaving erratically through the air, never seeming to have an intentional direction. To understand what this feels like, let me explain what I went through while trying to write this post:

Breathing new life into old ideas

I started this blog in 2016 with the lofty goal of pivoting my career into becoming a personal growth coach. I wanted to do what Lewis Howes does; be another Ramit Sethi, become a Tim Ferriss.

While these are excellent role models, and the idea of becoming a content author and coach is certainly interesting, I was looking at their results of years of effort, and expecting that I’d just to be able to do it. Furthermore, I saw it as a side hustle rather than my full-time job. Life got busy, I lost interest, and as a result, my idea crashed and burned.

But this canvas is still here. It’s time to breathe new life into old ideas.

Only, this time, it’s different. This time I’m not focused on creating a bunch of courses, worrying about SEO and competition, or writing something perfect for mass market appeal. This time, I’m simply using this blank canvas to paint my ideas. I’ve made a long study and have a lot to say about thinking, acting, and being successful, and this place will be my outlet to share these ideas and build on them over time.

I hope you’ll come along with me on this journey 🙂

[BB Archive] Anchors

In our journey of becoming better, we’ll encounter new concepts, different perspectives, and unique tactics & strategies; all aimed at making the most of our lives through Directed Action. To keep our terminology straight, we will establish an anchor for each powerful concept or idea. To better understand what an anchor is, let’s engage our imagination!

ANCHORS: THE WATERMELON METAPHOR

Close your eyes. In your mind’s eye, picture a watermelon.

[BB Archive] Curing Excusitis with a Batting Average

How embarrassing. Nearly two months without a blog post, after setting an initial goal of two per week! Truthfully, I’ve been suffering from a case of excusitis (prounced excuse-itis) with respect to my blog. Excusitis is a wonderful anchor first coined by David J. Schwartz in his pivotal book, The Magic of Thinking Big – in short, it is a ‘mental disease’ where one constantly creates excuses for not taking time to complete a task or goal.

EXCUSITIS OCCURS NATURALLY – AND OFTEN!

The devious aspect of excusitis is that it can manifest in any task or goal over any period of time. The challenges of time management, energy management, momentum, and motivation stretch across each action in our daily lives. When we choose to prioritize our efforts according to these criteria, certain tasks will naturally fall to the bottom of the list (often for ‘good reasons’). This is where excusitis rears its ugly head!

[BB Archive] Becoming Better at Money: High-Value Activities

When it comes to learning, “becoming better at money” is not something you find at the top of people’s list of interests. In being asked to investigate this skill, you may find yourself thinking: how can I become better with money when I don’t even have enough of it to make ends meet? For those who are living paycheck-to-paycheck or without significant savings, becoming better at money feels like a low-priority item; there’s no motivation to improve our knowledge of it (at least until we have more of it).

This blog is our chance to turn that mindset around; and let this post be the start of it. In our time together, I will be introducing simple and straightforward ideas to increase our income through becoming better at money. The first idea is deceptively easy, and can have you earning upwards of $720/hour on your first go-around! Sound ridiculous? Let’s look at a real-world example to see how it works:

[BB Archive] You don’t suck at anything.

from https://open.buffer.com/keep-going/

As we continue our journey at becoming better, we’re going to discover many new options for how we can approach life. Mastering these skills requires persistence, specifically in remembering to practice them. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to forget to practice when we feel like we’re not making progress. We experience this emotion frequently throughout our lives, and it doesn’t feel great. In fact, it often frustrates us to the point where we stop practicing completely.

In our frustration, we will think to ourselves (and sometimes even tell others!) “I suck at this” or “I’m bad at this.” If you can catch yourself falling into this trap, there is a very simple tactic we can use to feel better about sucking at something (side note: this tactic is part of an overall strategy of reframing, which we’ll discuss later on). Practicing this tactic is as simple as being aware of whether you’re feeling good or bad towards spending your time practicing a skill.