Quotes of the Week From Me:

“The best advice I’ve gotten and given is to use your time wisely. It’s all the time you’re gonna get.”

“Work hard. Work daily. Work. Work. Work.”

“Don’t complain, adapt. Don’t make excuses, make solutions. Don’t blame others, take responsibility.”

Quotes of the Week From Others:

“Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.” – Albert Camus

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” – Epicurus

Quick Optimism

Does micro-exercise work? I was listening to a podcast with my wife the other day. They asked an interesting question about whether or not micro-exercise throughout the day would be beneficial.

You’re on the subway, you do a set of 10 pushups. You stop at a crosswalk, you do 10 squats. You are waiting in line to buy lunch, you do 10 jumping jacks.

Micro education or micro credentials are the new thing; short, intensive courses to learn new skills or material. Badges or certificates indicating completion of some level of commitment. Seems to work on a resume. Does it work with exercise?

I’d argue there is always benefit to doing something that is healthy, but would micro exercise be enough?

I’d argue that micro nutrition would not be. You wouldn’t be that much healthier if you ate a vegetable three more times per day in between an unhealthy diet. Three servings of broccoli don’t overpower three servings of donuts. The benefits would probably come in addition to an overall healthy diet.

Like food, I doubt even 10 random exercises throughout your day would give you that much benefit. It might loosen you up after sitting down for awhile but I am not sure you would be in that much better shape as compared to concentrated workouts. However, if that is all you want to add to your day, I absolutely suggest micro exercise over zero exercise.

What’s the right balance?

I guess it really depends what you’re looking at when we want to make things micro.

Full Newsletter

Part I

On this day.

I decided to wait until this morning to write this week’s newsletter. I have been reflecting and taking notes all week, but I figured the weight of the day would make it that much more important. I woke up early; the plan was my usual wake up time but my daughter, Millie, decided 3:40am was a nice change.

September 11 is just one of those heavy, emotional dates for so many people. The infamy. How fresh it still feels. It is such a significant piece of very recent history. I was coming up on my 7^th birthday in September, 2001, but don’t remember much. I can deduce that I was likely in school if I wasn’t home sick or something. I do remember watching the replay a year or two later in my classroom. I often confuse these memories even though I am aware of the timeline. Almost as if I was watching it live in my classroom, though I know it not to be the case.  

Everyone who was old enough to remember has their story of where they were and what they were doing when the attacks happened. Because I was alive, because of the reruns on television every year, and because of how much everyone’s lives changed, I recognize the shock, fear, sadness, and anger associated with this day. It was and is an absolutely devastating part of American history. It has become an absolutely unifying part of American history.

Take the time to watch, remember, grieve, and also appreciate how our country and people responded. Take all the time you need.

Part II

We just filled out the Gallup Clifton Strengths finder a few months ago at work. My team and I found out our greatest strengths based on their research-based themes. We have since discussed those strengths a second time as our team has grown and new members have taken the survey.

You may relate to some or all of the themes below, I think they describe me pretty well. If you are interested, check it out by Googling “Gallup Clifton Strengths” and take the test for yourself. Here are my top five strengths in order, with quoted descriptions from Gallup:

Ideation

“You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of most events. You are delighted when you discover, beneath the complex surface, an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are.

An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, and because they are bizarre.

For all these reasons, you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days, this is enough.”

Relator

“Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people — in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends — but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends.

You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk — you might be taken advantage of — but you are willing to accept that risk.

For you, a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.”

Maximizer

“Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling.

Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps — all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines.

This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding.”

Competition

“Competition is rooted in comparison. When you look at the world, you are instinctively aware of other people’s performance. Their performance is the ultimate yardstick.

No matter how hard you tried, no matter how worthy your intentions, if you reached your goal but did not outperform your peers, the achievement feels hollow. Like all competitors, you need other people. You need to compare. If you can compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win. And when you win, there is no feeling quite like it.

You like measurement because it facilitates comparisons. You like other competitors because they invigorate you. You like contests because they must produce a winner. You particularly like contests where you know you have the inside track to be the winner.

Although you are gracious to your fellow competitors and even stoic in defeat, you don’t compete for the fun of competing. You compete to win. Over time you will come to avoid contests where winning seems unlikely.”

Context

“You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present.

From your vantage point, the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. It is only by casting your mind back to an earlier time, a time when the plans were being drawn up, that the present regains its stability.

The earlier time was a simpler time. It was a time of blueprints. As you look back, you begin to see these blueprints emerge. You realize what the initial intentions were. These blueprints or intentions have since become so embellished that they are almost unrecognizable, but now this Context theme reveals them again. This understanding brings you confidence. No longer disoriented, you make better decisions because you sense the underlying structure.

You become a better partner because you understand how your colleagues came to be who they are. And counterintuitively, you become wiser about the future because you saw its seeds being sown in the past. Faced with new people and new situations, it will take you a little time to orient yourself, but you must give yourself this time.

You must discipline yourself to ask the questions and allow the blueprints to emerge because no matter what the situation, if you haven’t seen the blueprints, you will have less confidence in your decisions.”

Make it a strong Monday, for all the reasons you need.