Great Data

Before an entrepreneur starts a new business, she should probably do some market research.

As lucrative as it is to run a coffee shop, she does not want to open one in a college town that already has nineteen.

Or maybe a yarn shop that only sells Bill Murray Ugly Sweater patterns is a little too niche of a market.

No matter what, she should do some research before she launches.

However, she can also paralyze herself. She starts to research her coffee shop and decides she should launch, but she is not sure what type of coffee to use and starts researching. The different coffees of the world. Eventually, she is flying all over the world to find the perfect coffee for her shop. But before she decides on the perfect coffee, she realizes that she also needs the perfect espresso machine and the perfect drip brew system.

Now she must find the perfect brew system to complement the perfect roast and make sure that they actually go together as the perfect pair. And before she knows it, she has blown her whole startup budget on researching all the perfect elements and has not sold a single cup of coffee.

What about opening her doors with a really good coffee with a really good espresso machine and a pretty good drip brewing system? She needs good data and an informed opinion, but she was trying to open a great coffee shop, not get her PhD in coffee and brew systems.

Where is research holding you back? Where are you letting yourself be hamstrung by your perceived needs versus your actual needs? Who can help you see where you are holding yourself back? Who can you help see where you are holding yourself back?

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Finders Seekers

Have you ever notice we find what we are looking for?

When we go to the grocery store looking for milk and there it is. We go to the mall to find new shoes and there they are. We get on amazon.com to order toilet paper and there it is.

We go to one coffee shop to find rude baristas with burnt coffee and there it is. We go to the other coffee shop to find perky baristas with sugar coffee and there it is.

We go out to the restaurant that has good food with bad service. And? Every time we get good food and bad service.

We show up to work expecting the same people to be frustrating and the same people to be a pleasure to work alongside.

What if the problem is we keep looking for the same thing and finding it, not that the thing we’re looking for is always present every time we go looking for it? What are you looking for? What should you be looking for?

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Perpetual Learner

I am regularly called upon as a defacto tech support guy for family and a few friends. A role I fill with honor and pride as most often I am fixing problems or answering experience based questions, two things I enjoy doing at my core.

When helping I often surprise myself and others with how much I can do. How quickly I am willing to dive knee deep into the issue and start sorting it out. I do not shy away from getting into the nitty gritty of the issue and start boiling it down to the core issue. Usually when presented with the opportunity I am able to research and finagle my way around the information-super-highway with ease until I have the complete issue brought to a close.

My ability to lean into the issue is what makes me most enjoy the process. I am not intimidated by the little computer or the software making it run. I trust myself to figure out how to fix any issue I create while trying to fix the problem at hand.

I never shy away from helping with tech support.

I regularly shy away from other sorts of skilled work. Skilled work like carpentry, pottery, and gardening.

I know these are skills I could have, but I have no interest in them. I have no drive or fire to figure them out. I have effectively stuck my head in the sand in regards to these skills. I do not want to have them because so little of my life needs them. Plus, once I dig into these skills, they require so many tools that are effectively single use tools I cannot see myself using for any other purpose.

I am ashamed to say it but for many skills and crafts, I have effectively stuck my head in the sand and I do not care to learn any more about them. I am happy to stay as ignorant now as I was before. There is a healthy medium place between where I am and a master carpenter. But for now I am as unskilled as the plank I am not holding.

Where are you sticking your head in the sand? What area could you be more knowledgeable or skilled? Who can teach you more about this area?

Learning,

–JT

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Roles

Being in a new role now, I have much to learn. A new team, new responsibilities, and new processes galore. I have so much to learn and it is everything I can do not to go crazy learning it all. It is not so much the process of learning or the learning that is killing me. It is the feeling of being so new. The feeling of being semi inept at everything and relying on everyone around me to bail me out at every turn because of my inexperience. I will get over it. However, I long to never forget what it is like and how it feels to be working through a new role. How there are volumes of information to learn and my only tool for learning them is time.

In the most different of ways, my patience is being tested. My patience with myself is being tested. I usually have no problem being patient with other people. But, now I have to be patient with myself. I have to wait for everything to become engrained in my mind so that I do not forget it. And, in the event I choose not to be patient, I am handicapping myself and making the learning almost impossible because I will be trying to shortcut the process, skip steps, and potentially break something.

Ultimately, I have to be patient or I will not last in what I am doing.
What are you learning? How patient are you being with yourself as you learn it? How patient are you with others who are learning around you?

Patiently,

–JT

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Teaching

Teaching is one of the noble careers I appreciate. Natural teachers are some of my favorite people to be around. They are so adept at bringing learning into their whole life and sharing new knowledge with me and everyone around them.

However, I so forget how much it takes to be a teacher. I was trying to document my processes and systems for how I do what I do and I realized how much it really takes to teach. The visuals so people can see things the way I see them. The endless words strewn across pages and pages to describe my actions.

Then, at the end of the day, the people I am trying to teach still have completely different mental filters and life experiences between the two of us getting in the way of our filters and conversations. We have no way to cross these hurtles without standing in the same room together and talking it all through.

I had forgotten how much it really takes to teach people what I was doing. I had also forgotten how much it had taken for me to get to be doing what I do. How many layers of the onion had grown on top of one another to develop into the job I was doing.
It was very humbling to not be able to document the layers of the onion. I did not need to document how or why things had gotten to be they way they are. I only needed to document how to do the what needs to be done. And though, it was important to have a process through which these processes could improve, it was not necessary in least to document the evolution of how things came to be how they are.

I realized the necessity of having things be the way they are is good, but I had too often been trying to protect things and keep them the way they were because of the process to get them to be the way they were and I was not fighting for everything to get better because it needed to be better.

I was trying to protect the inner layers of the onion meanwhile the outermost layer of the onion was rotting away and couldn’t grow or improve.

What are you needlessly fighting to protect? If you were to document how you do what you do, how much time would you have to spend defending the process to get to where you are? Is the process to get to where you are as important as the destination? Where is your pride getting in the way?

Humbly,

–JT

Naturally Wrong

I recently realized how deep my preconceived notions colors my interactions with other people. I have a knack for learning people. I don’t necessarily learn all people, but I do learn people close to me whom I think of as friends. I learn coworkers and people I greatly respect. I learn their nuances and schedules and routines. I cannot keep track of everything but I keep track of what I can. Most importantly, I do not do any of this intentionally. My head naturally keeps track of it all. I do not understand why my head does it, it just does. A natural part of my personality. 

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This is great for me because I know when and how I should best communicate with people and what is going to work best in order to connect with them. 

The major drawback of my tendency to track people is the baggage it creates. If my brain is a cargo ship cruising across the ocean of life, the people my mind tracks get a shipping container in aboard the SS Manning’s Mind. As I have more experiences with a person, I slowly fill their container with information. In the moment, the information is useful and accurate. Long term, not always the case. 

Long term, I end up applying static information to dynamic people. Long term, the people in my mind do not get to grow or change. The information now colors how I see them, what I think about them, and how I interact with them. 

Every time I open their shipping container, I see everything in the container colored by static information. Information in dire need of an update. 

These preconceived notions keep me from allowing people to grow. 

These containers are in a terrible need of some spring cleaning.

What is a natural skill you have? What are some benefits of this skill? What are some drawbacks? How are you compensating for the drawbacks of what you do naturally?

Reconceiving,

–JT

Reading Is Fun & Mental

I have much to learn in life. Even more so, there is more to learn in life than I could ever learn. I enjoy learning. I do have a maximum learning capacity at any one given period. However, I enjoy filling my learning cap and I enjoy learning even when I do not need to. I have noticed a trend in my life where people consider some learning to be more significant than others. Specifically, reading seems to be the highest form of learning. 

When you ask someone what they are reading, you are almost asking them what they are learning. I have been asked on many occasions, “What are you reading?” Most often, I have very little I am actively reading. Generally, I am in the middle of a book at all times but not very far into it or very interested in finishing it. I usually try to be learning something. However, reading does not do it for me. I am seeing a trend though, reading is portrayed as the, ‘learners method.’ You cannot be learning if you are not reading. For me, I think this discounts the essence of learning. Learning is what we do when we bring in new information. 

Learning is what we do when we absorb something we have never thought of or experienced. 

Learning is an essential part of life.

For me, I always want to be learning; but, in testing, experience, and with the advice of wise teachers and leaders in my life. Reading is quite possibly the most awful way I can learn. 

I am slow. 

I have have a low absorption rate. 

I do not do the best job of converting abstract concepts I read about concrete ideas I can implement.

How do I succeed in a world where who considers reading to be the most affluent way of learning?

How do you learn? What do you think of someone who is not currently reading something for learning?

Learning,

–JT

Afraid of the Dark

A great leader once said, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” These words may or may not be completely true. But I do believe there is power in fear. It is paralyzing. Fear makes me anxious. Fear makes me not want to do things because the possibility of failure. Sometimes I have even been fearful at the thought of succeeding. Either way, fear still lingers. 

Lately, I have been in many situations where I find myself afraid of what is coming. I am afraid to step up. Afraid to do something new. Afraid to fill shoes bigger than my old shoes. Generally, fearful of what is going on. The crazy part about being so afraid and fearful of what I am doing is,

I have been loving it and hating it at the same time.

I have been doing new things, trying new things, and getting out of my comfort zone and it has been going well. I have been reminded of a truth I once new. If I’m not doing something I am afraid of, I am probably not growing. This phrase is true, not universally true, but it is truth for me  and healthy for now. There are rare times or seasons where I am maybe not doing anything new but there is still some fear in me. 

The core still remains, doing new things often comes with a fair amount of fear. It is good for me to do things I’m afraid of. 

I think I am growing and succeeding because I am facing down my fears. 

The biggest fear I have been facing is my fear of failure. A fear I now call, a fear of learning.

Where is fear keeping you from taking a step out? Where are you letting fear rule you?

Fearfully,

–JT