Loyalty versus Rationality
28 March 2008Why does loyalty exist? What evolutionary significance does it have? I’m not an evolutionary scientist, but I have a few ideas.
First, a definition from dictionary.com:
1. faithful to one’s sovereign, government, or state: a loyal subject.
2. faithful to one’s oath, commitments, or obligations: to be loyal to a vow.
3. faithful to any leader, party, or cause, or to any person or thing conceived as deserving fidelity: a loyal friend.
4. characterized by or showing faithfulness to commitments, vows, allegiance, obligations, etc.: loyal conduct.
Loyalty is found at different levels: with family, friends, governments, and even companies. This emotional attachment is our way of sticking together. Presumably our ancestors who were more loyal were better suited to survive. Interdependence with those around us is a key stepping stone to success.
At it’s basic construct, loyalty is an emotional attachment that unites us.
Loyalty will have us do what is best for the group instead of what is better for us as individuals. We will blindly support the group if necessary, putting our faith in a unified effort. We will feel compelled to come to the rescue of other loyal subjects if they are in need. We will be loyal to those around us by guarding and protecting them from strangers. Loyalty is what causes us to choose sides, particularly when we don’t know which side to be on.
Loyalty and faith will also pull teams through difficult times. When the group faces challenges, loyalty forms an emotional bond that will hold a group together, making us comfortable with the sacrifice of our own needs in favor of the needs of the group. Imagine if your spouse had no loyalty. As soon as you get in a fight over how to load the dishes, the relationship would be over. 
Loyalty is a critical part of civilized society, it unites us, builds strong teams of people that protect each other.
Now like other basic emotions like fear, it can hurt us if not used properly. When can loyalty hurt us? When can it cause us to act incorrectly?
- When it causes us to choose the wrong side. Have you ever defended someone only to find out later they were wrong? Have you ever stood up for a group effort, to find out that it was the wrong group to be in? I’m sure we all have our stories to back this up, I know I do.
- When it causes us to stay in a situation that is not healthy. Loyalty is a very powerful, compelling emotion for some. Abusive relationships, gangs, and hostile working environments are situations that should not be tolerated, but people do. Could it be that loyalty is what causes us to stick around?
- When it impairs the judgement of what we are loyal too. In situations of strong loyalty, we will excuse the actions of what we are loyal to. We may manipulate the facts to make our subject appear in a better light. Loyalty creates a cloud that causes us to not think clearly. We may not be able to see just how bad the situation is — our judgement is compromised.
Here are some specific examples I’ve seen where loyalty overpowers a rational decision:
- Staying with a dying company (company loyalty)
- Living in a small town with no opportunity (family loyalty)
- Unjustified wars (country loyalty aka patriotism)
- Working in a hostile working environment (company loyalty)
- Abusive relationships (spouse loyalty)
Is loyalty clouding your judgement? Is it causing you to evaluate the circumstances around you in an biased manner? Is loyalty compromising your ability to make a rational decision? Something to think about.
Dependence - Independence - Interdependence
24 February 2008Ever heard someone say "He’s 20, but he acts like he’s 16.", showing that age is not a true indicator of maturity? What then, defines maturity?
As we go through life, we have several stages of maturity.
Dependence - From the time we are born, we need those around us to survive. Infants need constant supervision and nourishment, toddlers need to be sheltered from the new dangers they can start to touch, and adolescent children need food, shelter, and water provided for them.
Independence - As we enter our teenage years, the fierce struggle for independence begins. "I can do this on my own", we tell ourselves. We may still need our parents for shelter and food, but we resent the idea. We struggle to define our selves as an independent being, free from the need of external support. Teenagers everywhere can relate at some level, and parents are challenged all across the world with the transition from dependence to independence.
Some of us charge into independence with such veracity that we may cause pain for those along with us on our journey. We may disregard the thoughts of others and not understanding the value of relationships. After staking your claim in the ground in the name of independence, you realize you are all alone, and it hits you.
Your dreams are much bigger now, and you can’t do it on your own. Your vision has exceeded your ability to execute. Great problem to have, and it’s time for some help. And you realize, there are other people that need help too. The light bulb goes off. We can all help each other to succeed by working together and embracing each other’s success.
Interdependence — is the top level of maturity where you focus your efforts on building a set of relationships around you of people that can help. Your dreams are too big to be accomplished alone, and so are the dreams of those around you.
Invest in those around you, build a circle of relationships by helping others understand what it is that they want and giving them the tools to achieve their success.
I suggest reading Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for more detail.
Yahoo! layoffs coming?
21 January 2008Rumor mills are circulating that there are major layoffs coming soon. Since I work at Yahoo! (YHOO), I’ll document some thoughts.
I think a layoff at Yahoo! would be a good thing.
- Cut some fat - The company has a bunch of smart people, amongst the brightest I’ve ever worked with, but there are so many of us that most projects are overstaffed. How can something be overstaffed? As the number of people working on a project increases, so does communication expense. Everyone spends all of their time talking to each other and getting each other "on the same page". If you haven’t read the Mythical Man Month, I encourage you to do so. This concept is covered in detail.
- Hunker down - Yahoo! should also prepare properly for the upcoming recession, brought on by the Subprime Lending crisis and 8 years of leadership by the worst president in history. Now is a good time to trim expenses and have more cash laying around.
- An Answer Wall Street’s calls for major change - Heads rolling is often symbolic of a company that "means business" and is willing to take serious action for change. Having a big layoff will stop everyone from saying that Yahoo! Management isn’t doing enough.
Wait a minute! I work there. What about me? I feel pretty safe. I was recently promoted, I work on the companies current #1 top-secret initiative, of which I am an architect for an essential piece of it, and I just booked a trip to England to get to know the rest of my team better.
But even if I get the axe? I’d enjoy a nice severance package and the opportunity to look around at all the exciting opportunities in the Silicon Valley, like wikinvest.com, wikia’s new search, and other startups. I get 5-10 job solicitations a month — so the problem won’t be finding a new job, but deciding which opportunity is the best vehicle for my talents.
Election prediction: Clinton will win
3 January 2008With the 2008 Iowa Caucuses tonight, I thought it would be a good time for a prediction, and to share my thoughts.
I predict that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States.
Not to say she’s my favorite candidate. They all have issues. I’m just looking at the numbers right now and I think that’s who will win.
If she wins, she will be the first female president. Wow. I didn’t think she had a chance when she started running. I don’t think anyone did. That’s why Iowa is so pivotal, and that’s why she will win the whole election if she wins Iowa. There is support for her, but there is some reluctance because the country isn’t sure if a woman could really win an election. Once she proves that she can take a state, I think there will be a watershed of support.
Another odd thought, my mom brought this to my attention — if Clinton wins, we will have had two families rule the White House since 1988 — 20 years.
- 1988 - 1992 George Bush Sr.
- 1992 - 2000 Bill Clinton
- 2000 - 2008 George Bush Jr. (the absolute worst president in history)
- 2008 - 2012 Hillary Clinton (no, I don’t think she will be re-elected)
I think it’s a great breakthrough to have a female president. We’ve always said that we support equal rights, but our world certainly isn’t structured in a way that supports this. It will certainly be one for the history books.
Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
31 December 2007Perhaps the most influential book of my life, Man’s Search for Meaning is an eye opener that will show you a different perspective, and may just give you something to live for.
Viktor E. Frankl survived Auschwitz. He entered the Nazi concentration camp as an psychologist, and found himself stripped of everything external, including his wife, his family, his life’s work, his home, his country, and even his identity.
In these circumstances, all we have left is our internal fortitude — our purpose. The author makes a decent argument that when we don’t have anything else, if we lose purpose, we die. He saw it happen with other prisoners, once they had come to the conclusion that they had no purpose in life, they would be dead within a few days.
What is your purpose in life?
Those close to me know what mine is, it’s to protect and provide for my family. The central theme of this book is to teach you how important it is to have a purpose - to search for the meaning of life.
Man’s Search For Meaning is not a nazi death camp horror story, he specifically tries to avoid this approach, as there are plenty of books out there that tell that story. Instead, Viktor Frankl evaluates the situation from a [surprisingly] objective scientific perspective, by focusing his efforts on watching the other prisoners from as a psychologist would, and this book — his purpose — is the result.
This book is mentioned in numerous other self-help books, and it is a must read. Buy Man’s Search For Meaning on Amazon
Use fear to your advantage
24 November 2007When fear is advantageous
Fear is an emotion that is experienced in anticipation of a possible event that may have an unknown or undesirable outcome.
Why does fear exist? From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense. When we were caveman, it was good that we were afraid of our predators. Our dumb cousin that wasn’t afraid of the bear didn’t live long enough to pass his genes along. On the same note, it is good that we are afraid of heights, or afraid to walk along the edge of a cliff. Fear is our body’s way of telling us to be careful — there may be danger ahead.
Fear is there for a reason, and should be listened to.
Fear is necessary for avoiding primal danger. Our ancestors undoubtedly benefited from fear. Fear is also a very strong emotion, relative to the others. It needs to be, because it must override other emotions.
When fear works against us
Fear is a primal, survival instinct. It’s there to help us survive. We don’t have to worry about predators anymore. In our modern day world, fear holds us back from success, because fear overrides our willingness to take risks. In business, people who listen too much to fear are doomed for failure, even if it’s through stagnation.
All of us have faced a major decision in our life, where we had the safe route, or the risky, but rewarding route. And we all have at least once taken the safe route, looked back with regret, saying "I wish I would have…" or "If I only knew then what I know now…"
How to use fear to your advantage
Once you’ve identified that you are afraid, that is a great first step, because you can confront the fear and deal with it.
The best way to overcome fear is to accept the worst-case scenario.
Fear cannot exist unless there is unknown. Remember, fear is an emotion that deals with what might happen. You don’t get scared watching a horror movie more than a few times. Why? Because you’ve removed the scary part — the unknown, the tension of what might happen. If you can go into a situation knowing that all possible outcomes are in your favor, there is nothing to be afraid of. Here’s how:
- Take some time, do some planning. Think through what might happen.
- Ask yourself the dreaded question:
What is the worst that can happen?
If your answer to this question is ruinous, then stop. Stop right there. Fear did it’s job, and saved you from a potentially bad situation. Whew. Say thank you to your smart great ancestor that ran away from the bear.
Now, if it’s a worthwhile goal, you probably don’t want to give up that easily. So do some more planning, and try to address the worst case scenario with a contingency plan. Go back to step #1, and then see if you were able to create a back up plan that made your worst case scenario not as bad.
Keep repeating this process, and as you continue to address worst case scenarios with proper planning, you will magically find that you are no longer afraid of the situation.
I’ve committed myself to not making any [more] decisions based on fear. Proper management and planning make every situation possible. Instead of allowing fear to paralyze us and impede our success, use fear wisely to force yourself to build contingency plans for every imaginable outcome. Flex your universe, and make the worst case scenario palatable and you will no longer be afraid.
The observer chooses the path
3 November 2007Modern day meta-physicists agree that an electron can coexsist in two places at the same time. This is pretty neat when you stop and think about it. One physical entity, in two different places, at the same time.
Even more significant is the idea that, as Einstein predicted, the entity appears to choose which place it exists in based on the Observer. What does this mean? Well, we can’t really see it in two places at once, as soon as we look at at it it’s in one place. That’s where it exists. And when we look at it in the other place, that’s where it exists. We just know that it exists in two places because of the Slit Experiment.
For non-science geeks that may have found that last paragraph confusing, hopefully you’ve seen the movie Mystery Men. There is a seen where Invisible Boy tells everyone that he knows he is invisible, but he can only use his super power if no one is looking at him, including himself. He just knows that he is invisible. Light is the same way. It can coexist in two places at the same time, but only if no one is looking at it. 
Another known effect of observation is the Observer Effect. Often confused with Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principal, the Observer Effect happens when the very act of watching something changes it, so it’s impossible to truly observe it. I think about it this way; imagine trying to accurately measure a worm. When you go to stretch it out next to a ruler, you are making it longer than it really is. Or think about measuring the size of an electron. As soon as you put an instrument of measurement nearby it, you alter the structure of the atom it exists in, which means it’s effectively immeasurable.
How can this apply to us?
This effect gives a lot of power to the Observer, right? If we can can choose where a light particle exists by looking at it, then what does this mean for our life?
Well, who is observing your life?
You are!
By choosing to take your life in a certain direction, you are choosing between different pathways through life. By observing that particular direction, you are defining it’s existence.
Perhaps Benjamin Elijah Mays said it best:
"It is not your environment, it is you — the quality of your mind, the integrity of your soul, the determination of your will — that will decide the future and shape your life."
The observer — you — chooses the path through life. So get busy! Make some plans, accept responsibility for your choices, and you’ll be flexing your universe in no time.
Plans are nothing, planning is everything
25 October 2007Good posts start with quotes from famous thinkers, right?
Plans are nothing; planning is everything
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
And just for good measure, here’s another.
Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.
– Winston Churchill
Why do both these men place such importance on planning, but disregard the plan itself?
Planning enforces structured thinking to increase the chances of success.
Whether it is a business plan, a project plan, vacation planning, scalability planning, or a war general’s battle plan, there are some key benefits to thinking through a situation ahead of time.
- You think about what you need to accomplish
- You think about the steps required to get there
- You think about obstacles that you face that prevent you from reaching your goal
- You think about what can go wrong
All of these elements of a plan will have a new found clarity once you’ve taken the time to think them through. Even more so if you have to think it through enough to write it down. Even more if you have to present your plan to someone else. Yet again even more if you have to present your plan to someone whom you respect.
As you do more planning, your thoughts on what to do will solidify; as if you are turning the future into your own reality. It’s time to start carving where it is you want to be and how you want to get there. Stop reacting to what life is throwing at you and start planning your life to go where you want. Planning is the critical first step for any universe flexing. What plans do you have? Or, should I say, what planning have you done?
Solving world poverty
17 October 2007Step 1. Start with $27. Give it to 42 people in an impoverished country as a loan for income generating activities. They will use this money to do things like raise livestock, buy tools and equipment for trade, or to buy initial supplies to have them start a business.
Step 2. After 100% of them pay you back, you’ve proven the program is successful because you’ve built a system of microcredit based on trust. Now build a process for managing this so that it’s profitable and easiliy replicated. Now open a bank that specializes in doing this.
Step 3. Repeat step 1, 5.3 million times.
For those that don’t know already, I’m talking about Muhammad Yunus, the man who pioneered the idea of microcredit in 1976, by doing the above. The Grameen Bank has since loaned out over 5 billion dollars with a typical loan size of $50-500 and a 99% payback rate.
I was fortunate enough to hear him speak today at work, and it was incredibly inspiring. I understand why he was awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Why is it that the richer you are, the easier it is to get money, and the poorer you are, the harder it is to get money?
I heard him talk about a time in our future where he wants to see "poverty museums" — where children don’t even know what it is and it has to be shown as a relic of our past. We should eliminate poverty by focusing on helping the poor up instead of continuing to establish systems where the rich get richer.
The talk also reinforced my beliefs of trust, he says that he has such a high payback rate because borrowers are never punished for non repayment, but the bank staff actively works with people that are having trouble to solve their problems and get them back on track. Those that know me well know that I trust first, much more than what is common in America today.
It was a life changing event for me, something that I will always remember. I encourage you to read more about Muhammad Yunus, microcredit, and the Grameen Bank.
Be a food bigot
5 October 2007I am a food bigot. I don’t want my Italian food any where near my Mexican food. Please join with me in helping keep food pure. If you are a restaurant owner, you need to aggressively defend specialization. Here’s why.
I love Mexican food. I can eat it like the average computer geek can eat pizza and bawls energy drinks.
I enjoy fine Mexican food; I highly recommend a restaurant in Mexico called La Costa (pronounced "la coasta" by the locals). The best place to eat Mexican food in San Diego is El Callejon in Encinitas. Tell them Nick sent you and ask for a pitcher of Cadillac margaritas made with El Tesoro Anejo tequila. It will be the best — and strongest — margaritas you have ever had in a restaurant. Be sure to order the tortilla soup!
Fine dining aside, one of my favorite ways to enjoy Mexican food is to get a Carne Asada burrito from a dirty, grungy taco shop in Southern California. A good carne asada burrito has:
- 12-14″ diameter tortilla
- Carne Asada - small, grilled and seasoned pieces of steak
- Pico de Gallo - tomatoes, onions, lime juice
- Guacomole (optional, but recommended)
- Sour cream (optional, but highly recommended)
My mouth is watering right now. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a Carne Asada burrito from Santanas in San Marcos. Ever since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, I really miss being able to go to a taco shop at 3:00am and get a breakfast burrito. There is no better way to prevent a hangover. Do you know of a place near Pleasanton that is open 24 hours? Let me know by leaving a comment.
As mexican food aficionado, imagine my disgust when I heard about the idea of a california burrito. For those that don’t know what this is, let me explain. You take a pristine Carne Asada burrito, and you add — get this — french fries.
That’s right. French Fries. In a burrito. Are you f#$%ing kidding me?!
There are other examples in our life. You can get a breakfast burrito at McDonalds. You can get a taco at Jack in the Box. You can usually get a hamburger at most Mexican restaurants.
The problem with this diversification is a lack of specialization. When I want the best Japanese sushi, the absolute last thing I want to see is on the menu is a hamburger for the kids. NO! Please NO!
If this trend of converging cultures continues, all our food will combine into a congealed super food, a protein paste that tastes like chicken.
Restaurant owners, take heed. As consumers, we don’t want you to appeal to every one. We don’t want you to have a variety of food from different cultures. There are hundreds of restaruants within 25 miles of where I live. If I want a hamburger, I want to go to the place that specializes in hamburgers. If I come to your restaurant, it’s because I want you to be the absolute best you can be for your type of food. Specialize, and stand with me in being a food bigot!
