Posted on

Playing your hand

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

–Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

When your time is limited 

Randy Pausch learned that he had pancreatic cancer in September 2006, and was given 3 to 6 months to live.

As a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, he wanted to do something authentic before passing, something that encapsulated his life; who he was and what he learned. 

He got to writing and within the next year, he gave a lecture titled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” The talk was later turned into a book, The Last Lecture, which became a New York Timesbest-seller.

Both are phenomenal, and worth checking out.

Playing Your Hand

There’s no doubt you’ve experienced some sort of setback in your life. How you choose to interpret the situation is up to you.

Sure, we need to be realistic; your mentality doesn’t change the fact that you were dealt a 7 / 2 off-suit. 

Yet at the same time, you only get one hand to play, so you might as well play it as best you can. 

“You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences… and then you die. How you choose to interpret that is up to you. And you do have that choice.”

-Naval Ravikant 

Stop focusing on your cards. 

Get out, get going, and play the best damn hand you can. 

Posted on

What slow elevators teach us

Once upon a time, there was a multi-story office building in New York.

Occupants began complaining about the poor elevator service provided in the building. Waiting times became excessively long, and many tenants threatened to move out if it wasn’t fixed.

A consultant was hired and management authorized a study to determine the best solution.

The study revealed that because of the age of the building no engineering solution could be justified economically. Each option was estimated to cost millions of dollars, which would result in minimal speed improvements.

The desperate manager called a meeting of his staff, which included a graduate in psychology.

The young man decided to focus on something different. Instead of analyzing elevator speed, he studied why people were complaining.

If the complaints were a consequence of boredom, the building would need to give those waiting something to occupy their time pleasantly. Perhaps this may solve the problem, he thought. He suggested installing mirrors in the elevator lobbies; people love to look at themselves, right?

The manager took up his suggestion and installed the mirrors at a relatively low cost.

The complaints about waiting stopped. [1]


Sometimes we spend a lot of time focusing on a symptom instead of the issue.

There are a lot of symptoms for each problem, so it’s easy to confuse the two. Unfortunately, once our brains see something one way, we rarely change our assumptions; it becomes harder to form new, creative paths.

Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

Top performers focus on questioning the problem, not the solution. What keeps them up at night? A deep desire to understand the questions across our universe. Even 90% through a problem, brilliant minds like Einstein would continue to dispute the issue at hand.

So, which part of the equation are you spending your time on?

Could it possibly be the elevator speed, when in reality, the tenants are your concern?

[1] ACKOFF, R. AND GREENBERG, D. (2008) TURNING LEARNING RIGHT SIDE UP: PUTTING EDUCATION BACK ON TRACK, NEW JERSEY: PRENTICE HALL.
Posted on

The ultimate superpower

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis opened more than 40,000 concentration camps across Europe. Millions of people were stripped of their rights, forced into labor, and dehumanized; one of those people was a psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl.

His parents, brother, and wife were killed inside the camps; he nearly lost his entire family. Each morning, he woke up with less faith in humanity.

One day, he became aware of what he called, “the last of human freedoms.”

While everything was taken from him, there was one thing they could not take: the freedom of choice. He still had the ability to decide how his circumstances would affect him. This one power gave him the strength to survive the war and go on to publish 39 books and receive 29 honorary doctoral degrees.

Each time something happens, there is moment between the action happening and your reaction. Inside this space, each person has the ability to choose their way forward.

It doesn’t matter what the situation is; you always control the space. Sometimes the space feels small, sometimes, it feels non-existent, but it’s always there. If Dr. Frankl was able to recognize the space despite his extreme, despondent circumstances, it can always be found. Recognizing the power to control the reaction is stronger than any comic book characters’ supposed gift.

It’s not what happens to us, but how we respond that determines our reality.

Posted on

Focus on the valuable reality

Here’s what I can tell you about stress…

  • It’s 1 of 6 leading causes of death
  • 70-90% of doctor’s visits are attributed to stress
  • It negatively affects human organs

But what I can also tell you about stress…

  • It helps boost performance on cognitive tasks and memory
  • It narrows your perspective and increases brain processing speed
  • It’s shown to facilitate deeper bonds, also known as post-traumatic growth

Both are equally true.

In a recent study, they took 380 bankers and divided them into two groups. The first group was given all the negative facts about stress and then told, “Try not to stress out this week.” The second group was given all the positive facts about stress and then told, “Try to use stress to your advantage this week.”

One week later, the second group (positive primed) saw a 23% decrease in all symptoms related to fatigue and a +30% increase in productivity*

Perspective matters. 

We all have a choice in the way we perceive situations; whether it’s a personal setback, work-related struggle, or an unpredicted event, you can control your perception. 

Push yourself to view how a challenge is also an opportunity.

When we choose the most valuable reality, we reach our greatest potential.