Heeeey Brother!
I really enjoyed your advice about giving advice. As a matter of fact, am I allowed to just say that the best advice I've ever received is your advice on giving advice?
No? Okay.
So I thought a lot about how to answer this question. I thought about people who have given me good advice at times when I was struggling. I thought about advice I've gotten from friends, teachers, and family members. I ultimately settled on advice that I've heard from a few different sources, phrased a few different ways. It's advice that I'm still trying to implement in my life today.
The first step to being really good at something is being really bad at something.
It makes sense. Wayne Gretzky wasn't born great at hockey. As a matter of fact I bet he fell on his face the first time he went out on the ice. I bet the first time Eric Clapton picked up a guitar it sounded like a cat dying. Now, I'm not saying we all have the ability to be as good as Wayne Gretzky if we practice hockey enough, but there was a time in his life when he was as bad at hockey as me. He was probably 3 years old, but still, the point stands.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I remember the first time I handed in a paper in an English class. I got a C+. Being that I had been a lazy high school student, it took me a little bit to realize this was not something to be proud of. It was a three page paper and I specifically remember thinking "How am I going to talk about something for three pages?". By the end of my English degree I would wonder how you could say anything important in just 3 pages. I was not great at writing when I started. It was only through writing lots of papers and getting lots of feedback that I managed to improve. Similarly, when I first moved out of mom and dad's place, I was terrible at most household things. I had two specialties: scrambled eggs, and grilled cheese sandwiches. I was terrible at cooking, but I'd never been forced to improve. Moving out and having a wife who didn't want to cook every single meal for me forced me to improve.
There are other things I can look at and think "maybe I wasn't great at that when I started". For example, I can see very easily how much my teaching has improved over the last three years. I'm better at relating to my students, managing their behaviour, assessing their work, and being flexible to their needs. Same thing with being a husband and a father. As much as the Mrs would tell you that I've always been amazing, it's pretty clear that I've had my shortcomings, and I'm constantly working on them.
As I've realized this, I've also had less time to improve on things outside of being a teacher, husband, and father, since those things take up so much of my time. This really puts a lot of things in perspective for me. For example, when I was a teenager I really wished I could be in a band, but I couldn't play any instruments. I wasn't willing to be terrible at guitar, so I'd never be good at it. Now, while I still think it would be cool to be in a band, I can see that you can't just be good at everything and have to prioritize things. Bands are cool, but music isn't a priority to me. I have no shame about not being able to play guitar, or dominate at hockey, because I don't have a lot of time to invest in those things. So the little time I do have to invest in hobbies, I'd like to put into things I'm passionate about, like writing.
I want to keep improving, that's why I keep branching out and finding new forms of writing. I'd love to branch out even more. I'd love to write fiction, but the thing is... I'm kind of bad at it right now, and there's only one way to get better. By being terrible. So I'm going to try to write anyway, and I'm going to share that writing, even if it's terrible. Because that's how you get to be not terrible.
Is there anything you'd like to be terrible at for a while?
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
Don't Eat Yellow Snow
Heeeey Brother!
Advice on giving advice…here we go.
The key to giving great advice is authenticity…once you learn to fake that, you’re set!
When I was 12 years old, not lacking in confidence, I remember distinctly thinking, “wow…I’m great at giving advice!” What I meant by that was, I was pretty good at telling people what to do, and providing a compelling reason to listen (…compelling to a 12 year old).
By this definition, giving great advice can often times feel like salesmanship, or manipulation. As my younger brother, I’m sure you’re the last person on Earth I need to convince of this argument. Remember Halloween? “It’s simple math! I’ll give you 3 tootsie rolls per chocolate bar! If you want more candy, I strongly advise you to take this deal!”
But we don’t always have selfish motives. In fact most days are not halloween. How do we advise people we love when we see them heading the wrong direction? How do we get them to change course when we know where the current path leads?
I don’t know the answer to that. But I know that I am an incredibly stubborn person, and I have learned most of my life lessons the hard way. Advice rarely gets through to me…but when it does, it always shares three characteristics.
- I trust the source. Usually because I know the person cares about me. Sometimes because the source has a history of integrity and credibility. I can count the number of people who meet both criteria on one hand, and you’re one of them.
- The advice wasn’t about getting me to change my behaviour. It was about equipping me to make my decision with new perspectives.
- Positivity is compelling and motivating. Fear is paralyzing.
Example:
“Mark, you’re going to regret buying that 20 pack of Monterey jack taquitos. Buy some vegetables instead!”
“Mmmmmmm…Taquitos sound amazing! What else do you want to accomplish this week?… Interesting…you want to be a productive, functioning human? Can you do that, AND eat 20 taquitos in 3 days?”
I think the best advice is about equipping people to make the decisions that are right for them. That makes the person giving the advice more invested in their subject, and less in their choices.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Jenga blocks and beliefs
Hey Brother!
Changing your mind is hard. I've been thinking a lot about the differences in how we developed changed minds. You talked about your old way of thinking. How you went from one belief to the other, equally confident in both positions. What I found interesting about that was that I think we had very similar changes of mind, yet the way it changed was different.
I didn't really have the same issue with overconfidence that you had. Let's take your jenga metaphor and run with it. You talked about your beliefs as a jenga block, Where you would pull out jenga blocks until your old beliefs crumbled. Then you would find yourself just as confident in a new tower as you wer in the previous one. I had the opposite problem I would stand by my jenga tower, and defend it. I would decline to think about things. I would seek out people to reaffirm my preexisting beliefs, rather than acknowledging multiple perspectives. I was stagnant in my beliefs. This became harder and harder to sustain because instead of acknowledging my lack of confidence, I tried to cover it up. It was like the blocks in my tower were slowly being chipped away and I was just painting over the damage. I was worried that if I moved one block, my whole tower would tumble. I wasn't ready to do that. My beliefs were too much a part of my identity.
I remember the first time I let a block come out. I was in India. I looked out into a crowd full of hundreds of people and thought "If what I believe is true, I can be almost certain all of these people are going to hell". I knew this based exclusively on where these people lived. I realized that this just wasn't something that fit in with the rest of my beliefs. It wasn't the only block I pulled from my jenga tower.
The 6000 year old earth? No thanks. Sexism and homophobia? No thanks. A God who orders his people to commit genocide? No thanks. People burning for all of eternity because they grew up somewhere with a different name for God? Definitely not. Yet, rather than just watching my tower fall and walking away, I started to wonder if I really needed a tower. Maybe I could build a house, or a fort, or a raft. There are lots of different ways to combine blocks. The idea of there ultimately being a creator behind everything still makes sense to me, and so do the principals of Christianity that used to be so important to me. Honesty, forgiveness, love... those are still great ways to live your life. It's the blocks that get used to wall people out that I have trouble with, not the ones that get used to bridge people in.
One of my favourite things about university was that it taught me to think for myself. I can deconstruct what other people think, look at the individual pieces, and figure out if they have value. Before university I just picked my team and chose their beliefs. Now I see that belief isn't a team sport. I can form my own opinions on spirituality, politics, morality, and just about anything else, that are different from other people's beliefs and I can see the value in other people's beliefs too.
Now, there's a flip side to this too. Whenever anybody asks me if I'm Christian I have no idea what to say. I think I'm Christian, because I believe there's a God and a lot of my beliefs about that God are influenced by the Christian tradition. But at the same time when people hear the word Christian, they picture the jenga tower. The jenga tower that doesn't accept evolution, or gay people, or value in other peoples faiths. That's not me. So people ask me that question, and I either give an unsatisfactory answer, or end up in a long discussion about what the word Christian actually means.
But it's not just faith where I find myself giving unsatisfactory answers. It's a lot of life. Which can be tricky when you're a teacher and people look to you for advice. When a student asks me for advice I often find myself trying to present a balanced response where I weigh both sides for them, rather than pushing for what I believe would be better for them. Because what if I'm wrong? What if my opinion makes them choose the wrong thing? It's hard to navigate the roads when you feel like you don't know which way you're going, Blurry lines work great for beliefs, but aren't practical on road maps.
It's times like that I wish I had the same confidence in my positions that you talked about previously having in your post. Maybe it would help me give advice and steer people who are trouble prone in the right direction. I guess what I'm getting to is, do you have any advice on giving advice?
Changing your mind is hard. I've been thinking a lot about the differences in how we developed changed minds. You talked about your old way of thinking. How you went from one belief to the other, equally confident in both positions. What I found interesting about that was that I think we had very similar changes of mind, yet the way it changed was different.
I didn't really have the same issue with overconfidence that you had. Let's take your jenga metaphor and run with it. You talked about your beliefs as a jenga block, Where you would pull out jenga blocks until your old beliefs crumbled. Then you would find yourself just as confident in a new tower as you wer in the previous one. I had the opposite problem I would stand by my jenga tower, and defend it. I would decline to think about things. I would seek out people to reaffirm my preexisting beliefs, rather than acknowledging multiple perspectives. I was stagnant in my beliefs. This became harder and harder to sustain because instead of acknowledging my lack of confidence, I tried to cover it up. It was like the blocks in my tower were slowly being chipped away and I was just painting over the damage. I was worried that if I moved one block, my whole tower would tumble. I wasn't ready to do that. My beliefs were too much a part of my identity.
I remember the first time I let a block come out. I was in India. I looked out into a crowd full of hundreds of people and thought "If what I believe is true, I can be almost certain all of these people are going to hell". I knew this based exclusively on where these people lived. I realized that this just wasn't something that fit in with the rest of my beliefs. It wasn't the only block I pulled from my jenga tower.
The 6000 year old earth? No thanks. Sexism and homophobia? No thanks. A God who orders his people to commit genocide? No thanks. People burning for all of eternity because they grew up somewhere with a different name for God? Definitely not. Yet, rather than just watching my tower fall and walking away, I started to wonder if I really needed a tower. Maybe I could build a house, or a fort, or a raft. There are lots of different ways to combine blocks. The idea of there ultimately being a creator behind everything still makes sense to me, and so do the principals of Christianity that used to be so important to me. Honesty, forgiveness, love... those are still great ways to live your life. It's the blocks that get used to wall people out that I have trouble with, not the ones that get used to bridge people in.
One of my favourite things about university was that it taught me to think for myself. I can deconstruct what other people think, look at the individual pieces, and figure out if they have value. Before university I just picked my team and chose their beliefs. Now I see that belief isn't a team sport. I can form my own opinions on spirituality, politics, morality, and just about anything else, that are different from other people's beliefs and I can see the value in other people's beliefs too.
Now, there's a flip side to this too. Whenever anybody asks me if I'm Christian I have no idea what to say. I think I'm Christian, because I believe there's a God and a lot of my beliefs about that God are influenced by the Christian tradition. But at the same time when people hear the word Christian, they picture the jenga tower. The jenga tower that doesn't accept evolution, or gay people, or value in other peoples faiths. That's not me. So people ask me that question, and I either give an unsatisfactory answer, or end up in a long discussion about what the word Christian actually means.
But it's not just faith where I find myself giving unsatisfactory answers. It's a lot of life. Which can be tricky when you're a teacher and people look to you for advice. When a student asks me for advice I often find myself trying to present a balanced response where I weigh both sides for them, rather than pushing for what I believe would be better for them. Because what if I'm wrong? What if my opinion makes them choose the wrong thing? It's hard to navigate the roads when you feel like you don't know which way you're going, Blurry lines work great for beliefs, but aren't practical on road maps.
It's times like that I wish I had the same confidence in my positions that you talked about previously having in your post. Maybe it would help me give advice and steer people who are trouble prone in the right direction. I guess what I'm getting to is, do you have any advice on giving advice?
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