In my job as a software engineering manager, I was recently asked to speak about leadership. As I prepared the presentation, I realized that this topic is a passion of mine, even rivaling my passion for mental health awareness. I will share my thoughts over a series of articles.

Leadership is a complex idea that means different things to different people. Often, we are thrust into roles in which we are expected or required to lead others. Many of us find these situations uncomfortable and find ourselves unprepared to take up the mantle laid upon us.

At the same work event where I presented, Niel Nickolaisen, our CIO at O.C. Tanner, gave the most concise definition of a leader I’ve ever heard:

A leader is someone others choose to follow

One thing that I love about this definition is how it highlights that anyone can be a leader regardless of role. We often think that leadership equates to having a position of authority, but this is a limited view. All of us can be the type of person whom others want to and actually decide to follow. Because of this universal applicability, I feel that the idea of good leadership is important and worth exploring further.

As I worked on my presentation, I was helped immensely by my good friend Jessica DuHadway. She asked many clarifying questions and even agreed to rework some of the content and co-present with me. In this writing, I went back to the topics as I had developed them to make sure I wasn’t stealing her words or ideas.

Articles

(Each title will be a link when the article is published)

Leading through trust

As a leader, your most important commodity is trust. Every action you take, every word you say, every success you notice or ignore affects the trust others have in you.

A leader’s role: protect

In my opinion, the most important functions a leader fulfills is to protect and provide. There are many ways in which a leader can do those, and I will first explore how a leader can protect people, the team, and the company.

A leader’s role: provide

I believe that the most important roles a leader must serve are to protect and provide. I want to explore this further by considering how a leader can provide support, clarity, and results.

Stages of leadership

Most people transition through three stages of leadership, whether consciously or not. These stages are the cruel tyrant, the benevolent dictator, and the servant leader.

Effects of stages

Leadership permeates our lives. Good leadership has the ability to uplift, just as poor leadership corrodes. We will consider the effects in terms of team makeup, team perspective, and team health.

I came upstairs and realized my hands were super cold. I put them under people’s shirts on their backs, and it was fascinating the different reactions.

7yo boy: Writhed and twisted to get away

6yo girl: No reaction

11yo boy: Yelped and jumped

12yo girl: Yelled and melted on the spot

Wife: An exclamation, “What is that? It’s cold!”

2yo boy: Reached back with his hands to move mine. Commented, “That’s cold!” Two minutes later, said, “Dad, that’s coldy!”

15yo girl: Turned and asked, “What are you doing? Go away!”

I loved this delightfully written article by Craig Mod: Who Would Have Thought an iPad Cursor Could Be So Much Fun?

This is where the iPad’s support for the trackpad comes in—a middle ground between laser and potato, and a reinvention of Engelbart’s pointiness. Apple has taken the desktop cursor’s familiar thin arrow and replaced it with a translucent circle. This circle has the ability to change form not only with context but with the “physicality” of the object beneath it.

Move the pointer above a button and the circle morphs into the button itself, “snapping” into it, enveloping it like an amoeba, causing it to glow in a pleasing way. What this means is that the usual precision of a trackpad isn’t required to get exact hits on navigational elements. If you own an Apple TV, you’re already familiar with this vibe—it’s how the cursor on the TV “jumps” from icon to icon with a kind of sticky momentum. Similarly, on the iPad home screen, you can “lazily” slam the cursor around and have it lock onto applications with an eerie telepathy not experienced on a desktop OS.

I have used an iPad Pro as my primary machine for nearly a year now. I usually only go to my MacBook Pro when I need to work in Xcode, or do serious work in Jira. That’s the life of a software manager.

I actually have enjoyed using the Smart Keyboard Folio available with last year’s model of iPad Pro. But when I saw the new Magic Keyboard announced last week, I was ecstatic. Alas, like everyone else, I have to wait until May to really try it out.

But I installed iOS 13.4 yesterday and immediately connected a Bluetooth trackpad to try out the new support. I remember last summer when mouse support was announced as an accessibility feature. At the time, I dismissed it as something that I wouldn’t really need or use. When I saw the new demo video, my interest was piqued, and I gave it a try.

All of my doubt was swept away in an instant. In a way that I never expected, the cursor feels right at home. It appears when I touch the trackpad, and disappears when I type or touch the screen. Hovering over buttons or apps is intuitive and delightful. I never wonder where the cursor went or what is happening. As Craig Mod said,

And yet somehow, the overall effect of using a trackpad with an iPad is more convincing than direct manipulation, less exhausting, and simply more fun.

I look forward to using the newest Magic Keyboard in a few months. Until then, I will happily use my iPad with a trackpad sitting next to it.

One of the ways I was profoundly affected by my recent trip to our India office was in observing the manner in which the people worked. I am still considering how to apply what I saw and learned.

As I wrote about recently, I had the opportunity to travel to India last week. We were able to visit some amazing historical sites, and to work with our colleagues in our office there. I had previously visited India, but never before with my current company. So this was my first opportunity to meet some of my colleagues in that office.

I was able to travel together with the product manager working with my team. When we arrived, we found a meeting room marked for our use. There were a few meetings rooms set off of a main room where the bulk of the office employees sat to work. Outside of the main room was a moderately sized area with a reception desk, couches, a gavel table, an eating table, and a food preparation area.

We found that while people were in the working room, a sense of quiet prevailed. If anyone spoke, it was in hushed tones. People were not antisocial—many conversations took place, but always in the outer room. On a few mornings, as we arrived, trainings were occurring with most of the staff in the office. During these trainings, some people were quietly working at their desks, but most were engaged in the training. So we saw that in general, either everyone was engaged in a social activity, or they were all quietly working.

While I worked in this environment, I found it highly conducive to deep work. It was much easier to be productive when people were not regularly interrupting or distracting with loud conversations. No one ever said anything or asked anyone else to be quiet. There was no need. Everyone seemed to already understand the environment they wanted to create, and even as intruding visitors, we could immediately sense the proper behavior, and acted accordingly.seemed to already understand the environment they wanted to create, and even add intruding visitors, we could immediately sense the proper behavior, and acted accordingly.

Deep work is facilitator in different ways for different people. In my experience, for most individual contributor work, quiet periods of uninterrupted concentration is ideal. The approach taken by the employees in our India office is the best I have ever seen at mitigating the many drawbacks of cubicles or open office layouts. I hope I can find ways to emulate some of what I witnessed and create deep work opportunities for myself and my team.

One of the surprising inspirations I have found in traveling to India is the traffic. At first glance, it seems scary and chaotic, but a subtle beauty emerged as I better understood life with almost no traffic lights.

India is a fascinating place. I visited Mumbai in 2008 for work and loved the experience. This past week I have spent in Hyderabad working with our Android and API teams. There are a number of things that have struck me in my time here, and I wanted to reflect more on the traffic.

Driving (or rather riding as I have no desire to drive here!) is an almost indescribable experience. We heard stories of other colleagues who had to cover their eyes to avoid panicking. The first couple days, my anxiety was spiking regularly. It seemed as if we were constantly within seconds of crashing into someone, and the din of the honking horns started to make my head split.

People seemed to have no respect for rules of the road, or stop signs, or lane markers. At every turn, cars would pile up and somehow merge five cars side by side into two lanes. Motorbikes flowed incessantly through any gaps in the cars, blocked only by rickshaws trying to do the same. On top of all the vehicular chaos, people threaded their way through the remaining spaces.

It was easy to criticize what we were seeing as organized and unruly. To our Western, regimented minds, the lack of structure was unsettling, even appearing barbaric. We couldn’t understand how people could function without the safe guardrails of enforced rules and regulations. The stress seemed overwhelming.

And then something beautiful and magical occurred.

As we spent more time in the traffic, patterns began to emerge. The cacophony lost its harshness as individual sounds took on new meaning. Instead of random honking, an intricate auditory signaling system became evident. Instead of barely avoided accidents, an elegant dance ebbed and flowed. At the root of what appeared to be chaos was a tranquility that nearly everyone shared along with an understanding of their mutual purpose. There was a total lack of irritation displayed.

The hyper-efficient part of my brain recoiled first at the perceived disorder and the inefficiency that must surely result. Every drive we took seemed to snake back and forth through the city. I finally realized that the ubiquitous u-turns and lack of traffic lights were connected, and were a feature, not a defect. Avoiding traffic lights meant that there was a continuous flow of motion. Side streets opened on to main arteries in a single direction, and regular openings for u-turns facilitated speedy course correction.

One fascinating aspect of the u-turns was the impact on opposing traffic. Gates or cones obstructed the outer lane to make room for turning vehicles. Instead of causing problems or congestion, traffic seamlessly merged from four cars abreast spanning the two lanes to a car and a rickshaw or a couple motorcycles squeezing through. As vehicles turned and people crossed and lanes collapsed, the people calmly adapted. There was a complete lack of frustration and selfish insistence on priority.

As our group of Americans came to see the beauty beneath the chaos, we realized that understanding traffic was a key to understanding the people and their culture. Harmony and cooperation vastly exceed individualism and competition.

As I return back to where I am more comfortable driving, I hope I can take some of the lessons I have learned from Indian traffic.

Behavior exists in the realm of time because it requires action, but mindset exists in a timeless realm of thought. We can change our mindset in a split second.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in some trainings by the Arbinger Institute. These trainings were hugely impactful on me, in both a professional and personal sense. They have published a number of books that include the same basic principles, such as Leadership and Self-Deception, The Anatomy of Peace, and The Outward Mindset. The foundational principle is that mindset drives behavior.

At times, it is easy for us to remain unaware of this truth. We often see problems that arise and look to address them through behavioral changes. This will never be successful in the end because any behavior can be performed with any number of mindsets.

In my latest training, a fascinating point was raised. One of the aspects of behavior is that it is necessarily linked with action. As such, it exists in the context of time. All action takes time, both to enact and even more to modify.

On the other hand, mindset exists in the context of thought. The implication of this is that time is not a factor. In the realm of thought, changes can occur instantaneously. Often, small and subtle adjustments can develop imperceptibly over time. We sometimes are completely unaware of the final nudge that pushes us to reconsider a previously held belief and change our mind. But that actual change of mind can occur in an infinitesimal moment.

Confusion can arise because time enters into the picture in the implementation of any mindset change. Although a shift in mind can happen instantaneously, the behavior that results from the shift will naturally occur over time.

Furthermore, even when our mindset changes, we often fall back into previous ways of thinking. It is to be expected that we will have to make repeated efforts to change our mindset when we realize that we are no longer acting in ways consistent with our previous adjustments.

As we approach our lives, it is important to remember that underneath behavior sits the foundation of mindset. Our thoughts and beliefs shape us in many way, both large and small, overt and imperceptible. When we realize that our mindset needs an adjustment, we can take comfort in the fact that this change can occur in an instant, even though it could take the rest of our lives and repeated efforts to put that change into practice.

I was trying to make a pancake in the shape of a sword for my son’s birthday. Annie (5yo) came up to look at it.

Annie: “Dad, what’s that?”

Me: “It’s a sword.”

Annie: “Oh, yeah, it looks like one!”

Micah (7yo): “I want to see! What is it?”

Annie: “Dad made a sword pancake. It kind of looks like one.”

Micah: “It looks more like a spear than a sword.”

After it was done cooking, Annie went over to my son. “Dad made you a pancake for your birthday. He did the best he could.”

As we move into the new year, I have been considering new goals. I sketched new phone wallpapers to keep them in front of me. My goals are to make more mistakes and carry less to give more.

As I wrote about last year, I tried a different approach to my goals. In the past, I have often set a number of goals, as well as rules for myself to try and move myself forward and accomplish more. Last year, my goals were more simple: be intentional, be present, and be curious. After a few weeks, I sketched a wallpaper for my phone to help me remember them.

Overall, these goals were extremely helpful for me in 2019. It was a relief to not have a series of intense goals that encouraged my sense of perfectionism. I would not say that I was perfect at my goals, but as I continued to focus on them, they were helpful to come back to again and again.

I have often enjoyed the changing of the year as a time for reflection and anticipation. I was writing in my journal last week as I considered the question of what my new goals would be.

The one that I know that I would like to embrace this next year is make mistakes. I’ve been thinking that the phone background that I want is a nicely designed sign that says, “Here we make mistakes” so that I can carry that with me all the time.

As I started pondering this question, the other thing that stood out to me is to carry less. I have a tendency to carry the emotional burdens of others, and as an empath, I feel those keenly as well. Especially since I am hoping to start talking more about mental health at work, I think it is crucial that I learn how to connect with someone in their pain and not take it with me.

Having decided on those two goals, I started sketching some wallpapers. As I did that, I thought more about the second goal and what the purpose is. I realized that the key is that I want to be able to direct my emotional energy to my highest priorities. My natural response to someone else’s suffering is to carry the perceived injustice. And because of my OCD, I tend to ruminate on the issue, and it weighs heavily on me.

With that realization, I had my three goals. There is nothing magical about having three, but there is a nice symmetry to it. In many ways, they are pretty focused on my home life with my family. I want to work to make our home a safe place to make mistakes and learn together. And then I want to make sure that I reserve enough energy to devote to my family. Too often, I will come home from work exhausted because something happened that drained me. I want to fully engage at work, but not at the expense of being able to engage at home.

I decided this year to split up the goals between the lock screen and the home screen. As I go to turn on my phone, I will remember each time that I want to make more mistakes and become more comfortable with that. And as I start to engage more with my phone and whatever I’m trying to do with it, I want to see my family and be reminded of my priority.

One last word—the apps in my dock. Last year, I improved my mental state by switching up the apps in my dock to include apps without badges. I changed it further as I took my phone grayscale and tried to focus more on creation than consumption. Going into this year, I made further adjustments. I have the apps Calm, Things, iA Writer, and Day One now in my dock. I’ve adjusted the badges so that I rarely have anything show in my dock in order to pay more attention when I do. All of these apps help to focus me on the actions that I want to be taking with my phone.

I am excited for 2020. I hope to continue the great momentum of the last few months, especially in raising awareness and decreasing stigma around mental health. Hopefully I can leave some of the really hard parts of 2019 behind and just enjoy the lessons learned and the ways in which I have grown. Here’s to a great year! 🎊

As Micah (7yo) and I were standing in the bathroom looking at the near infinite reflection in the opposing mirrors, he said, “Dad, I just wish I could sneeze with my eyes open.”

Me: “Then your eyes would pop out.”

Micah: “I know. I just wish they would keep working. When I try and look in these mirrors that go on for miles and miles, my head just gets in the way. So I want to hold them out like this so that I can see all the way.” (As he holds his hands out to the side of his head and ducks out of the way.)

Micah (7yo): “Dad, do you believe in them?”

Me: “In what, bud?”

Micah: “In the zombies under my bed.”

Me: “Oh, that sounds scary!”

Micah: “No, I speak their language.”

Me: “Are they nice?”

Micah: “Only to people who speak their language.”

Me: “What does it sound like?”

Micah: “Urrgh mmrrgh errrr ggrrr.”

Annie: “Oh, like this–I can speak it too. Mmrrgh aarrgh errr.”

Micah: “No, it’s more nerdy. Get it, Dad? More Nerd-y. (As he eats a scoop of Nerds) Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Annie (5yo): “Can I marry Micah (her 7yo brother)?”

Wife: “No, you have to marry someone you’re not related to.”

Annie: “I’m not related to Conor! (her 5yo friend) Conor, do you want to marry me?”

Conor: “Uhh…”

Wife: “Well, you have to be older, so maybe he’ll think about it more when he gets older.”

Annie: “Conor! Conor! Conor! Do you want to marry me? Do you want to marry me?”

Conor: “Uhh, I just like going to school.”

Micah (7yo): “Do I need braces? My brother said I do because my bottom teeth are getting brown.”

Wife: “You need to brush for that, not braces.”

Me: “I’ve seen people who had black teeth and some fell out from not brushing.”

Annie (5yo): “Ugh! I’m glad you brush your teeth.”

Micah, a little worried: “If teeth are black, can you brush them and turn them white?”

Me: “No. When they are black, they are dead.”

Micah: “When they are brown, can you?”

Me: “Yes, you can get them white. But you need to brush morning and night every day.”

Micah: “I haven’t been brushing at night.”

Me: “Thanks for telling–“

Micah: “It’s because I don’t have time. Cuz I’m so tired after a long chore day!” (With a significant look at my wife.)

(After a couple minutes) Micah: “Did you ever see black teeth on the ground?”

Me: “No, I never saw them fall out.”

Micah: “Does the tooth fairy take black teeth?”

Me and my wife: “NO! Definitely not.”

The traditional holiday season can be full of joy, but also sorrow and heartache. Even for those who do not struggle with mental illnesses, there are many reasons that could cause this time of year to be difficult.

As I mentioned last week, we had the opportunity to spend some time with our IT department on mental health and wellness. A number of people asked for the slides, and I sent a PDF out right before Thanksgiving. I had the thought that this was a perfect chance to remind everyone about some of the struggles that the holidays can bring.

I discussed with my therapist this week some anxiety around the family time. She told me that this is a common time for everyone to have an increase in anxiety, especially those who struggle with their mental health. It is important to plan ahead and have some strategies for self-care.

As I drafted my email, I found a great article on the NAMI.org blog:

Many people can experience feelings of anxiety or depression during the holiday season. People who already live with a mental health condition should take extra care to tend to their overall health and wellness during this time.

Extra stress, unrealistic expectations or even sentimental memories that accompany the season can be a catalyst for the holiday blues. Some can be at risk for feelings of loneliness, sadness, fatigue, tension and a sense of loss.

Whatever your mental state, or that of those around you, this time of year is a great time for extra compassion and sensitivity. Not everyone loves to celebrate the holidays, but we all could use someone who cares for us.

I was intrigued by this article by Fiona Voss: My favorite way to run a retro:

The leader sets up the Trello board with four columns:

• Celebrations
• Gripes
• Topics to discuss
• Actions

Then everybody has 5-10 minutes to write Trello cards in the first three columns, working from their own laptops. You’re allowed to move a card somebody else wrote from Celebrations or Gripes to Topics to Discuss if you want to talk about it.

When all the cards are written, use Trello voting to vote on cards. When voting is finished, the leader sorts the cards by number of votes (descending).

One of my favorite aspects of this is how it facilitates different personalities and allows for everyone to have their voice heard. As a manager, often my biggest concern is that certain people may be marginalized and I am always looking for ways to improve our group communication. Whether the cause is unconscious bias, different thinking styles, or something else altogether, this sounds like a great approach to address the issue.

Fiona said this, talking about using lightning rounds to address an issue:

People who want to be heard, but have trouble jumping in to unstructured group discussions, get a turn to speak without having to fight for it.

Many people, developers in particular, think better when given a few quiet minutes on their own, and then the nudge to write out their thoughts. There are others who think better out loud. In a meeting, the latter group tends to overpower the former, and I love this simple approach to balance things out.

I look forward to trying this approach on my team. It is always an exciting challenge to pursue the delicate balance between too rigid structure and not enough structure to allow people to truly thrive.

As I finished reading this article this morning, I said out loud, “That was beautiful!” And then I thought maybe I could share it so others might have that same experience. The article is from Zen Habits: Working with the Ebbs & Flows of Your Resistance. He points out that feeling resistance to new or good things is normal, but we can learn to work with it.

It can also get stronger. But it can’t maintain its strength for long. You can breathe, stay with it, wait it out. Bring curiosity to it. Give the feeling a little compassion and kindness.

The key is develop more mindfulness. Instead of shying away from hard thoughts or feelings, sink into them for a moment and get to know them better. Over time, as we become more comfortable with them, we can notice them and acknowledge the message they are sending us and them make our own choice about what to do.

One of my most satisfying accomplishments lately was participating in a department meeting yesterday where we were able to spend half an hour discussing mental health. I wanted to pause and reflect on the journey to make that happen.

As I have written about before, the last year and a half has been significant in my own mental health journey. As I returned back to to work full-time at the beginning of this summer, following intensive treatment for my OCD, I found myself having many conversations around mental health. At the beginning of September, I sent the following email to my manager and our CIO:

As I have been more open with my mental health struggles, I have had a number of interesting conversations with people in IT about OCD and other mental health challenges. I wanted to suggest to you that we do something of an overview of mental health and related issues for all of IT. It would be great for people to know about some of the more common disorders and challenges, and what they mean, and how to support people who are working with those. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about things like bipolar, or OCD, or even ADD/ADHD.

I’m not trying to tell you what needs to be done, or how to do it, but I wanted to share the suggestion and see what you think. Thanks.

Ben

This email prompted a series of meetings, which resulted in my collaborating with our company wellness leader at O.C. Tanner, along with our newly-on-site behavioral therapist. In our September monthly IT meeting, we shared a primer on mental health and gave a teaser for a longer segment we planned the next month. Because I had initiated the conversations, I was invited to come up to the front of the room, but we ran out of time for me to say anything. A couple people commented after the meeting that they appreciated me being up there as the mental health mascot for IT.

As we prepared for the October meeting, we discovered that we had given our therapist the wrong date, and she had a conflict. So our wellness leader and I planned to take a few minutes to share our individual stories around mental health, and again provide a teaser for more to come in November. Ironically, we ran out of time for me to share again, so reprised my role as the IT mental health mascot.

Finally, in our November meeting, everything aligned. We were able to take half of the hour-long meeting with all of IT. I shared a short version of my story with mental health, and the bulk of the time was our behavioral therapist sharing about mental wellness. The content appeared to be extremely well received. You could have heard a pin drop while our therapist was sharing. After the meeting, I received messages from a number of people expressing gratitude for us making this subject more prominent and accessible.

One of the best side effects of this process for me has been the relationships that I have developed by being open. I have become close friends with our wellness leader, as well as our behavior therapist and have enjoyed working closely with them. The kinds of conversations that occur in the context of mental health lead to much deeper connections with people than most topics. So as I talk with people, I become close to them in a remarkably short time.

I have learned that all of us are affected by mental illnesses, whether directly or indirectly. The more we can do to increase awareness and decrease stigma around mental health, the more people will be able to get the help that they need.

I have long nursed a secret desire to do stand-up comedy, although I have allowed my fears to hold me back from trying. I finally made the attempt as part of my OCD recovery, and enjoyed the experience.

As I got close to the end of my treatment at the OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center, I was pushing myself to do more activities in which I risked something. I have long wished that I was funny, but I have come to grips with my lack of natural humor. As I wrote earlier this year, I am not destined to become a stand-up comedian. And that’s ok. I decided that I should try stand-up comedy and risk not being the best. Since I was nearly guaranteed to not be the best, it seemed like a productive thing to risk.

At first, I just suggested to one of my co-workers that I could do my routine for him. He asked who else I was inviting, and I realized that inviting more people would definitely increase the risk level, which was the whole point. So I ended up inviting our entire I.T. department to come over lunch, but only about 20 people came. So the next week, I volunteered to do it again for a full department meeting. That meeting was recorded, so I have a record of my attempt. It went better than I feared, and I decided I would share the video.

This was a fantastic article on Zen Habits: How to Be Kind to Yourself & Still Get Stuff Done:

[T]he truth is, most of us are judging ourselves, beating ourselves up, looking harshly at our shortcomings and flaws, a lot of the time. It’s why we’re stressed, anxious, frustrated and disappointed so often.

A different path might be kindness to ourselves. When we see a flaw, we might see the beauty in it. Instead of always striving to be better, we can find gratitude for how great we already are. Instead of beating ourselves up, we can be kind to ourselves and see that we have tried our best, that we had good intentions, that we have a good heart.

As someone whose OCD manifested as a pathological compulsion to beat myself up for even the smallest infraction, I know how crippling this can be. I am certainly not perfect at being kind to myself, but even learning the skill has been life-changing.

I love his reminder:

So here’s the rule: kindness to yourself, always. Even when you fail at the rule, be kind to yourself for failing to be kind.

We could all benefit from learning and practicing this skill. I hope that I will continue to work on it, and that I will be gentle with myself along the way.

I let Cal (age 2) sit on my lap and he started trying to feed me from his plate.

Me: “You eat from your plate, and I’ll eat from my plate.”

Cal: “Can I? Can I? Eat you?” As he shoved a forkful of food in my mouth.

After he force-fed me a few more vegetables, I said, “You can sit on my lap, but you have to eat your own food.”

Cal: “Ok.” And he hopped down.

As I have had my own experience with mental health over the last year or so, I have found that looking at my own health in a more holistic way to be extremely helpful.

I have always loved public speaking. For a long time, I have wanted to start speaking at conferences more often, but I could never figure out exactly the right topic. Finally, I know.

Last summer, I had my first personal experience with mental health, and through that process have come to learn much more about myself and people around me. Nearly all of us are affected by mental illnesses of some kind, whether directly or through someone close to us.

A few principles and approaches have helped me tremendously in considering my own health, and I shared my first presentation about them at a local Cocoaheads meet up.

We had some technical issues, so the recording of the video is in two parts, and missed a small chunk of the presentation where I describe health meters and what they are. Hopefully what’s here is still useful, and I hope to improve and deliver this talk many more times.

Micah (7yo): “If I get my tooth out, I’ll get like a dollar. That’s what I’ve been getting for the last ones.”

Me: “What if you get 10¢?”

Micah: “Then I would be so mad. I would just leave a little bomb under there that would… What time does the tooth fairy come?”

Me: “You never know.”

Micah: “Ugh. Then I would just set it to go off in the morning. And I would make it look like a tooth. I wish she would leave me $100. Then I would have lots of money and be revenged for the 10¢.”

Micah: “Dad, I get way more than 10¢. Add another zero and a dollar sign.”

Life is like walking against a moving walkway. We need to regularly stop and take stock of where we are at, and whether we are still focusing on what is actually most important.

In my job as a software engineering manager, there are a number of possible activities in which I can engage on a daily basis. It is easy to allow myself to coast and be reactive; just dealing with the crises that arise on any given day. The natural pull of entropy is constantly tugging at us to disrupt and distract us from our priorities.

One thought that I have had lately is to more regularly consider the question, “What work am I uniquely qualified to do for our team?” Particularly as the manager, it can be tempting to dive in to help with minutiae that may or may not benefit from my time and attention. Often, the most helpful approach for our team in the long-term is to delegate as much as possible so that others on the team gain more experience and comfort dealing with different issues. Ideally, as the manager, I have a unique perspective across all of the issues the team is facing, and my time will best be spent at a macro level, while trusting my team to execute on the micro level.

Recently, I wrote about prioritizing experiences over artifacts. In general, I still think that is true. However, as a manager, my most important work is communicating with others. I do need to have experiences that continue to shape and define me, and I need to spend considerable amounts of time thinking, but by and large, I need to communicate my thoughts and vision to others. This means that I need to prioritize artifacts more often in my professional life. My focus needs to be on facilitating experiences for my team, and creating artifacts.

The other crucial part of my role is to be available to help the people on my team when they need it. I will be most effective when I am able to make them more effective, and ensure that they are not blocked in their efforts. This involves a high level of reactivity, but when planned and anticipated, it can feel more proactive. I would rather be the one running around trying to figure out some obscure piece of information from just the right person, and allow the engineers on my team to focus on delivering great software. A balance is needed here. I do not want to completely insulate them from other people in the company—I need to foster connections. But so much of the preparatory work of connections is a slog of investigative and archaeological drudgery, and I would rather save my team from that.

Outside of those two main activities, nearly everything I do is a distraction and is taking me away from my primary role. This is something that I want to remember better, and I know I will need to pause and reflect again many times to ensure that I am focused on the right things.

A month of intense reading led to rediscovered relationships with a number of old friends.

At the beginning of August, I decided to pick up a series that I started when I was a teenager: The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. I have often enjoyed fantasy as a genre, and wanted to read something purely enjoyable instead of informative and educational. More than with most books, the characters of this series draw me in, and I wanted to read more to spend more time with friends that I have not seen for years.

One interesting phenomenon that I noticed as I got back in to these books is my tendency to lose myself. I have always loved to read, and can often get lost in a book. Stopping to eat, or sleep, or work can feel like a chore. Previously, I had never understood this part of myself. But now that I have gone through my journey of discovery and recovery with OCD, I recognized exactly what it was. In addition to the character friends I spent time with, this last month has been a close time with my old friend of OCD.

Now that I know how OCD feels in my life, it is easier to recognize his presence when he shows up. One of his defining characteristics is a total domination of my mind. That manifests in the cracks of my life. In every spare minute, my mind immediately jumped to my books, and in many of my spare minutes, my eyes jumped to my Kindle, or the app on my phone.

When I finished the first book, there was a definite sense of familiarity, as if I was returning to a comfortable state in which I had lived much of my life. As the month drew on, I realized that I was not happy with the effects this state was having on the rest of my life. I wrote recently about changing my toilet time to reading instead of playing a game, but now that I was compulsively reading my books, I was just as absent from the family.

As I wrapped up the series, it provided a natural moment to pause and evaluate. There is a delicate balance to be struck here. On the one hand, I love reading, and enjoy losing myself in a story, completely inhabiting another world, and making new friends. On the other hand, I do not want to feed the OCD side of my brain, and want to make sure that I remain in control of deciding how to spend my time. The month of August was not a complete loss—I was able to engage in a number of important events and activities. The most monumental of those was the birth of a new baby girl in our family, which was a magical experience.

I feel good about where things are at right now, and hope to remember to regularly introspect and maintain balance. Living with OCD is a constant exercise in managing tension, and I expect this to continue moving forward. The more I learn about myself, the better equipped I am to make informed choices about my life.

While there are cases in which the output of an activity matters a great deal, in much of life the infinitesimal changes that occur in you matter even more.

My therapist suggested a few weeks that I adopt a daily practice of writing Morning Pages to help clear my mind and get in touch with the emotions I am holding in my body. As I was talking about it with my wife, she suggested that I use loose-leaf lined pages, mostly because I hate lined paper. That would help transform the act of writing my morning pages to be more of an exposure, which is always helpful in my ongoing struggles with OCD. To increase the effectiveness of the exposure, I further decided that I would throw the pages away each day.

I have a hard time throwing things away, especially writing. Throughout the years, I have often taken copious notes, and rarely reviewed them. After every therapy session, I would immediately sit down in my car and write an outline of what we discussed. I finally realized one day that the urge to write these things down and keep them comes from the fear of losing or forgetting something that is important. I discussed the issue with my therapist, and she kind of laughed. She commented that she would have stopped me if I ever tried to take notes during a session. The important thing for me is not to perfectly recall everything that we discuss, but rather to internalize one or two major takeaways.

The first few days that I wrote my morning pages, I felt a little surge of panic as I threw them away. I slowly habituated to the perceived destruction of important information, and my brain settled down. As I did, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. Knowing that I was not going to keep the pages freed me up to write more things. I allowed myself to express whatever was going through my mind, without worrying about whether it would be valuable later or not. As I quieted the inner editor that is constantly at work, I found myself getting in better touch with my emotions. I would often just create a prompt for myself, and write, “Right now I feel” and write whatever word came to mind.

Through this process, I realized an important lesson. The process of change that occurs as I write out my emotions and thoughts matters so much more than the output I create. This is true in so many areas of life. As we interact with each other, we are constantly changing each other. We are the result of all of those tiny changes. If we want to be different than we are now, we merely need to repeatedly expose ourselves to different situations and influences.

Whether you struggle with OCD or not, I imagine at times you feel the twinge of panic that you are losing something vital. Hopefully this lesson can help you, and me, to remember what really matters more. The kind of person we become is almost always of infinitely more importance than the artifacts we create.

Switching from playing a game to reading on my phone as the default behavior on the toilet has made a world of difference.

A couple weeks ago, I realized that I was spending way too much time playing a game on my phone. At the beginning of June, I had been introduced to the game and started playing in some of my spare time. As the month went on, I found myself looking for more and more opportunities to play. Every trip to the toilet, I pulled out the game, and I even started going to the bathroom when I didn’t really need to. It was getting out of control.

I was discussing the situation with my wife one evening. She admitted that she had gotten to the point of feeling some despair when I headed into the bathroom, knowing I would be gone for a while. For years, I had implemented a rule of no phone on the toilet. It started as a month-long Valentines Day present to my wife and she liked it so much that I kept it going. During my intensive treatment for OCD, I challenged any rules my brain had for me. That resulted in me slowly pulling my phone out more and more on the toilet until it became a habit again.

I decided that night to delete the game from my phone and immediately change my toilet phone habits. My goal is to keep the rule less rigid, but also influence my behavior for the better. So I committed to only using the Kindle app on my phone while on the toilet. And the effects have been striking. I have found that I spent much less time in the bathroom now. I’ve only read nonfiction so far on the toilet, and it’s been much easier to stop without getting sucked in.

In addition to spending much less time in the bathroom, the time that I have spent reading feels more productive. I no longer have a vague sense of unease that I am wasting my time addicted to a game. Basically, my family wins because I am with them more, and I win because I feel better about myself. It is surprising how much the few minutes scattered throughout the days add up to.

Over the course of a couple weeks, I was able to finish the book Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport, which I had been wanting to read for a while. I am currently reading The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker.

One of the biggest lessons that I have taken from this is the importance of analyzing my life and reclaiming time that I feel is being frittered away. This is in line with my 2019 goals, which include being intentional. Small amounts of time consistently spent quickly add up to significant investments that can bring joy and fulfillment.