36525 days to live

Unreasonable        by Seth Godin

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It’s unreasonable to get out of bed on a snow day, when school has been cancelled, and turn the downtime into six hours of work on an extra credit physics lab.

It’s unreasonable to launch a technology product that jumps the development curve by nine months, bringing the next generation out much earlier than more reasonable competitors.

It’s unreasonable for a trucking company to answer the phone on the first ring.

It’s unreasonable to start a new company without the reassurance venture money can bring.

It’s unreasonable to expect a doctor’s office to have a pleasant and helpful front desk staff.

It’s unreasonable to walk away from a good gig in today’s economy, even if you want to do something brave and original.

It’s unreasonable for teachers to expect that we can enable disadvantaged inner city kids to do well in high school.

It’s unreasonable to treat your colleagues and competitors with respect given the pressure you’re under.

It’s unreasonable to expect that anyone but a great woman, someone with both drive and advantages, could do anything important in a world where the deck is stacked against ordinary folks.

It’s unreasonable to devote years of your life making a product that most people will never appreciate.

Fortunately, the world is filled with unreasonable people. Unfortunately, you need to compete with them.

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And I like to think that I’m one of them…

Society tends to have narrow views of its scientists, especially the brilliant ones. It assumes they are consumed by science and spend most of their time with microscopes or scribbling equations on dinner napkins as Einstein once did.

I’m not a scientist.

But…

I’m addicted to writing on dinner napkins. I scribble on them all the time as I’m holding a conversation with someone. I have been doing this for the last 25 years.

Recently, I was having lunch with a friend and when she saw me write on a napkin, she said: “Here I have some paper for you…”

Why do I scribble on napkins ?

I think that it is because it saves me a lot of time when I communicate with others.

How?

It helps me organize my thoughts as I speak with someone.

When I organize my ideas as I speak, I believe it reduces my natural tendency to ramble on forever.

Notice that when someone starts to repeat himself or herself, it is because he or she made her point already.

In sales, we call this “Overselling”.

But some people seem to feel that they made their point too fast…

The “napkin method” should help some of you to get to the point faster.

The scientific method is all about organizing our thoughts, our results to insure repeatability and make sure that we separate facts from personal opinions.

Writing on napkins is simple, practical,spontaneous and it helps you organize your ideas.

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The Oxford English Dictionary says that scientific method is: “a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”

The magic words for a great relationship are:

“I love you just the way you are”

It reminds me of a story I read somewhere many years ago.

A wife was taking some kind of self-improvement class with other women.

The teacher gave each woman an assignment to bring home.

They were to ask their partners an honest question: Could you tell me 5 things that you would like me to improve?

One of the husbands thought about it for a couple of days and when it was time to give the answer to his wife,

He said: “I couldn’t find a single thing that I’d like you to improve, I love you just the way you are”

These were the magic words…

And these came with the magic words too.

This was a smart move from the husband. If the wife had anything to improve, I’m almost sure she was already aware of it.

I suspect that after a gesture like this one from her husband, she even made a little extra effort.

What do you think?

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One of my kids was asking me recently why I was buying blank notebooks.

My daughter said: “Daddy, this is so weird…”

Blank Books?

I am a buyer of blank notebooks. My kids find it interesting (read: weird) that I would buy a blank book. They say: 14 dollars for a blank book! Why would you pay that?” (Thinking what I could buy them with the $ 14…) 

The reason I pay 14 dollars is to challenge myself to find something worth 14 dollars to put in there.

I must admit, if you got a glimpse of my notebooks, you’d have to say that I dream Big Dreams ( read: very unrealistic in the eyes of many) .

Writing down my ideas is very important. Re-writing my ideas over and over again is even more important.

Why? It seems to me that the more I juggle with an idea, the more I dream about it, the more I entertain it, the more it has a tendency to become a reality. It seems to work even with crazy ideas. I can’t prove it, but somehow, it seems to work. It seems to save me time because this one of ways that make me focus on a clear idea, a clear goal with a direction.

Where do you write down your crazy ideas?