[TT 028] spooky individuation, failure CV, optimized apologies, mother tree, mundane marvel
Howdy Thrivers,
Things continue to accelerate forward during my graduate program. This past week I learned about the Center for Social Innovation and they do incredible work supporting graduates to go into impact-oriented non-profits and for profits. Next week I'm meeting with two CSI advisors to share my current plan for GIFT and align my coursework and fellowship applications so I can move in that direction.
One of the wildest things about being in this program is that everyone assumes my vision is possible and it's just a question of taking the right steps and meeting the right people. And their unfaltering belief in me is unimaginably inspiring and propelling my forward progress. I continue to be in awe at, and deeply grateful for, the stunning amount of resources, support systems, and networks of high achievers we are offered.
The sleep research project has also taken a big step forward - we distilled our list of research questions and divvied up the first batch of academic articles. I also read this review article titled "How much sleep do we need?" and it offered a refreshingly diligent discussion that effectively ended in "around 6-9, but it's highly individualized and nuanced".
And with that, let's waddle on over to this week's Thriving Thursday
On the spooky science of individuation and accountability
Individuals in a group often behave differently than individuals in isolation. Turns out, people are less likely to help strangers when others are around (called diffusion of responsibility) and kids are more likely to steal Halloween candy when they feel anonymous in a group.
Interestingly, the kids broke the "1 candy per kid" rule less often when the researchers put up a mirror, and even less still when the kids had to say their name and address. This process of individuation triggers a sense of personal responsibility to act in line with instructions and expectations. Also, kids took less candy when the first kid in line took less candy - a classic example of normative behaviors (we tend to act like those around us).
So the next time you're around someone having a heartache or seizure, instead of saying "someone call an ambulance" point to a specific person and say "you with the red hat and glasses, call an ambulance now" and you're much more likely to get an ambulance there sooner. The same "volun-told" dynamic will also be true in professional or personal group dynamics. Just as long as it's done respectfully ...
On creating a CV of failures to offset successes
There is a myth around successful or high profile people that they never fail, or that they fail less often than the rest of us. That can feel alienating and discouraging because I'm not like that successful person so why bother or try?
If anything, accomplished professionals miss more shots specifically because take more shots. They try more things, fail incredibly often and, ideally, learn along the way. Success is a combination of diligent practice and a healthy dose of luck.
This was elegantly portrayed by a Princeton Professor's CV of failures. Meta-failure at the end is the best part.
My knee-jerk reaction was, "Of course, if I were a tenured professor at Princeton then it would be easy to talk about my failures publicly" but I'm not actually sure that's true. In an art studio I worked in for a few years, one of the lead creators liked us to tell "machine fail" stories over dinner so that we could learn from each other's mistakes (and ideally not lose a finger in the process).
So I commit to making more space to openly share my failures and lessons learned to highlight the inherently random walk of success.
On making optimized apologies that work
The Freakonomics team did an entertaining podcast on optimizing apologies. Apparently, there is a prescriptive formula for how to make meaningful apologies. Here are the exact steps in order (and the order does matter).
- Focus on the victim and the impact on them
- Express remorse
- Commit to different actions or reparations
- Mean it - follow up and follow through
A fun and interesting economics experiment done at Uber highlighted that "empty apologies" without any associated [social, political, financial, reputational] cost tend to feel like cheap empty words. Also, apologizing multiple times for the same thing can be worse than not ever apologizing at all.
These findings largely track to my own personal experience and intuition. I typically discount any apology that does not contain an expression of how the act impacted me or how I can be clear the behavior in question will change moving forward. At that point, it's more saying "I'm sorry I got caught" than "I'm sorry for what I said or did to you" and I have little patience for such self-serving platitudes.
I hold apologies to a high standard. And I'm not sorry.
On mother trees and their families
I recently watched the info-mercial short documentary Intelligent Trees about root systems and how trees interact and talk to each other. In short, trees within and between species share nutrients and information through their roots, likely mediated through subterranean fungi networks. My favorite line from the movie was
A butcher is not an animal keeper, and a forester is not a forest keeper.
That puts the main message and context sharply in focus. If we want to facilitate the regrowth of forest systems, we cannot plant forest plantations in the wake of clearcut deforestation. We cannot send the butcher to tend to our flock.
My main frustration with the film is that it highlights a big problem (deforestation and plantation planting) but then offers no solutions for the individual beyond "reduce consumption". That's just not a reasonable or relevant call to action anymore. The vast majority of deforestation happens for agriculture or growing other products, not for paper and lumber. In many ways, it would be more productive to save forests to stop buying anything with palm oil than to stop using paper or cardboard (but good luck, palm oil is in everything).
Incidentally, I had already seen many of the core concepts from the lens of the fungi. This "World Wood Web" topic is also covered in a different documentary called Fantastic Fungi. I saw that one in an artsy theater when it first came out a few years back and it recently signed on with Netflix.
Perhaps the most inspired treatment of these rooted concepts is the fiction book Overstory by Richard Powers. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 and it's probably the best "real life" fiction book I've ever read.
Overall, this documentary had important knowledge and awareness, just does itself and its viewers a disservice when it comes to the "OK, now what?" portion of the messaging.
On the mesmerizing of the mundane
Artist Adam Hillman creates incredible compositions with colored everyday objects. I cannot begin to imagine how much time they take to compose, and always just imagine one sneeze from starting all over ...
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As a final parting note, I want to thank everyone that's been reaching out to me via email recently. I am currently stretched very thin but please know that I am not ignoring you - I read every email and will get back to you when I have a moment to come up for air. As I see similar questions or comments more frequently, I'll be certain to address them in coming weeks.
And with that, I'm going to individuate into bed and dream about the mother tree of my failure forest. Sorry, not sorry?
Mesmerizingly yours,
~Henry