Tag: Life

Aging in Community: Inside the Senior Cohousing Movement

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his)

For seniors who want to age in a supportive community environment, cohousing is an exciting alternative to traditional options such as retirement homes and assisted living centers. In senior cohousing spaces, rather than relying on administrators, people rely on each other to lend a hand when needed and provide much-needed social engagement….

It turns out that a lot of help that older people really need is neighborly help rather than skilled care, per se. Some communities have assigned one or two coordinators, one of the other neighbors, for each person. So, if I go into the hospital, my coordinator would work with the other folks in the community to help me meet whatever needs I have.

Source: Aging in Community: Inside the Senior Cohousing Movement

The next adventure

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 1 Comment

This is one of my favorite Hugh MacLeod business card cartoons:

adventure

In his email message accompanying this doodle, Hugh says it took him “twenty years to get from the bottom to the top of the pyramid.” It took me about the same amount of time, a little more or a little less depending on how you count it. Since reaching that point, I’ve had several most excellent adventures. I’ve often wondered though:

How do you know when it is time to start looking for the next adventure?

It’s easy, of course, and incredibly fun when your next adventure finds you. But in the absence of that, how do you know when the current adventure has become just another project? When it is time to actively seek a new adventure?

Or at least let all those potential adventures know that you are ready for them?

Is safe really better than sorry?

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his)

I first mentioned this tweet from @codinghorror in my review of StrangeLoop 2010.

It has stuck with me through the years, and always seems to pop up when it’s needed. Not too long ago (wow – the better part of a year), I tweeted my own variation on this, exploring a bit the “is such crap” part of Jeff’s tweet.

Is safe better than sorry?

It all depends on the context. How you define “safe” and “sorry”, the time scale in which you’re working. What you are willing to give up for what you want to achieve. What you are willing to tolerate. What you want to have written across your tombstone, or in the history books, when your time on this earth inevitably ends.

Fourth and inches

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his)

Chances are you’ve heard the saying, “Won the battle but lost the war.” While it is hard to willingly accept defeat or failure, sometimes your best strategy in a given situation is to not give it your all. To not try your absolute hardest to be successful. To not try to win at the specific task at hand. To lose a battle so you can win the war.

In baseball, a manager may have a batter sacrifice (bunt or fly) themselves to advance another runner. Or have a pitcher intentionally walk a good batter to get to a relatively weaker batter. In American football, most teams choose to kick – either a punt or field goal – on fourth down instead of going for it. In basketball, coaches may call for intentional fouls late in a game to prevent a sure two by the opponent and risk a 1-and-1 foul shot situation. In chess, a player will intentionally sacrifice pieces to improve board position. You get the idea.

What each of these situations have in common, of course, is that the goal is not to get an individual hit, or out, or touchdown. The goal is to win the game, and ultimately a tournament or season. You weigh the risk of doing what is typical against the potential benefit or cost in terms of that goal of winning. You may not “go for it” on fourth and inches early in the game deep in your own half of the field, but you probably will if it is late in the game deep in your opponent’s end and you’re down by four points. Context is key.

Of course, no one would ever intentionally lose an actual game. Or would they? Depends on the context.

During the 2012 Summer Olympics several teams were disqualified and removed from the Badminton competition for deliberately trying to lose a game. From the outside this seemed crazy, and the crowds at the games were rightfully angry at what they were seeing. Did I mention that these teams were playing against each other, both of them intentionally trying to lose.

But for the teams at the time the strategy made perfect sense in the context of their ultimate objective – Olympic gold. For various reasons, the rules for the badminton tournament were changed going into the Olympics. The teams who wanted to lose games on purpose were simply adjusting their strategy on the court to increase their chances to win gold based on these new rules.

I say “simply”, but the whole situation was anything but simple. The rule-makers had failed to consider this second order effect of changing the rules, and the athletes had failed to take into account the reactions of the fans and officials at their blatantly unsportsmanlike conduct. And so they were disqualified, even though they hadn’t technically broken any rules.

They won the battle, but lost the war.

Small, a great destination

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his)
Rework - Why Grow?
Illustration from Rework

In their book Rework, the guys from 37signals make a compelling argument for staying small in a chapter called “Why grow?” My favorite quote from that chapter:

Small is not just a stepping stone. Small is a great destination in itself.

And this isn’t just empty talk from someone trying to sell books, this is how they actually run the company. From a recent article on Fast Company, here is 37signals CEO Jason Fried (@jasonfried):

I’m a fan of growing slowly, carefully, methodically, of not getting big just for the sake of getting big. I think that rapid growth is typically of symptom of… there’s a sickness there. There’s a great quote by a guy named Ricardo Semler, author of the book Maverick. He said that only two things grow for the sake of growth: businesses and tumors. We have 35 employees at 37signals. We could have hundreds of employees if we wanted to–our revenues and profits support that–but I think we’d be worse off.

This is kind of a follow up to yesterday’s post, Living life for a living, which got me thinking again about the 37signals philosophy. What it really comes down to, it seems, is the difference between a businessperson – who wants to run a business that makes money; big is better – and a person in business – who wants to build a business around something they do; the bigger the business gets, the less they get to do what they got into business for in the first place.

Living life for a living

~ g BRETT miller (he/him/his) ~ 1 Comment

An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

Continue reading “Living life for a living” →