Curtains

When you go to the theatre, curtains are used to:

• Separate the auditorium from the stage,
• Act as a backdrop,
• Decorate.

When you go to a home, curtains are used for:

• Light and air control,
• Privacy,
• Decoration. 

In a theatre, the audience, guests or visitors are treated to the front side of the curtain (beautiful view), while the performers soak in the back side of the curtain (ugly view), until they are allowed in. Very few guests are allowed in, to see the backstage. It is usually reserved for those that are enchanted by the performer.

In a home, the crowd, guests or visitors can only view the back side of the curtain (ugly view), while the owners soak in the front side of the curtain (beautiful view), until they are allowed in. Very few guests are allowed in, to appreciate the home. It is usually reserved for those that are trusted by the owner. 

 

Curtains of a theatre – Externally motivated. Look good. Drive fast. Live large. Travel in front. Party hard. Bright lights. 

Curtains of a home – Internally motivated. Feel good. Joy. Care. Commitment. Courage. Kindness. Integrity.

 

While some individuals live in a theatre, others prefer to be at home.

  

Your choices - Put up a show and let enchantment filter the crowd you let in or Create beauty within and let trust filter the crowd you let in. Choose what works for you.

“The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.” - Warren Buffett

- Osasu Oviawe

Investment advice

Investment advice is readily available and easily accessible. The reason we struggle financially is not due to lack of financial knowledge, but a lack of financial discipleship.

Wealth building is simple, but humans have a knack for making simple things complicated because of the need to look like it requires genius to do the most mundane activities.

The first step is to actively take care of your health. To stay healthy, ingest just enough for your activity level and use your largest organ to expend as much waste as possible - sweat more. No matter how much wealth you build, ill health can undermine it all. Never forget.

The second step is to live on less than you earn. Less is more, without compromising your health. The starting point is to earn. Once you have an earning, there is no excuse you should accept on why you cannot live on less.

The third step is to invest the excess in what you understand, not what is trending. What you understand, is not what you think you understand, but what you have built enough antifragility into, to manage the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) that always prevails.

Lastly, allow compounding work for you. Learn to wait. You are not waiting for the best time to profit, you are waiting for the time of real need.

- Osasu Oviawe

Nothing

Interestingly, a secret of life is the nothingness of life. Those that have come to understand when and how to use nothing, have been disproportionately rewarded.

Let's go a little deeper.

In health, what and when not to eat is just as important as what and when to eat.

In investments, buying is followed by a long “do nothing” phase, if you expect compounding to be on your side.

In parenting, the times you stay out of the way and allow growth through some difficulty, is important for character building.

In music, nothing between notes can determine the difference between classics and fads.

In relationships, the periods of nothing reveals the hidden intents of the heart - worthy or unworthy.

In tourism, people travel long distances to get away from everything familiar and experience a little bit of nothing.

In life, the nothing we knew before birth is the nothing we will embrace after death.

There is an art and a science to knowing when and how to do nothing, but it is so hard, because it takes everything to do nothing.

- Osasu Oviawe

Space

“Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel, 
but it is the center hole that allows the wheel to function.
We mold clay into a pot, 
but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful.
We fashion wood for a house,
but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable.
We work with the substantial,
but the emptiness is what we use.”

- Laozi Tao Te Ching 11

As a first step to organizing a place, we sort what exists and throw out what is no longer required. We create space. It is within that space that all else can be done. 

The same applies in our lives. We must consciously work on creating space, before we can create.

I am not asking you to apply Minimalism, but there is some value in understanding its central theme. Consciously reduce the clutter.

Create periods of no busyness, periods of tranquility. 

“Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts” - Eckhart Tolle

Peace, be still.

- Osasu Oviawe

What is coming?

It is difficult to hold back and watch those you love make mistakes on the learning journey. Nevertheless, it is what we must do. It is part of the learning and living journey. Sometimes, mistakes are required to make learning stick by presenting alternative choices, other times, mistakes throw open a new vista of opportunities.

In our connected world, mistakes are getting more unforgivable, making the job of parents and leaders more crucial. 

You can classify mistakes using any smart adjectives - genuine mistake, honest mistake, stupid mistake, careless mistake, beautiful mistake, lucky mistake, malicious mistake, mindless mistake, serendipitous mistake; but a mistake is a mis-take, you would have preferred to avoid it and your input never intended the consequences.

The development of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) will not make human learning easier, as machine learning increasingly makes human learning seem too slow and ineffective. Capitalism has always exterminated the slow and ineffective, it will remain true to character with humans.

Unfortunately, we cannot take mistakes out of human learning, but we can give better direction.

The slight differences between people are now compounded at a much higher rate than in previous times. People start mistaking mistakes for failure, making them feel like failures at much younger ages, leading to an astronomical rise in depression, drug abuse and suicides. 

To avert this feeling, humankind is being habituated to do less and expect more. An oxymoron that promotes extinction.

It seems as machine learning accelerates the ease of living and the associated reduced need for human exertion, humanity has become more dissatisfied and impatient. This is why I pay attention to the singularity crowd, not because of the obvious narrative on ASI and the ways in which civilization will metamorphose, but because I feel the need to understand how humankind will manage the coming state - a state of “be” without “being”.

I expect an inadvertent increase in demand for psychologists and psychiatrists within organizations and in the larger society. These are currently undervalued fields in Nigeria, so an opportunity exists for those trying to pick up a course of study and are not yet into the coding buzz.

For those paying attention, we must give better direction and cover to those in our care.

- Osasu Oviawe

Decision Journaling

First let’s start with an excerpt from an article on Shodor.org

Mentor: Our brains play an important part in how we perceive objects. For example, take a look at this tessellation and describe what you see:


Student: I see rows of crooked lines with a distorted checkerboard pattern in them.
Mentor: Are you sure the lines are crooked?
Student: Yes! They look wider at one end than the other.
Mentor: Hold a ruler or other straight edge along the horizontal lines in the image and tell me what you observe.
Student: (holding a ruler to the image) It doesn't seem possible, but the lines actually are straight! Why do they appear to be crooked? 

My biggest takeaway from the above optical illusion is that even when it is becomes clear that your initial assumptions are wrong, your perception is still difficult to change. 

This debacle is even worse with entrenched cognitive biases and the stories we tell ourselves in order to live with ourselves. We lack accurate data on our decision making, yet glorify our gut feelings, because our brains have an uncanny way of increasing the odds in our favor and getting even with everyone but ourselves.

I learnt a simple way of checking myself and staying grounded on what my real decision-making success rate is, by keeping a decision journal as advised by Daniel Kahneman. 

No standard template on decision making or decision journaling is being recommended, all I am asking is that you try out documenting your critical decisions, the intended outcomes, the reasons for the decision, how you feel about the decision and the sign posts that will act as signals for progress.

You can use a pen and notepad or an electronic device - whichever is more convenient.

What you will find by keeping a decision journal is that it will actually help you think more critically about your decisions (because writing is a great way to improve clarity), and you cannot come back to say - “If all the other people or things had acted in a standard way, it would have worked”. Whatever you missed in your decision journaling that led to an undesired outcome, is only indicative of your limitation. Undesired outcomes actually help to expand your limits, by improving the variables you will consider in future decision making.

Outcomes are the best reality checks. Outcomes provide a golden opportunity to refine your decision making in the future and improve your gut responses in emergencies. But it only works if you put down your thoughts on how you arrived at the decisions, failing which, your brain kicks in and rationalizes how you were right in spite of the outcomes and the world was wrong for its unpredictable variables.

This does not mean that for every decision, you whip out a notebook to start documenting, no, that will lead to an unprecedented number of accidents that you may not survive. What I am suggesting is that you pick 3 critical areas you need to take a decision on every week and document why and how you arrived at that decision. Then open yourself up to let the outcomes shape your cognitive biases. 

At the end of each process, your brain might still be able to trick you into believing you are always right (hindsight bias), even when the outcomes say otherwise, but you will become more conscious of the illusion.

 - Osasu Oviawe

Return Trip

Just like trips down memory lane, return trips sometimes "seem" faster and more pleasurable. Our brains have a way of making sense of the journey, only after the end is reached. 

Why can't we enjoy the journey more, the first time? Our desire for the end postpones the joy of the journey and where joy is lacking, nothing worthy fills the space.

This is why mentors are important. They've been on the path before, they've seen and sometimes missed the end, but they've gone through the path before, even if it was in a different season. The mentoring process is a return trip for the mentor. He is getting an opportunity to go back and enjoy the journey, with company - the mentee.

The mentee, on the other hand, is given an opportunity to understand the emptiness of the end and the riches in the journey. 

Imagine going on a trip with someone that has been to where you are going and knows the stories behind each road, each town, each statue, each forest and each desert you pass. As you are soaked into the richness of your journey, the end comes a little faster and then you find yourself actively seeking out an opportunity for your own return trip - your mentee.

We do not lack mentors in the world, we lack people who know when and how to ask for help. 

I have been lucky to have quite a number of great mentors, and no, I am not talking about the formal ones forced on me by HR algorithms (apologies to my HR friends), I am talking about an unprecedented pride of leaders that I have had the good fortune of working with. 

I cannot share names in this article because I need to get permission first, but if there is one advice I can give, seek a mentor. Not because of the end, but because of the journey. 

In seeking a mentor, don't walk up to the individual or call or send a mail saying, "Please I want you to be my mentor". It works for the narcissistic, but it's a red flag for the greatest mentors. If you admire the qualities of an individual, find a way to engage - share your victories and your concerns. Bring something that is not clear in your journey and when you get advice, use it and show the results - What worked? What didn't work? Mentoring is more of a relationship than a contract. Relationships have an evolving end, contracts have a fixed end. If you want mentoring to work, nurture a relationship.

Mentors give you the benefits of a "return trip" feeling on your first trip, while ensuring your direction remains aligned to your desired end.

Godspeed.

- Osasu Oviawe