Does Going Back To School Make Sense?

Posted on August 9, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I get asked a lot if I think it’s a good idea for someone in the workplace to go to graduate school.  The long answer is, maybe.  Like any other decision, you’re going to have to decide what outcome you’re looking for.  If it’s simply more money, the decision is easier: Figure out what it’s going to actually cost you to get the degree that gets you the career (i.e. loans and/or opportunity cost), figure out what other options you could take to get you to the same place instead of going back to school, and then weigh each of those costs against the realistic benefits (i.e. you’re not going to make $180k a year after 3 years at a decent law school if you’re in the middle of your class; more like $60k).  If the outcome you’re looking for is a more fulfilling career, the balancing gets a little trickier, but the same thought process applies.

There’s also a quicker gut check: would you go back to school if you had to work full time while doing so?  If not, you’ve probably got the wrong motivation.  Ya, school was fun.  No responsibility was fun.  Partying and girls (or boys) was fun.  Not working was fun.  The thought of going back to school might sound appealing because you get another round of all that stuff, but that’s the wrong reason to give up the momentum you could otherwise be building.

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Appreciation

Posted on August 8, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Nobody appreciates having clear nostrils and sinuses or a smooth throat until they have a cold.

Nobody appreciates bending over until they throw their back out.

Nobody appreciates sitting in the sun, or drinking a glass of wine, or eating a peanut butter & jelly sandwich until they develop an allergy to it.

Nobody appreciates beige or noise until they lose their sight or their hearing.

No matter how bad things get, there are still a million things to be thankful for.

There’s no reason not to spend at least a fleeting moment of every day acknowledging that fact.

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How To Reduce Stress And Look Like You Have Your Shit Together

Posted on August 7, 2011 by AJ Kessler

If you’re reading this, you probably aren’t anxious or stressed out about where your next meal is going to come from, whether something or someone is going to harm you in the very near future, or where you’re going to sleep tonight.  Civilization, and particularly the Western world, has pretty much eradicated these perils.  Even in the worst case scenario, you lose your job or you get hit by a Prius, you can still get emergency care and the government or private charities will feed and house you until you get back on your feet.  Decry America’s safety net all you want, no matter what happens, they can’t eat you.

But just because the big things are taken care of doesn’t mean we don’t get stressed out.  Instead of only having three goals occupy our every waking second (sustenance, safety, shelter), we have a million little things each gnawing away at our brains.  Each little responsibility we have, even small things like picking up the dry cleaning or mailing a bill, each thing we own, each dream and desire, each plan and goal, all of this stuff that swims around in our heads adds up.  The more shit you have to do and the more shit you have to maintain at any one time, the more stressed you’re going to be.

The solution?  Take care of the little things the first time you notice them.  The first time you see that lone bill sitting on your desk that needs to be paid, pay it.  When you see that spot on your car’s floor mat that you want to clean, clean it.  When you notice that dirty dish on the counter, wash it.  Don’t think about doing it later, or plan some time to do it in the future, just do it.  Stamp it “done” so you never have to think about it again.

Two benefits here: (1) When you don’t just dive in and do these things immediately, your brain says “Oh, I need to do that.  Wait, I’m so busy.  When can I possibly find time to do that?  That more important thing needs to get done ASAP…” That’s the point where you totally forget about the floor mat, or the bill, or the whatever, and start to stress out about the more important things.  This leads people to feeling overwhelmed, and then they never take care of the little shit, like paying bills and maintaining equipment, that makes the world go ’round.

(2) When you take care of all these little things immediately, not only does all the little stuff actually get done, not only do you get some momentum going and get happier, you look like you have your shit together.  This is important.  Everybody knows that really talented guy who can’t seem to catch a break, or who always hits snags, or who always finds bad luck.  Part of this is self-perpetuating.  When you have those unfinished little things gnawing at you, it’s harder to get your best work done.  When you don’t look like you have your shit together, it’s harder for people to trust you.  Even if you’re the best lawyer in town, if you’re car’s filthy and dinged up, if your office is full of trash or your plants are dead, if your billing is late every month, clients are going to wonder.  How can he be the best if he can’t even get his shit together to do X?  If he can’t even do that, how’s he gonna handle my shit too?

Caveat: this is not a rant against batching mundane tasks like paying bills or checking email.  Batching is great and you should do it.  But, if that bill sits on your desk for a week, and you think about it for a split second every time you sit down, you’re not batching.  Just pay the damn bill and move on.

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Why Meaningless Assignments Might Be Important

Posted on August 6, 2011 by AJ Kessler

One of the aims of military boot camp is to break a person down so that they can be rebuilt in the way the military desires.  This might sound insane, but it’s pretty important to know that your soldiers are going to follow orders, respect the chain of command, and act without hesitation, even if they don’t totally agree with the decision coming from the top. This is precisely the reason similar training exercises are adopted outside the military.  If you’ve ever been on a sports team, you’ve experienced this to some degree.  But realize, this phenomena is more about the mental aspect than the physical, than actually acquiring the skills, and so its application is not limited to the physical world of combat or sports.

In law school, one of the first assignments was to learn how to use the library.  Sensible right?  Actually, not at all.  Everything is online now.  Lawyers don’t use libraries anymore because it’s cheaper and exponentially faster to use LexisNexis or Westlaw.  The only time you would ever need to venture into the stacks is if you were looking for some obscure old text that isn’t updated anymore.  So, why waste the hours on this assignment?  Well, it was immediately clear that a very sizable number of people were able to get in to law school without working very hard.  Some of these people were bright enough that they didn’t need to put in hours and hours and hours of study to do well in high school and college.  Most of these kids just didn’t have the diligence or study skills required to be a lawyer.  And so, assignments like this one were our boot camp.  They were tedious, time consuming, and more or less completely unnecessary.

Now, law school can still be gamed; like high school and college you can still do well without investing massive amounts of time, but the curriculum is definitely set up so that you’re supposed to be spending massive amounts of time reading and studying.  If you can beat the game, isn’t playing it a waste of time?

“Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation. Training deals not with an object, but with the human spirit and human emotions. It takes intellect and judgment to handle such delicate qualities as these.”

– Bruce Lee

For some people, yes, it is a waste of time.  But it’s important not to forget the boot camp aspect of the experience.  Coming out of law school, you’re likely to sit behind a desk reading and writing for 10 hours a day.  If you’ve never had to study or work like that, and haven’t been trained to do that, it’s hard.  It’s hard to stay focused on something that’s nearly incomprehensible for 10 hours, or 50 hours, or 200 hours in some cases.  It’s frustrating.  It’s draining.  It’s not fun.  So, in part, law school is about developing the individual merely for participating in the game.  Only having observed medical school from the outside, it seems like a lot of it is similarly geared towards ensuring graduates can handle the hell of residency as much as it ensures they’re competent to practice medicine.

Long story short, before you brush something off as pointless or a waste of time, stop and think about what other goals might be wrapped up in the assignment.  Sometimes developing the individual for participation is more important than developing the more glamorous skills.

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Only Scientists Are Successful

Posted on August 5, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I’ve touted the importance of awareness and curiosity before, and I stand my belief that without those two traits, your chance of success is basically at the lottery level.  Every successful person I know possesses these traits in abundance.  But, the most successful people I know take these one step further: they test things.  They keep their eyes out for new or interesting things, they investigate them when they appear, and then they test them to see how they actually work, and how those new or interesting things can be applied to their particular field of expertise.  At the most basic level, they are scientists.

The scientific method might come naturally to some people.  For others, maybe it takes a grade school science class to kick in, but it’s exceedingly simple.  I’ll let Oxford explain: “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.”  In other words, observe, guess, test, record, guess again, test, record, repeat until you have a handle on what’s actually going on.

So simple, and yet most people don’t do this.  People buy crystals to make their plants grow bigger, or propellers to make their cars get better mileage, but never actually test this stuff to see if it works.  What’s most entertaining is the fact that people actually get angry if you ask them if they’ve tested their magic crystals.  Like by putting two pots next to each other and see if the one with the crystal does better.  Blasphemy, I know, but this thinking seems to escape a lot of people.  Hell, Tim Ferriss made a career (well, a second career anyway) out of simply testing his own body, and was so wildly successful precisely because almost nobody else does this.

Don’t be these crazy people.  In anything you do.  Don’t assume you’re nutrition is fine because you feel ok.  Test, i.e. actually document, how a change in your diet affects you. Don’t assume that the conventional way to do something is the best way to do it.  Be a scientist.  Test it.  Record your results.  The world will be a better place for it, and you’ll be a hell of a lot more successful, no matter what field you’re in.

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How To Seem Good At Everything: Stop Doing Stupid Shit

Posted on August 4, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I read this post today, which does a great job of laying out one of the best pieces of advice I had ever been given:

Back in college, one of my best friends was a prodigious chess player. He’d won a few regional championships and was pretty highly rated. Before I met him, I’d considered myself a competent player. Back in school I’d placed in a few high school tournaments, and in general played a better game than most of my friends. I’m a competitive guy, so I’d challenge him constantly only to get trounced. It was a lot like repeatedly banging my head into a wall.

At some point, I caved and made the mistake of asking him what the quickest way for me to improve my chess skills was. What followed was some of the most insulting and profound advice I’ve ever received in my life. He pulled me aside and bluntly said “Josh, stop doing stupid shit.”

Woody Allen said that 80% of success is showing up.  Now, that’s not literally true; you can’t just show up and stand around and be 4/5ths of the way to fame and fortune.  But, it’s pretty true that if you just show up every day, do a decent job and don’t fuck anything up too badly (i.e. don’t do any stupid shit), you’re well on your way to success.  The vast majority of people just don’t put in the time to stop doing stupid shit.

But, don’t fool yourself.  Preventing yourself from doing stupid shit doesn’t just require an extra ounce of forethought.  It takes a fair bit of work.  Not nearly as much work as being a superstar, but still a bit of work:

What constitutes “not doing stupid shit” at the chessboard? At the most basic level, it means not hanging pieces or falling for basic tactics. I spent about a month addressing these issues. I bought a couple of chess books and spent a couple hours a day drilling tactics that involved spotting pieces that could be captured “en prise” (about to be hanged) and basic tactics such as forks, pins and skewers. I should mention that at the end of the month I read up on a couple of openings.

In Josh’s example here, he spent maybe 60 hours of “work” mopping up the big holes in his game, fixing the really dumb shit he kept doing.  The results?

After a month had passed, I decided to start playing again. I was shocked by the drastic improvement in my playing. I was regularly wiping the floor with people rated between 1400-1550. In case you’re wondering, that’s about the rating of an average adult tournament player, most of whom have been playing for years.

Tremendous.

I’ve always valued this advice because it’s universal: there is simply no area of your life you can’t apply this to.  I guarantee, even in something you’re extremely good at, there’s still at least one dumb thing you consistently do.  It’s not that big a deal, so we gloss over it, and then it becomes a habit that we don’t even think about.  It’s how we work.  But it’s still dumb, and eliminating it could make a huge difference.

Looking at this advice again now, I’m going to add a “stupid shit” category to my time tracking template so I can systematically work on not doing stupid shit in various areas of my life.

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It’s Always Easiest To Quit At The Beginning

Posted on August 3, 2011 by AJ Kessler

When I was a freshman in high school I decided to join the water polo team.  Mind you, I had never played water polo, and I was never on a swim team or anything, but it looked like fun and I figured I’d get in pretty good shape doing it.

The first night was absolutely brutal.  Ten minutes into practice I already had cramps in both my legs.  I was slow, had no idea what was going on, and much smaller than most of the other kids.  By the time it was over, after 10pm on a schoolnight, it was freezing outside (for a southern California kid, anyway) and I was exhausted.  My parents, who picked me up, saw me and asked “So, uh, you sure you want to do this again tomorrow?”

Honestly, I was miserable.  My calves cramped so long and so hard that they were essentially rocks by the time I stumbled into the car.  I was starving, reeked of chlorine, my skin was dry and my eyes were burning after three plus hours in the water.  Any sane person would have said “Hell no.”  I really wanted to say “Hell no,”  but for some reason I said, “I should probably give this another shot.”  Even as I said it, I was surprised.  I had never done anything so difficult before, the whole time I was doing it I wanted it to stop, and when it was over I never wanted to do it again.  But for some reason I went back.

Maybe something in me knew that everything is hard at first.  Anytime you try something new, you’re likely to be terrible at it.  That’s the nature of any endeavor that requires skill.  But if you can push through that initial shock of total incompetence, you’re almost always better off for it.  I ended up being pretty damn good at water polo.  I was in phenomenal shape.  I made great friends.  Everything about it was a fantastic experience.  And I never would have had any of that had I quit when it would have been easiest.

People admire perseverance because they can’t imagine themselves putting up with something so difficult/boring/strenuous/whatever for such a length of time.  But the trick to perseverance is just slowing adding on time, stacking on days, then months, then years.  After that initial “suck period” it’s not so easy to quit anymore.  Much sooner than you’d think, it becomes easier to keep up the momentum, to keep stacking on days, than it is to quit.

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Obvious To You, Amazing To Others

Posted on August 2, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I love this old video from Derek Sivers.  It’s always easy to forget:

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Don’t Take This The Wrong Way…

Posted on August 1, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Once, when I was very small, I was walking through the airport with my grandfather when a man began running towards us.  When he finally reached us, a bit out of breath, he extended his hand and thanked my grandfather for changing his life.  It was an unbelievably strange sight at the time, but I would see it quite a few more times before he died.

He was special in a number of ways.  He commanded any room he was in, not with bravado or boisterousness, but with a quiet authority.  He spoke softly in a grave, deep voice.  Whenever he opened his mouth, people shut theirs.  His opinion was consistently sought, and people not only respected his advice, but generally seemed to implement it.  He was one of the most effective communicators I’ve ever seen.

Thinking about it now, one of the reasons he was so successful was his ability to effectively criticize.  If an arrogant person sought his advice, he never said “stop being so arrogant” or even “you might want to tone down the bravado”.  Instead it was, “which of these two techniques do you think would be more effective?” and then he’d demonstrate something close to what the arrogant person would do, and something close to what his advice was, and let the person arrive at the conclusion “by himself”.  He employed many tricks like this to subtly camouflage anything negative he had to say, and the response was usually incredible.  You’ve never seen nasty waiters so immediately disarmed or hardened police so quickly befriended.

The lesson is, if you have something negative to say, find a way to couch it in a positive, or in a way that removes all suggestion that the person you’re talking to is the problem.  You should never, ever have to say “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

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Fuck It Money

Posted on July 31, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Not to be confused with “fuck you money” (which is the amount it would take you to be able to say “fuck you” to anybody at any time), “fuck it money” is something everybody can, and should have.

“Fuck it money” is simply a threshold, under which you make a decision to not let things bother you.  This is similar in concept to Ben Casnocha’s “Ten Dollar Rule” for traveling, except that it applies at all times.

For example, let’s say your threshold is $10.  If you buy some nail clippers that don’t quite work, or you get home from the take-out place with the wrong order, just say “fuck it” and move on.  Don’t dwell on it.  Now, if you’re still in the restaurant, or if you visit the pharmacy every week, take the nail clippers or the take-out back and make it right.  This isn’t about being wasteful. But, how many times have you let that thing you were going to return sit on your desk, staring at you, sticking in the back of your mind, adding just a tiny bit of stress, for weeks at a time?  For what?  $7.99?

Fuck it.  Move on.  Stay happy and stay productive.

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Who Are You?

Posted on July 30, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I’ve been posting a lot of quotes lately, mostly because I’ve been incredibly busy studying for and taking the bar, and partly because the extra motivation helps.  Some of my favorite ideas have come from Marcus Aurelius and his “book” called Meditations.  I say “book” because it wasn’t meant to be a book at all, and it’s probably better to think of the collection of writings as a journal to himself.  Emperor Marcus Aurelius recorded his thoughts not only so he could work out what he really felt and thought about the world, but also so he could go back and read these thoughts when his emotions got the better of him.  In a very real sense, his Meditations were his personal manifesto.  They were what he aspired to be and how he aspired to act at all times.

While the writings are fascinating and enlightening, especially when you consider that these were the humble aspirations of the most powerful man on earth at the time, there’s no reason for a personal manifesto to be something only the extremely successful, rich or powerful possess.  Really, everyone should have one.

In a way, this blog has become my personal manifesto, in an extremely sketchy form.  But even still, I’d like to have something compact, that I can flip through when I need to be reminded of how I want to live my life.  And so, I’m starting to write a personal manifesto.  I have no idea what form it will take or how long or short it will be, but it seems like a necessary step to me.

What say you?  Have you written a personal manifesto yet?  Is it a single sentence?  A paragraph?  A book?  There seems to be a delicate balance between how concisely you state your goals, so that reviewing them doesn’t simply become cliche, and how lengthy you state them so that they’re still accessible and actionable.

Definitely something to consider.  I think this could have as much or more impact on my life than time tracking.  I’ll keep you posted…

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Endurance

Posted on July 29, 2011 by AJ Kessler

 

Everything that happens is either endurable or not.

If it’s endurable, then endure it.  Stop complaining.

If it’s unendurable . . . then stop complaining.  Your destruction will mean its end as well.

Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.

In your interest, or in your nature.

– Marcus Aurelius, Book 10, Hays Translation

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Relentless Self-Criticism

Posted on July 28, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I was reading Architectural Digest, of all things, this evening.  Cool article and photo spread about a house down in St. Barts.  The architect who designed it undertook the project even though he was battling advanced esophageal cancer.  Shortly before he died, he wrote this to another architect who worked in his firm:

St. Barts is an amazing project on every level.  I hope to see its final realization, but totally trust your commitment and guidance.  My life has obviously changed and I am compromised, but I never stop thinking about creativity and self-criticism.

 – Charles Gwathmey

Pretty ballsy to be staring death in the face and still be working to be better.  If he can do it under those circumstances, I don’t really have any excuse.

Oh, and the house turned out pretty damn cool too.

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Aspire To Be The Grapevine

Posted on July 27, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in.  And some aren’t, but they’re still aware of it – still regard it as a debt.  But others don’t even do that.  They’re like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return.

A horse at the end of the race…

A dog when the hunt is over…

A bee with its honey stored…

And a human being after helping others.

They don’t make a fuss about it.  They just go on to something else, as the vine looks forward to bearing fruit again in season.

We should be like that.  Acting almost unconsciously.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book, 5 part 6 (Hays translation)

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Laughter

Posted on July 26, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Work up this morning at 6 am, wondering why the alarm I had set wasn’t going off.  I use the Alarm Clock app on my mac to play songs instead of an annoying buzzer or something, which is fantastic, btw.  So, get up, and tap the spacebar to wake it up.  Nothing.  “Weird”, I think.  I tap the power button.  Nothing.  Dead.  Check Power, try battery, without battery, only battery, anything I can think of.  Dead.

Amazing timing.

Today was the first day of the California Bar Exam.  3 hours to write three essays in the morning, 3 hours to write one big “Performance Test” essay in the afternoon.  It is not something you want to write by hand.  And my precious computer is dead.  Never had a problem with it before.  Never a hiccup, and now, dead.

What the hell was I going to do?  Well, first, I just laughed.  It was just too perfect.  I mean, talk about comedic timing.  What else was I going to do?  Get pissed?  Throw my computer against the wall?  For what?  A computer that then definitely wouldn’t work come test time?  Nope, sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

I eventually called my amazing girlfriend, had her download and install the required software on her machine, luckily got near-instant approval to use a different machine than the one I had registered to take the exam with, and raced to meet her at the Jack In The Box just off the freeway on the way down to the convention center.  So, it worked out.  It always does.

In the meantime, all you can do is laugh.

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