If you consume information about a topic that you’re interested in, how do you test your knowledge? Consider pulling out a blank sheet of paper. Write down all the things you know about that topic. Condense your knowledge into a short and direct message that a toddler can understand. Teach the kid.If the kid doesn’t understand, then you know you have to get better at simplifying the idea. If you are struggling to simplify the idea, it’s possible that you don’t know the topic well enough. That’s good. Keep learning!

I don’t think it’s a secret. The way to get better at relationships is to engage often with those you want a relationship with. I’ve read that the best leaders will send a message three weeks after first meeting someone, and then on a seasonal cadence there after. Each communication delivers some value. How much value can you bring to someone else over an extended period of time? How many people do you want to be delivering value to?Interesting questions. I may try these ideas with some people I’ve recently connected with. I’ll try and remember to share back with you once I learn more.

I am very curious How do our brains remember that we forgot something, but we can’t remember what that thing was?We need more of this childlike wonder… from adults.

Eventually our effectiveness reaches a saturation point — you can only go so far. Better to seek out a healthy balance than push, push, push past past the saturation point.

I traveled to so many places when I worked on cruise ships. At nearly every place, I stopped and checked out the local wet markets. In the Philippines I saw fresh sausage links hanging from a hook, mango, jackfruit, guanabana, small red onions, fish flapping around, and butchers ready to slice and dice pork — or living chickens — to spec. I saw rats from time to time — I think it’s reasonable to expect that in an open market. I become absorbed with the smells, how I imagine some things to taste, and frenetic energy of people moving around and vendors advertising their produce.You can tell a lot about a people by their markets. Home cooks with a discerning eye peeling over each piece of fruit; noticing the smallest detail. It matters. The home cook purchases their ingredients. Ventures home. While walking or taking a local bus they imagine a future where people are seated around a humble table. They are smiling. What they are eating tastes like a memory — something safe, comfortable, and full of love.Food is what we live for — a hope built on a memory full of safety, comfort, and love. HT to Mueed for such an inspiring conversation about Pakistini food today.

I work with lots of Filipinos. Today I asked a colleague, “do you think there’s a difference between how we perceive time? Are Filipinos more ‘loose’ with time than Americans might be - generally speaking?”I loved my colleagues response. We feel like we have more control over our time.What does it mean to have control over your time? I thought about that.Freedom to decide when things start and end.Freedom to spend moments with people you want.Freedom to spend moments by yourself.Freedom to chuck the calendar.When you have control of your time, the boundaries of your calendar become meaningless. True, it means you might keep others waiting for you. I suppose it’s on them to decide what to do with their time. Beautiful concept. How to execute it well… that’s a good question.

Interesting opinion article from the Washington Post.I understand the writer’s big as: stop funding performing arts organizations and start direct funding artists. I started thinking: how would that look? What if you could raise money from your neighbors to fund a backyard production of a play/musical? What if instead of going to a concert hall, you could fund a string quartet to play in your living space? What if you could hire a composer to write music for your birthday? You would ask the composer to write the piece for the person in your family who plays music.I’m left inspired. How many ways might we elevate the arts by abandoning the arts funds and directly funding artists? Would it make sense? I realize I’m on the edge here. You might be the reader that values our performing arts organizations. I do too. I still wonder if a change in arts funding is inevitable. We stopped paying for cable television and now pay directly the content streams we want. Why should other arts be different?

Getting started.And by “getting started” I mean, getting everybody to sign off on what “done” looks like. Refusing to accept “let’s cross that bridge when we get there.”Refusing to accept “let’s just get a few things going and revisit as we go.”Refusing to accept “we’ll see where this sprint takes us.”None of that.The hard part might be getting the idea out of your head. Creating a visual. Creating the rules and the logic. Imagining the outcome in real terms. Writing it out simply. Going to stakeholders and asking for their “approval to build as scoped.” Perhaps even harder than that is informing stakeholders that no changes are allowed once building starts. Why? Because shipping the work is too important.

If you are going to create culture, you must maintain culture. The way you maintain culture is to assert: here’s what the people like us do. Then, the hard part, you must tow that line. “People like us do things like this… we don’t do things like that… if you want to be with us, you do this…”Creating culture is generous and difficult.

Sometimes the fight’s not worth it.Sometimes it’s better just to give in. Better to win a war but have lost every battle, than win many battles but lose the war.Note: don’t confuse the metaphor of fight and war with “negative engagements with people.” Often times that fight and that battle are in your head.