On my ferry ride home, I always get up from my seat and walk towards the exit when I hear the engines start to decelerate. This deceleration from full-throttle tells me that we have another 5 or so minutes before we dock. I like to spend the last couple of minutes near the stern of the boat when I can see the wake and take in the fresh air. I never get tired of it, the same way that the Golden Gate Bridge or looking up at Table Mountain in Cape Town never gets old to me. I like to think that I get used to my commute home on the ferry, but I never get tired of it.

Every time we dock, there’s a critical moment when the crew member throws the rope from the ferry and loops the stern line around the dock bollard. If he misses the throw, then it’ll waste time, and the ferry may have to reverse for a do-over. The commuters are antsy to get off the boat and are already crowding the gate like little penguins, so it’s a high-pressure move. I always watch this short performance to see if he can nail it on his first throw. Today the ferry was booking it and came in pretty fast with the wind behind us. We were further away from the dock than usual, so the throw was going to be interesting. The crew member was a young kid who was probably about 18 years old. He lined up the throw and nailed it perfectly. In basketball, they would complement a throw like this with ‘nothing but net.’ None of the penguins noticed, but I did. Flawless execution. He looked back and smiled at me. The ferry docked, and the dam burst as the workers filed off the boat. As I walked off the plank, I glanced at the kid, and he gave me another smile. We both nodded, and I was off.

Photo by Shaun Meintjes on Unsplash

Some of the most successful people I’ve met had their biggest wins by riding someone else’s coattails. They didn’t invent anything or start a company, but they did have the wisdom to stick with a winning ticket.

There’s no shame in slipstreaming behind a winner. People do it with companies as well. They join a rocketship and get yanked along for the ride. The first time they do it a lot of it comes down to dumb luck. The second time they do it, it means they are smart enough to recognize their luck and humble enough to step into another winner’s slipstream. Most of the time these kinds of people are quick to reach down and help others with introductions and starter positions. They recognize the value of slipstreaming and momentum for younger up and comers. Reaching down and helping others is the crucial ingredient to paying to forward in Silicon Valley.

Side note: If hubris kicks in, then some people convince themselves that their success is all about their efforts and it had nothing to do with the mega-successful company they joined. Don’t expect introductions or help from folks like this because they don’t think that “people luck” or being in the right place at the right time means much.

I’ve also seen other super-smart “good” people join zombie companies, work their tail off and the company goes nowhere. Silicon Valley is like Vegas with slightly better odds.

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When people are scared and afraid it’s wise to listen to the court jesters and crazies. The jesters and the crazies aren’t constrained by the cultural norms and guardrails that we live with every day. The jesters and crazies speak truth to power. Modern day truth speakers are personalities on YouTube, Byte, Twitter, WeChat, TikTok and Instagram.

Listening to crazy is like plugging into a stream of consciousness with a lot of intermingled bullshit woven in, but if you look carefully, sometimes there’s a pattern. Remember how our old high fidelity stereo systems had knobs for stuff like bass, volume, balance, treble, etc. Twitter and Facebook have a knob like that for Crazy. With climate change, Coronavirus, politics, tariff wars, immigration, Brexit, technology, crypto, etc. it’s worth creating a Crazy filter setting to dip into it from time to time.

You win the game if you can live in both worlds. The everyday world is the ‘don’t panic, follow the rules, and pay your bills’ world. The other world is the batshit crazy Alice in Wonderland world. Take small bites and dips into Alice’s world , and it’ll help you with perspective and insight into the fear driven rules-based and regulated world.

p.s. “It’s dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong” – Voltaire

It was 6:30am in the morning. A group of us were floating in the water waiting for the start of a swim. A couple of guys coming back from an earlier session stopped to report on the sea conditions waiting for us down the beach. The one swimmer lifted up his arm and showed us where he’d been stung by a blue bottle. Ugh! He told us there were clumps of them in the bay up ahead and that we should swim wide to avoid them. There was a bit of mumbling and discussion until someone shouted: “let’s go”. I had other ideas. I’d been stung a couple of weeks ago and was in no mood for a repeat performance. I could still see the sting pockmarks on my left arm. Everyone kicked off and I had a moment to decide. People brushed passed me and then I turned around and started swimming around the point and back to the beach. It was strange and magical to be alone in the water that early in the morning. The sun was rising behind me and the bottom of the ocean looked like the inside of a church when the sun shines through the stained glass windows. I picked up a movement down to my right and saw baby dusky shark slowly moving through the water. It was a perfect moment, the light was streaming through the water and it was just me out there. What a gift to be out there alone and encounter something so beautiful in its natural habitat. The moment passed and I made a beeline for the beach.

Photo by Alexander Nachev on Unsplash

They appear all along the promenade. I call them the watchers. I initially thought they were on duty lifesavers, but over time I realized that they are trying to decide whether to paddle out for a surf.

There’s sometimes a flurry of activity when someone who’s actually been in the water, paddles in from a surf session and walks up from the beach dripping wet. A few words are exchanged with the watchers about the conditions, and then everything goes back to its resting state.

After about 30 mins of sitting on a bench drinking coffee, discussing the less than perfect conditions (it’s never perfect) – the watchers slowly drift off back home, bone dry and fully caffeinated.

I think their version of a surf is heading to the beach with their boards, getting a coffee, and hanging out with other watchers. Maybe that’s just as good as getting wet and catching a wave.

Photo by Sebastián León Prado on Unsplash

Write and press publish it. Build something and share it. Record something and broadcast it. The trick is to start when nobody is listening or watching. There’s no pressure. You’ll improve over time and build up an audience. Feedback from someone on something you published will be like lighter fluid, especially when it helps someone or just makes them laugh.

Make things, build things, and create things. The fastest way to learn is by doing. Start today.

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

Some people swim like dolphins. They glide past me in the water, hardly making a splash. Their heads are steady, taking deep strokes with slow and methodical kicking. There’s no energy wastage or thrash, everything is channeled into moving forward and maximizing velocity.

I’ve encountered thrashers. I sometimes even hear them coming. Their arms are all over the place, their bodies sway from side to side with every stroke. They are the opposite of the dolphins. I’m amazed they finish the swim without exhausting themselves.

But everyone finishes the swim, and most of them are smiling with that pumped up, endorphin rush look on their faces. I’m reminded that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

Another nugget that I gleaned from Bryson’s book, The Body.

Medical innovation contributed to about 20% of the life-saving innovation in the last century. The biggest life-saving change has been improvements to our diet, lifestyle, and hygiene!

Eat better, exercise, wash your hands and chill out. Maybe instead of shaking hands from now on, we should all bump elbows when we say hello.

If there was a pill that had the same benefits as exercise, diet, hygiene it would be the drug of a lifetime. 

Photo by Yusuf Evli on Unsplash

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” – James Baldwin

I keep chewing on this quote. It’s so similar this Yoda wisdom – “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Whenever I encounter an angry or hateful person, I go back to this thinking. That pain and fear are the foundation for anger and hate. I ask myself what is making them so sad and fearful. What happened to them or what are they going through right now.

It’s a helpful thought exercise and makes me more compassionate and forgiving when I feel like spitting back at them.

Photo by Artur Tumasjan on Unsplash

I’m reading a book by Bill Bryson called The Body: A Guide for Occupants. The book takes the reader on a grand tour of the entire human body. It starts with the head and then methodically moves down the body. It struck me how resilient we are given all the crap we shove into our bodies, all while expecting it to keep operating, and processing what we eat, see, smell, taste, and hear. What a brilliant machine.

The other morning I swam through what I can only describe as a waterborne dust cloud. A couple of days ago, we were hit by a massive dust storm. The next day I could see the clay-like dust on the roads and caked onto the cars. This dust must have also floated down and settled into the ocean, and I was now swimming through a lake of it. It was unsettling and murky. In my head, I thought that these were the kind of conditions where a shark gets confused and takes a bite! The next day the water dust bowl was gone, and it was back to blue.

Just like our bodies, we expect the ocean to process and filter all the junk that flows into it every day. How lucky are we? I hope we acknowledge it and treat our bodies and ocean with respect and care. We only have one.

Photo by Ethan Dow on Unsplash