Circle Three: the fifteenth

Hassle and Nonsense. Multi-hyphenate. Masters.

Mar 02, 2021

One tweak in this evolving newsletter is to keep this intro short. Thanks to those who gave feedback in a helpful way. My hope is you will scroll down to engage the sections below, so a summary here seems redundant. Agree?

Last week's most-clicked link was on Amazon’s 14 LP’s. Enjoy this 15th issue!

Cheers,

Dan

So what’s Circle Three? For new readers, the name comes from Seth Godin’s Linchpin, where he posits that the internet has created a circle beyond family and business: a tribe. Where knowledge is exchanged and our gifts are shared.

Thanks for being a part of this third circle. Let’s create something.

One Big Idea

“Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every interaction is an opportunity to learn from and about the people you meet. Someone is better than you at physics, sales, handshakes, and speaking. And yes, even that weird thing you think you’re the best at. Understand this, and have the humility to go into the world with openness and curiosity. Who can you learn from this week?

Circles of Thought

Something I’m passionate about is being a multi-hyphenate. Read about the benefits of a breadth of knowledge through examples like Ben Franklin, Bruce Dickinson, and Marie Curie. “Expertise in one domain may help fuel excellence in another.”
Informational interviews can be excellent networking opportunities and have a host of unwritten rules. Especially as someone who has been on both sides of interviews, these are helpful reminders for any networking situation.
For those cinephiles out there, ScreenplaySubs is “a browser extension for Netflix that syncs up movies with screenplays, displaying them side by side. It’s like having a subtitle that provides more insights on films.”
Here’s a video of ingenious underground city bike storage. It’s made some rounds on the internet because of how it demonstrates out-of-the-box action to solve a problem prevalent around the globe as our cities get crowded.
Need to organize your Spotify music? This great use of Spotify API is another resource to get control of your tracks; because we all have those guilty-pleasure songs that get mixed in with our go-to jams.

Inner Circle: Accepting Hassle and Nonsense

Leaning into tough situations and the wisdom of awareness

As one does, I stumbled across an article on Useful and Overlooked Skills. It piqued my interest, especially the first skill of the seven: “Accepting a certain degree of hassle and nonsense when reality demands it.”

We all experience burdens and inconveniences in our days. It keeps things interesting. I’m experiencing this while I travel through California and Utah for the next few weeks. Regardless of how much care is taken, plans can go awry.

It catches us off guard and reminds us that we don’t have quite as much control as we think.

Losing that sense of control can trigger panic or rage. “You realize how useful it can be once you spot someone who lacks [the skill]. They struggle to get through the day, upset by the smallest hassle.”

There is an art to taking unseen hassle and nonsense in stride. You see a sense of calm flow over those experts at applying this skill. They receive the hassle as new information, adjust the course of the plan, and continue forward with the best decision given the new inputs.

A sense of awareness helps to increase our acceptance of hassle and nonsense. I’m aware of what’s in my control and what might happen that I can’t predict or control.

And to be sure, this isn’t to say that you should accept all hassles that come your way. It’s about building awareness to know that a certain degree of hassle and nonsense will arise, and being skilled enough to know how to handle it.

Meditation, self-talk, and knowledgeable mentors can all help to strengthen this skill that reality demands of us. As can reflection of your personal experiences.

I have a long way to go but have made great strides in this skill through these tools. It’s especially important when stakes and tensions are high. How have you seen this skill, or lack thereof, in yourself and others?

State of the Circle

Dan is a mechanical design engineer interested in the intersection of design and technology. I love making connections between concepts and passions. Start a conversation and reply to this email with what you’re working on.

Here’s a picture from Land’s End Park outside San Francisco last week.

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Circle Three