Circle Three: the first
Here goes nothing...
Welcome to Circle Three, The First!
So what’s Circle Three? The term 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 the Third Circle. Let’s create something.
One Big Idea
It’s easy to bounce from one idea to the next, exploring your intellectual curiosity. But having an impact requires a decade of moving the ball forward one yard every day, sometimes in a very mundane way, through multi-year ups and downs. (@brian_armstrong)
An ‘ideas person’ becomes the person after repetitions and consistent effort. And sometimes that effort feels backwards or futile, but in the long run, the effort will evolve and begin to show.
New Circles of Thought
Businesses have them. Schools have them. What about a family mission statement. Having spent a lot of time with family this year, I’ve spent time thinking and writing according to the framework: what values we hold, how we can measure success, and what to do when things go awry.
After reading this article, I ask myself: Do I put the same amount of effort into relationships as I do into technology? Relationships need upgrading and a bug fix couldn’t hurt every now and then. Entering into a relationship, this quick read can help align priorities.
In the quarantine vein, when you’re view gets boring you can always check out someone’s else view from a window somewhere in the world.
Each time I look at Kevin Kelly’s Bits of Advice, a new bullet pops out to me based on where I am and what I’m thinking about. What stood out on the most recent review:
To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.
Microsoft is looking to change where we store data: underwater off the coast.
Essay
Four days after reading Endurance, James Clear tweeted about the books’ delayed success.
“Endurance by Alfred Lansing—the story of Shackleton's voyage to Antarctica—was originally written in 1959, but barely sold. In 1986, an editor bought the rights and published a 2nd edition. It was a huge hit.” - @JamesClear (May 17, 2020)
Now is the time to read this book. I’m secretly hoping for another resurgence for the piece.
In the true story, Ernest Shackleton and his men voyaged for months, prompting first-officer Lionel Greenstreet to write: “The monotony of life here is getting on our nerves. Nothing to do, nowhere to walk, no change in surroundings, food or anything. God send us open water soon or we shall go balmy.” Fitting words for a world trapped in quarantine, reclined in seats as faces glow with the light of the newest, trendiest series.
How often can we completely structure our days? How often can we set about at a task of our choosing, poking our heads up hours later as the sun sets wondering how the time vanished?
But the monotony is an unwelcome gift; uncertainty its cousin.
After the Endurance ship sank, when all hope seemed lost, “there was a trace of mild exhilaration in their attitude. At least, they had a clear-cut task ahead of them. The nine months of indecision...of aimless drifting...were over.”
And my favorite: “Now they simply had to get themselves out, however appalling difficult that might be.”
Little did they know that “getting themselves out” meant months of starvation, below-freezing temperatures, and spending an arctic winter on the bare ice; yet the crew was exhilarated.
“In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age -- no warmth, no life, no movement...Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad.”
Yet the crew was exhilarated.
The quarantine night, much like the polar night experienced by Shackleton, slowly but surely recedes.
Search for a goal. Have something that will give a feeling of exhilaration, without regard for the cost.
Once the quarantine night ends, onward the world will march.
I close with the words written on the flyleaf of the Bible given to Shackleton by Queen Mother Alexandra of England:
“May the Lord help you do your duty & guide you Through all the dangers by land and sea.
May you see the Works of the Lord & all His Wonders in the deep.”
(Essay originally published May 28, 2020)