Newsletter

Jan 5, 2021 Past Issues of Good at Work

Build Something

A Pep Talk for 2021

This year you can build something great.

This isn’t metaphorical, along the lines of building “a year you can be proud of.” I mean making something that didn’t exist before, something you can point at when you’re done, something you will be proud to have made.

If you don’t think of yourself as a builder of things, that’s only true because you’re not building anything. Start and you’ll change who you are.

This year you can build something great because there’s a problem you can see better than anyone else or a need you feel more keenly. You have good ideas to try, and just need to get started.

You might build a program or a process to help everyone at work. You might write something beautiful or perform it. You might discover something new for people who need it. You might make something just for your family or friends, but it will matter to them.

If you need some inspiration, just look around you. Your home, your work, your passions, and your community are full of things that didn’t exist until someone built them. Those people started with just a problem to solve and an idea for solving it.

You’re going to build something great, and then you can move on to the next thing you want to build.

So get going.

(If you want even more ideas, I love this article by Marc Andreeson: It’s Time to Build.)

Seeing Good at Work

In most of the world when natural disasters—like earthquakes and hurricanes—strike a community, the most dangerous threat is a person’s home. This is because they aren’t built to withstand the pressures needed to keep people safe.

Build Change was started in 2004 to create housing and other buildings that keep people safe in storms and earthquakes. Their work in education, training, and direct aid has led to over 50,000 safer buildings for more than 250,000 people in a dozen countries.

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This is article number 20 in Good at Work. If you missed any articles, you can go to the archive.

Dec 29, 2020 Past Issues of Good at Work

Self-Renewal

A resolution for better ideas

Physically speaking, we are constantly becoming new people. Our stomach lining replaces itself every five days. None of the skin cells we have now will be there in four weeks. We’ll have a completely new liver in a year or two. Even our bones will replace every cell in them after 7–10 years.

So with all this new material, why don’t we feel like new people? It’s probably because of the most stubborn part of who we are: our thoughts and ideas.

One of my favorite reads this year was an old book called Self-Renewal by John W. Gardner. Published in 1964, it’s something of a mix between social commentary and philosophy, and surprisingly relevant still. The core idea is that a healthy person, and a healthy society, is constantly going through a process of self-renewal.

New Year’s is a potent time for self-renewal, and yet for some reason we mostly use it to just make resolutions about eating better or exercising more. There’s nothing wrong with those or other aspirations, but perhaps they don’t stick because we keep thinking and believing the same things.

As you consider the coming year, maybe give time to how you can improve your thinking in 2021. After all, there’s no truth we believe that can’t be refined. There’s no thought about others that can’t use more grace. There’s no idea about ourselves that can’t be improved.

We still all have so much to learn. And improving the way we think is a way that we improve ourselves.

What thoughts and ideas do you have that you can improve?

Seeing Good at Work

Every kid needs good teachers. After pioneering the Teach for America program in the United States, Wendy Kopp founded Teach for All. Since 2007, they’ve built a global network of partners who recruit young professionals to teach in underserved schools in their home countries.

The approach works especially well because kids and communities are all unique, so local perspectives and solutions are much more likely to get better outcomes. For example, placing top university graduates in Chile into underserved schools improved math and reading scores, as well as the kids’ self-esteem and self-efficacy.

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I would love to hear from you what good work you’ve set out as a goal for 2021. If you’re willing to share, please tell me all about it.

Dec 22, 2020 Past Issues of Good at Work

You Share What You Love

A lesson from tax law and chocolate

When I was in law school, I took Corporate and Partnerships Tax. It surprised me by becoming a favorite class, in large part thanks to the professor.

Prof. Neeleman wielded a superhuman understanding of the tax code, the kind that you couldn’t stump with even the most obscure question. He’d respond not only with the answer, but would cite the Treasury Regulation section just as easily as you can say your phone number.

He was also incredibly kind.

Near the end of the semester, my study group went to Prof. Neeleman’s office to ask some questions we had for the final exam. He welcomed all six of us warmly. But before we could ask our first question, he took an ornate basket from a shelf and started to pass it around. Inside were some very expensive chocolates that he wanted to share. They were a gift from a student in thanks for some tax advice he’d give . (Based on the chocolates, it had clearly been valuable advice.)

As we all thanked him, he said it was nothing then made an off-hand comment, one that I doubt he even remembers saying. But it overflowed with so much wisdom that I have never forgotten it.

This is a truth as universal to the human experience as you’ll ever find. Prof. Neeleman loved chocolate, so he shared it with us. But that same rule applies to whatever we love most.

Love baseball most? You delight in taking someone to a game. Love cooking most? It’s not the same if you’re the only one to eat it. The list goes on. If you love it, you share it.

And like most truth, it’s a damning one, too. Love yourself the most? Then you’re all you ever want to talk about.

The only things that come from the heart are the things that were there to begin with. It’s our job to make sure that whatever we put in our hearts is worth sharing.

What’s something you love that you can you share with someone else this week?

Seeing Good at Work

Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, one of the most effective ways to improve the circumstances of the very poor is to simply give them money. Research into direct cash transfers regularly shows that families spend the money on things that improve health, education, and future income. They don’t increase spending on tobacco, alcohol, or other temptation goods.

GiveDirectly is one of the top charities in the world making direct cash transfers. They have given over $300 million to more than 600,000 people in the developing world. Moreover, they come recommended by top charity evaluators for their transparency, good governance, and impact.

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I don’t have anything to ask of you this week. I hope you all enjoy a safe and lovely holiday season.

Dec 15, 2020 Past Issues of Good at Work

The Future of Work Will Be Measured by Impact

Looking for work with purpose

For the past few days I’ve been editing a podcast interview I did with Prof. Andrea Veltman, who teaches philosophy at James Madison University. Her book, Meaningful Work, is a philosophical treatment of work. Thorough and thought-provoking, it was one of my favorite reads this year.

What work means to us is changing rapidly, perhaps faster than ever in history. While we still need work to make a living, more people than ever can pursue work as a calling. Instead of salary, the future of work will be measured by things like meaning, virtue, and impact.

We’re already most of the way there. For example, one study found that a staggering 9 in 10 employees surveyed would accept lower pay if they had work with more meaning. There’s also an impression that this desire for meaning is especially pronounced for younger workers, but research shows that older workers may be more cause-oriented than younger people at the start of their careers.

What’s behind this momentum? Perhaps it’s that we see better than ever what our work means to the world around us. Connectivity gives us context and reasons to contemplate our place in a human family with abundant needs. Is there any wonder that we’d want our work—where we spend the bulk of our waking hours—to do some good?

A job doesn’t sprout purpose overnight, though. If you are hunting for more meaning at work, here are three ways to start:

Help the people you work with. Few people in the world will have the same opportunities that you have to help the people around you.
Build things, even if it’s beyond your job description. Don’t just clock in every day. Look for transcendent work, the kind that improves things long after you’ve left.
Master a problem. Something at work vexes people. Understand it better than anyone else so you can help fix it.

If you make meaning at work a practice instead of a mere desire, more opportunities will find you. Before long, you’ll be blazing the trail for others, too.

What can you do this week to add impact to your work?

Finding Good at Work

If you’re ready to dive into finding work with impact, I strongly recommend 80,000 Hours, a program at the Centre for Effective Altruism in Oxford, England. The idea in the name is that you have 80,000 hours of work in your life. Their goal is to help you make that time as impactful as you can.

I recommend starting with their Key Ideas. I also enjoyed their book, which you can get in digital form for free.

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I’m always interested in good ideas for topics to address or organizations to highlight. If you have something to share, please send me a message.

A Pep Talk for 2021

Seeing Good at Work

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A resolution for better ideas

Seeing Good at Work

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A lesson from tax law and chocolate

“You share what you love.”

Seeing Good at Work

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Looking for work with purpose

Finding Good at Work

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