Lean Into The Pain

Pain sucks. 
It's a throbbing reminder that we did something wrong. 
That something broke down. 
That we made a mistake.

And it's easy to focus on the wrong things. 
The unfairness of the world. 
The bullshit of these circumstances.
Or how it's not really that bad.

But pain is a tool. 
It's a feedback mechanism.
It's one that can help us get better.

Like a circular saw, it can cut a plank of wood or chop of your finger. 
You have to know how to use it. 
And you have to do the hard work.

RECOGNIZE AVOIDANCE
We are programmed to avoid pain. 
It's in our basic operating system. 
We want it to end as quickly as possible.
Often with disregard for the long term consequences.

We will chose to pick a scab instead of sitting with an itch.
We will chose to suffer another argument instead of ending a relationship.
We will chose to distract through complaining instead of quitting a job.

When we avoid the pain, we are chosing short term comfort.
And it's not our fault. That's how we were programmed. 
But with higher level cognition comes the possibility of thinking long term.

To stop and recognize it. 
Recognize that you have a choice. 
To chose the short term pleasure. Or the long term benefit.
And be willing to make the choice and live with it.

I('m actually fighting it right now. As I write this post, I'm finding it hard. I'm constantly looking over at my phone, asking it pull me away from the uncomfortable task of writing. When words aren't flowing, the frustration is building and it just seems so fucking difficult ... Twitter seems like a good answer. But it's not. I know that sticking to a writing routine will give me the reps that I need. To practice writing. To be better.)

LEAN INTO THE PAIN. WITH INTENT, NOT EMOTION.
Sit with it.
Lean into it. 
As Ben Horowitz says, run towards the darkness. 
Run to where it is uncomfortable. Be different from the rest of humanity.
Let it be your superpower.

But you need to run with intent. Not emotion. 
Emotions cloud your judgement. 
Emotions protect your ego. Cast the blame on someone else. 
Emotions supercharge the situation so it gets worse.

They're like the inflammation that happens when you sprain your ankle. 
It's a natural process. It bring nutrients and attention to the situation.
It helps to immobilize you. It serves a purpose.

But to get better, you need to control the swelling. 
You need to approach the pain with curiousity, not emotion. 
Try to sit with it. Try to understand it. 
See where it came from. What lessons you can learn from it.

Have intent. Understand why you're chosing to sit with it. 
Understand the result you're looking for.

Don't shy away from painful conversations. Lean into them.
Don't hide from disagreements. Seek to understand them. 
Don't avoid memories for failure. Learn from them.

With intent.

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This post was incredibly hard to write. I was not in the right mindest for it. My mind has been distracted by half a dozen different things. All because I'm feeling uncomfortable this morning. All because my brain is trying to avoid sitting with the pain of the moment.

But I know that getting to the end. Writing it down. Sitting with it and getting it done. Pressing publish. That makes me feel good. And that makes the pain worth it.

- Christian

5 Lessons From An NBA General Manager's Resignation

Wisdom comes from the most unexepected places. In this case, it's from a resignation letter. Seriously. Most people keep to a straightforward template when resigning. Not Sam Hinkie.

Sam Hinkie was the General Manager of the Philedelphia 76ers basketball club from 2013 to 2016. He is one of the original crew in the NBA to pioneer and advocate for the use of advanced statistics in basketball. But more than that, he was someone who was looking to build a championship culture. And in 2016, he resigned from his job. He planted the seeds for a championship contender, but left without ever seeing that tree bear fruit.

Working at an organization - albeit in marketing - during the championship run with the Toronto Raptors, I recognize that sports are different from other businesses. Especially from the front office side. They are charged with one goal - win a championship. You do that by winning games. And to win games, you have to take those wins from your direct competitors. There is no win-win for the front office in sports management. In the NBA, there is only one team that gets to hoist a championship trophy at the end of the year. The other 29 go home disappointed. Second place doesn't mean shit. Trying hard doesn't mean shit. 

So back to Sam Hinkie. And building a culture to chase a championship.

He blesses us by sharing some of that knowledge in his resignation letter. The letter his packed with a density of insight far exceeding what I normally read. Each time I am drawn into this 7,000 word masterpiece, I pull out something different. There is just so much packed into it. And not just the widsom. The writing style. The use of historical references. All of it.

In an effort to share, here are five lessons that I pulled from it:

1/ QUESTION IF IT MAKES SENSE TO RESPOND TO CRITICISM
As humans, our default programming is to repond to citicism. It makes sense. For social animals, being able to adapt and change to get along with the group has been instrumental to our survival. Criticism causes us to pause, reflect and respond. To become defensive to prove out that we are right. To dominate as the top of the social hierarchy. Or to concede and adopt a new norm. It's almost an automatic process. The response becomes a habit.

But how often do we pause to consider the benefit versus the cost of responding to criticism?

"We often chose not to defend ourselves against much of the criticism, largely in an effort to stay true to the ideal of having the longest view in the room. To attempt to convince other that our actions are just will serve to paint us in a different light to some of our competitors as progressives worth emulating instead of adversaries worth of their disdain."

What was the benefit of responding to criticism? To prop up your ego? To make sure you're known as "right" in the columns of sports bloggers and fans? Maybe. 
What was the cost of responding to criticism? Your argument might be compelling enough that other teams want to copy you. You erode your competitive advantage. Given the zero-sum nature of the NBA, that doesn't seem like a good idea.

Pause to consider the value of responding. If the expected net response is positive, than do it. If not, why invest resources in a response? The math doesn't add up.

2/ THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY

Lifelong learning is where it’s at. To walk down that path requires a deep-seated humility about a) what’s knowable, and b) what each of us know. We hire for this aggressively. We celebrate this internally. And we’ve been known to punish when we find it woefully lacking. We talk a great deal about being curious, not critical. About asking the question until you understand something truly. About not being afraid to ask the obvious question that everyone else seems to know the answer to. And about the willingness to say three simple words, “I don’t know.”

Be comfortable not knowing. Be comfortable being wrong. Be comfortable changing your mind in the face of new information. 

3/ THE LONGEST VIEW IN THE ROOM

Jeff Bezos says that if Amazon has a good quarter it’s because of work they did 3, 4, 5 years ago—not because they did a good job that quarter. Today’s league-leading Golden State Warriors acquired Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut, and Klay Thompson almost 4 years ago, nearly 4 years ago exactly, and almost 5 years ago. In this league, the long view picks at the lock of mediocrity.

The results of what you are doing today are not soley based on you showing up this morning. They're the compounded effects of the experience gained and investments made over the past decade. The people that you know. The way that you communicate. The systems you adhere to. The bad habits that you've kicked. It's easy to think that today was a result of your motivation today or that tomorrow is a results of the 24 hours that preceeded it.

But those who put in the work over the long term are those with the most in the bank from which to draw from.

More practically, to take the long view has an unintuitive advantage built in—fewer competitors. Here’s Warren Buffett in the late 80s on this topic: “In any sort of a contest—financial, mental, or physical—it’s an enormous advantage to have opponents who have been taught that it's useless to even try.” Ask who wants to trade for an in-his-prime Kevin Garnett and 30 hands will go up. Ask who planned for it three or four years in advance and Danny Ainge is nearly alone. Same for Daryl Morey in Houston trading for James Harden. 

The long view has an amazing advantage - because most people do not plan long term, you have less competition. If you can't be the best right now, could you be the best over the next year? The next decade? Be willing to plan for the long view and you'll be miles ahead of the competition when they start paying attention. 

4/ TOLERANCE FOR UNCERTAINTY

In some decisions, the uncertainties are savage. You have to find a way to get comfortable with that range of outcomes. If you can’t, you’re forced to live with many fewer options to choose amongst which leads over the long term to lesser and lesser outcomes. The illusion of control is an opiate, though. Nonetheless, it is annoyingly necessary to get comfortable with many grades of maybe.

A tolerance for uncertainty is critical to making rational decisions over the long term. If can't tolerate uncertainty, you limit your options. If you only want guaranteed returns, you're limited to bonds and GICs. If you want to double the return on your money, you can buy an index fund. Is there more risk? Absolutley. But if your goal is to grow your investments to double your investment, an inability to deal with uncertainty will cause this to take an extra 21 years.

To be comfortable with uncertainty is to be comfortable with the possibility of failure. With losing. With ending another season without a championship. It's easy when the game you're playing is binary - there is only one winner. Everyone else loses. But when there is a range of outcomes, it becomes tougher to calculate. And add on top of that, the fact that the Loss Aversion Bias seems to be programmed into the majority of humanity, it's a lot to process.

But that's why it can be a competitive advantage. Precisely becaust most people don't have this tolerance. Zig when most people zag. 

5/ BE LONG SCIENCE

Science is about predictions. Understanding the world until you can make a prediction about what will happen next. If you’re not sure, test it. Measure it. Do it again. See if it repeats. For the Sixers, this has meant efforts like tracking every shot in every gym where we shoot, making predictions in writing about what we think will happen with a player or a team, and generally asking more questions about the game than some are comfortable to have said aloud.

Practice making predictions. Gather data. Track your success rate. I wrote last week about creating a system to track your decisions. Building a concrete practice of doing this will help you better understand the things that you can control, and those that you can't. Be constantly curious and question assumptions. Track as much as possible. Over the past three years, NBA teams have started to track everything about their athletes. They've blown past tracking shots in the gym to track sleep, recovery, blood samples and nutrition. All that work to improve their predictions of future performance.

How does this work in business? It helps you to better understand what variables you can control to optimize the tasks in front of you. Whether it be the deep work of building a long term strategy, the high energy relationship work of closing a sale or the emotionally intelligent work of managing your team. Practice predicting outcomes. Track the variables. Learn from the process. 

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I love the opportunity to nerd out on shit like this. About the principles that can have an outsized impact on our lives. Because the application is not just to business. Or sports. But the adjustments of these first principles allow us to better understand ourselves, how humans work and the world around us. It has the opportunity to impact relationships, the cities we choose to live in, our families, and how we invest our most precious resource - time.

- Christian

Everyone Should Learn How To Write A Brief

“What do you want?”

That's the question. And not from an old-man-yelling-from-his-front-porch-at-strangers sort of way. But in a real way. When you’re an adult, you need to be able to answer and communicate what you want. If you can't ... well, then you’re in line for a mountainous pile of disappointment. In business and in life.

That's why everyone should learn how to write a brief. Because a brief requires you to cleary define what you want. To give the full context of the situation. To write it down.

Being able to write a great brief means that you are taking the ownership of the recipient understanding YOU. You're not relying on them to "figure it out". You are making it explicitly clear what you are looking for and where you expect them to add value.

A good brief makes everything easier. A bad brief (or no brief at all) results in disappointment. Let me give you a real world example:

"Husband, can you pick up some fruit from the grocery store?"

"Sure."

***Comes back with bananas***

"What the fuck? I wanted apples!"

"Why didn't you say that?"

It seems obvious, but we often forget that people cannot read our minds. We didn't all go to Xaviers School For Gifted Youngsters. We think that people will "get" what we mean without taking responsibility for communicating what we are looking for. Now take a look at this 100% fictional and not-based-on-real-life example:

"Husband, can you pick up some Mactintosh apples from the grocery store? I want to eat them as a work snack this week."

"Sure."

***Comes back with five delcious Macintosh apples**

"You're awesome. I love you."

Once again, I want to state that this is a 100% fictional example. Any resemblance to what may or may not happen in my life is purely coincidental. But the point is that taking the time to create a strong brief makes everyone's lives easier. And it's not just based in advertising. The opportunities for great briefs are all around us.

Shopping list? That's a brief.
Looking to hire an interior designer? You better write a great brief.
Hiring a real estate agent? You need a brief. 
Prom dress? Get a brief.

Otherwise you're wasting time "shopping" to look for what you want. And that's just lazy. The whole "I'll know it when I see it" approach does not respect the time and expertise of the people you hired. By not doing the work to clearly define what you're looking for, you are forcing them to throw options at the wall and see what sticks. That's not effective. Time, energy and money and limited resources. Value them as such by crafting a strong brief.

A brief does the work for you. It provides direction for the people performing the service so that they come back with options that you want. If you don't do the upfront work of creating a great brief, you will end up doing more work on the backend trying to redirect and select from work that is completely outside of your scope.

And a brief holds people accountable. It makes people understand the constraints that you're working within and stick to them. (ie Our budget is $500k. Why the fuck are there only options that are $650k and up?) It also forced the tough conversation BEFORE the real work begins. You can understand whether everything you're asking for is reasonable or not. And you can adjust the brief and your expectations accordingly.

There are plenty of resources that get into the nitty gritty of writing a great creative brief. BBH has another more meta article on it. And here's even a sample one I wrote for a private label collection for the Toronto Raptors that people have found useful as a template.

Crafting a great brief takes time. But the biggest shift is in your mindset - taking full responsibility for the people you are briefing to understand what you want.

- Christian

Learning To Make Better Decisions

Life rewards goods judgement. Making the right call on what system to invest in. Where to live. How to allocated your budget. How to play your cards given the pot odds, betting position and opponents. Choosing the right people to be in your social orbit.

Good choices win out over time. Bad choices don’t.

But how do you tell if you're smart … or just lucky? The bias of fundamental attribution error suggests that we are prone to thinking that when good things happen to us, we created them. But when bad things happen, then it's just shitty luck. We blame external forces for bad circumstances and take personal credit for good ones. Basically, we are shitty at understanding when we made the right moves and when we were in the right place at the right time.

Now imagine if we could improve our decision making. What would the bottom line of your business look like if you removed your worst investment decisions? A lot different.

Denise Shull is a performance psychologist and the real life inspiration for the character of Wendy Rhoades on Billions. The promise she makes to her hedge fund clients is not to make them super-human. But to have them center their decision making process to remove their bottom 10% of decisions. Calls that they make when they're emotional. Or when they're relying on hope instead of facts. Or when they're exhausted and not thinking straight. To them, good judgement pays. Millions of dollars.

To be successful over time, we need to develop good judgement. But how do we improve ours? It's not easy. But it is straightforward.

The key to developing good judgement is the same as improving any skill. You learn by doing. You learn by doing, getting feedback on whether you made the right call, learning from it and adjusting for next time. And then you do it again. And again. And again.

It's a constant practice.

One of the best tools to leverage in developing this practice is a sytem to track your decisions. A system allows you to catalogue the variables that were impacting you when you made the decision. Were you tired? Hungry? What time of day was it? What was your emotional state?

A system enables you to revisit and input the results of your decisions. Were employees happier as a result? Did revenue increase? Were there more repeat customers?

A system helps you to identify patterns - those that lead to good decision and those that lead to bad ones. And once you understand what variables influence your decision making, you can make adjustments to optimize for it.

For example, Jeff Bezos adjusted his schedule such that he now will ONLY take important meetings that require high impact decisions at 10AM. He understands when his mind is in peak form to make intelligent decisions. And he has shifted his schedule to optimize for it. If he is asked to make an important call in the afternoon, he pushes it to the next day at 10AM. It's more valuable to make the right decision the next day than to make a the wrong decision at 4PM.

A tool to leverage in the pursuit of improving your judgement is a decision tracker. It creates a simple system to track, codify and revisit important decisions you are making. That way, you’re not subject to the bias of your own memore - cherry picking, dwelling on the negative or the other stories we like to tell ourselves.

*Download the decision tracking template PDF here. Apologies for not crediting the original source, but I lost where I adapted it from.

--

I don't claim to be an expert on this. I still make plenty of bad judgement calls. By tracking them, I can better understand the patterns that led to those decisions. And by calling those out, I have a better shot at changing them for the next round.

Our minds are fickle. Our memories are constantly being overwritten and tweaked every time we recall them. Our stories change. By having something written down and revisiting it over time, it allows us to have a concrete record of what we thinking. Feeling. Hoping for. And that lets us improve.

- Christian

How To Win The Waiting Game

You did it.

You rocked the tryout. You aced your univeristy application. You killed the interview.

It's done. Now you can go out, grab some drinks with friends and eat a full Dominoes pizza without feeling guilty. (Just me?)

And now comes the frustrating part - the wait.

The time where you sit around and wait for the results. It could be a couple of days. Weeks. Even months. That's enough time to contemplate if you really did put forth your best effort. Second guess yourself and the moves you made when it mattered. And then wallow in a puddle of anxiety and disappointment. Fuck.

Waiting sucks. There's no two ways about it. When we put something out into the world, we want feedback immediately. Did it work or not? Am I good enough, or do I need to improve something?

The mentally challenging aspect of the waiting game anchored in the fact that you have no control. Your time to influence the outcome has passed. You answered the questions. You submitted the test. You ran the 40. And now you're stuck in an ocean of uncertainty with no control when the waves are going to hit you.

Keep busy. Think positive. Don't think about it. It's out of your control. Those are the tropes that people will tell you.

Sure. Because it's easy to do all of those things. It's a classic White Bear Problem. When people tell you NOT to think about something, you're going to think about it. And then you're going to double down and "try harder" to distract yourself. You will end up spending a lot of energy on avoiding specific thoughts. That's not how you win.

In wrestling with this, I found it helpful to flip the script. Instead of avoiding the uncertainty, sit with it. Dig into to it to really understand how you feel, what is causing you to worry. Once you face those thoughts, you can strategize on how to accept and deal with them.

You want to win the waitng game? Here's what to do:

1/ EXCITED, NOT ENTITLED
It's easy to get lost in anxiety and forget the fact that you're chasing an opportunity. That's fucking exciting! You're making moves to bring amazing new challenges into your life. And the healthiest mindset to get through this is one of excitement, not entitlement. Excitement, not entitlement.

You're not entitled to shit. 
The General Manager is trying to build a championship roster. They don't owe you shit. 
The admissions officer is trying to cast the best student body. They don't owe you shit.
The boss is trying to hire the best person. They don't owe you shit.

Don't be a brat.
Be excited.

Be excited that you get the opportunity to try out for THE team. (Fred VanVleet undrafted tryout footage)
Be excited that out of everyone that applied, you made the first cut. 
Be excited that out of 1000+ applicants, they wanted to talk to you. 

Frame your mindset as excited, not entitled.

2/ PREPARE TO FAIL
The core challenge of the waiting game is uncertainty. The unknown leads to anxiety. And the anxiety breeds suffering. The good news? You can dramatically reduce the uncertainty. It's by going through an exercise that feels uncomfortable at first, but will lift a giant weight off of your shoulders. It's an exercise stolen from Tim Ferris called "fear setting".

The premise is that you don't need to plan for success. If you're successful, the steps forward are easy, enjoyable and obvious. Instead, plan for failure.

You need to sit with it. Take the time to visualize failure. What does it look like? How do you feel? Who do you call? What do you do next?

Let's say that you don't get the job. What is the worst that could happen? 
You get cut from the team. What do you do next? 
You don't get in to your dream school. What's your backup plan? 

By drawing out in excrutiating detail what failure looks like, it takes it from an nebulous cloud of uncertainty to a solid scenario. You can't fight a cloud. You can plan for the pain of a real world event. And often,  you find that the "worst case scenario" isn't that bad at all. It's short of disasterous. You can recover from it. And you can plan your next moves. That's how you win.

3/ SHOW GRATITUDE
After each tryout / audition / interview, I try to take the time to appreciate the journey. To show gratitude for the process. To take stock of what I learned from the experience. And the science on gratitude is pointing to it making us happier and reducing stress.

The goal is to never walk out of the process as the same person who walked in. There is always an opportunity to find value. Whether it's the practice reps you got in. Whether it's the connections you made. Whether it's identifying the mistakes that you won't repeat. Appreciate the value you gained from the experience. So that even if you don't get the result you're looking for, you're still walking away with something new.

--

The decision making process a black box. Even if you have a clear scorecard of evaluation and understanding of the process. There will never be full transparency in the process. Because the humans making the decisons are not perfect. They're succeptible to their own bias. They're influenced by context. They can be moved by group dynamics.

You can never predict. You can only respond.

Knowing this, that doesn't mean that there is nothing that you can do. That you have to be 100% reactive. You can take charge of your time in the waiting game through (1) your mindset, (2) visualizing failure and (3) appreciating the opportunity.

Even if you don't get the result you're looking for, you will come out the other side with the win. 

- Christian

A Day Without Data

I bought a dumbphone. Or a burner. It sounds better if I call it a burner phone. For those of you born after 2001, that means a phone that can only call and text. And not even "text based apps" ... just text. Like SMS.

It was $40 and I used it as a backup when I had to give my iPhone back. It ended up being an experiment to see what I would do during a couple of days without data. It turns out, not having a smartphone automatically cuts out a lot.

It cut out distractions. 
No Twitter
No Whatsapp
No Instagram

It cut out useful shit that I used.
No Googling stuff that I didn't know the answer to.
No Google Maps. 
No ability to search my email for forgotten details of an appointment.

It cut out learning.
No podcasts. 
No Kindle.
No YouTube.

It forced me to be present. 
I had nothing to look at in the elevator. 
At the crosswalk waiting for the light. 
Or while waiting in line.

It created an abundance of these micro-gaps of time. And I was without dopamine hits from my smartphone. But I was hopeful that the abscence of datat would create space. Time without stimluation. Time to be bored. Time to think. Time to observe.

So I went out into the real world untethered. And noticed how quickly that my habit to check my smartphone ... just moved into a habit to check my burner phone. I mean, was that a buzz? What if someone had texted me? (They hadn't). What if I missed a phone call about something important? (I didn't). I was conditioned to reach for my pocket whenever I wanted to avoid being present doing whatever it was that I was doing.

Want to avoid writing? Reach for my phone.
Want to avoid eye contact? Reach for my phone.
Want to avoid conversation with a stranger? Reach for my phone.
Want to avoid work? Reach for my phone.

Yeah, so my desire to use my phone as an enabler for avoidance was pretty clear. But over the course of a week, I learned about my relationship with my phone and how it was impacting my interactions with the world.

1/ Habit loops are hard to break. One day is enough to notice an unconscious habit, but certainly not enough to break it. It's tough as hell. And breaking a bad habit is the same process as forming a new one. It's never complete. You have to continue to reinforce it day after day. The easiest way to break a bad habit is to make it hard to do. And that's what I was doing with a burner phone instead of a smartphone. Sure, I could check it a million times a day. But there's less of a designed response. Why? Because the stimulus just isn't there.

2/ Boredom is a blessing. Being bored was uncomfortable at first. But then my unstimulated brain began searching for stimulation. It let me think through problems. How to frame tough conversations that I needed to have. How to structure systems differently. How hypothetical scenarios might play out. How I needed to prepare for different meetings. It gave me space to think. And it gave me space to write.

3/ I engaged with more people in real life. A smile. A simple greeting that turned an automatic response into a real conversation. I was more present. That allowed me to connect better with strangers.

4/ I felt happier. The increased connections with strangers were part of it. And there was reduced stress from not being tied to email. And there was an increase in my presence in the real world. Removing the constant connection doesn't actually have you missing out on a whole lot. It's a misperception that the world will collapse is we are not connected to it. (And a little narcassistic - I'm not that important.)  Plus, if something is important, people will call.

5/ I felt like Jason Bourne. I mean who else carries a burner phone? Spies, that's who. From my last stroll around the city, I noticed that even grandparents and homeless people are rocking the iPhone 5. If you're carrying a burner in 2019, I'm going to guess that you're a spy or an eccentric billionaire who doesn't want to be tracked.

6/ I needed a notebook to write stuff down. My mind was racing. With questions to ponder. With things to think about. With new ideas to investigate. And I had a special mistrust of my brain to remember the fleeting brilliance that crosses my mind. I didn't want to lose all of that inspiration in the next cycle of thoughts. Quotes. Inspiration. Ideas. I needed somewhere to write them down. It started with scrap paper, and turned into a notebook. I love writing on a page. I can see my mistakes. I can see my rewording of sentences. When I write with a pen, it's slower. But I can see the evolution of my thoughts instead of just deleting and retyping them.

7/ The withdrawl is real. And it will hit you in funny moments. You don't even realize that your hand is reaching for your phone before you're looking at it. The irony with a burner phone is that then you just end up starting stupidly at an unchanging screen. Cool. It's 10:47AM. Got it. Next. But there are also times when you are just drawn to it. You REALLY want to check Twitter to see the reactions to the evening's NBA games... but you can't. It's annoying as hell. You curse yourself out for not having your smartphone. You beg your wife to borrow hers. It's not a pretty sight.

8/ Presence is a present. You see what I did there? Trying to keep my #dadjoke game strong. But seriously, without being fed the constant dopamine hits from my smartphone, I found myself being much more present with the people that I normally engage with. I was quicker to understand what they wanted. I was faster at snapping back from distraction. I was more efficient at work. I was more able to truly enjoy my time with people. Especially my son. Normally I bring my smartphone as he messes around in the bath during bathtime. But being able to mentally be there, participate and observe as awesome. Not everyone may not have noticed a difference. But I did. And it was worth it.

--

I realize that my phone is a tool. And I LOVE certain aspects of my phone. I love that I can take high quality pictures of my son. I love that I can use it to play stuff on my TV without having to get off the couch. I love walking and listening to podcasts.

But I want to be the one weilding the hammer. I want to leverage my phone to enable my good behaviours - like meditating, reading, writing and learning. I don’t want to be sucked into hours of wasted time, additonal anxiety or mindless scrolling.

I wish I could tell you that I figured it out. That I had a grand plan of how to move forward. A new system that built a firewall between my smartphone being a distraction device and boxed it into a being a tool. Do I bring a camera and a burner phone for a weekend? Do I bring a notebook everywhere instead of typing stuff into my phone? Do I wait until I get in front of a computer to search for the answer to a question?

Truthfully, I don't know what the right balance is for me. I'm still working on that. But I do know that I want to be more intentional about how I spend my time. And one way is to take a break from this super sexy, super convenient, super useful smartphone.

- Christian

Thoughts On Choosing Your Doctor (Or Accountant. Or Barber. Or CRM Agency.)

This article originally started as a Twitter thread but further reflection made me think that it necessitated a long form piece. 

Not all professionals are created equal. There are shitty dentists out there. One of my friends was telling me a story about how they - as a dentist - are truly fucking scared about how many shitty dentists are out there.

The truth is that not all doctors are good doctors. You would think that the tough selection process for medical school, competing for residencies and fellowships would churn out only the best of professionals, right? 

You would be wrong. 

Like everything, there is a spectrum.  So what makes one good? And how do we find them?

We seem comfortable searching for the best car mechanics. And tradespeople. But not doctors. Why is that? Because of the money they spent to get into school? Because of the societal ranking that my health is more important than my home? Because they were able to pass a test?

I spend a lot of fucking time in my home. I hope to hell that my electrician wired it correctly and it doesn’t burn down with me in it. Motor vehicle traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in the US. And I’m combing through Yelp & Google reviews make sure that the people responsible for both of those are vetted. And that they’re good. Shouldn’t we put in that minimum level of effort for the people advising on your health?

I’m not saying that your doctor is shit. I am saying is that just because they graduated from medical school doesn’t make them good.  

So let's stop treating it that way. 

EDUCATION DOES NOT EQUAL COMPETENCY 

Just because someone invested $100k+ in their education doesn’t mean that they are capable of solving all your problems. 

A reliance on a couple of letters after their name - whether it be MD, MBA, CPA - does not excuse you from forgoing the vetting process. A degree in the field that you’re looking to hire is no guarantee that the person can do the job you are looking for them to do. 

That’s because a graduation certificate is only one piece of the puzzle. It’s the bare minimum. To be good you need experience. To be great you need experience, awareness and continuous learning.

1/ Experience. Great professionals need to recognize and respond to a variety of real world situations. That can’t be taught in class. It can’t be taught with case studies. Or in the lab. Or with cadavres. The nuances are too great. It’s learned through reps in the real world. 

2/ Awareness. Great professionals are aware. They’re aware of what their clients value. And the best way to communicate with them to get them the result they need. They’re aware of the best point of leverage where they can help. And they're aware of their own blind spots and where their expertise ends. 

3/ Continuous Learning. 20 years of experience doesn’t mean that you’re up to date with the last 20 years of science in your field. There’s a difference between the people who have 20 years of experience and those who have the same year of experience repeated 20 times. . The best doctors keep abreast of change. When the science validates new protocols on peanut allergies in kids, you best hope your paediatrician isn’t stubbornly old school.

HOW TO DO THE CHOOSING

So, there are good doctors. And there are bad doctors. Great. Super helpful Christian. Now how do we tell the difference?

Anonymous customer reviews on something like RateMyMD.com? It’s tough to trust without someone’s name attached. Patient Referrals? Previous patients/customers can attest to the customer service. But what about the actual science of their work? 

Unless they studied oncology and have years of experience in the field, how can they validate that they outcome is due to skill versus a lucky variance? They can’t. They can only speak for outcome, not the process.

The gold standard is a doctor referral. People who are known in their industry as leaders. People who are respected by their peers. People who tho fellow doctors would trust with their own health if they had to go under the knife. To find the best professionals (marketers, doctors, lawyers, personal trainers, barbers) - find the people whose peers recommended them. 

It’s easiest when you’re moving to a new city - just ask your trusted professionals from your current city who they would recommend. Who should I talk to if I need a GP in New York? Where do you get your hair cut in Vancouver? Can you recommend a personal trainer in Toronto?

CONCLUSION

Look, when it doesn’t matter you can choose someone who is “good enough”. I don’t really care that much about my dental hygienist. Or the person who is going to clean my car. It just needs to get the job done and be convenient. But for the important shit, you need to vet. When it’s a big investment or an important aspect of your life - like your health - put in the work. That 30 minutes of pre-work will save you headaches on the back end. Because you’ll be working with a true professional who is great in their field. Not just somebody with a framed degree on the wall. 

And if you want to be recognized as the best, gain the respect of your peers and your industry. Gain experience. Build awareness. And keep learning. Take care of your reviews and feedback so that people come to you with the confidence that you’re the best at what you do. 

- Christian

Hot Takes On Getting Your First Job In Sports & Entertainment

Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to give a keynote at the Ryerson Entertainment Conference in Toronto. The audience was filled with bright young minds eager to break into the world of music, fashion, graphic design, broadcast, sports and entertainment.

They spent the weekend devouring programming that went deep into the industry trends for music, theatre, live events, gaming, digital media and more.

The organizers were kind enough to give me free rein in terms of the topics they were looking into. There was a suggestion that I talk about innovations in the industry, what would be coming next and stuff like that.

But then I asked myself a question - is that what students really care about? I mean - yes. They are hyped about their industry. They are excited about knowing what’s coming next in their field. That’s why they’re at the conference!

But you know what else is exciting? Getting a fucking job. Going from paying money to learn about an industry you love to making money from working in that industry.

So that’s what I talked about. And here’s what I said:

All the confidence. None of the research.

I’m here to give you a bunch of hot takes how to get your first job in sports & entertainment. Why hot takes? Because they’re my opinions - designed to be provocative, only lightly researched, and emotionally charged from my own personal experience. 

Why Listen To Me? 

Great question. Great, great question. I’m not smarter than you. I’m not sitting on genius level IQ. I don’t have a higher learning capacity. I have not cracked the code to a larger storage capacity in my brain. I’m not a scientist with a depth of lab experiment data to draw from. Everything I know is from my own learning and has been applied with a sample size of n=1 … that 1 being me.  

The only qualifications I have to talk to you about breaking into these industries are my own life experiences. I’m 35. And I’ve spent the past 14 years working in creative industries - advertising, sports, fashion, music & live entertainment. The insights that I am bringing are from my own personal experience. So please take everything that you hear today with a grain of salt. Some of it might apply to you. Some might not. Take the ideas that you find valuable and discard the rest.

And if you’re this far in and kind of feeling sleepy, here’s people to read / follow / reach out to that are MUCH better qualified than me:

A bunch of people a whole lot smarter than me.

1/ ON LIFE DESIGN: Bill Burnett and Dave Evans - two profs from Stanford who teach an undergraduate course on Life Design. They dive deep into applying design thinking to make sure you create the full life that you want - not just the career. It’s the most popular course on campus.

2/ ON WORK LIFE: Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist from Wharton who spends his time diving into the nitty gritty of work. Everything from getting hired, to getting promoted, to workplace bias and creative industries. He has a great podcast in partnership with TED.

3/ ON CREATIVITY & DEEP WORK:  Cal Newport is prof at Georgetown. (Yes, I know … another one. Sorry about that). He wrote about deep work and the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. He talks about getting the hard work done and ignoring distractions to create great creative outputs.

4/ ON GRIT & GETTING YOURSELF OUT OF THE SHIT: Arlan Hamilton was broke and homeless 4 years ago. She’s also black, a woman, a lesbian … and a certified badass. She got pissed off at the amount of startup capital that goes to white dudes in Silicon Valley. For every $1.2 million that a white man raises in a seed funding for their innovative company, a black woman raises $46,000. That’s fucked up. So she started Backstage Capital, which has already invested $4 million in women and has raised $36 million more over the past year.

If she can go from the couch to the boardroom, so can you.

1/ WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?

The first question that I want you to ask may seem obvious - where do you want to go? It’s okay if you don’t know. You may have five directions that you want to go in. I want to be a graphic designer. I want to direct music videos. I want to play guitar in a rock band. I want to be a music promoter. No wait … I want to be the world’s best vegan chef. You have all these ideas, but you don’t know which one is the right one. I’ll help you out with this one.

There is no right answer. Let me repeat that again. There is no right answer.

There is no right answer. Especially when you don’t have real data. You don’t actually know if you would like any of these career paths. So, how do you get out there and gather data? You need to craft experiments to find out the stuff that you like.

Oh shit! I like cooking food. Or at least watching it on Netflix. Great. What does it actually cost you to test that? To create it? It’ll cost you a tripod, some lights and some food. Now go make a shitty show and put it up on YouTube. Practice your on camera personality. See if you enjoy the process of learning, creating and perfecting that craft.

I want to work in advertising. Shit! That’s both easy and hard. Go take an internship and see if you like what the fuck is going on in those places. Do you like the creative atmosphere and solving tough brand problems? Or do you think it’s all a sellout artistic wank? Either way, now you know.

I want to be a music promoter. Fucking awesome! Go hang out with a bunch of them and ask them about their career paths, their lives, what they love and what they hate. They love building an artist. They love the show. They hate shitty artists. And losing money. And they ride or die by the risk of each show. Now figure out if that’s something that you could deal with.

Get out of your head and into the real world. Create opportunities to collect data that can help you decide which path you want to take. And then point your skis downhill and start your run.

It’s okay to change course. The biggest fear of picking a path is that you’re shutting the doors on the other opportunities. But here’s the thing - it’s okay to change course down the road.  The choices that you make throughout your life are not permanent. They are always up for revision. But having a focus allows you to drive down a specific path and see if it’s right for you.

Making that choice can be helpful in a number of ways. It can be as simple as telling you where you need to be. I want to be an actor? Shit. I’ve got to be in Toronto or LA. I’m not going to be super fucking successful in the booming film industry of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

This is about building a career, not just your next job. The first step on your journey is knowing where you want to go. Being in at this conference, a lot of you have already picked that. Or you might be treading water trying to figure it out. It doesn’t matter. Having direction is key. Otherwise, you’re just wandering around.

It’s like fucking Bird Box out there.

2/ LOOKING FOR A JOB

This is the shittiest part. You’re put out there with no clear idea of what to do. Your career counsellors are telling you to do stuff … but if they haven’t worked in the industry, they don’t actually know what the fuck goes on. They tell you what to do, but not how to do it.

Here’s the harsh reality of your chances:

These are real numbers when we posted for a coordinator to work on the live music business.

Those are some slim odds. For a job that you actually hear about. That’s why you need to invest in your a network. Because I’ll tell you straight … when we get post jobs at MLSE we get lots of applicants. Over 600+ applications in a week and a half. Our HR might try hard, but they’re human. Either way, there is a thin margin to come out of those submission. If you know someone, you’re automatically put into the top 40 that actually get to the hiring manager’s desk. You just went from 1 of 600 to 1 of 40.

If you can’t do this, you’re fucked. Invest in your network.

Informational interviews.

Every career counsellor you’ve talked to told to do them and that they’re useful. And I agree. You need to leverage them to build your network. Every single person in our industry was in the spot that you are now. You know why? Because recruiting in creative industries is fucked. There is no efficient pipeline. There is no clear path or career fairs. So every person who is established in the industry and you want to meet … they had to do the same thing.

Rule #1 : AVOID HR

See this person? Her name is Samantha and she works in Human Resources. FUCK SAMANTHA! Her job is to say no. I’m sure that there are a lot of amazing recruiters in creative organizations, but they are fucking few and far between. Most HR people say no as a blanket statement. They think that it’s their job.

When I was starting out trying to get an internship in advertising, I reached out to the top 50 ad agencies in Toronto through their HR reps. Zero got back to me. Zero. Then I decided to reach out directly to the presidents of the ad agencies. Roughly 60% of them got back to me. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? The president of an agency has more time for me than HR? If that’s not a lesson in what’s fucked with recruiting, I don’t know what is.

But the lesson is clear. Avoid HR. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Reach out directly to people in your industry that you want to talk to. Interns that got hired. Junior people. Senior people. Even the fucking president or the founder. Doesn’t matter. Ask them.

Rule #2 : HAVE A CLEAR ASK

You want to have a clear ask. You don’t need to go into depth when you’re trying to set up the meeting, but when you meet in person, take control of the meeting. Explain why you’re there, what you’re looking for, and what you would consider success from the meeting. Otherwise you’re going to get stuck with getting asked the question “so tell me about yourself”, ten minutes of small talk and an awkward exit.

Rule #3: DO THE WORK

This is may sound stupid, but make the plans. Give them options. Figure out where their office is and pick a couple of places for them to chose from. Make it super fucking easy for them to say yes without having to do any other work aside from showing up. Take charge. It’s not an asshole thing to do. It’s removing decisions from their plate. It makes meeting with you less of a pain in the ass.

And be prepared. Do your research. Check out that person’s LinkedIn to learn about their career path. Do a Google search to see what news articles they are mentioned or quoted in. See if you can find any previous videos of interviews they’ve done.

And please for fuck’s sake come in with a list of questions. And listen to the answers. And do NOT have one of them be “Can I have a job?”

Pro Tip - If you’re looking to generate some good insights from a professional, ask them this question - what would you do if you were in my position? Write it down.

Rule #4 - DELIVER VALUE

80% of people go in with a list of questions. And that’s good. You need to be fucking prepared. But what is going to make you stand out from everyone else? Deliver value. You need to figure out a problem that they have (before you show up) and do some thinking on solving it.

Research their business. Their brand. Their industry. Identify a problem that they are facing and talk through solutions with them.

Rule #5 - MAKE SOMETHING

What does that mean? Make something. Anything. It could be art. It could be a playoff edit for their sports team. It could be a strategy. It could be a revised UX or prototype of their app. But you need to make something.  

And if you don’t know what to make, bring insights. What do I mean by that? Take whatever product that they have and ask five of your friends about it. Cut it into a 30 second video and play it for them. This gives them insights as to what your peer group think of their product. Or even better … talk to the people who actually are their fans.

Your goal is that you want the person to walk out of the meeting knowing something that they didn’t know going in … and even better, having something that they can share with their colleagues. And that artifact has your name attached to it.

Rule #6 - MAKE A PERSONAL CONNECTION

That doesn’t mean that you fake having something in common - you don’t have to pretend to love the same band or sports team as them. You just have to be interested in the other person. Be strategic in your conversation to pull out personal details about their story, ambitions and career. Why did they get into the field? Oh music. That’s cool. Who was your first live concert? Michael Jackson on a tour in 1998 in Vancouver? Sweet. And your stupid cousin took the floor seats while you were in the nosebleeds? That sucks!

The connection you’re trying to build isn’t about you telling your story and trying to be interesting. It’s about having that person talk about themselves, being able to relate to them and gathering information. It’s going to be useful in the next step. I promise. 

Rule #7 - FOLLOW UP

Do you send a follow up email or text? Of course you do. But then you do something that stands out. You send a gift and a handwritten note as well. Why? Because people get hundreds of emails a day. But they get less than a dozen pieces of mail a week.

And as for the gift, it can be anything. Something small, but personal. Something that says “Hey, I was listening to our conversation”. They talked about missing bagels from when they were living in Montreal? Send them some Montreal bagels.

It doesn’t have to be expensive or extravagant. But it does have to be personal.

Drinks are on you.

3/ YOU GOT A JOB OFFER!! FUCK YEAH!

You’ve gotten presented with an offer. Or maybe even multiple offers. Fuck yeah! You start dreaming. Welcome to being able to afford the finer things in life. Hello rich people? I’m one of you now. That’s right. I’m going to order off the normal menu, not the dollar menu.  

But my first question is this - do you actually want this job? There is no such thing as a perfect job. I’m not telling this to you in order to lower your standards and get you to do shit that you don’t want to do. I’m telling you this so that you can make a rational choice about the opportunities that you want to accept.

When you’ve been looking for a job for a couple of months, all of sudden you might be thinking that telemarketing is technically marketing. And sure, the a job at a call centre isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse, but you could make it work. Or being a bank teller is stable and does have a path to advancement.

Fuck that.

Here’s the cold hard truth. Nobody gives a shit about your career as much as you do. Let me repeat that. Nobody gives a shit about your career as much as you do. Not your employer. Not your boss. Not your friends. Not your parents. Sure, they might care about aspects of your career. Your employer wants you stay with them at a low cost. Your boss wants you to add value to the team. Your parents just want you to have a fucking job. Any job.

But this is not about having the perfect job. It’s about the next step in building your career. So the questions I ask you are:

1. Will you be able to stomach the lifestyle with this job? (Hours, money, travel, commute, social life)

2. Will this job set you up for the next one? (Skills, education, brand, experience, network, exposure)

Negotiate your offer.

When you get an offer, negotiate. You think that you don’t have leverage. This is your first job in the industry. You’re entry level. It does not matter. Negotiate. You do have leverage. They picked you. They invested time and chose you out of a pool of hundreds of candidates. It doesn't hurt to ask for more money. The worst thing they can say is no.

A good rule of thumb is to ask for 10% to 15% more. Nobody is going to take back a job offer if you’re asking within that range.  And most HR has unilateral ability to flex between 5% and 10% without asking anyone. 

The best part is about negotiating your first offer is that this is the foundation for your career. It compounds over time. Sure, asking for another $4k on a $40k offer seems risky to you. But getting an extra $4k now can equal over $120k over the course of your career. That’s a lot of money.

The average person switches jobs 12 times over the course of their career. And if you negotiate the offer every time you switch jobs, you’ll be netting out millions of dollars ahead of someone taking the exact same path that never done that. This is especially important for women, who are less likely to do so. The majority of offers are delivered via email. Leverage the impersonal nature of the medium and polite written words to conjure the courage to fight for more. You deserve it.

(For a more detailed breakdown of how to negotiate job offers, I recommend the Alex Kouts interviews on the Jordan Harbinger show).

It happens to the best of us.

4/ SHIT. WHAT IF I DON’T GET A GOOD JOB RIGHT AWAY???

Look, there is value in unpaid or low paid. But you need to know what it is before you do it. Don’t just take an unpaid gig of stuffing envelopes just because you don’t think you have anything better to do. You would be better served building your skill stack and working on unpaid projects for yourself.

Do not take an internship if you don’t know what you’re getting out of it. Maybe having the name of the business on your resume will make you more appealing to other places. Maybe it’s the network that you would meet there. Maybe it’s insight into an industry that you are interested in, but know nothing about.

There are three reasons why you should accept an unpaid gig:

1. You will be close to the crown. You work as an assistant to someone influential in the organization or the industry. That lets you get invited into the rooms where the decisions get made. You listen, you learn and you meet people. You are in their orbit and work hard to absorb as much as possible. 

2. You will build you skill stack. You will acquire new skills that are in demand in your industry. Editing. 3D modelling. Copywriting. Using the Unity engine for augmented reality. And you will learn and get feedback from experts in their field.

3. You will make stuff. You will come out of your internship with new work in your portfolio. These are examples you can leverage to show other places the impact that you can have on their business. The work that you can do. And place a premium on work that they can see in the real world.  

CONCLUSION

Careers don’t happen in straight lines. There is no singular path to take or ladder to climb. So don’t think in a linear fashion. Think about the smart way in - the path of least resistance.

You can develop a deep skill set in augmented reality and then apply it to your favourite sports team or band. You don’t need to grind from the bottom for 10 years at the same organization moving up each rung on the ladder. Be smart and gain a variety of experience instead of a depth of experience of how one organization runs.

And one last thought: always be learning. Always work to improve your skill set. School doesn’t end when you get your degree. It’s just self directed.

- Christian

The Meaning Of A Calder Cup Ring

The Calder Cup is awarded to the best team in the AHL.

The timing is strange, as it ends after the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs have finished.

It’s an awkward ending to hockey season.

Last year, the Toronto Marlies won.

They beat the Texas Stars in Game 7.

They were the best team.

So they hoisted the Cup.

And they get championship rings.

Championship rings are an interesting thing.

They’re a North American sports phenomenon

(They don’t really exist in sports outside of Canada and the US.)

The rest of the world collects trophies.

We collect rings.

A ring means that you’re a champion.

That you’ve won.

But does it mean the same thing in the minors?

The goal of those leagues is to develop talent.

To become better players.

To make it to the majors.

If you’ve graduated to the NHL when you get your ring, fantastic!

They’re a testament to the grind

To improving your skill set,

To testing yourself,

To winning a championship,

To graduating to the next level.

But what if you’re not?

If you’re still pounded it out in the minors.

What does the ring mean then?

Is it a memento of past glory days?

A reminder that you already hit your peak.

Or is it motivation to keep grinding?

To trust the process.

Minor league championships are not the end goal.

They’re a step in the process.

Your startup secured Series A funding.

Your work won a Canadian marketing award.

Your company broke $100,000 in revenue.

Congratulations! Pop some fucking bottles and celebrate.

But you know that it's not the end goal.

You don’t want one round of funding … you want to build an industry leading business.

You don’t want to be the best in Canada … you want to make work with a global impact.

You’re not stopping at $100k … you want to hit $100 million.

That minor league championship - the ring - represents the grind.

The process.

The hard work that you’ve put in throughout the season.

And that you’ll have to continue to put in.

It takes character to win a championship.

You gain experience in high pressure situations.

You getting reps under your belt.

You build the belief that you can win.

That’s the meaning of a Calder Cup ring.

It’s recognition of the grind you’ve put in so far.

And a reminder of the work still to come.

- Christian

Texts To My Mom. (Or How To Hire People For Cultural Fit.)

A couple of weeks ago I got a text from my mom. Which is unusual - not because she doesn’t text. But because she doesn’t normally text me. I’m not the favourite. That’s my brother. He’s that one that gets all of the texts / phone calls / extra slice of pie.

But messed up family hierarchy aside, she had a question:

I’m interviewing a potential colleague. What questions should I ask to find out if she’s the type of person who would fit in here?

By that stage of the hiring process, they’ve been through rounds and rounds. They knew the candidate was qualified. She could do the job. And do it well. They were trying to figure out the cultural fit of the potential hire.

In order to know if someone is a good fit, the first questions you ask need to be directed at yourself. You need to understand the culture you are trying to create on your team. And you need to create clear expectations for the role that the new player will be responsible for. 

Rich Clune is a veteran on the Toronto Marlies - the development team for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Over his 12 year professional career, he’s played 139 NHL games and 400+ games in the AHL. And he’s been through some shit. He’s publicly battled addiction and mental health issues. He will likely never crack an NHL roster ever again in his career. But he is a veteran brought in to the team with a very specific purpose - to show the rookies and the young guys trying to make the NHL what hard work looks like. To lead by example in the locker room, in the gym and off the ice. To protect the young guys on the ice.

The Marlies are building a hard working, process oriented culture. And they bring in personnel (players, coaches, trainers) to act as pillars - holding everyone up and accountable to that common mindset.

To find out if a player is the right fit for your team, you need to know the role you’re asking them to play within the broader context. Ask yourself:

1. What is the team’s mission? (Ie. Treating cancer patients, developing NHL players, winning championships, making money)

2. What is the culture that you will need to create to get there?

3. What role are you looking for your hire to fill with respect to your culture?

Once you understand the full context of the culture you are building, the reason behind it and the role you want a new team member to play in it, then you can dive into properly evaluating a candidate's fit. 

There is no magic list of questions to ask. So we have to switch our mindset. It’s not about asking the “right" questions, but about a general curiosity. Worrying about the questions can lead you to focus intently on the answers. A genuine curiosity allows you to dig beyond the answers and probe a couple levels deeper. Why they chose to answer it in that way. What they are trying to signal to you. How that represents their true communication style.

It’s easier and more natural to have general conversations steered towards specific topics than to plow through a list of questions. And what we are looking for is alignment. 

Is there alignment between their values and those of your team?

Is there alignment between their communication style and the members of your team?

Is there alignment between their goals and the goals of your team?

Often hiring the right person takes lot more work than originally expected. It’s not just picking the top off of a stack of resumes. It’s about taking the time to look inward on what your needs are and what you are trying to change. If the candidate is the best contributor for the role, both on the ice (their day-to-day job performance) and in the locker room (their cultural contribution) then you have a winner. 

At the end of the day, the most important questions you ask are directed at yourself and your team. The last one being - would hiring this person bring us closer to our goals? Or would it take us away?

- Christian