Author: John Stevenot

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

As we have discussed, by the time you get to this step, you should have a very good idea as to whether the tasks you have in front of you are the most important ones.

For the final step, it’s time to apply Pareto’s Principle and block your time.

The Pareto Principle, introduced in 1895 by Vilfredo Pareto, states that in any society and aspect of life, there is a natural divide between two subsets: the “vital few,” the top 20 percent and the “trivial many,” the bottom 80 percent.

What I have found is that people often act busier than they are within their work environment.

This is what I like to call “working for the sake of work.”

This is a strain of activity that everyone defaults to when they have no clear purpose. It makes them seem busy. It makes them seem like they are accomplishing something, but they are accomplishing very little.

A typical day for me looks a little like this:

The first block is just for me.

It’s when I prime myself for the day. In this time block, I make breakfast, shower, and either read, or listen to positive and mentally charging things.

I do this to get my mind in the right place.

I learned a long time ago that if I want to have a successful day, it all starts with what I put into my body.

At first, I thought that only pertained to the food I ate, but I soon learned that if I was filling my head with terror, fear, and bad news, the rest of my day seemed to run parallel to that theme.

So, I stopped listening to and watching the news, and I avoid social media like the plague.

Instead, I read books like, Think And Growth Rich, or listen to audio clips of Jim Rohn.

I’ve noticed that this has helped me be more creative and positive as life’s little curve balls are thrown at me.

The next two blocks are where I get the majority (if not all) of my work for the day done.

Each of the tasks in these blocks of time has been carefully cultivated to reflect the best ways for me to spend my time.

Sometimes, these days are filled with the mundane. Not every major task is going to be life changing, but each task is something that only I am able to do (see Task-Recycling).

In each block segment, I turn off my phone, shut down outside communication, and keep my nose to the grindstone.

Once all the tasks for the given company are completed, I follow-up with each person who needs to know.

It’s important to reiterate, I follow-up after all tasks (looking for feedback, not direction) for that company have been done.

That ensures that I am not interrupted in any way.

If I finish all my tasks in a time block early, I use the remaining time to either learn something, or I shift to the next time block and begin working on the next company’s tasks.

Before noon rolls around, I am usually completely done with my work for the day.

The next time block is freer flowing than my morning.

My morning is where I get the most work done, but my afternoon is where I give the next morning direction. I call this next block administrative time.

As I eat lunch, I sift through any followup emails that have come back with new direction or input. As I read and whittle down the requests, I apply task-recycling.

I actively decide which things can be deleted, automated, and handed to others.

By the time I have gone through task-recycling for each company, I am usually left with two or three tasks that I then prioritize and set out for myself for tomorrow. With my next day essentially planned, I send a few more emails to let my coworkers know that I have received their messages.

For the last hour and a half of my day, I have chosen to give myself a block of time to learn something new.

This is usually where I spend time learning new skills that are in demand for my industry. These skills can range from web design to coding, to content writing, to videography, and more.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

What good are trade-offs if we don’t have a systematic process to help us evaluate them?

Not very good at all.

Thus, we move to the next topic that is key to helping us make the best use of our time, task management.

There are multiple ways in which we can begin to make better choices about the tasks that confront us each day. One of my favorite techniques of all is “task-recycling”.

Task-recycling is accomplished through a series of five steps.

Step 1. Delete
Step 2. Automate
Step 3. Hand Off
Step 4. Recycle (…and return Task to Step 1)
Step 5. Tackle

What I love about task-recycling is that it gives you permission, as well as a process, to take a step back from any choice that is laid out in front of you. I am a firm believer that choices need to be evaluated in the right light with the appropriate amount of time.

If anyone tries to force you to decide without first weighing the consequences of what your decision could mean, they are trying to scam you. Let’s break down the steps to see how they can help. 

Step 1. Delete

The French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Simply addition by subtraction.

The perfect house is clean, tidy, and clutter-less. So, why do we have a different line of thinking when it comes to work?

It seems to me that many people try to fill their day with things that don’t help them do their jobs. As assignments and inquiries cross our desks, we need to begin to evaluate them through the first lens of the task-recycling process: Delete.

Deleting certain tasks is by far the most effective way to multiply your time. These are things that, if we stopped doing, would cause no disruption in the flow of the workday.

Many of the tasks that come across your desk are trivial. Yet, many of us do them because they seem like good business practices.

Here are a few examples:

1. Reconsidering a decision: Also known as second-guessing yourself or getting someone else’s opinion. Not only are you wasting your time, but you are wasting someone else’s time in order to affirm a decision you have made.

Be confident in your choice and move forward. There is no need to stop and reevaluate, unless new information comes to the forefront. Eliminating this saved me around two hours a week.

2. Needless meetings: Are you having meetings because “it’s what we do on Thursday” or because there is a real reason to bring everyone together? If it is a real reason, good, have the meeting. Make sure there is an agenda, a team leader, and a specific end time to ensure that the meeting doesn’t stray off course. If you are having the meeting because you’ve always had the meeting, get rid of it. Doing this alone saved me around four hours a week.

3. Emails: By far the best way to reach me is by email, but email is also my pet peeve. Many people use email to relay way too much information. An email, in my opinion, never needs to scroll and should be written in the form of bullet points. Now, if the email is going out as a newsletter and needs to be more professional, fine, write a long email. But, when it comes to communication with the team members, email should be short and sweet. Also, I make it my mission to only check email three times a day: once when I start my workday, once after lunch, and once before I cease to be reachable until tomorrow. All other times of the day are meant for intensive work, not email anticipation and response. Putting a stop to constantly checking my email saved me around two hours a week.

4. Doing someone else’s job: I’ll admit it, I’m sort of tough about this. This comes in two parts: first, you are doing another person’s work and, second, other people are getting into your work. Let’s tackle the first one: don’t do someone else’s job. Why? Because, despite what you might think and feel, you’re not being a good Samaritan. You’re enabling bad time and project management skills.

As much as it hurts, sometimes you must let people face their own consequences. This does two things for the person: One, it teaches them to stay on top of their tasks and ask for help when they are confused – rather than when they are drowning, and two, it shows the manager of that person how much work the employee can or cannot handle.

Just like you shouldn’t do another person’s job, don’t let other people do your job. Have you ever heard the phrase, too many cooks in the kitchen? If so, you probably understand that it means that when too many people give their input on a subject (a recipe for cooks), the result tends to be inferior.

If you’ve been hired for a job, do the job, then ask for feedback. Don’t let others intrude or give you feedback while you are working, unless you specifically ask for it.

Start with “No”

The first step to begin eliminating things from your work docket is to start saying “No”. I’ll admit, I went a little crazy with this initially. I was saying no to everything.

It felt good.

Eventually, though, I was able to calculate the trade-offs of what saying “yes” to this and no to that would be. I first had to establish a hard boundary. Others had to realize that not every request they presented was going to get my attention.

I was especially strict on things that were deemed as “emergencies.” In my opinion, nothing is an emergency. What the person is really saying when they are claiming an emergency is, “Help! I didn’t plan my time or tasks appropriately. Save me!”

An emergency is just a way for someone to ask you to do his or her work (and we are eliminating that from our diet).  I have a distinct memory of a coworker melting down during a phone call (this was before I stopped taking calls) about how a sales representative needed a video shot, edited, rendered, and delivered to her booth at a conference in Germany for a product that was shipping out of our warehouse by the end of the business day to a customer in Alabama.

In her words, this was an emergency and we needed to act now. Mind you, it was 2:30 P.M. when I got this call, and I worked remotely (which we will talk about in the post about controlling your location). To produce this video was, to put it lightly, impossible in the time frame we had available.

The time it would take to take the product off the truck, set up the machine, operate, shoot (including editing, voice-overs, and final rendering), and reload (back onto the truck), far exceeded the two and a half hours we had available to us.

Instead of stressing myself out and rushing over to miss the deadline and put even more people behind, I evaluated the trade-offs and chose to say no to my frantic coworker. I suggested that we pull an image from our database of machines in a laboratory setting to be sent to the people in Germany. From Germany, they could get it blown up and printed for the conference floor.

I created an online form for the salespeople that could capture the contact information of interested prospects that integrated with our marketing automation and CRM systems.

I told the sales people to inform any prospect that a video was being created to fully explain the ins and outs of the machine, but, since it was such a “new” product of ours, we were a little behind on our promotional material (putting the blame on me).

Everyone calmed down.

The “emergency” was solved because I practiced the art of saying no.

Step 2. Automate

“If it’s not a process, it’s a problem.” – Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

Whenever I get the opportunity to corner someone and talk about my new, hacked way of working, I get a little overzealous when the topic of automation comes up.

I love the idea that everything can be systematized or automated.

Automation, to me, is an investment in your future. From the menial to the complex, automation can change your world for the better. You just need a little imagination.

For any project, one of the first questions I ask is, “Can this be systematized with automation?” My goal is to work smarter, not harder. Any time spent automating a daily task today pays you back with exponentially more in the future. Your upfront investment of even a small amount of time could equal out to days or weeks of saved time in the future.

The Beauty in Systems

Automation is beautiful because it removes the task from your mind, but still it gets done. One of my favorite automated systems is one I set up for a small insurance firm.

As a company, their biggest lead generation tool is cold calling businesses. Any time a lead says they are interested in learning about insurance rates, the caller marks appropriate fields within their customer relationship management tool.

Depending on what they select, different things happen.

If a lead is marked as interested, a series of follow-up emails are sent out to nurture the lead on the service capabilities, history of the company, and other supplemental items.

At the same time, the lead is assigned to an individual in the service department. The person is given a task to gather the census data from the company and compile a list of proposals.

When the proposals are added to the CRM, the CRM picks up the proposals, inserts them into an email, and sends the email to the lead. A few follow-up emails are sent to confirm that the lead has received the information and whether they would like to move forward.

Maybe it’s hard to see as described here in words, but it’s magic in action.

Where there used to be the need for lots of hand-holding and worker interaction, there is now a system that works 24/7.

It’s beautiful.

When it comes to work, it’s worth taking time to see what can and can’t be automated within your daily tasks. Automation doesn’t have to be solely limited to major tasks. Frequently, it is automating the small stuff that makes the most immediate difference.

Step 3. Hand Off

Out of all the steps in task-recycling, this one is probably the hardest. It’s not a problem of knowing what it means to rely on other people, it’s a problem of trust.

Handing off a task means that you are giving something that you are responsible for to someone else.

Sometimes, the person you hand it over to may not complete the task to your standards. That’s just reality. Sometimes, if you want a job done right, you must do it yourself. But, doing everything yourself is becoming increasingly impossible.

Find Someone Better

Tim Ferriss, in his book The Four-Hour Workweek, loves the idea of outsourcing aspects of your job with or without permission from superiors. He talks about how it is possible to leverage outsourcing so that you are making money in US dollars, but getting work done for Rupees.

It’s a fascinating subject, but one that many of us will have a difficult time implementing.

While it is unfortunate, there is still a technology and language barrier that is going to impede most from being able to effectively hire virtual assistants.

For me, the matter is purely economic. I don’t have the funds to A/B test different virtual assistants to do my job for me. Plus, with my systems of automation, in the time that it would take for me to explain to someone in India how to do a job and wait for their response, I could have done the task 10 times.

So, yes, it is true that for pennies on the dollar, you can get unbelievably quick and accurate work done for you by someone on the other side of the planet. You’ll just have to weigh the trade-offs to see if it is right for you. In the meantime, use the resources around you to leverage tasks to others.

How I Made It Work for Me

I was born with a defect. This defect is an affliction that impacts around 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women around the world. It’s misunderstood by many and causes those who have it great frustration in many aspects of their lives. The most common form of this malady is called deuteranomaly.

Never heard of it?

That’s okay. It’s better known as colorblindness, more specifically, red-green colorblindness. Being colorblind is a big deal for me because, as a digital content manager, I deal with color daily.

Whether it is balancing color in a photo, color coordinating the brand colors across multiple online platforms, or designing an info-graphic for a product, if I get a hold of it without a little supervision … look out. The final product is going to be strange.

So, in order to prevent any major moments of disaster, I outsource design tasks to one of two places. The first option is my brother. He’s a talented artist. He wants to go to school to become a concept artist. So, to help him hone his craft and make a little money on the side, I throw him some design projects. The kid is good, fast, and responsive to criticism and vague direction.

The second option is outsourcing to a company such as Fiverr.  On that site, I can put up an idea and designers around the world bid on the project. No matter which option I go with, I’m always happy with the result. Anything is better than the mess I would make.

Steps 4 & 5: Tackle or Recycle?

We’ve come to the last two steps of task-recycling. If the task in front of us cannot be deleted, automated, or handed off, we are at a fork in the road.

On the one hand, we have the choice of directing our full attention to the task and completing it. On the other hand, we have the choice of putting the task back into the hopper to be “recycled” and run through the process again.

Step 4: Recycle

If there is no immediate need for the task to be completed, you are free to put it off. Once the task is returned to the front of the process, it will go through the steps again, but later.

Like most things in life, there is a time and a place for everything. If the time and place is not now, why stress yourself out or take your eye off the things that need your immediate attention?

Step 5: Tackle

The piece of work must be done. It can’t wait. If all avenues of alleviating yourself of this item have been exhausted, there is nothing left but to complete it.

Don’t take this as a negative, though. This, usually, means that it is something you need to work on. It is likely that this is an item of high importance.

This is great news!

You are finally working on something that really needs you to accomplish it.

The idea of putting some things off has a terrible stigma. It’s often paralleled with laziness, unproductive behavior, and ineffectiveness. No one wants those labels associated with their work ethic (at least, I would hope not).

What is important to remember is that applying task-recycling is not a tool for the lazy. In fact, this is a tool meant for those who want to be “hyperefficacious”.

Task-recycling is here to help you work on the things that will make the biggest difference in the short and long term. If you were looking for a way to put off work and watch cat videos on YouTube all day, this is not a tool for you.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs. It’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” – Michael Porter

Trade-offs are the first step in regaining control of our time.

They allow us to choose how our precious minutes are spent, rather than someone or something else choosing for us. Trade-offs are the calculated consequences that we decide to accept or deny when we make a choice.

For instance, the fact that you are reading this post is a choice that has consequences. You have either chosen to accept the consequences or you are blind to them. And, because you have made this choice, you are putting off other things that you could be doing such as watching TV, going for a run, or planning for a presentation you have next week.

At the core of this choice is the trade-off.

You have calculated, either consciously or unconsciously, that reading this post is a better use of your time and efforts than doing literally anything else (by the way, I’m honored).

The Hard Part About Trade-Offs

The hard part about understanding and using trade-offs is knowing which actions are best. I mean, that’s the goal, right? Wouldn’t you want every choice you make to deliver the highest return?

Of course!

But, if you are not in the practice of evaluating the trade-offs of life, it is very easy for some things to completely derail you from those that matter.

Starting Small

Here’s how I started evaluating things in order to get the most efficacious results…

I started small. I started with a few easy, daily disciplines that I knew were going to be beneficial to me in the long run. Every morning, I woke up and immediately got into the shower rather than hit the snooze button. I found that I had more energy throughout the day when I got up immediately, rather than wasting another nine minutes in a restless sleep.

Then I tried eating a healthy breakfast and, while I ate, instead of reading Facebook or the terrors of life from random news sites, I put on either soft classical music and meditated or I listened to excerpts of personal development from gurus such as Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins.

I chose to fill my head with calm, positive thoughts in the morning, rather than the drama of social media or the chaos of life. I found that this kept me vibrant and jovial throughout the day rather than pessimistic and gossipy.

Going Bigger

Then, once I started mastering the small stuff, I decided to take on bigger things. Now, bigger doesn’t mean I was upending my entire schedule for something completely different. Instead, I started to carve chunks of time out of my day to focus on things that I knew were going to benefit me in the long run.

I started taking 30 minutes of my lunch to read books in order to learn something new about myself (or my work industry). I began to write small blog posts for my website to help me cement the ideas from those books in my head. That meant that I was more likely to use them in my daily life.

Going Major

Only when I had established healthy routines and a constant appetite for learning and bettering myself did I start to change major parts of my life. I began to weigh the trade-offs I was making financially, emotionally, and physically.

At first, it was painful.

I didn’t want to come to grips with the fact that watching Netflix before going to bed was screwing up my sleep schedule (which was the cause of some irritableness that I couldn’t shake).

I didn’t want to succumb to the idea that I didn’t need to spend nine hours of my day working when four hours would suffice (I felt like I was a piece of shit for not working the whole day like everyone else).

But, like getting up and not hitting the snooze button, evaluating the trade-offs of these changes was going to put me in a place that I wanted to be in 5 or 10 years. And that was exciting.

Short-Term Versus Long-Term Trade-Offs

When I first started evaluating trade-offs, I didn’t know which actions were going to be good and which were going to be bad. The reality is, no one does.

We must decide and reflect on the consequences.

If it was a choice between something clearly bad versus something clearly good, it would only take us a millisecond to choose one path over the other.

But, when we evaluate our actions based on two outcomes that we would like, it’s a challenge. I would venture to say that it’s even more challenging when we must weigh two options that are beneficial to us.

Often, one is an immediate benefit while the other is a longer-term benefit.

For instance, investing in a Roth IRA is a great idea in the long run. It’s such a good idea that I believe everyone should max theirs out every single year. But, in the short run, it sucks having to give up over $5,000 of disposable income.

Buying a new car, purchasing new clothes, and going out to eat with friends is undoubtedly more exciting than investing in a Roth IRA, but those short-term gains are nothing compared to the compounded benefit you’ll get by investing in a Roth IRA over 40 years.

As someone who is looking to change his or her life, you need to be able to make the tough choices. Sometimes, though, those tough choices aren’t going to pan out in your favor. Hence, why I started small.

When you start small, you give yourself the opportunity to exercise your trade-off muscle.

As you recognize which trade-offs are better than others, start adding more “weight” to your choices. For a while, this new weight might be difficult, but as you exercise your trade-off muscle more, you’ll find that even these new choices will get easier and easier to make.

I always like to ask myself the following questions: Who am I becoming? Will option A or will option B be the most direct path to the life I want to live?

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

In the book Essentialism, by Greg McKeown, Greg presents the idea of figuring out what is most important in our individual lives.

To Greg, essentialism is giving yourself, “…permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone. Essentialism is making the highest contribution to the things that really matter.”

Essentialism, in other words, is a focus on the things that matter most in your life. Now, what matters most is going to vary. There is no objective truth about what should matter in everyone’s life.

For me, I need to know that my basic finances are covered, that I can spend time with family and close friends, that I can keep myself in shape, and that I can develop my understanding of the world through reading and experiencing new things.

These are the areas of my life that mean the most to me. In order to achieve those priorities in a healthy way, I need to make sure that I am pursuing the essential.

After you have taken some time to really understand what is most important in your life, it’s time to ask yourself, are you investing in the right activities to ensure that you get the most out of life?

Jim Rohn said, “Life is not measured by the seconds on the clock, but, instead, by our experiences – their frequency and intensity.”

And that’s important to understand.

Life is about experiences.

No one in their right mind wants to hear about how you answered 50 emails in one day, but they would love to hear about how you summited the fourth tallest mountain in the world.

One is an experience; one is busy work. One is essential; one is not.

And that’s the point I want to make about trade-offs. We can choose one of two paths in life: we can spend our days absorbed in busy work that has no real impact on our development, or we can spend our days doing the things that have meaning.

Do we live by design or do we live by default?

Understanding and evaluating these things is called deciding between trade-offs. Trade-offs will help you uncover a life that focuses on what matters most.

Many of us major in minor things.

We find ways to make mountains out of molehills and allow the trivial bullshit to overcome and devalue the things that matter most. What’s worse is that we build our schedules (our time) around giving more attention to the things that do not matter.

To quote Greg, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone (or something) else will.” Unfortunately, that’s what work has done for most of us. Work has become that something that prioritizes our lives.

Don’t feel bad, though. Work, in its purest form, is good. It is only when work is no longer under your control that it turns into a cruel master.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot  available on Amazon.com)

I want to propose the idea that we should begin to operate within a system built on the principle I call money value of time (MVT).

The money value of time says that;

“The time available now is worth more than the same amount in the future, due to the future’s potential to simply not exist because of unforeseeable and unpredictable variables.”

This core principle of life holds that any amount of time is worth more now than it is later. The money value of time assumes that our time is finite.

Until someone can cheat death and live indefinitely, the only time that is guaranteed to us is the time we have experienced or are currently experiencing.

There is no promise of tomorrow.

Therefore, time is limited and highly valuable. Time is most valuable in the current moment. Time, unlike money, cannot be protected by investing it in another source.

The loss of time is permanent.

When used unwisely and without a desire for efficacy, the loss of time is compounded. The loss is compounded because if time could have been better used doing another task or used for a greater experience, you leave less time for another experience or moment.

Time cannot be invested and cannot compound to yield an 8 percent increase annually. The money value of time concept has helped me to see the importance of today, instead of dreaming about what could happen tomorrow.

This means that your time in the present moment is worth more than the same amount of time in the future.

Sacrificing your time today for some future gain is a divestment, not an investment. If this idea is groundbreaking, good, but it shouldn’t be.

All of us apply this idea of the money value of time, we just don’t realize it.

The MVT is a rational decision that all of us make when we want to weigh the cost and benefit of action we are about to take.

It’s what Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, calls trade-offs.

Trade-offs decide the value of your time. What you decide to do now instead of something else is an evaluation of something’s worth when compared to your time.

• MVT is why you chose to mow the lawn yesterday, not today.
• MVT is why you chose to hit the snooze button twice this morning.
• MVT is the reason why you chose to listen to your friend’s advice concerning political issues instead of investigating the issues on your own.

Ultimately, MVT boils down to what matters most now. When you apply this to work, you’ll be surprised how your priorities change.

For example, you could choose to spend your time working eight hours a day, Monday to Friday at the office, making $(x),000 per year while daydreaming about kayaking down a river over the weekend.

With that reality, you would be just like everyone else in society. You would be investing all your optimal time during the week, hoping for a fun-fueled release for 48 hours over the weekend.

Or…

You could work the same job (or a different job) at $(x),000 per year, but only spend three hours a day getting your tasks done and the last five hours of your work day kayaking on the river, while listening to an entire Beethoven symphony or reading your favorite book.

Here’s my big question to you: if you could complete your daily tasks in three hours and then have the rest of the day to do whatever you wanted with your time, do you think you could?

If you said yes, why isn’t that what’s happening now?

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

Time is the one truly scarce and limited resource that we cannot get back. You only have so many seconds, minutes, hours, and days; you might as well make sure that you are using them in the best way(s) possible.

Because time is a nonrenewable resource, it is the most valuable commodity we possess. Yet, for some reason, we willingly throw it away by remaining in dead- end jobs that bring us neither feelings of personal achievement nor opportunities to experience life to the fullest. Instead, we waste away, tethered to the idea that we are sacrificing our time now for greater time in the future.

This, unfortunately, is a fallacy.

The future is not guaranteed to anyone; therefore, you cannot invest your time into the future. A man named Steve Bates, a small businessman in the Cincinnati area, opened my eyes to this reality of life when he said, “A majority of elderly people that I know, have said that the final ten years of their life [during retirement] have been underwhelming and unfulfilling.”

Steve explained to me that these people waited for their dreams to come to them, rather than seeking them out. They saw retirement as the moment when their dreams would come to fruition. Finally, when retirement did come, they found themselves unable to live a life like they had dreamed they would.

Steve explained that lots of factors kept them from achieving the high level of fulfillment they desired. The causes are too many to list, but common causes were: health problems, financial instability, lack of motivation, and fatigue.

The point is, these people waited their entire lives to do something exciting, and when it came time to pull the trigger, they couldn’t. The dream had slipped away.

Money Value of Time (MVT)

There’s a fundamental concept in finance called the time value of money (TVM). The time value of money says: money available now is worth more than the same amount in the future due to its potential earning capacity over time.

To possibly oversimplify the concept, $10 today is likely going to be worth more now than $10 in thirty years due to factors such as inflation and taxes.

Money, therefore, loses value, unless it is invested into something that can grow faster than the factors trying to subtract value.

The time value of money also assumes that our money will continue to have value indefinitely. Sure, the spending power of a dollar may rise and fall over time, but the concept of money (the ability to hold and transfer value) will always exist.

There will always be a demand for some means of transferring value, whether in paper bills, digital code, or animal furs. Thus, money has longevity and the ability to transfer value into new systems as they evolve.

Here’s where the problem comes in: you do not have the same growth and longevity capacity as money. Money will outlast your knees, your back, your mental facilities, and your desires.

Money doesn’t have an expiration date – you do.

You, an organic ball of matter, will degrade and lose capacity and value in the marketplace. You, a mere mortal, must succumb to the inevitability that your time will run out.

Yet, many of us treat our finite amount of time as if we can invest it in a “time portfolio” that will compound and grow. Because of this, we are okay with telling ourselves that we can spend 40 hours a week sitting at a desk instead of playing with our kids or riding a bike through the fall leaves as winter approaches.

We somehow believe that by spending 30 years sitting behind a desk and sacrificing our time to the gods of industry, we will get paid in scores when we reach our retirement.

Sorry, but that’s bullshit.

That’s not how time works for humans. Treating yourself like a stock portfolio that will grow by 8 percent annually is nonsensical and leads to an unhappy and unfulfilled life.

When it comes to spending or investing our scarce resource of time, we believe in a fallacy that states: “Sacrificing our time now will give us more and better time in the future.”

That’s the dream that most Baby Boomers and their progeny ascribe to, but it’s wrong. Bronnie Ware wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, where she cultivated and shared her census of the regrets people have while on their deathbeds.

What were the top two regrets on the list?

First, I wish I had lived a life true to myself, not what others expected of me. Second, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

Ding. Ding. Wake up!

The top two regrets of the dying are that they didn’t spend more time living life how they wanted to (rather than living the way society told them to live) and that they worked so hard (sacrificing all their time to the company). Yet, even with this unbelievably eye-opening book, we insist on forcing people down a normal path that so many regret when it comes to the end.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

According to a survey run by FlexJobs.com, a major online employment network for remote workers, 65 percent of workers think they would be more productive telecommuting versus working in a traditional workplace.

That’s phenomenal.

When asked to elaborate, employees say that working from home makes them more productive because they can better juggle their work and life responsibilities.

Some workers want to be able to pack a lunch for their kids in the morning as they see them safely to the bus, while others want to get to the gym before they start their day.

Personally, I like taking 20 minutes before my workday to read, meditate, or practice a new language via an app like Duolingo.

In the same survey, when asked, “Where do you go when you have a really important work task or project to do?” 93 percent of people said it isn’t the office.

According to the FlexJobs survey, only 7 percent of workers say the office is their location of choice if they need to be most productive on important work-related projects.

What about you? Just a Fad?

What if this “remote work thing” is just a fad? That’s a legitimate concern, but according to research performed by Elite Daily, 60 percent of office jobs will be remote by 2022.

At the time of writing this, that’s less than five years away. If you believe that you’re protected by being in the 40 percent that won’t or can’t become remote, Elite Daily also discovered that, within the next 25 years, the “normal” working hours will be erased.

Working days will change to just a few hours of tasks a day or week.

What are you going to do with all that extra time when your workday ends before noon? These are real questions and predicaments that you must start thinking about.

As a side note, if you think your job is protected because you work in a S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field, it’s not. Companies want the best scientists, mathematicians, designers, and engineers (structural, software, hardware, etc.) in the world.

With countries like India and China quickly catching up to and, frankly, surpassing the U.S. in the areas of S.T.E.M., companies are investing in infrastructure and cloud technology that allows for outsourced individuals to work and deliver their products instantly over the Internet.

In other words, you’re no longer competing with the local guy, you’re now competing with everyone in the world who wants to do the job.

Don’t Freak Out

I don’t want to freak you out with doom and gloom. The world isn’t ending, and jobs are not going to completely disappear due to automation like many think they will. But I do want you to grasp the impending change that is coming.

Don’t worry, though, I’m not in the business of scare tactics and fear mongering. I’m not trying to get rich off fear or drama. I’m a genuinely positive guy, and I want you to succeed.

So, let’s look at the positives that are coming down the pipeline.

First, I want you to realize that even though companies have every capability and right to outsource their entire operation overseas, they won’t. There’s something about a native that is familiar and trustworthy. Take advantage of that.

Second, you’ve got an amazing opportunity to own this new job reality. As someone reading this book, you are getting in before the storm. Remember, 2022 is the published milestone for when companies will start making major changes and transitioning to remote workers. This is the time to act and make yourself, as Cal Newport says, “So good, they can’t ignore you.”

We will learn about Cal and his idea about being unignorable later. For now, know that to survive in this remote future, skills will trump passion every time. In fact, if you approach this new work economy with the idea that you’ll be able to work only on things that you are passionate about, you’ll have a hard time surpassing others and retaining your streams of income. We’ll talk about multiple sources of income later, as well.

Third, this new work economy might make it seem like a lot of your previous knowledge will be useless, but that is far from the truth. The skills of marketing, engineering, or teaching aren’t going away – the only thing that is changing is the medium through which the work is performed. Opportunity is not disappearing – in fact, opportunity is becoming more abundant.

With this new work economy, it is possible for you to carve out your own niche of expertise, in which you can provide your services, experience, or knowledge in industries that have a high demand for your skills.

The only caveat: you need to become the best that you can be. Bring value to the marketplace and constantly watch for the latest practices, trends, and tools to help you do more. In order to succeed, you’ll need to implement a system for constantly learning and improving.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

Richard Branson once said, “In this increasingly connected world, you really can work from anywhere.” If you read between the lines, hidden within this statement is a complex world that few of us have taken the time to truly appreciate.

Richard Branson, though he may not know it, is talking about the future of work. The traditional notions of what it means to work for yourself or for a company are about to be turned on their heads. It’s inevitable.

The only question is, can you see and adapt to the changes before you are left behind? The idea of being able to work anywhere in the world is not a new one.

People have been working and contributing to international companies, products, and efforts for decades. But, with the advent of the Internet and cloud computing, it should be no surprise to you: distance and location matter less than they ever have in history.

If the work gets done and the product or service is delivered, does it matter where the work happens?

No.

Despite what others might think or what you might believe, remote work is on the rise and is going to become the new normal.

Companies are using outsourced, remote workers more than ever because they are cheaper, specialized, and can work while the rest of the company sleeps. Remote work is no longer just a gig for the newly graduated student while they search for a more stable job. No, remote work is a career choice for individuals who are willing to take on the responsibilities and high standards of an autonomous life.

Remote work is not only providing lucrative cash flows for people, but also extreme personal freedom.

Hallmarks of the Future

According to an article in Fast Company magazine, future workers are going to be drawn to remote work because it offers various lifestyle opportunities that young professionals and some seasoned professionals value more than a paycheck.

Location Independence

Young professionals are looking to control where they live. Some want to live in the mountains of Colorado, others in the rolling plains of Montana, and some in the hustle and bustle of New York City.

Location independence offers workers the ability to work for the company of their choosing (one that reflects their values and skills) while, at the same time, living in places that reflect their personality and intrinsic values. No longer will employees be forced to work only for companies that are local. The door is wide open to work for anyone, anywhere.

Real-Life Is Accessible Again

As we move away from working conditions and the ideals of the Industrial Revolution (yes, most of the standards for work today are that archaic), people are taking better care of themselves, their relationships with people, and their communities. Health and social consciousness are becoming major concerns for people.

On top of that, people want the freedom to care for sick or troubled loved ones without fearing the wrath of an employer for not being in the office. The finer things in life are no longer the brand-new BMW, but moments like watching a baby take her first steps or watching the leaves fall as the seasons change. Intrinsic value is beginning to trump 53 John Stevenot extrinsic materialism. The relationship between work and life needs to reflect those changes.

Focus on Efficacy

Buzzwords that used to make companies excited such as efficiency and effectiveness are losing their impact. Most employees and employers don’t want to work toward shaving two seconds off their production time anymore. Instead, they want to work on making sure that each action is going to bring about the greatest return on investment. In other words, companies and employees want to focus on things that bring about efficacious results.

Efficacy is all about doing the things that bring about exponential change. When people know they are working on things that are going to have an immense impact on the company and the customers, they work harder and care more about their work.

Increased Engagement

Employees, especially the younger generations, are going to want to work when they are at their best. The typical nine-to five workday simply doesn’t work for everyone. Some people, like myself, prefer to work at different hours of the day, when we are more focused. When an employee is more focused, performance is better, and tasks get done more quickly and accurately.

Time Flexibility

When a company is flexible and allows its employees to own their work schedules, they are empowering the employees to become their best. Companies also turn themselves into a  cohesive, 24-hour machine. As employees are spread out over different time zones and operating at different optimal times of the day, work is constantly moving forward.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

Below are are three “Pillar Definitions” the important areas to control to live achieve a Hacking Normal life .

Time

Time is the one resource that you can’t get back. You only have so many seconds, minutes, hours, and days in your life. Find a way to make sure that you are using time how you want to use it.

In a working environment, I want to control exactly when and how long I work. When I work is very important to me. I don’t know anyone who can say that they work best only during the hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. There are times when I want to work at 5:30 in the morning or 10:30 in the evening.

How long I work dutifully follows suit with the idea of when I work. There is a mental trick that people play on themselves when they are in an office for eight hours a day. It’s called Parkinson’s Law.

Essentially, Parkinson’s Law states: a task will balloon in size in order to fit the time constraint given to the task.

For example, give someone a week to get a PowerPoint presentation done and you will see the presentation on your desk at the close of business on Friday. That’s just how humans act.

I hate working within the constraints of Parkinson’s Law.

I’m all about getting the task done now. But that is only true if, when the task is done, I can be free to focus on or do something else. I want to be paid for efficient use of my time, not how well I can waste it. If I don’t have something to work on, I’m not at my desk or at the office.

Location

Speaking of not being at the office, this brings us to my second area of control: location. I will not spend my days in an office.

Period.

Unless I must be in the building for a meeting or important task, I work elsewhere. There is no reason to be in an office for eight hours a day. I am most productive when I can work in an environment that stirs my creativity.

Sometimes, that means I am working next to a waterfall or by the ocean. Most of the time, though, it means working quietly at my home office at 6:00 a.m. while listening to a podcast or soothing music.

Having control over my location has many benefits, such as saving myself from traffic, getting to exercise when my body is ready, to live where I want to live, and, if I had kids, to spend time with them when they aren’t at school. All the things that people feel like they are missing (and are missing), I get to experience daily.

Income Streams

My financial goal is to have multiple income streams; somewhere around seven would be optimal. Those income streams can come from anywhere: jobs, investments, my own company, book sales, etc.

The point, though, is that I am not dependent on one company or one source to meet all my financial needs.

As an employee, I want to work for two or three companies at a time to provide an income buffer. To most people, that sounds like a lot. But if you have control over your time and location, having three jobs is not that bad. You work for each company when each company needs you to work; no more, no less.

If a company has a problem with me spreading my time and focus over multiple sources, then, well, it’s not going to work out.

The beauty of multiple income streams is two-fold.

First, I have all the leverage. I no longer must take a crappy employment deal because I am desperate for money. If I’m just adding another company to the list of companies I am already working for, the company has no power over me. I can accept or reject their employment offer at will. That is an amazing power most people never get to experience.

Second, I have protection. Let’s say that a company thinks I am under-performing and decides to fire me. If my only source of income was from that company, I’d be up shit creek. But, since I have multiple sources of income, I can be fired (or I can quit) from a job and still retain a source (or multiple sources) of income, due to my work with the other companies. Simply put, it’s not a disaster if I get let go or quit my job.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, autonomy is defined as “…self-directing freedom and moral independence; the state of existing or acting separately from others.”

If you are looking to escape the nine-to-five life, you need to be comfortable embracing the principles and responsibilities of autonomy.

When you free yourself from the prison-like environment of your office, no one will be there to make sure that you are working at your computer, diligently typing away to finish your Power Points, uploading product images to the eCommerce portal, or finishing your CAD drawings by the end of business (EOB) on Friday.

With autonomy comes the responsibility to provide yourself with self-motivation and direction. If you can’t or aren’t willing to take on that responsibility, turn back now.

This concept of autonomy, this freedom to make your own decisions, scares people. Like the Allegory of the Cave, when people are presented with the option to unfetter themselves from their desk and their cubicle, they freak out.

They fear that they will resort to laziness and unproductive activities, like watching TV or scrolling through Facebook all day. To be completely honest, some people will fall into that reality. That is extremely disheartening. But, if you have a desire to work, to be a productive member of society, you will not let yourself sit in front of the TV while there is work to be done.

Sick of Vacation and Retirement

There are two other times in life that people experience this complete lack of responsibility. The first is vacation. Remember what those days feel like?

At the beginning, you’re glad to be rid of work and work’s responsibilities. You want to sit by the pool, drink a margarita, and soak up the sun. But, by about the fifth day, your margarita starts to taste bland, your skin could use a break, and the chlorine is starting to do wild things to your hair.

By the seventh day, most people are ready to go back to work. You didn’t want a lifetime of vacation; you just wanted an hour (or so) a day to focus on you.

Speaking of a lifetime of vacation, this brings us to our second life experience, retirement. Ask people who are living in retirement how their life is after a year. Most of them are bored out of their minds.

No worries, though: only another 20 years or more until they die.

What’s the Point?

People say they don’t want to work, but that’s bullshit. What people really want is to control how they work.

They want autonomy to work on the things that matter and make them feel fulfilled and valuable. At the same time, they want to work in a way that doesn’t put life on hold.

I’m of the opinion that autonomy means that I can work where, when, and how I want to. I prefer working outside the office in places like coffee shops, bookstores, or on the beach. These places make me feel centered and happy.

Additionally, I prefer to get all my work done before noon so that I can plan  meetings or activities in the afternoon. I once read that people should focus on the customer in the morning and administrative aspects in the afternoon. I’ve tried building my schedule around that, but your preferences may vary.

Autonomy doesn’t mean that you must work outside of the office like I do. I have heard people say that they prefer working in an office because it gives them an incentive to work or an air of professionalism. To these people, I say, more power to you.

Please, continue to go into the office if that’s where you feel most productive. I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to remove yourself from a place you feel productive, hence the win condition theory.

Take a moment to think about how many days you have spent sitting at your desk with nothing to do. If you are going to work in the office, ensure that you have the autonomy to decide whether sitting at a desk is a good use of your time. I don’t want you to feel like you must sit at a desk and twiddle your thumbs until the clock strikes a certain hour.

That is unnecessary torture.

If you have real autonomy, you can work when there is work to do and have freedom to explore other activities, hobbies, or run errands when things are slow. If you had that kind of autonomy, how much better would working in an office be?

Autonomy Seeks Efficacy

My modus operandi is to be as efficient and effective as possible to generate the greatest efficacy. The goal of any job is efficacy because efficacy is your time and effort focused on the right activities to generate the greatest results.

For example, if you are a salesperson, wouldn’t it be great to spend two hours [efficient] calling a highly qualified prospect list [effective] of people who want to buy [efficacy]? Of course!

If you knew you could reach or surpass your sales goal by seeking out, implementing, and using efficacious processes, you’d do it.

I would.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

When I started rethinking the way I worked, I wanted to know why society adheres to certain social norms in our current working environments.

For instance, I wanted to know why everyone agrees to go into the office at 8 A.M. and to leave at 5 P.M. What was the logic behind those hours? Do people really work best during that time of day?

I also wanted to know why everyone sits in one place for most of the day, staring at a screen. Does being static make a person concentrate better?

I wanted to know why people would stare out the window on beautiful days, instead of experiencing those days for themselves. Is it more fulfilling to dream about life than go out and live it?

It doesn’t make any sense.

Lastly, why do we even need to go into an office? Does it really matter where we get our work done, as long as we get it done?

An Erudite Answer

We are a species that thrives on social comparison. From whom we date to where we work, we are constantly comparing to make sure that we are achieving something equal to or superior to our closest peers.

Since we so heavily compare ourselves to each other, when we do something out of place, we feel awkward, weird, and out of touch. In fact, others put labels on us such as: not a team player, socially awkward, strange, and many more.

Perceiving someone or something to be out of place makes us feel like it doesn’t belong. That’s why we shun the weirdo in the cubicle down the hall or, if we look inward, stop being ourselves and take on the persona of the group or team we are a part of.

In its purest form, we are experiencing what is commonly referred to as groupthink. Groupthink is dangerous because it stifles innovation and criticism. When you are perceived as going against the grain, there is a moment where those around you (and yourself) will feel uncomfortable.

An Actual Answer

The more I questioned work, the more complicated and unexplainable it became. The best answer I could come up with was Tony Robbins’ six basic human needs.

These basic human needs can help us understand exactly why we work in the ways that we do. Take a moment to see how work has a solution for each basic human need. It’s amazing.

One: Certainty

Certainty is “our need to feel in control and to know what’s coming next so we can feel secure.” Certainty is the result of careful calculation in order to safeguard us from massive loss if we take the wrong step forward. It’s the need to avoid pain and stress, but also to guarantee the most pleasure out of our current and future situations. As Tony says, “It affects how much risk we’re willing to take in life – in our jobs, in our investments, and in our relationships.” The greater our need for certainty, the less willing we will be to accept and emotionally stomach risk.

Two: Uncertainty

Life also needs to push back occasionally. The failures and faults of life make the successes sweeter and more rewarding. Taking risks, both big and small, make life exciting. There’s a great Twilight Zone episode entitled A Nice Place to Visit that is a perfect anecdote to appreciate this idea.

In the episode, a man named Rocky Valentine has died and gone to his own, personal heaven. In heaven, we see Rocky in a casino, surrounded by beautiful girls and winning every game he plays. He is unstoppable, has unlimited sway and persuasion over others. He is constantly fortunate and always gets what he wants.

However, after a month of living in his personal heaven, Rocky starts to get bored. Since he always has his whims satisfied and always knows he is going to win at anything he attempts, Rocky starts to get angry. He demands that he lose at something just to add a little variety to his life, a little uncertainty.

His frustration is best exemplified when he shouts, “If I gotta stay here another day, I’m gonna go nuts! I don’t belong in Heaven, see? I want to go to the other place (hell).”

Then, the guide who has been with him since the beginning of the episode (his name is Pip) says,

“Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea that you were in heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!”

Even though we want everything to go our way, if it did, we would eventually grow bored and unsatisfied. Everyone, including you, needs some sort of uncertainty to put up with.

As Tony Robbins says, “You can’t grow muscle – or character – unless you have something to push back against.” Don’t seek security and safety, seek adventure. As Jim Rohn says, “It’s better to live thirty years full of adventure than one hundred years safe in the corner.”

Three: Significance

Everyone needs to feel “significant” which means special, important, or unique. People get these feelings in a variety of ways. Some make lots of money. Some go after awards, championships, and other notable accomplishments. Some pursue advanced degrees and academic pedigree.

Others dress flamboyantly – wearing unique hairstyles, tattoos or even body piercings. The underlying drive is finding a way to be unique and stand out from the crowd.

Four: Love and Connection

Tony Robbins believes that, “Love is the oxygen of life; it’s what we all want and need most.” When we love at our utmost, we feel the full capacity of life. But losing love can hurt. Rather than risk the possibility of such loss, many people limit themselves to mere connections that lack the depth and intensity of deeper love.

Still, connection is better than nothing.

Connection can be found in friendship, prayer, appreciation of nature, and in other forms of intimacy. As Tony says, “If nothing else works, you can get a dog.”

Five: Growth

If you’re not growing, you’re dying. Tony echoes this sentiment repeatedly in everything that he does. Stagnation, complacency, and believing you know or have enough causes people to begin to wither away.

I am a huge advocate of the idea that there is always something more you can do to grow. At different points in your life, what grows may change. You may reach a point where you make enough money to never worry about your bills, food, or extravagant vacations again.

At that point, your financial growth may not need constant diligence anymore. But I would argue, this is when you pivot to something else. If finances are no longer a concern, then grow in intellect, spirituality, or connection. If those don’t appeal, you can always grow in your capacity to give back.

Six: Contribution

This world has given so much to you, even if you don’t realize how much. Go be a teacher, consultant, volunteer, or, hell, a blood donor. Do something that integrates you into society in a giving way, not just a taking manner.

There is always someone who would greatly appreciate the voluntary sacrifice of your time to help him build a shed or serve food in a soup kitchen. If you are willing to give of yourself, much comes in return.

As Tony Robbins says, “Life’s not about me; it’s about we.”

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

Living day to day, fidgeting in an uncomfortable chair, tapping hours of my life away into an Excel spreadsheet was the last thing I ever wanted to do.

But, as I saw my life slowly turning toward that reality, I realized I had to find a way to escape. Much like the shark, my freedom was being taken away and I wasn’t going to let that happen without a fight.

As Jack Sparrow says in the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, “It’s a pirate’s life for me.”

The pirate’s life, put another way, is a life built around intentional living.

It is a lifestyle of freedom. It is a lifestyle dedicated to the principle of being able to do what you want when you want to do it.

The pirate’s lifestyle is living your dreams, having fun, and enjoying life today.

Click to preview Hacking Normal for FREE at Amazon.com

I once heard Tony Robbins, the world-famous performance coach and advisor to everyone from Bill Clinton to Mikhail Gorbachev, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Oprah, say, “[In life], we get what we tolerate.”

We get what we tolerate.

Think about that. Everything you have in your life is there because you said, “Yes, I think this is good enough.” You’ve settled. You’ve said that this person, this object, and this situation meets your minimum expectations.

But, as you will find, minimum expectations are not good enough. Minimum expectation only gets you what’s average or, as I like to call it, normal.

Life Is About Growth

For me, working in an office, chained to a desk for eight hours a day for 40 years is the last thing that I ever want. #%& that.

Let me repeat myself: #%& that.

Life is about growth.

Growth comes from learning new things, experiencing new places, succeeding or failing with new challenges, and creating relationships with people from all walks of life.

How in the hell can I (or anyone) grow while sitting behind a desk interacting with the same people, doing the same monotonous tasks for the rest of my life?

I can’t, and neither can you.

If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.

Unless you are ready to be buried in the ground or scattered into the ocean, it’s time to free yourself from the confines of your office, regain control over your time, and start living for the now, rather than the later.

Three Pillars of Hacking Normal

To free yourself from the fetters of traditional office life, we will focus on three pillars. These three pillars have helped me upend the traditional employee-employer relationship in a healthy and mutually beneficial way.

You get autonomy; your boss gets value.

With autonomy back in your hands, the dream of living life to the fullest becomes an immediate reality rather than a distant dream. The three pillars are: control over your time, location, and income.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

It’s a hot day.

As I stare across the shoreline of Seabrook Island, South Carolina, all I can think is, “I hope I don’t get a sunburn.”

When I burn, it’s not pretty. Ask anyone in my family about it. They’ll all tell you that when I burn, everybody burns.

I quickly make my way over to my backpack, where I have a few extra bottles of sprayable sunscreen stored away. I proceed to shower myself in lotion when, suddenly, I hear a shout from behind me.

“Woah, John! Fish on.”

It’s my father. I drop the bottle and sprint toward the bending fishing rod. By the time I reach the pole, the rod is ready to snap. I grab ahold and yank.

Whatever monstrosity is on the other end now has a hook firmly set in its jaw.

Fish on. Hell, yeah!

The fish is incredibly strong and fights hard. The reel is quickly letting out line, but that’s okay; there’s plenty more. I let the fish take as much as it wants. If I keep the line taut, the fish will eventually wear itself out.

My father walks over, cigar in hand. “What do you think it is?”

He blows out a cloud of billowy smoke.

“I don’t know, but it feels big.”

My father quietly watches while I continue my dance with the fish. I can’t help but imagine I am Santiago, fighting the massive Marlin that dragged him out to sea, in Ernest Hemingway’s classic, The Old Man and The Sea.

Several moments go by and finally, the fish starts to succumb to its own exhaustive efforts. I begin the arduous task of reeling in the fish, making sure not to break the line in the process.

As the fish gets closer to the shore, we get a brief glimpse at what it is. With sweat pouring down my face, muscles aching, and raw hands, I turn to my father with a huge smile on my face and say, “It’s a shark.”

I take several massive steps backward and pull the shark out of the water and up onto the shore. I get the shark into place where my father can grab it around the gills and straddle it. He does this to prevent the shark from thrashing around as he removes the hook from its mouth.

As my father is relieving the shark of its superficial impalement, I am scrambling back to our gear to grab my phone in order to take some pictures.

As I open my phone, I notice I have a few emails and app notifications waiting for me, but I ignore them. Instead, I swipe open my camera. I proceed to snap a few pictures of the shark as the tidal waves softly lap around its shimmering, muscular body.

It’s a beautiful blacktip shark, around three to four feet in length. My father asks, “Got enough pictures?” “Yep. We’re good.”

My father drags the shark back to the water. As the water deepens and the swells become stronger, the shark begins to turn unruly. The shark strikes left then right, its head swinging around, attempting to mar its captor with its razor-sharp teeth. It wants to escape, to be free.

I can relate to that.

Finally, the shark is fully submerged and, in the blink of an eye, disappears amid a cloud of sand and salty foam.

That’s shark number three for the day and it’s not even noon.

We reset our bait and hurl the line back into the rolling waves. My father relights his cigar, and I fetch us a couple of beers as a reward.

On my way back to the cooler, I open my phone to check those pending notifications. One is a work order to add a blog article and brochure to the company website, and the other is a request to set up billing for a new account.

I grab the beers and make my way back.

I hand my dad his beer and set mine on the ground. I ask him if he could give me five minutes to handle a few things. He nods and says that he can handle the rods for a moment without me.

I jog to my backpack, pull out my Chromebook, fire up my hotspot, and quickly complete the tasks that were sent to me. I send a couple other emails to make sure everything else is running smoothly back at the office and then put everything away.

I grab the sunscreen that I dropped earlier and walk back to the rods. I finish spraying myself, crack open my beer, readjust my sunglasses, and begin to watch for any sudden jerk of the rods.

The sun is shining and there’s not a cloud in the sky. The water is warm, and the smell of salt is heavy in the air. The seagulls are cawing while hovering over our heads (trying to steal our bait, bastards). There’s no one within half of a mile of us in either direction.

We are quietly enjoying the moment and each other’s company.

Serenity.

It’s just another ordinary Wednesday in the middle of June. As good a day as any to spend some time fishing on the beach. We should do this more often.

Why not?

Back home, the world is churning as it usually does.

My father’s company is making money and running smoothly, while the companies I work for are benefiting from the information and automation systems I set up a few months back.

We are free to do what we want with our time.

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)

In my meditation class in high school (yes, it was a class and we affectionately called it AP Nap Time), we had to read Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave.

The allegory is told in three acts: imprisonment in the cave, departure from the cave, and returning to the cave. Each part is crucial to understand because it reveals a basic behavioral pattern within the human condition.

Below is a very short, Cliff Notes-esque version of the story. As you read the story, reflect on its abridged merits. Try to imagine where in your working life you are the prisoner and where you are the individual who has seen the truth.

Act One – Imprisonment in the Cave

Plato begins his allegory by asking us to imagine a cave filled with people who have been imprisoned from birth. Therefore, they know no other reality. These prisoners are chained together so that their legs and necks are in a fixed position which forces them to gaze at the wall in front of them.

Behind the prisoners is a fire and a raised walkway where other people are carrying objects “of men and other living things” 18 Hacking Normal while, at the same time, making various noises. The objects they carry cast shadows onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The noises are the auditory cues that the prisoners associate with each shadow (e.g. a chirp to a bird). The shadows are the unquestionable reality for the prisoners.

The shadows are the only reality the prisoners have ever known. The shadows are the only rules, benefits, comforts, and securities that the prisoners have ever experienced. It is very rare that new shadows and animals get introduced because they cause too much discomfort for the prisoners.

The parallel to work:

From childhood, we are inundated with ideas of what it is like to be an adult and work for a company. The shadows we watched dance on the walls were the stories we were told by our parents, teachers and society. Included in those stories were ideas on how to not get fired, how to be a good worker, and how to avoid getting in trouble and losing our jobs.

Most damagingly, we were taught how to achieve success within the confines of those stories. Some of those ideas included: sacrificing our time, playing the Game of Cubicles, and climbing the corporate ladder in order to retire rich on the beach with a margarita in hand and sand between our toes. We were never told to question the status quo or look for something different. We were told only to stay the course.

Act Two – Departure from the Cave

Plato then supposes that one prisoner is freed. How the prisoner is freed is not important. What is important is that the prisoner is now looking around him and sees that the shadows are being made by something else: a fire. 

At this point, Plato proposes two courses of action for the freed prisoner.

The first (and most likely), is that the prisoner would choose not to believe his new reality and would go back to his chains and shadows. He would forget what he saw and remain oblivious to the new information presented to him because it is uncomfortable and scary.

The second course of action would be that the freed prisoner, by either choice or force (most likely force because no one wants to willingly up-end their understanding of reality), would walk past the fire toward the entrance of the cave.

Plato says that as the freed prisoner gets closer and closer to the entrance of the cave, sunlight (a metaphor for truth) gets brighter and brighter. At first, the prisoner covers his eyes, but eventually his eyes adjust to the light and he can see a whole new, vibrant world in front of him. He sees the true world, and the true world is more beautiful than the shadows ever were.

The parallel to work:

In my experience, this departure only comes when a mentor or new responsibility calls on a person to question his or her situation. A mentor who sees potential in an individual can persuade that person to question and slowly change his or her environment. Oftentimes, this is done through books or demonstration.

The second type of departure comes from the force of having to deal with a new responsibility (e.g. kids, position, or reassignment – a.k.a. firing). In either situation, the worker has been given the opportunity to seek out something new and better for his life, but it is up to the individual to take the necessary steps in order to realize and appreciate this new way of operating within the norms of society.

Act Three – Return to the Cave

Here’s where the story gets interesting. Plato continues, saying that the freed prisoner, because of this new knowledge of beauty and reality, would pity his past chain-mates. He would want to bring the news of this better reality back to them.

With glee and enthusiasm, the freed prisoner runs back into the dark.

At this moment, two things happen.

First, the man cannot see within the cave. His eyes are no longer accustomed to the dark and shadows (curse of knowledge). He fumbles through the caves, grasping for help from the walls (inability to relate). The other prisoners, who have now been disturbed by all the racket, are staring at the freed prisoner in astonishment.

The second thing that happens is that the freed prisoner begins to herald the beauty that he has discovered and that if the others want to see this beauty, they only must “throw off their chains.” The problem, though, is that he is yelling at the walls and appears to have gone mad with blindness.

The prisoners, being stuck in their shadowy reality, reject the freed prisoner.

They fear both the uncertainty of what he speaks and the crippling blindness (caused by the light) of the freed prisoner. They do not realize that it is the truth that the freed prisoner is accustomed to, not the lies perpetrated in the dark. Therefore, the words spoken by the freed prisoner fall on deaf ears.

The prisoners question what beauty there could be outside the cave. All they have ever seen is the light from the fire and the dancing of the shadows. The prisoners conclude that the “truth” has irreparably harmed the freed prisoner and that they should not undertake a similar journey.

Plato ends his allegory with a bold and damning accusation. Plato believes that the prisoners would then try to kill the messenger because darkness and shadows are the only world they know and ever want to know.

The parallel to work and this book:

The point of this book is to give me the opportunity to herald the beautiful world that I have discovered. The problem is many people see me as blind and naive. These people see the ideas that you are about to read as both impossible and impractical.

To that, I can only say: Maybe they are, but have you tried them?

Are you so content with your situation, your reality, that you are unwilling to question it? If so, that’s fine. But I hope that there is a community of people out there who are willing to take a chance, who are willing to remove their chains for something different.