No #116 | February 25, 2024

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

This is the last newsletter of February. I saw this meme and thought it perfectly captured the spirit of the month. It's short, but feels long (especially for anyone doing DryFeb).

Bring on March, the best month of the year 🌱🐣🍀🎂🏀

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 🌴Survivor (How To Get Voted Out First)
• 🎳Bowling Alone
• 😆Fake Meetings
• 🤪Read! One! Page!
• 😎Cool Links

🌴Survivor (How To Get Voted Out First)

This week season 46 (!) of the reality TV Survivor starts. The premiere of each season of Survivor is perhaps one of my guiltiest pleasures.

Observing the contestants' initial interactions and the rapid formation of group dynamics is akin to watching social chaos in real time.

They navigate through the stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing (and ultimately deforming) at light speed, all against the backdrop of a competition that morphs from a team effort into a solo survival showdown. This recipe, my friends, makes for a delectably watchable hour two hours of television.

Of all the premier episodes that I've watched over the years, I've noticed a pattern in the early departures from the island.

​The first to get voted out of their million-dollar dreams typically fall into one (or a tragic combination) of four categories:

1. The overeager beaver who claims the crown of leadership too soon
2. The square peg in a round hole, flaunting their uniqueness a tad too aggressively
3. The physically unprepared, who perhaps thought Survivor was a metaphorical title
4. The too-big-to-fail threat, especially noted in All Star seasons where reputation precedes

While our daily grind might not strand us on a deserted isle with strangers and the elusive prospect of instant wealth, life does frequently cast us in the "first episode" of new social settings.

The challenge? To make a good first impression that ensures our quick integration into the group without inadvertently signing our social eviction notice.

So, what wisdom can Survivor give us for navigating these waters?

Simply put, avoid the pitfalls that get contestants booted at first sight. Particularly, resist the urge to crown yourself leader or to stand out for all the wrong reasons.

For the "I am the leader" temptation, embrace the wisdom of Lao Tzu: A leader is best when people barely know they exist.

It's about fostering empowerment rather than declaring dominion. On Survivor, outright declaring "I am the leader" is a fast track to isolation. Instead, embody leadership through collaborative spirit and effective teamwork.

For the square peg round hole conundrum, while it's tempting to parade our uniqueness, finding common ground, often through a barrage of questions/listening about hometowns, professions, family, sports preferences, or opinions, can build bridges. After all, it's the alliances formed on shared interests/goals that propel people to the finale (where they will ultimately still betray each other🤷).

And there you have it: life lessons from Survivor, distilled into a guide for not getting voted off life's metaphorical island. A testament to the power of reality TV as more than just entertainment, it's a crash course in the art of social survival.

🎳Bowling Alone

A book that I've recently added to my read list is Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam.

In the book, Putnam introduces the concept of social capital, a crucial element in understanding the fabric of our society. Social capital refers to the value derived from social networks, bonding over shared interests, and active participation in community activities, which collectively contribute to individual and communal well-being.

Two decades ago, Putnam made a simple yet profound observation: the decline of bowling leagues in America as a metaphor for our growing social disconnection.

This observation laid the groundwork for the book which provides a comprehensive analysis of Americans' evolving social habits over the years, demonstrating a troubling trend towards isolation from family, friends, neighbors, and vital social structures like the PTA, churches, clubs, political parties, and, notably, bowling leagues.

There's even a movie being released on the topic called Join or Die. It's a film about why you should join a club, and why the fate of America depends on it.

So are you part of a club?

😆Fake Meetings

So there is a company called GitLab that posts all of their internal zoom meetings on YouTube (they do this to increase transparency).

These videos are exactly what you would expect: a group of people online talking about stuff on an agenda. Riveting.

Why would anyone watch these videos?

Well it turns out these videos have been watched hundreds of thousands of times.

Why? Because it's the perfect ruse to pretend like you're working🤣.

Here are some comments from the video post:

So if you need to create some focus time, this might be your answer.

🤪Read! One! Page!

Anyone with a teenager can likely relate to this Asher Pearlman gem.

😎Cool Links

🧠I've spent 25 years studying the brain - I never do these 4 things that destroy our memory as we age. Saved you a click: Too much multitasking, not prioritizing quality sleep, monotonous activities, being overconfident in our ability to remember things.

😱Fear is your friend, and embrace your failures. Leadership advice from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Huang believes it’s critical for leaders to always remember how close they are to failure. “You’re always on the way to going out of business,” he said at Columbia Business School’s Digital Future Initiative last fall. “If you don’t internalize that sensibility, you will go out of business.”

🚪Reversible and Irreversible Decisions. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, considers decisions like doors. He asks himself if the decision is a one-way door or a two-way door. What’s the difference? Once you walk through a one-way door, you can’t come back. It’s irreversible. With a two-way door, on the other hand, you can walk through, look around, and easily come back to where you started.

🧩Puzzmo. This is a cool site. A reimagining of newspaper games.

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