Mohammad Shaker's Blog, page 8

Week 13: Méditerranéen

Here’s what been in my mind in the last week.

Something I keep doing

Reading in the sun, sitting on the floor. I don’t want a mansion. This is enough for me. It makes me extremely happy.

What’s wrong with me?

Recently I feel lost outside work. I feel myself focused on planning, and replanning, and planning again – not progressing on what I planned though. I wasn’t like this. I was either ON or OFF. Recently I’m neither ON nor OFF. I’m not talking about my day job. I’m talking about the rest of my life and personal projects.

I was listening to Tim Ferris conversation with Gary Keller and the focus on one thing at a time. It’s perfect timing for me. And it reminds me of my younger self. Anyone can listen to the 2nd half of it and get something out of it. It’s good.

A quick thing I can do is limit my decision making to 1 major thing a day. Simply asking myself: If I am to do only 1 thing, and 1 thing only this day or this week, what would it be?

Simple question for a good day. More on this next week.

Something I keep doing

Exercise. 6 days a week. If long walks (1.5h+) counts, then it’s 7 days a week.

Best of what I watched

Not sure yet, but this course by Harvard on applied Calculus seems mind boggling. It’s applied calculus. Not theory. All application. Exactly what I want to refresh the foundation of my math. Here’s a screenshot of what you’ll learn!

Best of what I read

This tech the most impressive thing I’ve seen recently on AI. Make sure you play the videos.

Book I’m reading

Whenever I read for Dieter Rams, I’m in awe of the excellence of his work. The simplicity and the effortless design he produced in Braun is unparalleled. Maybe only by Sony and Johny Ive by Apple (by which Dieter Rams is actually an idol for Johny Ive.) I’m reading another book about him, Less but Better, which is structured as German with English translation side by side. Look at the shear simplicity – given the complexity involved.

Best buy of the week

A really delicious watermelon. A simple delight.

1 thing that is making me happy.

The summer. I’m a Syrian. A mediterranean. And I simply love the sun. My whole mood is way better in the summers. It’s a daily gift for me.

1 thing that is making me angry.

Feeling the lack of focus. Wrote above about getting back to basics. Will continue that on next week.

What did I love when I was a kid? I should do more of.

Legos and drawing. And I’m trying to find away to get back at them because I still love them. Whether via a product or a game I still don’t know. I’ve tried this before around 9 years ago with this game, TheX.

Week 12: I’m remembering. My father.

Here we go again. This is what’s been in my mind for the last week.

I’m remembering my father.

How I’m looking like my father, pictured above, both inside and out. I can see how I’m looking like him on the outside. And I can see how I’ve been doing things like him – especially for the last couple of years. He passed away 2 months ago. And it’s good that I’m remembering him more often. I’m picking up his tenacity in doing things. I’ve never, ever, seen my father overweight in my entire life, and it seems that I’ve obesity-phobia by training 6-7 times a week in the last couple of months, and regularly for the last few years. I still indulge in feasts way too often, just like him. But I’ll always balance that with very long walks or diligent exercise. Again, just like him.

Best of what I read.

My friend, Zaher Wanli, sent me this photo. From 2011 it seems. It’s appereantly from “The Magic of Thinking Big” (a good book.) A book from the small library I had back in my home in Syria. Indeed..

Life is too short to be little – Benjamin Disraeli

Something I keep using

My watch, a Garmin Fenix 7. Bought it at the beginning of this year. Had an Apple Watch for the last 4 years. The Garmin is good, but pricy. Thought it would be a bigger update. You have to be so hardcore about exercise for Garmin to make sense. Otherwise, stick with Apple Watch or sth else.

Best of what I watched

“Air” on Amazon Prime. At last a good calm movie this year. A terrible bunch of movies release in the last couple of years that I lost hope on anything new.

Something I succeeded in doing

Playing tennis without much pain. Don’t know if it’s because of this guy, the KneesOverToes guy. Still too early to know. But basically I’m doing 10 min of backward walking on a treadmill machine before I start my exercise.

Week 12: Something I’m remembering from the past.

Here we go again. This is what’s been in my mind for the last week.

Something I’m remembering from the past.

How I’m looking like my father, pictured above, both inside and out. I can see how I’m looking like him on the outside. And I can see how I’ve been doing things like him – especially for the last couple of years. He passed away 2 months ago. And it’s good that I’m remembering him more often. I’m picking up his tenacity in doing things. I’ve never, ever, seen my father overweight in my entire life, and it seems that I’ve obesity-phobia by training 6-7 times a week in the last couple of months, and regularly for the last few years. I still indulge in feasts way too often, just like him. But I’ll always balance that with very long walks or diligent exercise. Again, just like him.

Best of what I read.

My friend, Zaher Wanli, sent me this photo. From 2011 it seems. It’s appereantly from “The Magic of Thinking Big” (a good book.) A book from the small library I had back in my home in Syria. Indeed..

Life is too short to be little – Benjamin Disraeli

Something I keep using

My watch, a Garmin Fenix 7. Bought it at the beginning of this year. Had an Apple Watch for the last 4 years. The Garmin is good, but pricy. Thought it would be a bigger update. You have to be so hardcore about exercise for Garmin to make sense. Otherwise, stick with Apple Watch or sth else.

Best of what I watched

“Air” on Amazon Prime. At last a good calm movie this year. A terrible bunch of movies release in the last couple of years that I lost hope on anything new.

Something I succeeded in doing

Playing tennis without much pain. Don’t know if it’s because of this guy, the KneesOverToes guy. Still too early to know. But basically I’m doing 10 min of backward walking on a treadmill machine before I start my exercise.

Something I changed my mind about.

When dealing with people, I should sometimes aim for the heart, not the mind. Logic works, but only after building trust. Especially at work, and especially with senior colleagues who have strong opinions. For me they are principal engineers, managers, or other directors. Wife may be included here too.

Unless they trust me, they wouldn’t listen to what I’m saying. And unless I gain their heart and trust, I won’t be able to influence them. To get anyone to listen, I first need to get them to trust that I’m on their side. That whatever I’m talking about or proposing is for their own benefit, not mine.

What I say doesn’t always matter. How I say it matters more. I sometimes feel that I get too logical way too early in the conversation. I learned this the hard way and I need to remind myself of this. You can never get to people by logic alone.

Week 11: What I’m pondering on.

I used to do this 8 years ago in Arabic. A digest of what I did in the last week that takes 2 min to read.

I thought of being this back now in English. Helps me keep a diary of my weeks.

Something I keep doing

Exercise for 5 days a week. Trying to keep my walking AVG > 9000 steps a week. Setup is:

1 session of Zone 2. I’m aiming to target 180 minutes of Zone 2 with 2 sessions a week atleast from now on. Via Peter Attia.1 session of VO2 Max. 30 minutes. 8 intervals of 4 by 4. Via Peter Attia.4 Strength workouts.Long walks on Saturday and Sunday. >15,000 steps each.Now the summer is coming I can ramp up more on the daily walks. Weather is nice. Better to have the breaks outside.If I’m to combine Strength and Zone 2 workouts in the same day, I have to do Strength first. Via Peter Attia.Something I keep using

My strength working app, “Workout”. It’s good, not the best.

I hate the UX of this screen though. Can you figure out why?

Best of what I listened to

Tim Ferris interview with Nick Kokoans, Link. It’s during Covid early days. I like Nick. His insights and antifragility showed as a restaurant business owner and experience-maker. Talks about his trail of thoughts managing one of the most famous restaurant, Alinea, with $300+ a table to selling $35 a meal. A really interesting conversation.

What I’m reading?

A book on Arabic literature and history. الجامع في تاريخ الأدب العربي ل حنا فاخوري. My father-in-law recommended this. It’s good. I like reading books in Arabic again.

Earlier this year I was reading Voyage of the Beagle and On the Origin of Species for Charles Darwin. He was particularly sad in his biography that he didn’t spend more time on poetry, literature and the arts.

“The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

I’m trying to get back more into this. And it’s an absolute joy to read something like this for Imru’ al-Qays امرؤ القيس:

Something I failed at

Fixing my knee to run again. Discovered this guy, the KneesOverToes guy by Huberman‘s interview with Tim Ferriss. And I’ve started adding knee exercises to my weekly setup.

Best buy of the week

I love these VBall 0.5 Pilot pens since I was in high school. I got back at using them 5 years ago. I still do. I love fine tips and they are really good.

Something I’m learning

Politics and Philosophy. An easy intros for these are DK’s guides like this one. Am also watching Yale’s course on the Moral Foundations of Politics. It’s good. More on this next week.

What I’m pondering on.

I used to do this 8 years ago in Arabic. A digest of what I did in the last week that takes 2 min to read.

I thought of being this back now in English. Helps me keep a diary of my weeks.

Something I keep doing

Exercise for 5 days a week. Trying to keep my walking AVG > 9000 steps a week. Setup is:

1 session of Zone 2. I’m aiming to target 180 minutes of Zone 2 with 2 sessions a week atleast from now on. Via Peter Attia.1 session of VO2 Max. 30 minutes. 8 intervals of 4 by 4. Via Peter Attia.4 Strength workouts.Long walks on Saturday and Sunday. >15,000 steps each.Now the summer is coming I can ramp up more on the daily walks. Weather is nice. Better to have the breaks outside.If I’m to combine Strength and Zone 2 workouts in the same day, I have to do Strength first. Via Peter Attia.Something I keep using

My strength working app, “Workout”. It’s good, not the best.

I hate the UX of this screen though. Can you figure out why?

Best of what I listened to

Tim Ferris interview with Nick Kokoans, Link. It’s during Covid early days. I like Nick. His insights and antifragility showed as a restaurant business owner and experience-maker. Talks about his trail of thoughts managing one of the most famous restaurant, Alinea, with $300+ a table to selling $35 a meal. A really interesting conversation.

What I’m reading?

A book on Arabic literature and history. الجامع في تاريخ الأدب العربي ل حنا فاخوري. My father-in-law recommended this. It’s good. I like reading books in Arabic again.

Earlier this year I was reading Voyage of the Beagle and On the Origin of Species for Charles Darwin. He was particularly sad in his biography that he didn’t spend more time on poetry, literature and the arts.

“The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

I’m trying to get back more into this. And it’s an absolute joy to read something like this for Imru’ al-Qays امرؤ القيس:

Something I failed at

Fixing my knee to run again. Discovered this guy, the KneesOverToes guy by Huberman‘s interview with Tim Ferriss. And I’ve started adding knee exercises to my weekly setup.

Best buy of the week

I love these VBall 0.5 Pilot pens since I was in high school. I got back at using them 5 years ago. I still do. I love fine tips and they are really good.

Something I’m learning

Politics and Philosophy. An easy intros for these are DK’s guides like this one. Am also watching Yale’s course on the Moral Foundations of Politics. It’s good. More on this next week.

Quick Thoughts On Providing Feedback

Before I write a long feedback for a colleague or a direct report, I always try and reread some of the books or articles that helped me on the way.

I’m trying to reread and finish these books before writing the full EOY feedback for Noon’s engineers and managers. Books are:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale CarnegieRadical Candor by Kim ScottRevising Prose by Richard A. Lanham (A short book on writing. A gem.)

If you only have 15 min to spare and that is, then read chapter 1 on Criticism from How to Win Friends and Influence People. It really does help how to communicate a difficult conversation in a constructive manner.

A note I keep telling myself is:

Feedback is not about the list of values and metrics of the company and how a person scores on each and what he should do. It’s about the way we deliver the feedback. How it sounds, inspires, and changes the person. It’s the same kind of feedback we ask ourselves to help us improve. People (engineers) owe us a detailed and inspiring review after a year’s work.

Pictured above is Hammurabi.

Quick Thought On Providing Feedback

Before I write long feedback, I always try and reread some of the books or articles that helped me on the way.

I’m trying to reread and finish these books before writing the full EOY feedback for Noon’s engineers and managers. Books are:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale CarnegieRadical Candor by Kim ScottRevising Prose by Richard A. Lanham (A short book on writing. A gem.)

If you only have 15 min to spare and that is, then read chapter 1 on Criticism from How to Win Friends and Influence People. It really does help how to communicate a difficult conversation in a constructive manner.

A note I keep telling myself is:

Feedback is not about the list of values and metrics of the company and how a person scores on each and what he should do. It’s about the way we deliver the feedback. How it sounds, inspires, and changes the person. It’s the same kind of feedback we ask ourselves to help us improve. People (engineers) owe us a detailed and inspiring review after a year’s work.

On “CEO of the Year” Award

As always, these posts are for me first and foremost to understand my own thinking. To get my thinking straight. They weren’t intended for broader reach. Inspired by Montaigne’s essays and pushed by other friends, I’m starting to share them. They represent my own views and my current state of mind.

CNN named T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert CEO of the Year. I don’t know the man, nor do I followup with what T-Mobile is doing. T-Mobile’s CEO may be truly one of the best. But best in what? And for how long?

CNN basically focused on 1 year period – 2022. They may as well award him The Worst CEO of the Year award in 2023. No one knows when all T-Mobile strategy “investing in our customers” is flushed down the drain and replaced by “revenue at all costs.”

My problem is not with T-Mobile or CNN, but with the kind of focus by media on “the current”, “the immediate”, “the now.”

No one pays attention on the long term. On building things that matters for society for the long term. I should remind -but not kid- myself: Great things take time. Great things, take time.

I don’t like many things about Amazon. But do I think that Jeff Bezos would have won that award the first 5 years after him starting Amazon? Not a chance.

The media mocked him back in the day. They called Amazon: “silly”, “Another middleman, and the stock market is beginning to catch on that fact.”

Back in the 1990s Bezos wouldn’t have been “hot enough” for CNN. They need eyeballs. And eyeballs follow what’s hot – right now and CNN and the media is the best orchestrators of What’s Hot – right now. It should be happening now, not in 5 or 10 years. That’s the standard for CNN’s (and most of the media.)

I would love to see the “CEO of the Decade” Award. That’s what I’m interested in. But there is none.

Ideas for Future Thinking and Writing

The same way the media raises someone to fame, they put that person back to drain. Same for startups. Sometimes they elate a startup, afterward they put it down. I should look at how the media was getting crazy about Theranos and many other startups when they were “hot” and compare that with their views now. It’s always the trends, the hypes, and the woos that get the attention. Something like 37Signals don’t because they are quiet and they walk slowly.

“I will not manage you.”

No one likes to be managed.

I don’t like to be managed. And I’m pretty sure anyone reading this doesn’t like to be managed.

The first thing I told every engineer at Noon when I joined back in April 2022 is this; “I will not manage you. And I won’t be your manager. I will be your coach.”

Basecamp’s manager of 1 idea is spot on:

This means we rely on everyone at Basecamp to do a lot of self-management. People who do this well qualify as managers of one, and we strive for everyone senior or above to embody this principle fully. That means setting your own direction when one isn’t given.

I like to be coached. And I love being a coach. A coach is always there on your side helping you improve. A coach simply tells you to:

Do more of X/Start doing XDo less of Y/Stop doing Y

And then he moves away, watches, and coaches you again. He doesn’t manage every aspect of your work.

I believe that brilliant people like this. Because they know they have authority over their work. They know they have ownership of their work. And they know that they won’t be micromanaged. They own their work.

When I think of Noon, I don’t think we need managers at Noon. We need more coaches. Coaching can be in different shapes and sizes. Be it in a form of another engineer giving someone feedback on a PR on how to improve your code, an EM (or should I say a Coach?) discussing your career aspirations, or another team forcing more stringent quality standards.

The best managers I had in my career were coaches. They set expectations and then they move away. Thanks to Madhu Sivasubramanian for first teaching me this back in the day. And thanks to John Lusty for pushing me to alter my style when I moved into a director role.

A coach is there for you. And we can always be coaches ourselves on a daily basis. I shall be a coach for someone every day. And I should be coached by someone every day.

[He is interchangeable with She above.]

Thoughts to write about in the future

The word management is bemusing. It entails intervention. Nassim Taleb talks about iatrogenic when a treatment causes more harm than benefit. If someone is hired as a manager this entails “intervening.” To manage is to intervene. And I think this is nonsense. I shall write about this later.