Happy Sunday Friend!

Welcome back to another musing! I’m glad you’re here. Here are your Sunday Musings, a quick dose of what I’m exploring and thinking about. If you find it useful, please feel free to forward this along to friends!

Quote I’m Musing

“The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.”

-Epictetus

This past week I had a myriad of major unplanned-for events pop up that sidelined a lot of my to-do list plans in the office. I was reflecting on the week while watching the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix this weekend and I started seeing the corners as these problems that we all have to solve that pop up unexpectedly. The idea of treating them the same kind of floored me.

While sometimes we can get away with blocking it all out, we really need to figure out how to maintain pace in our lives while navigating the everyday events that pop up via text, email, and calendars. Because really, what is an email inbox if it is not really just a to-do list put together by other people?

No surprise to many of you, I’m big on Formula 1. So, I’m going to try to talk about maintaining pace accomplishing our tasks while dealing with the inevitable and necessary events that come up via cornering strategy.

Use Every Inch.

Every day, every event, every occasion in our lives are cornering moments in a race, we have to navigate in, around, and through them. To navigate each with the fastest pace, we should use every inch of the track to maintain as much speed (or pace) as we can.

Meaning, we have many resources available to us. Use them all to be as effective and efficient as possible to maintain the most speed while navigating our daily tasks and encounters.

This is called the Geometric Line.

This line minimizes speed loss by staying as straight as possible and carrying the most speed through the corner.

An event is almost never an isolated event.

Like corners on a racetrack, events don’t exist in isolation. There are many things (corners) that have just happened, are happening, or about to happen that will affect your optimal route. So we have to factor in maintaining a pace knowing we will have to deviate from a straight line.

The racing line we take to navigate each event that takes us off our wished-for straight line to completing our to-do list, then, is almost always a compromise to set us up for success by squaring off against the problem we find, slowing down a little later, and focusing on solving the issue at hand so that we can exit the event earlier and accelerate faster coming out.

What does this mean? It means that rather than focusing on maintaining speed throughout the problem we are facing, focusing on getting through the problem instead of solving it, we find the most optimal way to engage with and solve each event appropriately (apex), and then focus on our exit speed (getting back on task).

Braking and Turning Later

As Seneca said, “A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary”. Rather than just applying a generic approach (Geometric Racing Line, or an 8-step guide to solving all problems), we are giving each event the focus it requires, only once it is required, applying our principles and experience to it, and allowing ourselves to accelerate back into our straight and return to full throttle sooner. We’re slightly slower through the side-tracking event, but more effective overall.

Which Line to Take?

In racing, the faster the corner, the closer we are to the Geometric Line. The slower the corner, the more we trend away from the Geometric Line and focus on entry and exit speed.

Another way, the simpler the problem (Ham or Turkey for lunch), the easier it is to navigate and maintain speed through it. As we get more intricate in the issue, the more strategy is required to navigate; we focus on it only when it’s time, slow way down to effectively solve it, and set ourselves up for success in accelerating back maximum velocity quickly.

Average Speed vs. Maximum Speed

Maximum speed is only ever a short period of time in today’s world. It won’t really move the needle if we have a couple of really intense work sessions (maximum speed) a month. The real difference in lap times (monthly reviews) is consistency (average speed).

Max speed is glamorized. Pulling all-nighters, crashing for multiple days straight on one hot-item. But then we’ve sacrificed everything else. We’re far more effective and efficiency when we focus on our average speed and consistency through the corners.

We probably intuitively know this to be true. I’m going to think about this analogy in this way for my gym time and navigating new projects.

I’d Love Your Feedback!

Which musing is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.
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Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
​-e