Hindsights II: the Learning Continues

It's been a few years since I wrote the Hindsights speech. During these years, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. I am married to the same woman. I have three kids with a fourth on the way. (My youngest is a girl we adopted from Guatemala, and any day now, we are adopting her biological brother.) I've written seven books and made about five hundred speeches. I've started three companies and done another tour of duty at Apple. Finally, I've racked up 1.5 million miles on United Airlines--it's a bad sign when immigration tells you, “There's no more space on your passport; you need to get a new one.”

You'd think that I would have learned something beyond the original ten hindsights, and indeed I have. To this end, here is Hindsights II. If you add these hindsights to the ones in my first speech, you'll have the big things that I've learned in life.

1. Things are never as good or as bad as they seem. When I was working at Apple from 1983 to 1987, the company experienced fantastic highs and dismal lows. Shipping Macintosh was one such high. Apple's first layoff a few years later was a dismal low. But I saw that when things were supposedly great, there were lots of problems that people chose to ignore. Then I saw that during the black days, things weren't that bad: Customers were still buying Macintoshes by the thousands; developers were fairly happy, and most employees weren't affected by the layoffs. (Some employees even thought the layoffs were a good method to clean house.) So I've learned to temper my optimism and my pessimism in my old age.
2. You can love an adopted child as much as a biological one. A man's contribution to a pregnancy lasts about ten seconds--five if he told the truth--three if you asked the mother. And yet I've met many men who who were skeptical about adoption because they didn't think they could “bond” with a child that didn't have their DNA--ie, the ten-second commitment. This is simply not true: when you hold your precious jewel for the first time, no one cares if none of those chromosomes came from you. Certainly not the baby. Certainly not your wife. So get over it. Your DNA isn't the Holy Grail--to mix several metaphors.
3. The key to child delivery is one word: “epidural.” We went to the delivery classes; we learned the relaxation techniques; we took the soothing music with us to the hospital. At the end of the day (or, more accurately twenty-six hours), we came to believe that if God wanted every delivery to be natural, She wouldn't have enabled doctors to invent the epidural shot.
4. People act like their last names sound. People may start to look like their dogs, but I think that they act like their last names sound. For example, I have a buddy named Will Mayall. He helps me with anything technical; for example, when I ask him if he can make my web site or blog do something, his initial response is, “I may be able to” and then two hours later he's done it “all.” Hence, “may all.” Similarly, there's Jean-Louis Gassée. He's a funny guy--always armed with a great (usually sexual) metaphor to explain anything. He is a “gas” for the things that he “says”--hence, “gas say”. Then there's Kawasaki--my high school football teammates told me that I was a “cow's ass sagging.”
5. If you think someone is an orifice, everyone else does too. When I met people that I didn't like, I wondered if it was me or the person. Perhaps I had gotten her all wrong, and other people liked her, respected her, adored her, whatever. After much investigation, I formulated the Rule of Perfect Information About Orifices; that is, if you think someone is an orifice, pretty much everyone thinks she's an orifice too. There is seldom disagreement about orifices. The same, however, is not true about good guys. If you think someone is a good guy, you should never assume most people agree with you.
6. Life is too short to deal with orifices. Continuing on the orifice track. I'm now fifty-one years old, so more than half my life is over. There's not enough time left to accommodate orifices--frankly, there's not enough time to take care of the people you like. Why should you waste time with people you don't? So no matter how great a customer, partner, or vendor someone could, or should, be, don't waste time with orifices. They not only waste your time, but they taint your soul for the time you spent with the people you like.
7. Entrepreneurs are always a year late and 90% high in their “conservative” forecast. I've worked with entrepreneurs who were so green they couldn't run a lemonade stand, and I've worked with entrepreneurs with great track records in brand-name companies. At the end of the day, experience, age, gender, educational background...nothing matters: entrepreneurs are usually a year late in delivering their product, and their financial results are 90% lower than their “conservative” forecast. This isn't necessarily bad--indeed it may be necessary for entrepreneurs to believe their own bull shitake, but it is how things work.
8. Judge others by their intentions and yourself by your results. If you want to be at peace with the world, here's what you should do. When you judge others, look at what they intended to do. When you judge yourself, look at what you've actually accomplished. This attitude is bound to keep you humble. By contrast, if you judge others by their accomplishments (which are usually shortfalls) and yourself by your intentions (which are usually lofty), you will be an angry, despised little man.
9. You don't have to answer every email. I am compulsive about answering email. Sometimes I simply can't answer email for weeks, and I feel like slitting my wrists. However, there have been a couple of times where I lost my inbox--copied the wrong file, file got corrupted, whatever--and I was terrified that hundreds of people wouldn't get a response and would be furious. They'd be thinking, “Guy thinks he's such a big shot that he doesn't need to answer email anymore.” I expected to get hatemail for weeks. Do you know what happened? Nothing. Not one pissed-off email. I was amazed. But I am still compulsive about email.
10. Always use the toilet in an airplane after a woman. This is getting a little vertical, or horizontal, depending on how you want to look at it. Simply put, men pee on the seat. Women don't. And if a woman follows a man who peed on the seat, then she will clean it up before she sits down. If you sit down after her, you're good to go--so to speak.
11. Never ask people to do something that you wouldn't do. This is the ultimate test for every sales promotion, marketing campaign, engineering design, and employee directive. If you won't do something, don't ask anyone else to do it. I don't care how great your nuclear powered mousetrap is: You wouldn't pay $500,000 for it, go back to school for a PhD in Physics to learn to set it, and drive to the middle of Utah to drop off the dead, toxic mouse. On the flip side, as my buddy Smittie told me, if you do the tough, dirty stuff then (a) employee can't complain; and (b) employees will follow you because they know you would do what you're asking them to do.

Addendum: Hindsights IIa: Many men have written to me that their spouses pee while standing up. Thus, my belief that women pee sitting down is false. And maybe WAY false because a woman peeing standing up is likely to be “less accurate” for reasons of plumbing. All this said, someone once told me that pee is sterile anyway, but I digress.

Written at: Anderson School of Management, UCLA, Los Angeles, California.

Comments

[Guy Kawasaki]

Oliver,

I'll tell you when I intend to corrupt my inbox file, so you can avoid me losing your email.

Guy

[olivier blanchard]

So now I know what happened to all of my emails, big shot.

[Laura Bennett]

My mom forgot to tell me about the women hover-peeing in a public place thing - I didn't know that one until now!

I also disagree with the epidural learning too having had 2 non-pain relieved births (my choice and the last one was 2 weeks ago). Only a woman would understand why you would want to go through the pain - men just want to fix it.

[Alex Krupp]

Thanks Guy. I am taking the semester off from college, and I actually cited your post to a bunch of my friends who asked about it. Hopefully my friends won't tell their parents who will tell my parents, or else you might be getting some angry email :)

[Gabe]

LOL. Way to go Guy. You've had way too much time on an airplane.

[Xavier Casanova]

"4.People act like their last names sound."

Really?

;)

[kbInSF]

The thing about #8 is that there is no way to know what someone else's intentions are. Unless you are a mind reader and most us have proven that we aren't. I certainly have.

Accepting humility doesn't require any information about another person, fortunately. This has been particularly important to me, especially when interacting with various orifices - when it's so tempting to believe that because You are a jerk it's OK for me to be arrogant or pushy. Or a jerk also so long as I'm a little less of a jerk. Being humble is really about how I decide I am going to interact with the world regardless of who I'm interacting with.

I really appreciate this blog, Guy. Keep it up.

[Caleb]

#8 is definitely on point,although for the longest I've been doing it backwards because another's true intentions are sometimes difficult to figure and our own accomplishments sometimes don't mount up to our aspirations.

[Francisco Fernández]

Nice post! Specially 8 and 11.
I include your headlines (in Spanish) in my blog.

[Amanda]

I'd beg to differ with #3 (although I and my friend's experiences would put Mr. Anesthesiologist up there out of business). Epidural's may entirely be the way to go in a hospital setting with the added stress of monitors, IV's, nurses checking your every orifice (had to use that word), and being told what to eat (or not) and then telling you what your progress (or lack thereof) is every hour - adding pressure to the duration of your labours, then doctors coming in and giving you pitocin and rupturing your membranes artificially etc etc.

Having had one epidural - and the resultant urinary catheter (and then incontinence), added stress to baby, forceps/vacuum delivery, and a NICU stay - and then two natural births, one at home, I found the natural births, and especially the homebirth, to be the way to go!

[Charlene Chong]

You're the 2nd person in 2 days to express these same thoughts I have about adopting a child. Good stuff!

Love the entrepreneur bull shitake point. I'll keep loving my bull shitake then.

Cheers.

[Doug Fleener]

As the father of two daughters adopted from China I so appreciate your second point which leads to me the orifices, points 5 and 6. The quickest way to become an orifice in my book is based on #2. I can’t tell you how many orifices have asked me “when did you get them” or “are they sisters”. Well you don’t get kids and of course their sisters you idiot! I use to excuse their stupidity but as my daughters have gotten older I realize those questions being asked in front of a child is hurtfully and wrong. And now I appreciate after reading #5 that everyone else agrees that they are orifice. Thanks Guy!

Doug Fleener (A Flea On A Ner)

[mary anderson]

We need more minds like yours, perhaps then the world wouldn't have so many of those orifices.

[Daniel Steinberg]

There are many things you've said over the years that have helped or moved me but none are as true as number 2. We have one of each (adopted and biological) and there is no difference.

Of course that's not true. There are plenty of differences. Some days I feel closer to one child than the other. Some days I spend more time with one than the other. Some days I praise or discipline one more than the other. None of those differences come from the fact that one is biological and one is adopted. I see pieces of myself and my wife in each of them.

[Douglas H]

Good insights. Good for practical and business.

[Eve]

My surname is "Power"

Yeah. Try finding a first name that doesn't make one sound like a superhero. :-P

[Michael Sitarzewski]

Boris is on the money here. Girls don't sit on the seat.

I witnessed this first hand. My wife, son Zion (20 months), and I had to make a visit to the "family" restroom. I've been with my wife a little over 11 years, and married almost exactly four. I'd never seen her pee in a public restroom before and was surprised to see the hover technique. My perception of how women use public bathrooms was shattered. It makes me wonder about the use of a**gaskets in a public restroom. :)

[Dennis Balajadia]

#6! Yup there will always be orifices (A**sholes sounds better). And bullseye!... there are so much more people, BILLIONS of them worthy of our precious time and existence.

[Berislav Lopac]

Well, considering #4: My first thought would be that you drink a lot of coffee and sake. Do you?

Also, it depends on the language: in my native tongue your name could be explained so that you drink coffee (kava) from hand (saka).

[Simon]

Rule #11 is the first rule of leadership pounded into you by the (Australian) Army. It starts from day 1 with the corporals and sergeants and never stops even once you graduated.

You can simply not lead people if you are unwilling to do what you are asking of them.

[Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten]

Sorry Guy but you are wrong about one thing: NEVER GO TO THE TOILET AFTER A WOMAN! The truth is (ask any woman) that they DON'T clean the seat and sit on it. They leave the seat as they find it and hover over it while they pee. A girl never sits down in a public toilet! And most guys lift the seat when they take a pee. So in reality it's the girls that pee on the seat. Don't believe me? Ask a girl, they will confirm it...

[Danj]

As an anaesthesiologist I've gotta' agree with number 3. The TV quote I remember is 'childbirth the way God intended - numb from the nipples down.' Great points all round Guy - no 6 and 8 are the real kickers.

[Carey]

Guy, good to see you're back at UCLA Anderson; wish I could have met you when I was there a few years ago--hope our paths will cross someday. Both Hindsights posts have been enlightening and entertaining--your trademark combination. Keep it up!

[Rishi Khaitan]

#8 really struck a chord for me too.

[Sameer]

#8 is really beautiful, and useful. Dunno how easy it is to implement tho, but worth a real good shot at.