S2 E31 — Getting Charged from Box Automattic-aly

I’m exhausted as any introvert can be — energy, ambition and overall level of caring about this passion project depleted. Just grunt work left.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

“5” Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61: “We don’t get to decide what’s empowering. You’ll get a charge from unexpected places, and watch others be revved up by things you’d have expected to be draining.” Virgo

Hi and welcome to Saturday’s Episode 31 of the Second Season’s My Pandemic Year’s Natural Experiment, on April 18th in the spring of 2020 here in California.

Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E30 — It’s Crazy. Why does Amazon Prime Work, but Netflix Doesn’t?; S2 E29 — Three Months That Changed the World; S2 E28 — Hosting Norwegian Zooms While Trump Eliminated the Virus in April

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E31 — Day 31 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E30 — Day 30 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E29 — Day 29 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E28 — Day 28 of My 1-Year Experiment

Context

Spent the afternoon yesterday using my LinkedIn network to update Contacts and “Friends of Steves” emails.

Boring.

Until, one of my former Executive MBA students reached out to me.

She messaged me in LinkedIn because she noticed I landed on her profile and clicked on her contact information and copied and pasted her into my contacts.

I thought she had moved back to Silicon Valley from Orange County but in a couple of message volleys discovered she’s operating from the UK, having relocated her strategic marketing and customer experience consulting firm.

The exchange boosted my energy level.

But, what really got my creative juices flowing was stumbling across an article profiling the CEO of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, who had been interviewed on my Sam Harris podcast.

His company is behind WordPress and having acquired Woo Commerce and Tumblir and, get this, he’s got 1,1170 employees in 75 countries “speaking 93 languages … The company does not have an office.”

Steve Glaveski wrote about him while introducing levels of remote work citing the pluses and minuses on Medium, The Five Levels of Remote Work — and why you’re probably at Level 2.

In his three dimensional pyramid leading to a blue tip of the of Nirvana (which very few any reach, he works his way down to asynchronous communication

(4) Nirvana

(3) down to adapting to the medium and

(2) down to recreating the office but online and

(1) at the bottom non-deliberate action.

Of course you climb it from 1 to 4 if you know what you’re doing.

You can probably guess tech companies like Automattic and “Box, Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have all told their employees some variation of ‘work from home.’”

Evidence

Oh, oh. How am I coming across? Does Zahnny’s Holiday Tau hit too close to home?

“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “A story can be an instrument of control. That’s why you have to be very careful about how you cast yourself in your own stories. Make sure you’re the hero, not the victim.” Scorpio

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

Haha. We all know this isn’t my birthday. Not even close. Nor is it Emma the Baroness’ but we’re not above faking it. Not to the level of paying for fake IDs or passports, but more like a misdemeanor offense. Chaos? Check. Intention? Check. Transformation? I’ll check into it and report later in the year.

Today’s Holiday Birthday:

“You have everything you need to take on this exciting year. Do plenty of brainstorming and experimenting to figure out what you like and want to pursue. Once you have strong intent, all will organize around that. A patch of chaos you weren’t sure what to do with will turn out to be the source of an exciting transformation.”

Again with your spot on TauBits of Wisdom, G&G. Drudgery turned into an energizing coincidence via LinkedIn and then Glaveski’s Medium article about Matt Mullenweg’s approach to making Remote Work, well work boosted my serendipity-fueled adrenalin higher.

Would you agree with our Patron Saint, Emma the Baroness? We started off that way, but have we settled into habits?

“3” Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “For a relationship to succeed, all parties should be self-reliant and yet willing to ignore that and rely on one another anyway, not because they have to, but because that’s what relationships are for.” Aries

Wait, is this a companion TauBit of Wisdom to McQueens? Are you three trying to tell me something?

“3” Steve Winwood, 71; Stevie Wonder, 69: “It’s amazing how doing the right thing in general will lead to many very specific correct actions. The situation that most needs improvement will fall right into place.” Taurus

Needy is as needy does, but I’m not risking a small fine for stealing yours.

“2” Steve Carell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “Approval, attention, affection, recognition — to pretend you don’t need these things is silly, but to appear to need them too much is off-putting. So you’ll play it rather cool, choosing your moments to be direct.” Leo

Hi Harvey, you Holiday Tau is timely and on display as MAGA folks demonstrate against anything forcing them to change their habits for the good of the Huntington Beach, California. Separately, I’ll make sure I include your TauBit of Wisdom in my Report of my 1-year experiment. Thanks, Steve.

“5” Steve Harvey, 62: “You’re not looking to be consoled by things that affirm what you already believe, at least not consciously. To stay aware and honest, keep questioning what you think is true.” Capricorn

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

- @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines grew from 1594 to 1628.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

- “Chasing the Dime,” by Michael Connelly describes the inner workings of a (fictional) commercial research laboratory which fits the Paradoxy-Moron organization type. “(In the lab) is where you find time for more AE work. Analyze and evaluate. When the unknown or unexpected came up in the lab you stopped and went into AE mode. What do you see? What do you know? What does it mean? In the lab everything was clear … simple. Quantifiable. Scientific theory was tested and either proved or disproved. No gray areas. No shadows.”
- Just picked up “Bob Dylan In America” by Sean Wilentz. Maybe because of the subliminal messaging like the times are a changing and the answer is blowing in the wind, but I kinda like Sean’s fanboy becomes music critic becomes historian surrounding Dylan’s life and times.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION