Some things are hard.

Years ago when I first started at Relativity, we had an amazing engineering leader named Security Bill.

Security Bill taught us a lot. For instance, he knew our most likely breach scenario was low-tech: someone tailgating into our office behind a polite door-holder, then sticking a USB into an unlocked machine. So Bill set out to create a new norm. Everyone would badge into every door, every time. If you were walking back from lunch with your best work friend, and the CEO happened to be walking behind you? All three must badge in, one at a time. If the CEO was distracted, late, in a rush, and forgot to swipe his badge, it was your duty to remind him he needed badge in. Even if you were just an intern. This would usually mean stopping right in the doorway and physically standing in his way. It was a hard norm to enact in a company of a few hundred people, but Security Bill was a patient and persuasive man. Leadership bought in first, and slowly the new norm stuck. Within a couple of months, the whole company was badging in, and holding each other accountable.

But the badge norm protected against only the first half of the threat, and still wasn’t foolproof. So Bill also had a custom stamp with a red ink pad. He carried the stamp and ink in a little case, along with a fresh set of yellow sticky notes. If you stood up for a drink or bathroom break and didn’t lock your computer, and Security Bill happened by, you’d return to find a sticky note on your monitor. On the yellow paper would a red stamp that read in block letters “WHAT’S COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?”

And Security Bill was always willing to describe for you what could possibly go wrong.

Security Bill taught us other things, beyond how to have a security mindset. I was once asked in a meeting to do something that was outside my skill set and comfort zone. I said something like, “I’m not very technical, I don’t think I can own this.” Bill encouraged me to try, and offered to help if I got stuck.

After the meeting, he pulled me aside and told me a story. “When I was young, my parents sent me to work on my uncle’s farm for a summer. For the first two weeks, every day I was asked to do something I had never done before. What would he have said to me if I’d told him, ‘I’m not very agricultural, I don’t think I can do this.’ Some things are hard. But we’re smart, and we figure them out.”

Security Bill created a permanent security mindset at Relativity. Throughout his career he also helped me and hundreds of others learn how to build a culture of excellence; how to fight an uphill battle and win; when to be a careful thinker, and when to jump in and figure it out.

The best part about a sabbatical.

As my sabbatical comes to an end, and I shift my attention to finding my next job, people have been asking me what has been the best or most rewarding part of this journey. The obvious answers are our wedding and honeymoon. But beyond those, the most rewarding thing I’ve done has been this blog.

Though I’ve fallen out of the habit lately—a dip in creative productivity that I’m taking as another sign it’s time to get back to work—when I was writing every day, a bit of alchemy started to occur.

I felt awakened to a new dimension of experience, which is exactly what I was seeking on this journey. Writing acted as an agent of sublimation for all my sabbatical adventures, pulling together experiences and relating them to each other, so a bigger picture could emerge as if through transmutation.

I hope to find a place for daily or weekly writing in my routine when I get back to work, though I don’t know what it will look like. For now, I’m recommitting to daily writing for the remainder of my time off.

How to access Beginner’s Mind.

A theme of my sabbatical has been learning—either gaining new skills or improving existing ones. I’ve been practicing writing, meditation, and golf. I’m taking my first improv class. I’m swimming again after a long break, and just got out of the pool for the first time this year. Finding my stroke and getting comfortable in the water took some effort. Though I’m not qualified, I gave my mom some tennis lessons, which made me focus on the instruction I’ve received in the few lessons I’ve taken. I tried horseback riding for the first time, and fly fishing for the second. I went skiing and focused on my form, and felt as capable as I ever have on skis.

Not since childhood have I been exposed to such steep learning curves across so many activities in such a short time. It’s fun, and it’s exactly what I wanted out of this period away from work.

I’ve also noticed the compounding effects of learning in parallel across disciplines. When you try to improve across a mix skills—some completely new and some well-established—your mind can tune into the learning process in a deeper way. You can bring the beginner’s mind even to things you’ve done since childhood (like swimming, for me). This means noticing more interesting details in each activity, while somehow simultaneously being less distracted by thoughts in the moment. It’s a great feeling, and one of many good reasons to always be learning new things.

Riding a bike always makes me feel like a kid again. It’s an easy shortcut to that magic feeling of flying, carefree, looking at the world like it’s brand new. Stacking so much learning into such a short period feels like riding a bike. I hope to never forget this feeling.

“In all interactions, be either a teacher or a student.”

“In all interactions, be either a teacher or a student.” During my improv class last night, I was reminded of this mantra, which I adopted years ago during a period at work when I was really bored. Last night I was sitting there, a student, brand new, and still terrible at the thing we were practicing. It was uncomfortable, but not unpleasant. I was in the beginner’s mind. It was anything but boring.

Reflecting on that bad time at work, I remember endless meetings and busy work—nothing truly challenging, just overwhelming volume. Usually the answer to this type of challenge would be to prioritize what’s most important and ignore the rest. But I was also stuck in a rut, working on nothing very important. I didn’t want to leave, so needed to find something new to focus on. That search could fill only a small part of my day, so the rest was filled with picking up work no one else wanted to own.

So I was bored. Luckily, around that time a new leader joined us, who had an overt leadership style. He would spend as much time teaching others how to operate, think, decide, coach, as he would doing those things himself. He was always teaching.

And there I saw the answer to my boredom: like so many other problems, the best advice is the advice your grandma or grandpa may have given:

I fully endorse at least half of this sentiment.

Or to put it more encouragingly: Bored? Get curious.

If you feel like you’re on autopilot, ask how you could teach those around you to accomplish these things with as much mindless ease. If you feel others are wasting your time, find out why. Maybe they bored too, but no one has thought about whether this stuff is important.

Interestingly, practicing this mindset also helps you notice more viscerally when you’re the new, struggling, or confused person in the room. It makes you a better, more willing student. If every interaction is a teaching or learning moment, you can never be bored.