Get to the finish line and find that dopamine! Intensives, the 80% Problem, and deliberately finding things that we can do well and to completion in order to build trust in our own abilities to change the world.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Today I

want to talk about finishing things. I am, as of this

morning, within very easy reach of finishing something.

Specifically, I'm in very easy reach of finishing the Hindi

course in Duolingo. Now, before you get all impressed, it does

not have five units like so many Duolingo what courses do it has

two courses, two units. So it's less impressive than it might be

if I were finishing Oh, I don't know Scots Gaelic or Welsh. But

do you know how long it's been since I've really finished

something and felt like it was tied up well with a bow? Do you

know how long it's been since I've had a sense of completion,

like yes, that was finished the way I wanted it to be? I don't

get to finish things in my life, usually. I usually leave in a

hurry with toilet paper sticking to one shoe, as I rush out the

door. I've had more breakup-driven moves than I care

to count. Times when I thought I could trust that we were going

to stay and figure it out. And that didn't turn out to be the

case. So often, as an intensive, I lose interest 80% of the way

through a project. I get to 80% and I can see the ending, I know

how it could end, I know that it will end, I know that I could do

it. And it's not interesting anymore, the puzzle is gone. The

challenge and novelty has worn off. It's tarnished and faded.

And my brain has already moved on to the next interesting

puzzle, which is completely unrelated and does not lead to

finishing this puzzle. And that happens over and over and over

again so much that in my business, I highly recommend

this, I hired somebody to do the last 20%. Because by the time

it's at the last 20%, I can explain what needs to happen.

And it's not creative work. It's not particularly interesting

most of the time. And so I just want someone else to finish it,

I just want someone else to put it together and get it out

there. Sometimes it does require a little of my input and then

the process is slow as molasses. I still do it eventually. But it

might take forever. And meanwhile, I'm busy doing other

things, more creative things, things that are more

interesting. Now, there's a whole judgment in our world

about, about how we aren't supposed to do that. How it is

undisciplined and undignified and un-un-un-un. That we are not

enough that we are not good enough that we are not, we're

not adult enough that there's somehow some valor in being

willing and able to do the boring stuff to finish a thing.

Guess what? There isn't. There is no moral superiority in doing

the boring stuff to finish a thing. In fact, if the thing is

not needed in the world, if it is purely pleasure, there's no

moral superiority at all. If you want to have a stack of

unfinished projects and objects, that's what we call them in

knitting and crocheting and most of the craft world UFOs-

unfinished objects- if you want to have a stack of UFOs that

reaches to the ceiling, because you don't actually care if they

get finished, you can do that. Do you know how many yard sales

have unfinished needlepoint and knitting projects in them? I

hear that some places even have swaps, where you can go and pick

up somebody else's unfinished thing that they're no longer

interested in because they are process people they're

interested in the doing of it. But once the doing of it has

been substantially completed, they're no longer interested. I

myself have a sweater that I've been knitting since 2009. It has

a somewhat complex and sordid history and there are reasons

why it's hard for me to pick up that have nothing to do with the

knitting itself. But also I just haven't put my sights on it and

decided that finishing it is its own project. Which is, by the

way, the secret, if you're an intensive, to finishing things

is to make the entire finishing process into its own project.

Allow there to be enough time between most of the project and

the end of the project that finishing the project feels like

a whole new project. And then you pick it up and you can get

20% and 20% and because this isn't theoretical physics,

eventually you get done. Eventually you get like 80%

takes you almost all the way there, and then you do 80% of

the remaining 20%, then you do 80% Of the remaining 20%. And

then it's like, come on, just do two more stitches, and this

whole thing will be done.

Also, I like to make friends who like to weave in the ends,

because I'm terrible with all those little bits of yarn or

thread, in sewing, that hang off clothes. You'll notice if you

see me wearing my homemade clothes, that often there's a

dangling thread from my cuff and another from my waist because I

didn't bother to go back and tuck those threads in. I will

eventually. But again, it might take forever. And I have to

remember that it matters because that's not the part that matters

to me. What matters to me is that I spent hours and hours and

hours, days, months, in the case of the Banyan project, figuring

out how to make this garment. Because sewing and knitting,

they're three-dimensional geometry and physics. And if

like me, you're very sensitive to the textures and the weights

of fabric on you, sometimes there are also other kinds of

ephemeral arts that allow you to find a thing that you can wear

that also looks the way you want it to look. I have reset now the

sleeves on the Banyan three times. And I may have to set

them again because there seems to be a wrinkle somewhere.

Fortunately, fortunately, the sleeve is not integral to any of

the rest of the process. Even if I put cuffs on the sleeves as I

intend to do, finish the ends, round out the hem. If I decide

that this sleeve is bothering me too much, I can clip it out and

sew it back in at my leisure. One of the sleeves is doing

fine, the other one not so much. But see this Banyon project was

conceived with the idea that I would make the one that I'm

making now as a wearable muslin, refine my pattern, figure out

the fit-which I have done-and then once I figure this one out,

the idea is... was? is? that I will buy ornate fabric and make

myself one that makes me feel absolutely glorious. Because

beige, donated, IKEA curtains just aren't cutting it. The

other option, of course, is that I could embroider this one by

hand except that embroidery is not my art. And that feels like

an insurmountable amount of embroidering. I'm less

interested in decoration than I am in shape and form. So because

I'm less interested in decoration than shape and form,

and because I have the intensives 80% problem, I don't

always finish things easily. So when I'm looking at this Hindi

course, and I'm about to finish it. Now I know they're probably

going to add more on at some point like they did to the

Portuguese course and then I will be behind instead of ahead.

And that's fine. Because I would like to see the Hindi course

built out. But meanwhile, I will finish it, I'm going to finish

something and I am excited and unaccountably nervous about

finishing things. And I feel like this is kind of where we

are in the pandemic, where we're not sure about finishing things

because the pandemic carries on-much as we wish it would not.

BA.5 is incredibly contagious. And now we have monkey pox to

contend with. And no, it's not just an STI. And when we

confront all of those realities, it feels like we're never going

to finish this project. Not only has this turned into a group

project that we're failing because most of the group

refuses to do the work. But now we're also in a group project

where they just keep adding pieces to it and we've never hit

the finish line. And the problem with that, for all humans but

especially intensives, is that the finish line is where the

dopamine is. Having nailed it is where the dopamine is. Knowing

that you absolutely got it so right is where the dopamine is.

And as we get older, we know we can't expect that dopamine from

everything all the time. But we need some of it some of the

time. I literally started working on my Hindi and Duolingo

again after years of not because I needed dopamine and because I

wanted to talk to my grandmother, but at least 50% of

my consistency with Duolingo has been the dopamine. I'm just past

120 days. And I think I've used two streak freezes, which means

that's a real 120 days-ish. I just keep showing up because my

brain needs it. So

in the middle of all of this, and as business owners where

we're constantly pivoting, we're constantly trying to figure out

what COVID's next move is, what the economy's next move is, what

are we going to do to support ourselves and our employees and

our clients? How are we going to keep ourselves moving? And our

heads above water? And how are we going to make sure in the

midst of all of this, that we ourselves don't burn out?

Because it's not just us relying on us. Although even if we were

that would be a good enough cause.

And the answer is to deliberately find things that we

can do well, and to completion. And it doesn't matter what it

is, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Coloring Pages. If

you like coloring, do coloring pages. If you like walking,

walk. There's one route that I walk and when I walk it, I feel

like I have done my walk. And I use that to feel like I'm doing

something. Dishes. Do all your dishes, and then wipe down the

sink. Even if the rest of the kitchen is a complete disaster,

mine often is. Set a timer for five minutes of something,

anything, and then just do that thing for five minutes. It

doesn't have to be complicated. But it does have to give you the

sense that you are capable of finishing something because

that's what I'm realizing as I come to the end of this course.

And I'm actually like, "Okay, that's it that I can't keep

doing this." It's not like I'm choosing to stop at this point.

I cannot keep doing this because there's nothing else to do. So

now from this point of completion, I have to choose

what my next path is, do I hire an Indian tutor? Do I start

studying with a different app? Do I go back to Rosetta Stone

and see if they've improved their phone interface enough for

me to use it? They probably haven't. What is it that I need

to do so that I can continue to grow in this, because I have

completely outgrown the tool I was using. And that sense of

standing at the end of the path and looking forward is

remarkable. We don't often get to stand at the end of the path

and look forward like that. Especially in business,

especially in entrepreneurship, especially in the middle of a

pandemic and climate change and all the other things that are

happening in the world right now. It's very hard to get that

"Okay, that's behind me, now what" feeling, but we need to

have that, we need to build that up in ourselves. And we need to

invoke that for ourselves. So that we can get some

perspective. And so that we can be nourished because as

intensives, that's where our nourishment comes from. It's

ironic because the 80% problem says that, we get to 80%. And

then we're less inclined to do the remaining 20%. But the real

sense of satisfaction, the real like, oh yeah, I can do this, I

can trust myself I can. I can change things in my world, to a

state of completion- that comes from the actual 100%. It can

come from 100% that you've hired someone to finish for you. It

can come from 100% that you swap with somebody else. It can come

from 100% in any one of a number of ways. But we need to create

that sensation, that experience for ourselves so that we know

that it's possible. So that not only do we get the biochemical

hit that we get from that, but also so that we trust each other

and we trust ourselves. The more things I finish, the more trust

I have in myself. The more trust I have in myself, the more able

I am to take on creating solutions that we don't think

are possible. Thanks for tuning in.