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finishing things
Episode 315th September 2022 • PowerPivot • Leela Sinha
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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.

Transcripts

Leela Sinha:

Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Today I

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

morning, within very easy reach of finishing something.

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

And my brain has already moved on to the next interesting

Leela Sinha:

puzzle, which is completely unrelated and does not lead to

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

again so much that in my business, I highly recommend

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

things, more creative things, things that are more

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

knitting and crocheting and most of the craft world UFOs-

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

have unfinished needlepoint and knitting projects in them? I

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

interested in because they are process people they're

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

a somewhat complex and sordid history and there are reasons

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

the end of the project that finishing the project feels like

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

eventually you get done. Eventually you get like 80%

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

whole thing will be done.

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

them again because there seems to be a wrinkle somewhere.

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

myself one that makes me feel absolutely glorious. Because

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

an insurmountable amount of embroidering. I'm less

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

something and I am excited and unaccountably nervous about

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

project that we're failing because most of the group

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

especially intensives, is that the finish line is where the

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

time. I literally started working on my Hindi and Duolingo

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

brain needs it. So

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

that would be a good enough cause.

Leela Sinha:

And the answer is to deliberately find things that we

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

sense that you are capable of finishing something because

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

now from this point of completion, I have to choose

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

standing at the end of the path and looking forward is

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

and look forward like that. Especially in business,

Leela Sinha:

especially in entrepreneurship, especially in the middle of a

Leela Sinha:

pandemic and climate change and all the other things that are

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

invoke that for ourselves. So that we can get some

Leela Sinha:

perspective. And so that we can be nourished because as

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

that sensation, that experience for ourselves so that we know

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

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

Leela Sinha:

are possible. Thanks for tuning in.

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