Living the examined life

Socrates is credited with saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. I am not sure I agree.

I can’t say I’ve lived a very examined life up until recent years.

Growing up I had no real dream profession. Sure, I wanted to play professional football, but I never seriously committed to getting there. I don’t think I ever really believed I had what it took in terms of talent.

I basically ended up where I ended up due to chance and some talent, I can’t say that I had conviction and worked hard. At least not from the start. Even as I started working harder, it was still quite unstructured. I didn’t think about career progression or promotions, I just went to work, delivered to the best of my ability and took on the next opportunity. Fortunately the opportunities kept coming.

In recent years I have started moving towards living a more examined life. Paradoxically without really realizing it in the moment. I’ve always been very analytical and seeking deeper understanding of things, but that hasn’t really applied to myself and my own thoughts and actions.

Somewhere along the line, I came across some factoid that this or that CEO read 50 books a year, which sparked something in me. Fifty books in a year is less than one book per week! I have always enjoyed reading, but I had never tracked my reading like that, measuring number of books I read in a year.

So I accepted the challenge (that I imposed on myself, there was never any actual challenge), and picked up book after book, plowing through them. I can’t remember which book got me started, but I have a strong feeling it was Switch by Chip and Dan Heath.

I read Kahneman, Adam Grant, Dan Pink et cetera, et cetera. I read about behavioral economics, psychology, flow state, deliberate practice, habits, you name it. If it had to do with how people think and function, there is a good chance that I have read it. (Still open to recommendations in this area, send me a message if you know of a good title.)

Have you seen the show Billions? I really liked it from the first minute, and I became fascinated by the role Wendy played in the Axelrod organization. It was really appealing to me to see such a deliberate approach to honing people’s talent and improving their performance.

Returning to ancient Greece, modern coaching for performance is in many ways similar to the Socratic method of exploring topics through structured dialogue. Being coached is not being told what to do, being coached is discovering yourself what you are able to do, and then doing it.

A coach isn’t someone who is better at your job than you are, and can give you practical advice on how to do what you do. A good coach can in theory coach anyone, by activating the person being coached.

By driving them to live a more examined life. You should give it a try!