Rowan Spazzoli

Strategist. Lecturer. Consultant

Work through the network

This year I did some work for an organisation for free. I was mostly doing it because I really enjoyed the project and I wanted to see it be successful. In the back of my mind was also the thought that it would provide an opportunity to network, but that was secondary.

Last week, one of the people I’d worked with at this organisation recommended me for a project with a consulting company in the UK. And, after a successful skype meeting, I’ll be joining the project team for a 2 week long project. And getting paid for it.

My aim when doing the free work wasn’t to network or to try and get other work. But it ended up being just that

Building a network means giving before being able to receive. And sometimes, just sometimes, it pays off.

Image was taken in the GSB courtyard this afternoon

Blog: 285/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Mama look at me now - Galantis

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Taking it in my stride

My iPhone smashed today. I was sleepily making my morning coffee when I bumped it off the counter. It landed on the corner and, despite having a cover, it smashed into tiny fragments.

I’d fished this phone out of my cupboard after the robbery and, although it has been a little slow, it’s been great. But now it had turned into a little glass kaleidoscope. And it had completely lost touch sensitivity.

I picked it up, gave it as test and realised that I needed to replace the screen.

It technically went against all the plans I had for the day.

But I grabbed my diary and added it on to the to-do list. I shuffled my plans slightly and, next thing, everything fitted.

Into your stride

Once the phone had been broken, being angry at myself would have accomplished close to nothing. I’ve experienced this sort of admin before and it is hardly a blip on the radar now.

I’ve come to realise that you can expect these sort of things to happen at least once a year. One theft, one device breakage, one important document being lost, one car accident. And so this is part of every day life.

I got my phone fixed at weFix and returned by 4pm. It now works like new 🙂

P.s. I had the most incredible experience with my insurance \but I’ll save that for the Friday Shoutout 😉 🍍 

Images is of my broken phone this morning. It shattered completely. It no longer looks like this though 🙂

Blog: 211/365

Song of the day:Muse – Resistance

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Spending Money

Ever since I can remember I’ve had an odd feeling towards spending money. I’m not talking about the day to day items such as food or transport. My oddity has been around spending bigger sums of money: buying myself clothes, purchasing new tech or even buying big household goods.

I remember in 2003 I’d saved up all my money for almost a year to buy a new speaker/radio. I researched the one I wanted for ages. I’d chosen one that had CD/MP3 Disk and radio capability, as well as an alarm setting. While we were in Australia I finally bought it.

And the next day I was really upset.

Not that I didn’t love the device. I used it every day for nearly 4 years after that. I was upset because I felt like I shouldn’t be spending money. That I should rather hoard it and save as much as I can.

Part of this may have been a fear around whether I would get more money, which is something that lingers to this day. And part of it is that money is fungible. In theory, I could have spent my money in many ways, and I got to imagine that. But as soon as I bought the radio, I was locked in.

I’ve since tried to begin adapting this mindset. The idea isn’t to spend more money or be more irrational around spending it. And it doesn’t mean buying everything I want.

Instead, I’ve started to look at my needs and the utility of a purchase.

For example, I went shopping for comfy pants the other day (mine were stolen in the robbery… I mean, who steals a guys pants? That’s just rude. And they took my nachos. And Amarula. And my freaking keys… okay let’s move on).

I found two pairs of pants, both of which I really liked and both of which were on sale.

I initially thought to myself “I should only buy one of these, otherwise I’m wasting money”

But on second thought, I recognized that I would probably wear both of them really often. And when one was in the wash, I’d have the other to wear. It wasn’t a reckless decision, I was fulfilling a need.

Shifting

Recognising these in built quirks about ourselves is important, especially for managing the way we make decisions. I’m trying to learn to look at money differently, and understand that I’m allowed to use it to meet my needs. And I’ll slowly unpack this, one purchase at a time.

Image was taken today in the Greenpoint park while on my run 🙂

Blog: 210/365

Song of the day: Vengaboys – We’re going to Ibiza 

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Planning with the monkey

One of my favourite blog posts of all time is Why Procrastinators Procrastinate by Tim Urban. In it, he describes two different “brains”, one of the procrastinator, which looks like this:

NP brain

And the brain of the non-procrastinator, which looks like this:

P brain

As you can see, the main difference between the two is the instant gratification monkey. This monkey derails the rational decision maker constantly. He directs the procrastinator to seek food (even if he’s not hungry), meander through the internet, take naps and clean the house. All of this instead of working.

My brain looks like the procrastinators brain. Except the monkey is not a cute, innocent looking creature. I have an instant gratification gorilla called Dave and he is very prepared to beat the daylights out of my rational decision making side as often as possible.

black gorilla closed up photography

Actual picture of Dave, ready to ruin my day (Photo by Pixabay) 

So Dave is regularly able to derail my day. But it’s okay, I’m usually able to recover some productivity. And on deadline days, Dave lets me have an extra bit of time as long as I feed him properly.

A week with no Dave

Dave and I have gotten quite good at living together. However, I have a major problem:

I never take into account that Dave will still be around tomorrow, next week or next month

For example, I’ve said to myself that next week I have no appointments for anything. So I’ll be able to put in at least 50 hours of work. Which would be fine, if Dave didn’t exist.

But he does.

And so I will get some work done.

And Dave will take his share of time too.

I did the same thing with this week. I estimated the amount of time I would have to work based on the idea that I would be completely rational and able to stay focused for an outrageous amount of time.  And I do the same with most of my work.

When I then get to the time that has been planned, I realise that Dave is still around. And I’m sent into a panic when I try and achieve maximum output when, in fact, I have a giant gorilla distracting me.

What are you on about Rowan?

Hold your horses (and monkeys), there’s a point to this.

When I plan my life and time, I do so with the maximum objectives in mind. As if all my time is spent optimally and there are no hiccups along the way. And 99 times out of 100, there will be something that sets me off course. Whether it’s internal, with my instant gratification gorilla distracting me, or external, with my stuff being stolen

This makes me feel like I’m consistently not living up to my expectations. As if I’m failing, again and again.

But I’m not.

I’m actually just plodding along at normal Rowan pace. Though my expectations are set way above that. So I feel as if they are constantly being missed.

I try to plan my life as if there is no Dave. But I should plan it with the active recognition that he is around. That he will be here tomorrow, next week and next month. Therefore I can continue to fight him (and lose) or I can accept that he is going to be here and make room for him.

I should plan for a distraction. For tiredness. For unexpected events.

I need to plan with Dave. Set up time to drift off, allow for naps and the odd derailment.

And in doing this, I’ll set more reasonable and achievable expectations for myself. Allowing me to be less on edge and allowing Dave the play time he needs.

Image was taken at Cape Point a few weeks ago. I’ve uploaded a different picture of this guy before, but I’m still upset he stole our Doritos

Blog: 204/365

Song of the day:  Fin Evans – Never Forget You (Feat. Alex Foster)

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

New ideas, everyday

A few weeks ago I read a blog by Seth Godin where he said he was completely out of ideas. After 16 years of blogging and over 8000 original posts, he had finally gone dry. The barrel was empty.

This struck a cord with me. I was only 170 posts in and I was starting to feel like I was running low on ideas. All the deep insights I had seemed to been used. Sometimes it felt like I was just rewording old ideas.

Maybe I only had around 150 ideas and they had been spent?

It was only  later, in a follow up blog, that Seth revealed it had been an April fools joke:

And today, give or take, is the sixteenth anniversary of this blog. Not quite on April Fool’s Day a bunch of years ago, but close enough. I feel badly that so many people were fooled by this morning’s post, and I’m grateful to those that wrote in with concern. But no, I was making a point, not telling the truth. It turns out that showing up is a great way to find new ideas, and I have no plans on stopping.

Despite knowing that it was light prank, it has played on my mind quite often. There are some nights that I just sit at the computer screen, not knowing where to start. And others where I’ll write a post, only to realize I wrote a similar one a few months before.

This was again brought to my attention today when a comment on my blog today said that it appeared I may be getting bored.

I thought about this and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t bored. I’ve been really enjoying my blogs over the past while.

Instead, I have run out of ideas. I’ve run out of my well formed ideas.

  • The ideas you spend years thinking of.
  • The ideas that you carry with you through different stages of your life.
  • The ideas that you have convinced yourself are absolutely true.

And now, I’ve started entering unfamiliar territory. A place where I have to conceive new ideas, challenge them and leave them open to scrutiny.

Where they haven’t had years to form. Where they might have gaps. And where I might not fully understand them.

It’s the next phase of my blogging and development. More rapid idea formation and more letting myself go.

I’m not out of ideas.

I’m just learning how to come up with them more quickly.

 

 

Image was taken in 2006, and this is a picture of that picture (I can’t find the original). The three brothers are in the picture, with Fabio looking how I feel at the end of the day

Blog: 202/365

Song of the day: Don’t stop me now – Queen

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Morning Routine Review

This past week I started a new morning routine. The idea was to get up at 6, meditate and exercise before starting the day.

I managed to wake up at 6 or 6.30 every day of the week. And meditated almost all the days. The exercising was the most difficult thing and I only managed it once.

The routine evolved a bit. I now wake up, make coffee, shower and get ready. Then grab my blanket and sit with Jared and watch YouTube videos.

The routine really helped me get momentum at the start of the day and helped me feel like I was on top of things. The downside though was that I ended up being really tired and fading towards the afternoon.

Will give it another shot next week and see if I can keep up the meditating 🙂

Image was taken at the Emirates stadium in 2015 🙂

Blog: 193/365

Song of the day: HAIM – Valentine

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

Reframe the critic

There are some people who are close to us who often end up being deeply critical of us. And it’s difficult to get away from this.

An example of this is a friend who’s mom badgers her about her personal decisions. Constantly telling her that she hasn’t done enough, that she should get married and that she should think about having kids.

And this friend doesn’t want to get married. Or have kids.

But this doesn’t stop the mom. And it also has an adverse affect on my friend.

It can be hurtful coming from someone so close.

So one way to combat this is to reframe who the criticism is coming from. Ask yourself if you’d take advice from them if you weren’t related.

In the case of my friends mom, the mom is an out of touch, self cantered person from a tiny town who bases her worth on the perception of others. She failed at her chosen career and now runs a small business.

She’s not the right person to give my friend advice about her law career, her relationships or whether she should have kids.

And by thinking of it this way, we’re able to deflect some of the intensity of the criticism.

If you wouldn’t take their advice if they were a stranger, don’t worry about their advice just because they’re related.

Image was taken at Babylonstoren a few years back 🙂

Blog: 190/365

Song of the day: If I could change your mind – HAIM

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink

In Focus

I feel that I have gotten really good at creating an environment that is ideal for work. I walk or cycle to the business school, I set up my computer with an extra screen and I play the music that I work best to.

And this environment works really well. Sometimes.

But I find there are times where I struggle to focus regardless of the environment. Even if the work is enjoyable, I get easily distracted and then get frustrated with myself.

A prime example is today. I managed a good morning of work but by the afternoon I got so distracted that I couldn’t get back on track.

I think over the next few days I’m going to be mindful of what nudges me into this state. I’ll gently analyse what’s going on and try and see if I can bring myself back into focus.

Ideally, I’ll be finding the gaps in my foundation, fixing them up and understanding myself better so that work becomes even more enjoyable in the future

Routine update: managed to get up at 6am, meditate, exercise (yoga) and make it to work before 8 🙂 now for day 2!

Image was taken on my afternoon cycle to the promenade 🙂

Blog: 189/365

Song of the day: Alison Wonderland – Easy

Published by rspazzoli on | Permalink