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Imagine a young girl who lost her parents while going on a walk. The sun has gone down. It is dark, and she does not know where her parents are. What should you do? Life can feel like this sometimes...lost and blind. The world is so complicated. Not knowing can make us feel small and insecure. We all feel that way sometimes, but there is a mental model that can help. I call it, "Know what I know". Know what I know It starts with categorizing what I know into four categories. I know. I don’t know. I did not know! I thought I knew! Let's take each in turn... 1. I know. The first category is everyone's favorite. We love to know things! Knowing things feels so good that humans often make the mistake of thinking they know more than they do...and knowing things that just ain't so. This can get us into trouble. The lost girl can see the stars. She can feel the ground. She can hold out her hands so she doesn't bump into anything. She also knows that she has two loving parents and caring neighbors out there with flashlights looking for her. 2. I don't know. There are also things we don't know. When we know we don't know it's not a big deal. Accepting that we don't know can help us to learn and ask the right questions. Knowing we don't know helps us avoid making big mistakes by knowing the limits of our understanding. The lost girl does not know which direction her home is or where she is. She doesn't know how long it will be before the morning comes. It could be hours before you can see properly. 3. I did not know. Then there are things that we find out about the hard way. When we are surprised by bad things then we are often caught flat footed...shocked by a recognition that the set of things we did not know about is perhaps much bigger. It is not so bad when we know what we don't know. But it can get ugly when we don't know what we don't know. The lost girl might not know that there are dangerous animals in the woods nearby. She may not even think to consider the possibility. What would happen if she ventured into the woods hoping that her house lies on the other side! It is much better for her if she is aware of the possibility...even if she recognizes that she does not know. We are better off when we recognize that which we do not know then when we are caught by surprise. 4. I thought I knew. Finally there is the unfortunate recognition that what we thought we knew turned out to be wrong. As Mark Twain put it... "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so". When we recognize what we don't know (#2) then we can ask better questions. When we fail to consider what we don't know (#3) we can be unpleasantly surprised. But when we charge ahead thinking we know something that turns out to be wrong (#4) .... well ... that can often be a recipe for disaster. The lost girl may not know where her house is, but might trick herself into believing that she does. Everyone does this sometimes. Not knowing is uncomfortable. Pretending we know can feel good in the moment...even if it leads to big mistakes. If the girl wanders off in the wrong direction she might fall down a cliff, wander into the dangerous woods, and almost certainly make it harder for her parents to find her in the dark. First lessons of a Peaceful Warrior We all crave the comfort of knowing...the feeling of certainty...the safety of security. These desires are the fundamental force behind ignorance, because ignorance is bliss we are shocked into reality by that which we failed to see. There is a scene in the movie "Peaceful Warrior" in which Dan Millman is talking to Socrates (Soc) after realizing that he did not know what to do with his life. Soc explains that that's the first realization of a warrior..."not knowing". We crave the safety of security, but the only way we can find peace is through acceptance of not knowing. Only then can we focus on our circle of influence and expand the range of what we know. Once we accept that we are ignorant we can be driven to ask the right questions and consider unknown possibilities. -- Thank you for your interest. Sincerely, Aila

Dedication: This essay is dedicated to my daughters Aila and Sumay. Your creation of, “WEquil.School”, during the coronavirus outbreak inspired me to share my deeply personal story in hopes that it may help more kids learn to love learning. Dear Teachers and Parents, I failed Kindergarten...and was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) shortly after. Most of my childhood I thought I was dumb. This was my big secret...but sometimes life presents opportunities to share our secrets in hopes that they may help a greater good. As I write this essay, schools across the country are shut down, and parents are being forced to juggle work and educate their kids. For many parents...this is a struggle. But for many kids...it’s the first time they are being treated like individuals with their own unique strengths and interests. In this essay I share my own experience struggling through the traditional public education system, a system that has not changed much since the industrial revolution. I then provide several reasons why I believe that our digital age and our creativity driven economy require a rethink of childhood education. My hope is that my story can inspire others who felt or feel like failures … who never got the benefit of early childhood education, tutors, and a stable family. These are gifts my wife and I bring to our daughters today, and they make a difference. But the only thing that really matters is learning to love learning. Picture: Baby Sumay Childhood My parents broke up when I was four years old...the same year I started Kindergarten. Memories are hazy, but I do remember the fights. My brother and sister and I would play games while our parents argued. Sumay and Aila, my daughters, had books in their hands when they were babies. My wife and I sent them to Montessori Schools starting at age 2. They could read small words by age 3. When I must have been about 4, I remember playing in a sandbox. It was dark out...but I didn’t mind as I played with my toys...alone. I didn’t know a single letter. Shortly after my parents split up I was told I failed Kindergarten. We kids moved to Iowa to live with my Mom’s parents in Winfield Iowa. New school … new rules. My grandmother, Betty Wittrig (Momow) loved telling me a story of what the principal told her upon hearing that I had flunked Kindergarten. She said, “Your new school doesn’t believe in holding kids back. After school, you get to go to a special class where they will help you keep up with your new class”. My face widened and I yelled out, “Yippee! I’m part of the world!” I guess they would call the class “Special Needs” today. There were only five of us. Most had been diagnosed with learning disabilities...as I would a few years later. My teacher was an angel. She helped kids like me because she loved making a difference. She reminds me of my sister, also a Special Edu teacher. Most of those kids wouldn’t have a chance without people like them...and yet they remain some of the most underpaid and under appreciated professionals in the USA. By the second grade I had graduated out of “Special Edu” and even scored at the top 99% for math on a standardized test, but my success was short-lived. We moved again...this time with my Dad and Stepmother, Albina, before I started the third grade. New school … new rules … and theirs were less forgiving. The hardest part was making friends and fitting in, problems that my wife never had to contend with. She had an entirely different set of challenges. China My wife went to an elementary school that was literally just a concrete bunker. The toilet was a hole in the ground. One day a child accidentally fell in the hole and the teacher had to fish him out. Kids didn’t have books. The schools could only afford one book...so the “lecture” consisted of the teacher writing the text on the blackboard for the students to copy. You were tested on your ability to remember what had been written. She went to school at dawn, riding an adult-sized bicycle to school starting at age five. They learned math, Chinese and English. Unfortunately, their English teacher didn’t really know English, so conversational English was largely skipped over in favor of memorizing words. The gym class consisted of running for a half-hour followed by a few minutes of PingPong played on concrete tables. Lihong’s classmates studied all day until dinner...with the only break being a short power-nap around noon. She would typically fall asleep with a book in her lap before waking up the next day to repeat the same schedule six and a half days a week...all year long. Such a rigorous schedule seems unhealthy to many western readers, but Lihong did not find it stressful. Kids knew what was expected of them, and that was to study. With so much time dedicated to studying there was almost no time for friends or messing around. Quite the opposite of her husband, Lihong skipped Kindergarten and was always at the top of her class. One occasion she decided to draw a picture instead of listening to her teacher review the answers to a test she had Aced. Her teacher walked up to her and hit her over the head with a wooden ruler. That was the last time she ever lost focus...until she met me. Labels Third grade was hard for me because it was the beginning of social pressures and anxieties of fitting in … It was especially hard by being in a new school district and a family still trying to piece itself back together. Unlike many growing up in China, there were a lot of distractions, and I had a hard time paying attention to my studies. That’s when I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). A specialist sat me down and asked me a few questions. Then we bounced a ball back and forth for about five minutes. After that, he told my parents I had ADD and wrote them a prescription for Ritalin. Momow told me later that the same doctor, “had diagnosed lots of little boys” … and that was a key reason she did not trust him. It turns out that lots of “little boys” were being put on medication so they would “calm down” back then. Teachers valiantly trying to keep order in a classroom of 30 kids can’t really be blamed for what is now widely regarded as a bit of an overdiagnosis of kids, especially boys, that never evolved to sit in a chair for hours a day taking notes. If you type word “overdiagnosis” into Google and the first suggestion is . My parents and grandparents didn’t let me take any medication, and I’m thankful for that. Many people need medication, but for me, I think it would have stunted my ability to hone my unique personality and develop natural coping mechanisms. It would take years before I figured this out though. All I knew at the time was that I was struggling at home, doing poorly at school, didn’t have any real friends, and a “Doctor” said I had a disability. In short...I thought I was stupid. Hope But a seed of hope was planted in the Fifth Grade. My stepmother, Albina, came to me after I delivered a poor first-quarter report card. She had asked my teacher, Mrs. Wunch, if I could get extra help...but was turned down. Albina looked me right in the eye and said, “Joe...you are smart...you just need to prove it to her.” The next week my teacher gave us all a pre-exam to assess where we stood in understanding fractions, decimals, and percentages. I aced it. Mrs. Wunch walked up to me and asked, “How do you know this already?” I just sat there not knowing what to say. She told me I would be bored for the next two weeks given my results so she offered to let me do a project of my choosing so long as it involved applying fractions, decimals, and percentages. That was the first time I ever got to have a say in what I did at school. I walked home stunned. My mind was racing. What did I want to do? I hadn’t ever been asked what I wanted to do. My teacher gave me a hall pass so I could conduct a survey of students around the school. I was in my element...and learned more about myself, the value of numbers, and public speaking during those two weeks than I probably learned that entire year sitting in a classroom. … then it was over. Teaching All kids in public education are told they are students. They are told to learn from their teachers. Unfortunately, they are not told that the best way to learn is to teach. I had to wait until college to figure this out for myself. -- Iowa State University (ISU) accepted me into their forestry program, one of the best in the country. I grew up on a tree farm so it was a natural choice. It also looked easy...no foreign language requirement and no higher math. There were a few classes, like Economics, that looked a bit intimidating to me...so I enrolled in that right away to get it over with. But given that I already knew so much about forestry I figured college would be a breeze. Dr Brent Kreider taught me Economics 101. You could tell he loved teaching, mixing in concepts with stories from his own life. He taught two back to back courses to a crowd of more than 200 freshmen, and each day I attended both...in the front row. I loved his lectures the way many of my more religious friends loved sermons. The language of economics spoke to me … and I was hooked. Economics provides a framework for rational decision making. It’s a framework that my wife, who got her Ph.D. in Economics from ISU, and I use every day. Sumay wrote an introduction to economics for WEquil.School. She did a better job of explaining it than I ever could. Dr. Kreider held a “Supplemental Instruction” course led by a graduate student named William Rock. I attended even though I already knew the material so deeply that it was beginning to transform the way I saw the world. After William finished his prepared remarks I went around the other tables and helped teach the other students. That first day … teaching my peers economics 101 … was the moment I realized I wasn’t stupid. A month later, William told me that he was going on vacation for a couple of weeks and asked me if I would take over his Supplemental Instruction course while he was gone. I accepted. In my sophomore year, Dr. Kreider offered me a job previously reserved only for graduate students, teaching in the Economics Help Room. My wife Lihong and I met in my junior year. She was a brilliant first-year Ph.D. We met in the help room where she sometimes came to watch me teach. I took that to mean she was into me, but she actually had no romantic interest in me until she saw me at church ( a separate story). Turns out...she was really just trying to practice her English. After we started dating we ate dinner together most days before heading to her office. Many times a week, one of her Chinese classmates would gently knock on the door. Lihong would come and answer. They would speak in Mandarin for a few minutes before her classmate would graciously thank her with a “xie xie!”...the only part of the conversation that I followed. One day I asked her why her classmates kept coming by her office. She said, “to ask for help.” Later, Lihong casually mentioned to me that she received the third-highest college entrance exam score in the whole of her province. During my senior year, I took over the Help Room and gave lectures to the incoming graduate students on strategies for teaching Introductory Economics. Managing graduate students as a senior undergraduate was a challenging role. Most appreciated that I had more experience, but a few were less than enthused. The biggest problem I faced was that a few graduate students preferred to study instead of teach. I loved teaching everyone that walked in...even when I hadn’t taken the class yet. I also loved sharing my passion for the subject...sometimes to the point, that other undergraduate students would stick around to teach each other...all the while my graduate student colleagues would be in the other room hastily preparing for their qualifying exams. My new rule required all teachers to take turns fielding questions from incoming students. Most complied happily, but two of the first-year Chinese students filed a formal complaint to Dr. Brent Kreider...saying that my rule was directly impacting them and was, therefore “racist”. They were right that they were the reason for the new rule. What they didn’t know is the definition of racism, or that I had just married one of their Chinese classmates. Dr. Kreider brought me into his office to tell me about it. I started to get really nervous until he started laughing. Our final year at ISU we both won the Graduate Teaching Excellence Award. In the years that followed I continued to work with ISU through my Major Professor, dear friend, and personal hero … Dr. Peter Orazem. Peter showed me how to love writing, research, and paying these gifts forward to the next generation. Since the moment I met him, he has relentlessly given himself to inspiring young people like myself. I’ve never met another human being with a more perfect mix of humor, intelligence, and passion for making a positive difference in the world. He nominated me for an Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2018...and I was accepted. One-Size-Fits-All Primary and secondary public education still revolves around a classroom setting in which, usually just one teacher lectures to around 30 kids. Teachers present curriculums to their students based on standards set by the state and federal government. Students are tested to assess their comprehension of these lessons. Those who pass move to the next level. My experience was no different. Little has changed since formal education began around the dawn of the industrial revolution. Yes, we have better schools, technology, and many wonderful teachers ... but we still rely on a system that at its core is roughly the same as it was 130 years ago. Why? Everyone has unique gifts, strengths, and weaknesses. Parents and teachers have the responsibility to teach all children core skills. Without reading, writing, and basic arithmetic a child has next to no chance of career success. Kids often need to be pushed to learn core skills before they are good enough to enjoy exercising them on their own. So how do we do this? There are broadly two approaches we can take: Ask all kids to do the same homework assignments, read the same books, write the articles, and perform the same projects. Ask each kid what their passions are, what they want to read, what they want to write, what projects they want to share with their peers. The first is what we generally do now in public schools across the country. The second is what we are doing with WEquil.School. WEquil.School Schools closed a month ago. Shortly after we had a family meeting to discuss our predicament with our daughters, Sumay (age 10) and Aila (age 7). We explained that we had to work so they would need to come up with a creative solution to educating themselves. We had already introduced them to Khan Academy and Crash Course...two excellent resources that provide materials on just about every subject you can think of. That weekend they went through the available courses and came up with a list of what they wanted to learn about. Unlike in school, Sumay and Aila had the choice to learn together. Sumay would often pause the videos and help Aila to understand new concepts and words, reinforcing her own understanding in the process. At one point I found them cuddled up together with their blankets and stuffed animals while a Crash Course video on Statistics played in the background...so I felt the need to introduce the concept of "Active Learning". After that, they started taking notes on a shared Google Doc that updates in real-time. A week later they had detailed notes about a variety of subjects they had chosen to learn about such as introductory biology, cosmology, economics, and statistics. I liked the fact that I could review their notes to assess the accuracy of their understanding and provide my own insights. We mentioned this to some friends who asked that we share the materials and links. And that's when they got the idea to start WEquil.School. Our neighbor friends are in on it now also. Their daughter Aanya (also age 10) wrote a post about the World Wars and the Great Depression. Sumay provided edits and I discussed it with the three of them using Zoom. Her parents can edit and review the same Google Doc in real-time before we share it with friends on Facebook and Groups like the local PTA. Anyone that wants to contribute is welcome. We don't make any money off of it ... but we are making friends! During the first week, they posted seven articles ... averaging five-minute reads. I'm not sure if they can keep up this pace. At some point, our girls will start to get cabin fever. They also deeply miss their friends and there is a lot to be said for having a professional teacher physically in the room. That said, I don't remember a two week period in which these girls learned so much. The combination of choosing their own curriculum, sharing it with friends, teaching each other, and using technology you can rewind and replay on demand is a powerful combination. Conclusion Ten years from now our daughters will finally get the privilege to go deeply into debt for an opportunity to learn what they can already learn online. Not for all subjects...but most. Many parents find it surprising that we may not steer our kids toward college. Part of this is because my experience at ISU was so incredibly transformational for me. But the reality of our education system and the reality of the future economy suggests that such a view is not so radical. Elon Musk created a school for his five kids. His school has two principles: Cater to each kid’s unique talents and interests Teach to the problem … not the tool These two principles run counter to traditional education. By asking our children to all follow the same curriculum we implicitly (albeit unintentionally) tell them that their individual interests and talents are irrelevant. We squander the opportunity to inspire them by connecting their voice and inspirations with ways they can add value to the real world. By teaching tools instead of having them solve problems, we force them to memorize theoretical concepts without helping them link these tools to practical applications. Mathematics is an obvious example. Mathematics provides a tool to represent our infinitely complex reality into a simple and universal language of measurement. If more kids were taught the problem instead of the tool we would have more scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs willing to dig deeper into the subjects most helpful for a brighter future. By making teachers the sole arbiters of value...through grading systems bound between 0% and 100% we fail to show our kids that value is subjective, and there is no such thing as perfection. We, the people, are the true arbiters of value, and only by letting our kids share their creations with the world can they learn the meaning of value. Grades are a false representation of success and failure...which is determined by time, effort, and the thousands of iterations necessary to make something useful for the world. In short...our traditional education system teaches many valuable things. But they also inadvertently teach many complete contradictions to the unique nature of our children and our new technology and creativity-driven economy. -- A journalist picked up on the many in which our daughters are using a mix of technology and their own unique talents to create value for others today. The title is, “From Consumers to Creators: How One Parent Leverages Technology for Productivity. The articles focused on their blogs, schools, and apps, but there is an infinitely more important story that needs telling... All kids are special, and all of them will be happier, learn faster and add more to our world if we only did more in our public schools to listen to who they are and help them connect their unique talents to the real world. Kids and adults have two things in common: We like things we are good at. We don’t generally like being told what to do. Our daughters have learned to love learning. They teach themselves … and they teach each other. They are excited about new technologies, discovering who they are, and finding ways to share their unique gifts with the world. They are this way because they are human beings...and human beings love to learn when they are given the opportunity. Honestly, I’m not looking forward to them going back to school, where they will once again be told they are students not teachers, receive identical assignments that are simply thrown away after receiving grades used increasingly to judge instead of communicate. I much prefer having my daughters pursue their passions and sharing them with the world in ways that only became possible since the creation of the internet. They feel the same way...and the more parents I talk to about this the more it seems I am not alone. We need teachers, and we need schools...but we also need to take this opportunity to seriously rethink our childhood education system. We need to pay our teachers more and reduce class sizes. After that, we need to give our teachers the respect they deserve and show it by giving them the freedom to experiment and freedom to make mistakes. We need to recognize that we no longer live in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, and accept that our best hope for preparing kids in a technology and creativity driven economy will come from empowering our children to listen to their own inner voice. And if we do that...we will discover...that all of our children...already love to learn. Sincerely, Joseph

Hello everybody! Today we are going to talk about what specific knowledge is, and why it is important. After that, some tips to help you discover your own specific knowledge! This was all inspired by the tweet storm by Naval Ravakant, creator of Angel.co and venture capitalist. I hope you enjoy and find this insightful! So, first off, what is specific knowledge? Humans have this idea in their minds that everything can be taught in school. And although this may seem true, it isn't. Specific knowledge is knowledge that people can not teach, but can learn. They can learn this through experiences and all the different circumstances you have. Some examples are: your childhood, your friendships, different conversations, your interests, your personality, etc. As you can see, this knowledge can only come through your experiences, and since no one lives an identical life to someone else, this knowledge can not be learnt. Your specific knowledge has to come to you from all the things your have been inspired to do, what you parents believed was important. All these factors combine to shape your specific knowledge. Your specific knowledge will be something you are interested in. If you're not interested, it's not your specific knowledge. No matter how hard people try, you can not teach specific knowledge. This is extremely important because if you could then it would not be scarce, and scarcity creates value. With your specific knowledge you can guarantee there will not be any duplicates to compete with you. Your specific knowledge will help you pursue your Specific talents Genuine curiosity Passion Trying to find out your specific knowledge can be a bit of a challenge. One thing that can help is looking through your past to things you've been naturally good at. Maybe you've had inspiring charisma. Or perhaps you see both sides of things and can solve problem without trying. There are many different examples I could give each tailoring to specific people. One thing that specific knowledge can help you with is finding a career that you are passionate about. Usually people aren't extremely happy about their jobs. But using your special knowledge to find a career is an amazing thing. If you are not interested in something, you shouldn't dedicate your life to it. So people should try to cultivate their specific knowledge to provide something to the world that could not get otherwise. -- Thank you for reading about specific knowledge! I hope you enjoyed and feel inspired to find your own specific knowledge. There is no reason why you could not provide to the world what your circumstances bring you!

My wife and I met at church in Ames Iowa. We had seen each other before, but she didn't take interest in me until she saw me taking notes near the front row. Her friends had warned her against meeting guys in bars...advice I actually agree with. She assumed that I must be one of the good ones. What she didn't know is that the church she attended was the third I had visited that week. Lulu told me when she first came to Ames Iowa she thought she had come to heaven...because the people she met were so kind. One reason for her impression is that Ames has many strong religious communities that help foreign students assimilate. The church where we met did more than just preach. They also helped Lulu furnish her modest apartment, helped teach her English, and connected her with a "Family Group" to support her. Many of my closest friends are deeply religious. I met most of them in college where I attended every Church, Synagogue, and Mosque within a 20 mile radius of Ames. I sang in the choir at Collegiate Presbyterian, attended Lulu's Family Group and pulled an all nighter at Saint Thomas Aquinas with the Youth Group. After church I would often climb trees with friends and talk about the meaning of life...Peter, John, Cliff, Naomi, Chris, Heath...you know who you are. I won't call you out in an article on such a sensitive topic, but just want you to know that your influence during these formative years was an incredible gift that keeps giving to this day. Childhood My interest in religion started when I was very young. Mom loved the music at a Baptist Church so we attended despite being the only white family there. I fell asleep every night to her singing songs about god...many were her own compositions. To this day her songs are some of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard. Church was boring to me. Children at our local Methodist Church in Winfield Iowa were encouraged to color outlines of Jesus and Noah’s Arc because without crayons we became disruptive to the elderly who enjoyed singing old hymns more than debates on the meaning of scripture. Once my mother grounded me in my room on a Sunday. I was pleased to have missed Church until I remembered that I would also be missing the cookies offered after service, and so I escaped out my window. She caught me, but only after I had succeeded in stuffing myself. My parents broke up when I was four so after living with my grandparents for a couple years I lived with my Dad. We occasionally attended church but stopped abruptly after 9/11. My Dad was (and still is) a philosopher at heart. He bought me books on Kierkegaard and Plato’s Republic. He asked me questions like, “What’s the difference between Ethics and Laws?”, And “If you could save five peoples lives by killing one person, would you do it?” To this day I believe my deep interest in the topics of Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics are in large part due to conversations with my Dad. He taught me to ask questions, dig deeper and think critically. He helped me appreciate life's mystery while also grounding my views in facts, data, and science. My tendency to be lost in deep thoughts made it difficult for me it fit in. The toughest years were 9-13. Kids are cruel, especially to other kids that are not "cool". My questioning and critical mind ran counter to the arbitrary social scoring of junior high school kids. Moving to a new city was hard. Having divorced parents was hard. But lacking a community like a church made it even harder, although I didn’t realize this until years later. One experience still haunts me. When I was in 3rd grade I was friends with a nerdy kid that wore thick glasses. Everyone picked on him, and I was bullied for being his friend. One day on the playground I was threatened by a group of older boys who told me that if I didn’t join them in taking turns kicking my friend that I would be next. It pains me deeply to admit that I joined them. My friend never spoke to me again, and I don't blame him. I tell this story to my girls so they don't repeat my mistakes. I tell them everyone needs a moral compass. If you don’t have one, you will by guided by those around you. Philosophy helped me learn to think critically...but it didn't help me find community. High School Life got easier in high school and my interest in religion and philosophy exploded. When I was 14 a group of well dressed boys came to my home and handed me a copy of the Book of Mormon. I read a few pages and wasn’t impressed, but I was very impressed by the gentleman that couldn’t have been much older than myself. Their demeanor was so pleasant, their intentions so obviously selfless that I immediately felt a connection. One of those boys was Austin Smith...a good friend that gave me permission to share his name. He invited me to his Church and I got up at 5:30AM to attend several times. My Dad was curious as to why I was waking up so early...and was a bit concerned when he found out. But he didn't stop me. At 15 my sister became a born again Christian. I remember that day like it was yesterday. She came home with a smile on her face and asked me if she could clean my room. I asked her why, and she replied that she just wanted to help and knew that I could sometimes be messy. We had not always gotten along, but how could I be mad at anyone that volunteers to clean my room! At 16 I joined a church in hopes that it would land me a date! I doubt I’m the first male to do this, but it’s still somewhat embarrassing. What amazes me today is that my plan would have worked except for my inability to keep my mouth shut. The girl was a member of a youth group. I happily attended, but quickly grew tired of simply listening to passages so I started asking lots of questions. The leader of the ministry mistook my questions for an interest in helping lead the group and so within a month I was granted the position of “youth minister”. My promotion played perfectly into my grand plan, but I had a hard time ignoring very good questions from other kids like “why does God let babies die?”, and “What if someone never hears of Jesus and dies, do they go to hell?”. I couldn’t help but think back to all those conversations with Dad. It wasn’t long before the Ministry leadership caught on that I was kindling doubts in the minds of their members and I was kindly asked to leave. This was the first time my interest in Philosophy would undermine my baser impulses...but it would not be the last. At 17 I became a nerd...obsessing over ideas. So much so that my English teacher picked up on it and put me in a philosophy course a year ahead of my peers. But the class covered many of the same topics my Dad had already covered, so to appease my boredom I got into debates. On one occasion I distinctly remember making one of my Christian classmates cry. He told me he was both a Christian and believer in evolution. So I asked him, “At what point did your ancestors mutate into having souls?” At first he seemed confused by my question, and so I pointed out that if humans evolved from animals, but only humans have souls, that at some point humans must have evolved to have souls. He sat their quietly as I continued to drive the point...demanding that he either accept that all living things have an ability to reach heaven, or accept that all of his ancestors are dead without a trace, and furthermore, will be wiped from the memories of humanity as soon as our Sun burns out. Obviously I was acting like an obnoxious jerk. Many people hold beliefs that help them cope with the tremendous challenges that come with being human. Debates helped me cope with all the unanswered questions about life like "Why are we here?" and "Who am I?". Not knowing was hard but proving to myself that no one else knew either helped me overcome my own insecurities. God Discovering myself at Iowa State University was an incredible experience. I learned that I loved to learn...and that applied to everything from my studies to my views on God. While visiting Churches and talking philosophy in the trees I finally started to find peace. A peace that comes with an acceptance of my own mortality and that no one can control the future. Death is a very useful concept. Even reading the word "Death" makes many people feel uncomfortable, but death is what makes life scarce and scarcity creates value. It’s a paradox that what we cherish the most, time, has meaning in opposite proportion to how much we have. When I think about my own mortality it helps me focus on what’s important. By accepting that I am going to die ... I find it easier to be a loving husband and father. By believing that my time is short ... I find it easier to live in the moment. By giving up control of the future ... I find it easier to stop worrying and just live. -- God means many things to many people...and I am not going to pretend to know who or what god is. All I can do is share my view and hope that you share yours so that we can learn together. Here is my understanding... SimLife is an old computer game developed in 1992. I loved this game. You start with nothing but rocks, volcanoes, and ocean covering the surface of an otherwise (highly pixelated) empty planet. Then life starts to evolve. You get to manipulate the genetics of animals as they appear along with the weather and climate. There was no real goal. It was just cool watching how changing the environment changed the path of evolution. But I eventually got bored of this game because what I really wanted to do was change the source code. I wanted to change the rules of the game. God, to me, is the creator of RealLife. She wrote the program, but never published the source code. However, that doesn’t really matter because you can actually get a pretty clear picture of it by simply observing the Rules of Life which include: Paradox: life is a mystery; Don't waste time trying to figure it out. Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure. Change: Know that nothing stays the same. Don’t be an a-hole (nuff said) The first three come from my favorite movie, “Peaceful Warrior”; which conveniently sums up 80% of my life philosophy into one standard length feature film (way more convenient than a thousand page manuscript). I added the fourth rule because my own life experience has taught me that not being an a-hole is key to living a happy life. Just as I can live this reality I can imagine many others. For example, I can imagine a reality with only 2 elements instead of 118 in the periodic table. That would make life impossible (not to be confused with improbable). Having only two elements would suck. It would suck because no matter how many galaxies there might be in the universe…the fact that all we got in the universe are a bunch of Barium and Iron planets banging into each other would make for a pretty boring reality. When my mind is clear and my eyes are open the code of this Matrix we call life becomes readable. It becomes more than just “blond, brunette, redhead”… the Rules of Life emerge. The challenge is staying in the moment…paying attention. Talking to God never worked for me. Listening works every time. That is why scientists are proving what Buddhists have known for thousands of years about meditation. We don’t need to search for answers. The Rules of Life are pretty simple. We just need to quiet our minds long enough to remember them. God talks to us through our life experience. We don’t usually hear her for the same reason we don’t taste the air. We tend to forget about things that haven’t changed. Consequently, we become consumed by the day-to-day and forget to live in the moment. We obsess over goals and fail to appreciate the journey. We try to control the uncontrollable. We fail to accept ourselves for who we are and where we have been, and consequently loose control over where we go. Kids Parents have a somewhat scary degree of influence over what their children believe. Sumay wrote an article about it called "Lies We Tell Kids". One big theme is the importance of being honest about what we know and what we don't know. Another is that beliefs have consequences. If a parent tells their kid that the house is on fire ... they will get scared and run out of their house. This is a natural consequence of belief. Just about any crazy action can be justified as rationale given the right set of beliefs. Here are some examples: Belief: Santa is real -> Action: Set out cookies for fake person and hope he brings toys. Belief: Boys have cooties -> Action: Run like crazy every time you see a boy. These two are fairly innocuous, but what about teaching kids to believe in an all-powerful and all-knowing God that created everything and has a master plan for the future of the universe? These beliefs suggest a set of rationale actions and inactions as well: God will protect me from the hurricane so I won't leave home. God created earth so I don't need to worry about global warming. God loves Grandma so he won't let her get the Coronavirus These may sound like extreme actions, but they follow logically from the premise and are actually quite common today. COVID19 is illustrating the consequences. Last week, a group of Iranian worshippers attempted to break into holy shrines and mosques that were closed because of the outbreak. A Pastor in Texas ignored warnings to close his Church today stating that, "It will always be open because there's a need. People need to be loved." He goes on to explain that when people are fearful they need churches to remain open so people have a safe haven. But anyone paying any attention to the science of pandemics knows that no congregation of people can constitute as a "safe haven" ... and COVID19 doesn't care what Church, Synagogue, or Mosque you attend. The vast majority of my religious friends and family understand this. Many seem to do a good job of separating the spiritual aspects of their faith from real world decisions about whether to avoid churches during an epidemic. But the fact that some adults do not separate the two is a key reason why parents should be very careful about what they teach their children. One good friend of mine called me up during the Financial Crisis. He was very sad and frustrated by his inability to find a good job. We were both graduating at the end of 2008. I had three job offers in September, but by the end of October they were all rescinded. My wife and I had been staying up late every night drafting and redrafting resumes, filling out applications, and cold calling potential employers. I asked my friend what he had been doing. He said he had filled out a couple applications, but his parents had mostly been encouraging him to pray. Children are not well equipped to handle the historical context in which many of the historical "holy books" were written. Many parents take these writings literally...and many children follow their lead. That's fine when reading passages about love and forgiveness, but the core tenet of many world religions is a belief that one need accept their god, without evidence, or be doomed to hell. I personally find it hard to build close and trusting relationships with adults that think my sole is doomed, or worse, that I'm dooming my daughters. Raising kids within such traditions can make for some very awkward family reunions...which is probably why most everyone I know simply avoids the subject. But training children to accept beliefs grounded only in faith can have far reaching consequences for more than just themselves. If we want to live in a healthy society and rebuild the health of our planet we need citizens that respect and appreciate the views of scientists over Soothsayers claiming to know the destiny of our souls and that seem to care more about life after death than global warming and the currently living. The “good news” is that peace and happiness are achievable without believing in magic. Moreover, it is a skill one can learn just like riding a bike or programming. As we learn to find happiness for ourselves we also learn to share it. Our greater understanding of the wants and needs of others then, more often than not, translates into personal and career success. This is all strong evidence to me that "god is good". Sincerely, Joseph

By a father of two girls that loves and hates social media... We created our own entrepreneurship summer camp for our daughters this year. A big part of the camp was our own startup...a relationship app called WeGrowMe. We also watched a lot of Shark Tank, met local startup founders like the creator of Ardley, and wrote a bunch of blog posts. Sumay and Aila helped create logos, develop marketing strategies, and did a lot of programming in Python and Xcode. In hindsight...we probably should have expected that they would develop their own idea for an app. What we didn't know is that we would end up backing their venture with real money and a vigor that only a parent fearing for their children's well-bing can fully appreciate. The #GirlsHealthApp is a social networking platform to connect girls and parents around the world who wish to share their journey towards healthier minds and bodies. Another way of describing our app is an alternative to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other major platforms for girls and parents that recognize that while these platforms provide the potential for fun (as we discovered above), networking, creativity, and learning about new technologies like facial recognition, these platforms also come with many risks. In this post we lay out the pros and cons of the dominate social networking platforms and why we are building our alternative, the GirlsHealthApp. We only ask that you remain open minded until we have a chance to make our case. We recognize that trying to compete with major entrenched players like Instagram is almost absurdly challenging. But the reality is that these first generation platforms were not designed to help users...are were most certainly not designed for young girls. The good news is that if we fail to scale we still win because by building our alternative our daughters are learning about the dangers of the platforms and helping us build the programming code using Flutter, Google cloud systems, and sharing what they are learning with friends. So we can't lose. If you appreciate what we are trying to do and want to help please sign up on our website. More than anything we need input from parents. Every conversation we have with parents is leading to major insights right now which means we still have a lot to learn. We also want input from kids, local health related businesses (details on why later), and software network engineers, and machine learning practitioners (although we think we have that covered). Thank you for your time and interest! Dad & Daughters -- Why let girls use social networks? Girls seem to be especially at risk to the dangers of social networks. Dr Jonathan Haidt of NYU makes a compelling argument in this Joe Rogan podcast that social media is responsible for the rapid rise in self-harm among girls. While a bit disturbing, I strongly recommend that any parents with a daughter watch it. If your daughters can handle it I would recommend they watch it as well so they can have a chance to prepare and ask questions in a safe environment. Dr Haidt uses these charts to illustrate the rapid rise in self-harm rates of girls relative to boys. The following charts show a rapid rise for girls starting around 2009. At first I thought the cause might be the financial crisis, but the trends continued to get worse for girls even after the unemployment rate started falling. Also, boys were not at all affected which one might expect if the cause were related to economic stress on the whole family. Dr Haidt points out that 2009-2010 was the point at which smartphone ownership went mainstream. I included this chart as well although I had to find it online because he didn’t include it in his presentation. From 2008 to 2011, smartphone ownership went from 11% to 42% ownership (4x). By 2014, 3 out of every 4 people age 13+ had a smartphone. Adoption of Facebook and Instagram mirror adoption of smartphones. This is important because it shows that the explosive growth in these two dominant social media platforms coincided with the explosive growth in girls harming themselves. Dr Haidt explains that social media has an especially detrimental impact on girls because of the way girls tend to 1) express anger, 2) emphasize body image, and 3) handle stress. Boys tend to express anger physically whereas girls tend to damage each others relationships. Social media has little impact on how boys express anger, by are weapons of mass social distraction in the hands of girls that can create fake accounts and spread rumors on a permanent public forum. Boys care about body image, but not nearly as much as girls who tend to spend more time comparing their bodies to other girls and going to sometimes unhealthy lengths to try to appear skinny. Photoshop and related tools also made images of other girls prettier than in the past causing a greater sense of not feeling beautiful. Boys tend to express stress externally (making other people miserable) whereas girls tend to express stress internally (making themselves miserable). That’s why girls had higher rates of self-harm even before social media. Some parents may view these differences between boys and girls as generalizations...and they would be right. Every person is unique. But I need only point to the charts on self-harm to prove that there are differences. Boys have issues also. There is a reason why over 90% of inmates are men, not women. Our goal is not to say that all girls and boys fit a stereotype. Our goal is to help parents observe these general trends so they can be more informed about risks and therefore make better decisions about these new technologies. So why not just prevent girls from using social networks until they are in high school? That is probably a safer move. Dr Haidt says so during his interview. Many intelligent and thoughtful parents and kids agree. Their views are embodied in the "Wait till 8th" movement which supports waiting to give kids smartphones until 8th grade. But there are benefits to using social networks, and social costs to waiting. We support any parents decision to avoid giving their kids smartphones until 8th grade. However, we also believe that this would not be necessary if we improved the technology so we can retain the benefits and nearly eliminate the costs. Honestly, once you hear our solutions we think you might find them to be as obvious as we do. You may wonder why existing platforms haven't already made these common sense solutions. But before we get ahead of ourselves let's clearly lay out the costs and the benefits of social networks. Social Media Benefits & Costs Dr. Gwenn O'Keeffe describes herself on Twitter (@DrGwenn) as a, "Pediatrician, JD, author, and mom striving to help families achieve balance & sanity in a world full of plugs and distractions." She has been doing that since at least 2011 when she wrote a prophetic article titled, "The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families." The article is as true today as it was then. Here is a summary which I largely copied and pasted from her paper: Benefits opportunities for community engagement through raising money for charity and volunteering for local events, including political and philanthropic events; enhancement of individual and collective creativity through development and sharing of artistic and musical endeavors; growth of ideas from the creation of blogs, podcasts, videos, and gaming sites; expansion of one’s online connections through shared interests to include others from more diverse backgrounds (such communication is an important step for all adolescents and affords the opportunity for respect, tolerance, and increased discourse about personal and global issues); and fostering of one’s individual identity and unique social skills. Costs Peer-to-peer risks, especially cyberbullying which is deliberate use of digital media to communicate false, embarrassing, or hostile information about another person. Inappropriate content such as sexting which is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages. Online privacy issues such as the sharing of children information that children may later find to make them uncomfortable. Outside influences of third-party advertising groups In short, there are a lot of real benefits such as opportunities to create, connect, and learn ... and a lot of costs due to the potential for amplified bullying which can take place 24/7 and from anonymous sources, inappropriate content, and privacy concerns that minors can have a hard time fully appreciating until they are older. -- Any parent who wants to build a social network should be very honest and open about their own philosophy when it comes to weighing these benefits and costs. As such, Lulu and I are happy to share, fully knowing that our views will not be universally accepted by parents (or sometimes each other). The subject is complex and our views are nuanced, but here is the short version. We employ three principles when it comes to our daughters and digital technologies like blogs, social networks, and smartphone applications more generally: Teach kids about risks before they learn from their friends Let kids own their personal identify, but maintain control Give kids opportunities to safely fail, learn and grow with technology Following these principles has led our daughters to adopt digital technologies faster than most of their peers. For example, both our daughters have laptops, Amazon Alexa chatbots, personal blogs, Linkedin accounts, and regular face-time playdates with friends. Much of the time they are not supervised except that we get detailed data on which websites they visit and how much time they spend doing various activities. While this may appear to be a Laissez-faire approach ... we actually do have strict rules. None of their devices contain social networking applications. They spend zero time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter...etc with the exception of occasionally one of their blog posts. They never watch movies, TV shows, or YouTube videos without permission. Everything they do with their laptops has a productive aspect to it. Both use their laptops to write code...usually Python. Sumay really enjoys writing on her blog. Aila will sometimes write on her blog, but prefers reading books on MyOn. They both have email accounts to connect with friends and family. That's about it. For a brief period of time Sumay did group chats on Google Hangouts, but even this small experiment in social networking went very badly. Her experiences with Google Hangouts are consistent with Haidt’s views on how girls express anger. Sumay stopped chatting in groups because some of her friends would talk badly about other people not in the Hangout. Some would even try to delete access to others in the same Hangout. So she stopped participating in the group chats and now exclusively talks digitally face-to-face. Without multiple girls in the same Hangout there seems to be less tribalism (us vs them mentality). It’s more about the one person on the screen in front of you which also mimics closely to the interactions of people pre-social media. Group chats are harder to do visually so Sumay’s friends would just text to the group. Group texting is a newer phenomenon that more closely mirrors comment threads on social media platforms. Without seeing other girls it’s easier to be mean. The girls felt more anonymous even though they weren’t. Turns our its harder to hurt people when you see their face. -- Two beliefs about the future support early use of digital technology: Personal online brands will become increasingly important to most career paths Experience in a safe environment is the best way to learn technology (and everything) College is a valuable tool for getting an education and signaling ones value in the labor market, but the internet is an alternative. Internet platforms like Linkedin, Medium, Github, Angel.co, Twitter, LambdaSchool, dozens of other established platforms, and hundreds of startups and driving education costs to zero and making it easier to get jobs without a degree. These beliefs were a big motivation for starting WEquil.com. At first, we just wanted a way for our family to blog without being subject to Facebook advertising, but we increasingly recognized it as a way to learn and share with potential partners. Sumay uses our website to market her "Code Academy" school. In short, having a website helps us grow our professional network and find win-win opportunities to team with startup founders, machine learning practitioners, and application developers. Two Examples ... Linkedin vs TikToc My research on social networks had left me very skeptical, but I wanted to test my skepticism in a safe environment and learn what these tools could do. So I enlisted Sumay's help. First, we discussed the benefits and costs of social media. Then we talked about how best to go about research for the GirlsHealthApp. That led us to conclude that we needed to learn more about other social networks besides the ones we already use...namely Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. For this reason, Sumay helped me create WEquil accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr and a couple other social networking platforms. We spent some time over break playing around with these accounts. To illustrate what we learned I'll share our experience with Linkedin and TikTok. TikTok is a great alternative example because it seems highly addictive to kids, especially girls, and is very different from Linkedin which most people view favorably. -- My favorite social network is Linkedin. I’ve been a heavy user for a long time. As a consultant it was very helpful for connecting with clients. Most of my 13,000 contacts were people I met on engagements, during interviews, at conferences, or other people writing about financial topics. LinkedIn is almost completely void of bullying or inappropriate content. It’s a great service to everyone. That’s why I was comfortable building profiles for the kids to share their ventures. Sumay's Code Academy Link Aila's GirlsHealthApp Link Sumay and Aila are regularly contacted by recruiters. Aila even received an invitation to speak at a conference. Obviously, if their knew Aila was 7 they would probably rescind the invitation, but the point is neither has a degree from an Elementary School let alone college and yet they are having no trouble getting the attention of potential employers. Our daughters don't answer because they frankly don't care enough to check their Linkedin notifications. Its not an addictive experience. That's a big reason why we were OK with Linkedin before any other platform. The only time they go on Linkedin is if they post an article like this one by Sumay on How to be a Better Big Sister, or when I connect them to good friends and former colleagues. What's great about these platforms is that both Sumay and Aila already have a portfolio of writing samples, receive (filtered by parent) feedback from fans, are learning to communicate their skills, and understand the benefits and risks of these technologies in ways that you can only command through experience. What's the downside? What's the risk? We let our kids drive in cars. That's pretty risky. Why not let them use tools that help them potentially avoid going thousands in debt for an education and signal they might be able to earn right now for free? -- TikTok is a potentially more dangerous social network than Linkedin, but with some amazing features that seem designed for kids. Aila made two clips on TikTok after 30 minutes of practice using my phone. They are hilarious. She had no input from anyone. Sumay taught her how to use the app and she was off to the races in minutes. TikTok allowed her to take full ownership of her creative ideas and convey them in short videos enhanced with facial recognition software. Links are included below, but we are only allowing friends to view clips of Aila due to privacy concerns. Source: WEquil TikTok Research Account http://vm.tiktok.com/h1Twoc/ Source: WEquil TikTok Research Account http://vm.tiktok.com/h1b1qu/ After seeing what she could do the benefits seem obvious. She is learning about self-expression, communication, facial recognition, production, how to make entertaining content, and other skills that seem destined to grow in usefulness as the technology improves. We are mitigating the costs by avoiding the social component. Neither of my daughters (ages 10 & 7) are allowed to use these tools without permission, and neither are allowed to post anything without my review. Lulu and I often disagree on how to best help our digital daughters navigate new technologies. At first we thought making Aila's TikTok videos public would be harmless, but then we changed our minds. When we can't agree we have a rule that whomever is supporting the safest option wins. That has helped us to avoid mistakes. Honestly, as long as parents love their kids ... how they weight benefits and cost of technology probably won't matter much. The GirlsHealthApp We are learning a lot from each conversation we have with local parents near Haycock, our daughters friends, health related businesses, and our own experiences with social media. That means we still have a lot to learn. It's a complex technology with very complex effects on our society and psychology. That's why we will always remain humble in our efforts and are eager to learn more from you. While our thinking continues to evolve we do have a skeleton of an app and the rough sketch of a plan. For one, we plan to launch at Haycock Elementary where our daughters go to school. This is the same approach that Mark Zuckerberg took with Facebook. Starting in one school helps the network to reach adoption critical mass much easier. Requiring verification that accounts owners are parents of Haycock students (using Haycock student email addresses) also adds an strong layer of security and privacy which are our top priorities. Here are more details. The #GirlsHealthApp hopes to solve four problems with existing social networking platforms: Kids that quit their after school activities because it’s hard to maintain interest without sharing with friends that participate in the same activities. Girls have experienced a rapid rise in rates of self-harm and other terrible outcomes which leading experts like Dr Jonathan Haidt attribute to how existing social media. Parents have no direct influence over the content filters for major social media networks. Default settings are designed to broadcast globally exposing kids to all kinds of inappropriate content. Attempts to create safer social media platforms have failed in large part because they reduced the platform down to glorified text messaging services which kids find unappealing compared to the addictive nature of Instagram. Existing social media platforms also appear to be contributing to childhood obesity. Apps encourage kids to sit for hours instead of doing physical activity. We plan to solve these problems with a mix of common sense and our experience with machine learning tools like neural networks. Connect people through healthy activities - Businesses like ballet schools, gyms, and martial arts could play a key role in addressing problem #1. Existing platforms connect people through other people. We want to connect kids and their parents through shared physical activities in their community. For example, both my girls go to Jhoon Rhee Tae Kwon Do in Falls Church. We are always finding other friends that go, but at different times. #GirlsHealthApp provides an easier way to connect and share progress with other girls going to Jhoon Rhee. A platform that connects local girls around healthy activities also creates positive peer pressure to continue doing these activities...building healthier habits and friendships. Local networks - There is no reason why an elementary school kid needs to have “connections” with kids on the other side of the world. Each kid at Haycock has a Haycock email address. This provides an easy mechanism to keep connections and interactions on the platform to within the kid’s school, where they are more likely to develop more fruitful relationships. Older kids could have this restriction relaxed. For example, Junior High kids could be allowed to connect across the school district. This one fix would dramatically reduce risks from criminals trying to interact with kids compared to all the dominant platforms which incentivize global settings. Smart content filters - All the major social media platforms use Machine learning models, but not necessarily in ways that are good for kids and parents. We want to empower local parents to help identify bullying and other inappropriate content. For example, verified parents of girls at Haycock could be allowed the privilege of flagging inappropriate content. Of course, one parent in McLean with a 10 year old will have a different view of what’s “appropriate” than another parent with a high schooler in Dallas. That’s not a problem for Machine Learning models which are very good at learning from example text and images when given enough data. We simply allow different filters at different school which also addresses changing levels of “appropriate” as kids age. This way local parents have a say in the content impacting kids in their own schools. New business model - Most of the big social networking platforms make money by advertising. They will use everything from the words you use, contacts, use habits, and anything else to drive ads to your phone that you will be most likely to click. We don't our kids subject to advertising. That's why we will employ a new business model, most similar to Linkedin. Linkedin makes money from users that pay for additional functionality. For example, recruiters can contact anyone that shows up under their searches with job offers. We think parents would be willing to pay a small fee to have the ability to train our content filters by flagging inappropriate content (3 above). We also think health related businesses will be willing to pay a small fee for the marketing benefits they receive on the platform. This is a Win-Win for everyone. Parents get to connect with other parents doing the same activities. Kids are motivated to keep doing activities because exercise is now a shared social pleasure. Businesses keep clients and receive better marketing than they could produce themselves. Finally, creating a new social media platform might seem like an impossible task...but it’s really not that hard. We partnered with Wei Sin Jiang this summer to build WeGrowMe ... an app for improving relationships. It’s not finished yet, but we are making good progress and can repurpose a lot of the code to build the GirlsHealthApp. As the father of two girls I can say with confidence that both would gladly choose a social network that focused on building local (safe) connections, used AI trained by local parents to remove bullies and scary content, and helped kids connect around healthy activities instead of empty popularity games and beauty contests. The problem is that today there is no good alternative. Thank you for making it through this admittedly long email. Like we mentioned before...what we want is feedback and buy-in from our local community. #GirlsHealthApp is still very much in early development phase so creative ideas to rally parents and businesses around a healthier platform for girls in McLean & Falls Church are most welcome. Sincerely, Father of two girls GirlsHealthApp Website (sign up for notification and to be a beta tester)

By Sumay and Aila McPhail Hello, my sister and I have been working on summarizing Charlie Mungers Mental Models. We think that our hard work has paid off to give a wider audience the understanding of these very important lessons. We will keep on adding to our list as we uncover more Mental Models to guide us through life. We hope you enjoy it. Model limitations - Our Map is not the Territory Maps and models are simplifications of reality. Remember that our understanding of reality is far from perfect and that we should listen to others because they may know things that we don’t know (i.e. their map is not our map...people should cooperate because more maps is better than one).Beware of unknown unknowns. We all have Mental Models/Maps based on our own experience. They are our cognitive maps of reality. They drive the decisions we make. They are also wrong, and without conscious effort our mental models are unlikely to improve upon our often skewed and unrepresentative experiences of our past. We call these Biased Models. Biased Models stem from our unique emotional experiences...life lessons that made us happy, sad, envious, angry, lustful, resentful, and any other emotion strong enough to burn the experience into our neurons. Our default decisions are heavily influenced by the culture and household we grew up in. As a result, we all have Biased Models... maps that do not reflect the territory of human systems. For this reason, we need to enhance our maps with timeless MMs from great thinkers of all disciplines. We call these Universal Models of human systems. As we uncover them we will add them to the list. Circle of Competence Know when you don’t know or you will make a fool of yourself. We need to know what we don’t know. You should constantly be on the lookout for blind spots. Seek out experts. Where experts studying the same thing disagree interesting questions can pop up. A closely related concept is the intersection of humble confidence. These two apparent antonyms are fully compatible if we embrace a simple truth: Everything we do is far from perfect. We never see perfection, and so we can only guess at what perfect decisions look like. Parents can get a glimpse of this concept by comparing their experienced actions to that of a child. Experts can see this also when comparing their decisions within their circle of competence to that of a novice beginner. We can all be confident while remaining humble by carefully acting within our circle of competence while remaining humble to the vast areas of our ignorance. Second-Order Effects Second order effects are consequences of our actions. Say you’re in a chess game and you make a move. Your move is the first order effect. Your opponents reaction to your move is a second order effect. You can anticipate their move by identifying moves that will give them an advantage. In chess, there is always just one second order effect because your opponent can only make one move, but real life consequences to actions are often numerous and difficult to identify beforehand. Consequences don’t stop at the second order. In chess, your next move is the third order effect...illustrating that your actions often effect your future actions. Good decisions require thinking about the consequences of our actions. What second order effect is going to come back at you. Or fourth or sixth or eighth or tenth or twelfth… Probability over Determinism We all should recognize that all human systems live in the world of uncertainty. There are no absolutes. Nothing is certain. Remove deterministic words like “must”, “can’t” and “certainly” from your vocabulary and mental thought process. Understand and internalize common distributions found in human systems. We discuss these in our related piece, “Mental Models of Human Systems”. Principles Vs Precedent Principles are the rules that govern a system or problem. Solutions based on the rules governing a system might be quite different from solutions based on past experience. The opposite of first principles thinking might be learning by example. This is limiting because we are restricted to actions that others have done before. Take the Mighty Ducks movie from 1996 as an example. They win their final game using a formation called the “Flying V”...which confused the opposing team because the formation was something they hadn’t seen before. Legal moves that differ from past experience might confuse your opponent or surprise friends. Principal analogies to sports are common because the rules are easily understood. However, the real value of first principle thinking comes from real life. Understanding the rules that govern complex human systems like friendships and economies is the first step. For example, we would argue that the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” provides a reasonable approximation for the rules that govern relationships. Principles tell us why. Precedent only tells us what happened. When operating under a precedent model you have no idea why something worked or didn’t only. Principles allow us to uncover creative strategies that tie directly to the building blocks that govern a system. Principles provide a theory for explaining how a system works. This makes it possible to change strategy in concert with changing circumstances instead of waiting until old strategies based on precedent fail. Principles provide maps of systems so we can see ahead. Precedent relies on driving forward while looking through the rear-view mirror. Thought Experiments Any rational analysis of cause and effect is a Thought Experiment. Thought experiments allow us to imagine impossible or unprecedented situations. Often times we lack the data to run empirical simulations. When we lack data, thought experiments are often the best way to wrap one’s head around the potential consequences of an action. X: Senario #1 Y: Senario #2 Z: Future State Here are some types of thought experiments: Counterfactual – If X happens instead of the expected scenario Y, how will this change our expected future state Z? Evaluating the consequences of an unexpected outcome, or an outcome that contradicts known facts. Prefactual – If you take action X, what are the likely outcomes Y? Examining consequences of a specific action. Semi-factual – If Y had happened in the past instead of X, what would have changed? Evaluating how a different past outcome could have changed the present. Prediction – If the current state X continues in the future, what are all the potential future consequences for Z? To do this, gather existing facts about the current situation and consider all potential scenarios in the future that are consistent with these facts. Hindcasting– Given the outcome Z, what historical facts/circumstances could have caused Z? This is an inversion of a “prediction” thought experiment. Root Cause Analysis (Retrodiction) – What caused negative outcome Z? Start with the negative result and work backward to determine its cause. What circumstances or failures in a system led to the negative outcome? Backcasting – What causes X would lead to a specific future state Z? Identify a specific future state in the future. Then think through its likely causes. Bayesian Updating Bayesian Updating is a process developed by Thomas Bayes in which one incrementally incorporates new information to update prior beliefs. People often fail to do this...seeking instead to confirm prior beliefs and avoiding new conflicting information. So either they have to change their minds or the world has to change for them. Inversion Many problems we face can be reversed. Inversion suggests that reversing a problem can often help us identify new perspectives. Here are some common problems asked in the reverse: Raising kids: “How can I screw up my kids?” Marriage: “How can I ruin my marriage?” Career: “How can I damage my career?” Relationships: “How could I frustrate my friends?” Investing: “How can I quickly lose a lot of money?” After you have the list you just try to avoid those things. Pareto Optimal A state is said to be Pareto Optimal if it is impossible to reallocate resources in a way that makes anyone better without making someone else worse off. Such a state is also called Pareto Efficient because it represents a form of efficiency. One helpful strategy when making decisions is to look first for Pareto Optimal solutions because they are easier to implement. Pareto optimality is often during wealth inequality debates. Redistribution is not a Pareto Optimal solution because it involves taking away from some and giving to others. Helping those in need may very well be “optimal” in some people's opinion, but it is not Pareto Optimal in a way that is relatively uncontroversial because it still involves improving one groups position at the expense of another Occam’s Razor Simple explanations are more likely to be correct. This is the essence of Occam’s Razor. We are often confronted with many competing explanations for why something occurred or how things work. Occam suggests we cut out the more complex explanations using his razor because more complex explanations tend to require more assumptions. Hanlon’s Razor Do not attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity. Human systems are complex and everyone is far from perfect. As a result, we all inevitably find ourselves in less than ideal situations. Bad situations are usually not the fault of a bad person (although they may be) but are more likely the result of difficult circumstances and/or a lack of experience. Hanlon’s Razor suggests that we can avoid making bad situations worse by assuming the best in others. Thank you for reading our Mental Models. Remember to check back for more Mental Models and discover them with us!

Hello Friends and Family! I want to share an interesting insight Lihong Lu McPhail and I had last night about marriage. In short, when we view our preferences as flexible we are more likely to view compromise as an opportunity for self-improvement instead of a power struggle. Marriage provides a tool for changing our ”utility functions” in ways that help to align each partner's incentives. Your thoughts are appreciated. -- We just finished writing up a summary of one of our favorite books on relationships, “Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman. If you haven’t heard of Dr Gottman then I strongly recommend checking him out. Unlike most every other “expert” on marriage, Gottman has been able to accurately forecast if a couple will stay together with 91% accuracy. He accomplished this by monitoring couples in his “Love Lab”...cataloging and measuring non-verbal signs of contempt, degree of eye contact, heart rate, and hundreds of other pieces of data. His approach makes it hard to argue with his conclusions. After going through all this material again I was still left with an unanswered question. Why do marriages fail? Yes, it is unlikely that we uncovered anything earth shattering on such a well researched topic...but with over half of marriages still failing it seems to still be an open question. Gottman is able to predict which will fail, but he doesn’t say why. For example, he argues that of the “Four Horsemen of the Marriage Apocalypse” that signs of “Criticism” (which he defines in detail including how it is distinguished from complaining) is the single most powerful predictor of divorce. But he doesn’t explain why some couples fall into a pattern of criticism. Here is the cause to the best I can figure...summed up in another question: Do both sides of the relationship believe that their utility functions are flexible? If yes...the relationship is more likely to succeed. If no...the relationship is more likely to fail. A utility function is simply the equation that decides how happy you are. It has lots of factors, like whether you are hungry, like your job, are sick...etc. Economists tend to believe that the preferences implicit in our utility function are fixed. For example, if you value work over family today, then you will value work over family tomorrow. If you hate washing dishes today you will always hate it. But this assumption seems to be as bad for marriages as it is at predicting future economic growth. When we believe our utility functions are fixed there is only one path to happiness...getting more. Increasing all the things that you think make you happy and decreasing all the things that make you sad. Lets use a simple example of a recently married man, whom we will call Joe, that loves video games. In fact...all he cares about are video games. Utility = Video Games x Beta Beta is a muliplier which translates each hour of video games into ten utility (10x😃) points. If Joe believes that this is his utility function then all he is going to want to do is play ... 24 hours a day for a total of 24 * 10 = 240 😃. Now, suppose his wife, lets call her Lulu, wants Joe to spend just one hour a day cleaning up the giant mess he creates in the basement trying to eat (and other things) while simultaneously shooting up fictitious bad guys. -- This theoretically poses a problem for Joe because any compromise would require a reduction in his overall utility. But reality doesn’t work that way. Another word for this drive to consume is the hedonic treadmill ... treadmill because it is never ending. We can always have more, and will always want more because we will always habituate to however much more we get. So what are we to do? Change your Beta coefficients! Instead of trying to maximize every input that has a positive Beta Coefficient...decide which coefficients you wish were bigger (or smaller), and make a conscious effort to make them bigger (or smaller). — Marriage seems ideally suited to this purpose. When you live alone you don’t have to compromise. You can just pursue whatever you want as long as you want forever. But marriages require compromise: When we compromise we often realize that the things we thought were really important (large Betas) turn out to be not as important as we thought. When we care for someone else our Utility Function starts to become a blend of our partners. When we think deeply about our mortality and how we want to be remembered, we are more willing to change what we value (change Beta Coefficients). When seen through this light...arguments become opportunities. “Winning” an argument doesn’t really make sense anymore. “Getting your way” is no longer the core objective. Compromise only requires losing when partners believe that they need to give something up that they need to be happy. Allowing for change makes it possible for both sides to actually find greater happiness than their earlier “optimized” inputs imply. ... At the end of the day it seems that the best marriages are one in which both partners decide to think in terms of “We” instead of “Me”. It requires the flexibility to let go of the petty and narrow in exchange for the mutually beneficial. That’s hard to do, but recognizing positive change in our preferences (utility functions) as a good thing is a great first step.

Dr John Gottman is a leading expert in what makes marriages succeed and fail. After just five minutes in his "Love Lab" he has been able to predict whether married couples will divorce within a year with 91% accuracy. His marriage counseling is also impressive, having only a 20% failure rate compared to the average of around 50%. His approach to learning about marriage is highly empirical, relying on observations of hundreds of visual cues, heart rate, perspiration, and other measurable factors. In this book, Gottman shares the key results of his work, including seven principles for making marriage work. We summarize his book including: Myths about Why Relationships Fail The Four Horsemen (Signs that a marriage is in trouble) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work including exercises. We tried to cover all the key takeaways, but strongly recommend buying the book. Here is a link to the Amazon Paperback: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Myths about Why Relationships Fail The biggest myth is that marriages fail because of poor communication. Specifically, many marriage experts suggest that couples attempt "active listening"; a strategy often used by therapists. Active Listening involves restating what someone has said in order to show you understand and affirm their feelings. However, unlike therapists, the spouse attempting Active Listening is usually the target of their spouses complaints. Gottman points out that unless you happen to be married to the Dalai Lama...your spouse is unlikely to have the patience to actively affirm all your complaints. Gottman also debunks other myths about why marriages fail such as lack of communication, poor conflict resolution skills, differences in personality, interests or conflict styles, unequal contributions, and affairs. Instead, he argues that at the core of a happy marriage is a strong friendship. All couples have arguments and negative thoughts about the other, but a strong friendship creates an even greater positive energy. Its this positive perspective that helps prevent conflicts from spiraling out of control. The Four Horsemen Gottman shares four signs that a marriage is in trouble which he calls the "Four Horsemen", in reference to "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" are described in the last book of the New Testament of the Bible. They include criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. 1. Criticism Criticism is not the same as offering a critique or voicing a complaint. The difference is that criticism is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining. Couples need to occasionally bring up specific issues, but we should do so in a way that does not come across as an attack on your partner and the core of their character. Gottman provides an example of criticism: Complaint: “I was scared when you were running late and didn’t call me. I thought we had agreed that we would do that for each other.” Criticism: “You never think about how your behavior is affecting other people. I don’t believe you are that forgetful, you’re just selfish. You never think of others! You never think of me!” Criticism is the first horsemen because the emotional pain it creates paves the way for the other far deadlier horsemen to follow. 2. Contempt Contempt is far worse than criticism because the intention is to harm. Contemptuous communicate is mean and disrespectful. Examples of contemptuous behavior includes mocking with sarcasm, ridicule, name calling, eye-rolling and scoffing. The result is a partner that feels despised and worthless. Gottman offers this example of contempt: “You’re ‘tired? Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic video games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid. Could you be any more pathetic?” Contempt builds over long periods of time by harboring negative feeling about the other. These negative feelings harm both sides of the relationships, increasing the frequency and severity of infectious illness. Of the four horsemen, contempt is the most predictive of divorce. 3. Defensiveness Defensiveness is a common response to criticism in relationships that are suffering. We resort to being defensive when we feel unjustly accused. By acting defensive we make excuses and play the innocent victim in hopes that our partner stop criticizing. But criticism is rarely successful. Excuses signal that we don't appreciate our partners concerns and an unwillingness to take responsibility for our mistakes. Gottman provides an example of defensiveness: Question: “Did you call Betty and Ralph to let them know that we’re not coming tonight as you promised this morning?” Defensive response: “I was just too darn busy today. As a matter of fact, you know just how busy my schedule was. Why didn’t you just do it?” Appropriate response: “Oops, I forgot. I should have asked you this morning to do it because I knew my day would be packed. That’s my fault. Let me call them right now.” The defensive response includes an excuse followed by a reversal of blame implying that it's their partner’s fault. The appropriate response accepts responsibility and acknowledges the perspective of their partner. Defensiveness doesn't usually work because it is really a way to shift blame to ones partner. This leads to an escalation of conflict instead of resolution. Accepting responsibility, even if one is only partially responsible, acts as a circuit breaker by acknowledging your spouses perspective. This, in turn, makes it easier for your spouse to return the favor. 4. Stonewalling Stonewalling is a common response to contempt. When subjected to repeated contemptuous attacks, a partner may choose to simply gives up, shut down, stop responding, or engage in evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engage in obsessive or distracting behaviors. Stonewalling is the opposite of confrontation. The result is that the underlying issues in the relationship are ignored. Stonewalling is the last horseman because it is the result of the first three. Years of criticism and contempt can lead a partner to become defensive. But when defensiveness fails, and it almost always fails, a partner may give up and resort to stonewalling. Years of stonewalling can create a bad habit that is difficult to reverse. It is the result of feeling physiologically flooded that can prevent us from thinking rationally. Gottman suggest that when we feel like stonewalling it is important to set boundaries. Know when to step away. If you are feeling angry, ask to take a break so you can come back to the discussion with a clear head and the emotional strength to avoid getting defensive. -- Gottman suggests that as a first step, couples learn to identify the four horsemen. This opens the door to replacing bad habits with healthy and productive ones. The 7 Principles for Healthy, Happy Marriages 1. Enhance your love maps You need to know your spouse in order to love your spouse. A "Love Map" includes the details about your spouse like their friends, favorite music, regrets, fears and hopes, current stresses and challenges. You need to know these and other details in order to know how to love your spouse. Exercise #1: Love Map Game Gottman recommends interviewing your spouse to learn more about them. Its very important that you focus only on gathering facts and not become judgmental. He also recommends a "Love Map Game" for couples where each tries to guess the answers to questions about the other. Love Map Game questions are included in the appendix. Exercise #2: Self-Exploration Gottman also recommends a "Self-Exploration Exercise" to learn more about yourself. Questions cover past successes, past injuries, emotions you are experiencing and lingering past hurts, your life mission and desired legacy, and inner demons you struggle with. This exercise will help you to provide your partner with a more accurate Love Map. You can do the exercise alone, but afterword you should discuss with your spouse. The structure of the exercise should help build a foundation for lifelong conversations with your spouse about who you are so you can better understand each other. Self-Exploration questions are included in the appendix. 2. Build fondness and admiration for each other You and your spouse can cultivate greater affection and respect for each other. This helps build a larger emotional bank account to draw upon when you both inevitably make mistakes. Fondness and admiration also make it easier to shrug off criticisms (First Horseman) and attribute them to your spouse having a rough day instead of resorting to defensiveness (Third Horseman). Gottman recommends several exercises for cultivating greater positive feelings toward your spouse. When done regularly these exercises can make positive feelings a habit, grow your friendship, and reinforce fond memories you share. Exercise #3: Fondness Phrases Fondness Phrases are a simple way to cultivate positive feelings. Examples include: “I’m proud of the way you _____.” "I am impressed that you _____.” “I appreciate the way you _____.” Add to this short list and fill in the blanks. Keep a copy in your wallet or purse and try to use all of them during the next week. Exercise #4: Appreciation Adjectives Appreciation Adjectives can help couples express gratitude. These should be used in addition to a liberal use of "Please" and “Thank you.” Examples of Positive Adjectives include, Loving, Graceful, Thrifty, Strong, Committed, Relaxed, Tender, Powerful, and Sexy. Think of more Positive Adjectives to describe your spouse. Then choose three of your favorites. Then use them to describe a recent example of when your spouse demonstrated those adjectives. Then text or say it to your spouse. To illustrate, here is a template and example: Template: “I am grateful to be married to someone that is so _____. I remembered that the other day when you _____.” Example: “I am grateful to be married to someone that is so Nurturing and Accountable. I remembered that the other day when you were teaching our kids Chinese by having them watch history channel videos and then translating them.” Gottman recommends sharing three Appreciation Adjective statements each week. This makes reinforcing positive emotions a habit. Exploring Appreciation Adjectives is another exercise that Gottman recommends. After you and your spouse have picked your favorite adjectives to describe each other...take some time to explore why. For example, why are "Nurturing and Accountable" such important Appreciation Adjective? Is there something about that quality that is particularly valuable to our marriage? In this case I would say that I am particularly appreciative of these qualities because I take on more of a tough love approach to the kids so having a partner that balances me out helps make the most of both approaches. 3. Turn toward each other (instead of away) Happy marriage come from all the little things that couples do for each other ... not expensive vacations or fancy gifts. Become aware of all the little interactions. Notice when your spouse is reaching out to you and learn to reciprocate. The result will be a turning of mundane day-to-day interactions in gestures of kindness. Turning is the term Gottman uses to describe how to recognize and reciprocate daily interactions. He recommends being on the lookout for your partner offering a "Bid" to interact so that you can respond by "Turning Toward" them. These terms require some explanation. A Bid is, "any gesture – verbal or nonverbal – for some sort of positive connection with your partner". Bids can represent a request for conversation, humor, affection, support, or simply for attention. Simple examples might include, “How do I look?” and “Would you help me wash the dishes?” You should always acknowledge a Bid by physically Turning Toward your partner. This simple act is found to be predictive of a strong marriage. The reason is that by giving your the attention they are requesting you are signaling that they matter to you and are deserving of that attention. Moreover, your partner is more likely to return the favor next time you offer a Bid. This leads to a self-reinforcing positive cycle of affirming each others value. Failure to Turn Toward your partner can take on many forms but all result in your partner feeling ignored. You can ignore your partner by rolling over in the bed, staring at your phone, or yelling across that you will help with X but then forget. Failure to Turn Toward is bad, but "Turning Against" is worse. Turning Against includes any violent reaction to the Bid such as mocking or other acts that punish the Bidder. Examples may include: “What do you want?" or "Can’t you see I’m working here!”. Both are damaging because they imply that your spouse if of lesser importance to you than whatever it is that you are doing, and can easily lead to a conflict. Gottman says that it is far more important to respond to your spouses Bids by Turning Towards than to always be agreeable or enthusiastic. For example, suppose your spouse asks you to do the dishes while you are watching the game. Gottman would suggest physically turning towards your spouse and acknowledging her request with a phrase such as, "Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Yes, I would very much like to help clean up. Would you mind if I waited until half-time?" In short, the little interactions during the day make a huge difference in the quality of your marriage. Be on the look out for Bids from your partner which may include any words or gestures that imply wanting to interact with you. Make sure you acknowledge Bids by physically Turning Towards your partner and giving them your full attention. You don't always need to agree with your spouse, but you do always want to show them that they are important to you and deserve your time and attention. 4. Let your partner influence you Gottman argues that you need to let your partner influence you. He specifically calls out men as having the most trouble with this. He says that men need to learn to be influenced by their spouse if they want to have influence. It’s important for women to accept influence too, but Gottman's research suggests that most women already do this. Accepting influence is not giving up who you are, but rather allowing the needs of your partner to impact your priorities. It's a paradigm shift from a "me" mindset to a "we" mindset in which the needs and goals of your marriage are integrated. This is necessary in order to avoid viewing a marriage as a zero sum game. Acknowledging the wants and needs of your spouse can be difficult. Their priorities might come across as judgment that you are not doing or giving enough. But your spouse needs to feel listened to and important in order to be happy. Their happiness will in turn help them to support your wants and needs. Gottman recommends a quiz to determine if you accept your partner’s influence. Here are five questions that seem pretty representative. If you said “true” to 4 or more then you are likely to be accepting of your partner’s influence. I am interested in my partner’s opinions on issues in our relationship. T/F I don’t try to convince my partner to see things my way all the time. T/F I don’t reject my partner’s opinions every time we argue. T/F I believe my partner has important things to say and value them. T/F I believe we are partners with equal say in our relationship. T/F Ultimately, accepting influence is about accepting a paradigm shift in how we view our marriage from "You vs Me" to "We". Gottman argues that the happiest marriages are those where the couple works as a team. To do this you need to listen and be considerate of each other's wants and needs. You need to acknowledge each other’s feelings and respect each other's perspectives. You need to seek common ground when you find disagreement. 5. Solve your solvable problems Not all problems in a marriage can be solved. Gottman argues that this is yet another myth...that somehow happy marriages are void of reoccurring problems. Instead, he distinguishes between solvable and perpetual unsolvable problems. Recognize that there are always going to be some differences in preferences or deeply rooted beliefs that are not going to change, or at least are unlikely to change quickly or via confrontation. Simply acknowledging this fact will help reduce stress in a marriage because believing that deeply rooted differences must be resolved is likely to only bring feelings of exhaustion and despair. Gottman distinguishes between three types of problems: Solvable problems are situational. For example, they might focus on household chores, how to resolve some immediate problem with the kids, imbalance in physical needs, and issues with extended family. What is solvable will vary from one couple to the next, but what makes them solvable is that they are not caused by some deep rooted difference in beliefs, values or personality type. Perpetual problems are fundamental differences. They often stem from personality type, life style needs, and beliefs. There is no specific situation causing this type of problem. Instead it is reoccurring. Gridlocked perpetual problems are perpetual problems that have been so badly handled that they have created deep divides in the marriage. Gottman recommends five steps for problem solving. We included the details in the appendix: Soften Your Start-Up Learn to Send and Receive Repair Attempts Soothe Yourself and Each Other Compromise Address Emotional Injuries Mastering these general problem-solving skills will lead you to discover that many of your problems will find their own solutions. Once you can overcome the barriers that have prevented clear communication, difficulties are easier to resolve. But remember: these solutions work only for problems that can be solved. If compromise seems impossible, then the problem you are struggling with is likely perpetual. 6. Manage perpetual problems Gottman suggests that the key to dealing with unsolvable problems is to establish a dialogue about them. Identify what the problem is. Write it down. Labeling the problem will help to avoid unhelpful attempts to "solve" the problem by suggesting that your spouse simply change who they are. Unsolvable Perpetual Problems still need to be dealt with. We have found that sometimes creative solutions exist that can help us to avoid these problems even if the underlying cause persists. For example, Joseph is not a planner. This has been a source of contention for Lihong who prefers to have things planned well in advance. In the past, Lihong hoped that Joseph would simply become a planning person. When that didn't happen she felt overwhelmed and under appreciated for doing most of the planning. Our "solution" was to make Lihong the "Planning Captain"which carried with it the power to delegate specific tasks to Joseph such as "Please book a hotel for the week of X". That way, Lihong's desire to plan was fulfilled along with her desire to get help from Joseph. Sometimes unsolvable problems relate to fundamental differences in what you and your spouse want out of life. These can be a real challenge. Gottman suggests taking time to peal back the layers when confronting Perpetual Problems in order to discover what those dreams are. Once you discover what the underlying dreams are you might find that your dreams are not so different after all. This is why it is so important to be able to talk about these problems. For example, Lihong has a strong desire to travel. Sometimes she felt as though Joseph didn't support these dreams. He just didn't show much interest when she brought up vacation ideas, and so she didn't push for much traveling. But once she shared how important it was to her she found that Joseph was very supportive. Joseph lacking interest in where to travel actually makes it easier for Lihong because now she can pretty much go wherever she wants knowing that her husband will be equally happy wherever they go...so long as he can bring lots of books. 7. Create shared meaning The first six principles build the foundation for a strong marriage, but this last principle builds a tower of enrichment. Regardless of your religion, culture, and values...we all need to feel a sense of purpose. Gottman shows that marriage can be a vessel for creating meaning for one's life. He urges couples (and especially families) to create a "mini-culture" using symbols, rituals, language, roles and identities. Your marriage is your chance to build something valuable together. A big part of our shared meaning is WEquil ... our family project. Every day we search for people trying to make the world a better place, and then we help them do it. We love including our daughters on our projects to build a relationship app, write an opera empowering women in 3rd world countries, starting a coding school for kids, blogging about the evolution of economics, and building a community of families with shared universal principles. Its' been a real blast so far and the kids seem to be enjoying it too. Thank you for your interest! Lihong, Joseph, Sumay and Aila Appendix Love Map Game Questions to answer about your spouse. Each question is worth one point. Whoever gets the most points wins. What is your favorite hobby or way to relax? What is your favorite food? Where do you like to go when you need space to think? What is your favorite ice cream flavor? What is something you are currently worried about? Who is your best friend? Do you prefer dinner out or dinner at home? What is your favorite sport? Have you played the sport? Where did you live when you were growing up? What relative or kin did you feel closest to as a child? If you had a nickname as a child, what was it? Are you a morning person or a night person? If you could go anywhere, where would you go? What is your favorite childhood memory? Do you prefer hugs, gifts, or when your partner says, “Thank you"? What is your favorite TV show? Favorite movie? What song reminds you of your relationship? What is your favorite memory of a date, activity, or moment you and your partner shared? Self Exploration Exercise Questions written by Dr. John Gottman to answer the question, "Who Am I?" My Triumphs and Strivings: What are some of the proudest moments of your life? What kinds of trying and stressful experiences have you survived in which you felt more powerful, victorious, capable of meeting challenges? How have these successes shaped our life, changed the way in which you view yourself, your goals, your dreams? Did your parents show you that they were proud of you for your accomplishments? What about other important figures in your life? How did this affect your experience of feelings of pride in yourself? Were you shown love and affection in your family? If not, how has this affected your relationships in your adult life? My Injuries and Healings What experiences have you had in which you have felt the deepest senses of disappointment, loss, self-doubt, hopelessness, loneliness? What kinds of deep traumas have you undergone? How have you survived through them? What kinds of changes do you feel in yourself after going through these difficult times in your life? How did you strengthen and heal yourself? How did you protect yourself? Did you find ways to avoid such experiences in the future? How do you think that these experiences have affected your relationships? Your relationship with your current partner? What do you want your partner to understand about you and your past injuries? My Mission and Legacy What do you feel is the purpose of your life? Its meaning? What do you want to accomplish? What is your greatest struggle? What kind of a legacy do you want to leave behind when you are gone? What kinds of significant goals do you still yearn to realize to feel that you have lived a full life? Who I Want to Become? Describe the person that you want to become. What kinds of struggles have you faced in trying to become that person? What internal demons are you fighting? What demons have you conquered? What would you most like to change about yourself? What do you want your life to be in five years? Five Steps for Problem Solving Step 1: Soften Your Start-Up Like a first impression, the starting off the conversation has a lasting impact. Here are some general strategies: Use “I” (not “You.”): "I-Statements" help to keep comments factual (they are facts about how you see the problem). "You-Statements" are more likely to make your listener feel defensive. Avoid the Four Horsemen. Be gentle and communicate respect. Be polite. Use “please” and “I would appreciate it if…” Be appreciative. Recognize what you appreciate in your partner. Don’t let things build up. If you do, it’ll escalate in your mind until you blow up. When you feel yourself getting heated politely ask to take a break so you can calm down. Here are some example phrases: Take responsibility. “I share some responsibility for this issue…”, "I should have asked sooner" State the problem without blame: “Here’s how I feel…about X (a specific situation)”State a positive need: "It would help me if I had…Y" Note: "Positive" means it is something you do need...not something you don’t need. Describe the problem without judgment or blame: Examples: I think we might be struggling because ..." . "I'm concerned about the house because we are having family over tomorrow". I’m angry because I don't feel respected. I feel like I am doing all the chores by myself. I need help cleaning the yard. Step 2: Learn to Send and Receive Repair Attempts Repair Attempts are like circuit breakers. They attempt to cut off the source of the problem before it catches fire. Repair Attempts require both partners to succeed, but before that can happen...someone needs to initiate. Exercise: Repair Attempts Gottman recommends a game in which couples sit down together and decide with Repair Attempts they like the best. Here is a list from his website. Step 3: Soothe Yourself and Each Other Flooding is a term Gottman uses to describe becoming emotionally overwhelmed by a conflict. If Repair Attempts fail, Gottman recommends one of two actions: When you feel yourself getting heated politely ask to take a break so you can calm down. Redirect the conversation to positives of your relationship. Exercise: Learn to Soothe Each Other Ask yourself and your partner the following questions: What makes us feel flooded? Give examples. Is there something about the way your partner brings up issues or complaints that makes you feel flooded? Do you hold things in or share? Why? When flooded, what soothes you? How can you better signal when you are feeling flooded to your partner? Step 4: Compromise Compromise is a necessary step to solving marital problems. Even if a particular problem seems like one person's fault ... the fact that the problem persists means that they may have trouble solving it on their own. That is why compromise requires accepting the shortcomings of your partner and being aware of your own. Don't expect you or your partner to simply change. Find ways to work together to mitigate each others weaknesses and magnify your strengths. Avoid the "if only..." trap. When you live with someone you will inevitably see all their ugliness. It is easier to see other peoples flaws than your own. The "if only..." trap is when your hopes for your marriage rest on an implicit ultimatum...that your partner needs to change or you will not be happy. This is inaccurate (except in extreme circumstances like abuse) and serves only to lead you further from the path to true happiness. You need to take responsibility for your own happiness. The truth is even a "perfect" spouse will not make you happy. Your partner is not your sole mate...your partner is your best friend. They are your daily companion until you die. When you look at marriage from this perspective it is easier to forgive and accept that no person or marriage is perfect. Compromise in marriage is a path to happiness because through compromise we learn to identify what is important. We also learn more about ourselves because it is harder to hide from our own ugliness when we live with someone else. That helps us to develop humility. With humility we learn to accept the shortcomings of others because we hope they will return the favor. Step 5: Address Emotional Injuries Arguments can leave emotional wounds even when a couple resolves an issue. This is perfectly normal and requires talking about or “processing.” Sometimes it’s about how you were fighting, not what you were fighting about. Dr. Gottman has a powerful exercise on page 188 in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work that will help heal these emotional injuries. Mastering these general problem-solving skills will lead you to discover that many of your problems will find their own solutions. Once you can overcome the barriers that have prevented clear communication, difficulties are easier to resolve. But remember: these solutions work only for problems that can be solved. If compromise seems impossible, then the problem you are struggling with is likely perpetual.

Here is the somewhat embarrassing backstory of WeGrowMe. Embarrassing, but probably not all that uncommon. Our story illustrates a key challenge of relationships ... getting outside our own heads and understanding the perspective of our partners. When we (Lihong and Joseph) first got married we had trouble properly expressing our love for each other. We had totally different love languages, personality types, and communication styles. We even came from different sides of the planet with totally different cultures. Joseph: "I've always been very direct. I told Lihong every day how much I love and appreciated her. My family is like that so I guess I inherited it. But Lihong's family is definitely not like that. It took years for her to realize how powerful a simple hug and 'thank you for working so hard for the family' means to me. She preferred to show me through her actions how much she loved me. Right after we got married she made me dinner almost every day, and would often clean the house by herself. I know a lot of women that can relate. Many young men are oblivious to how clean the house and seem to have a higher tolerance for disorganization." ​ Lihong: "I waited several months for Joseph to return the favor. Joseph would say "thanks for dinner" every day and I'd be saying to myself, 'You can thank me by making breakfast'. He appreciated it, but most of the time he just wasn't even paying attention to all the little (and big) things I was doing. In his mind, dirty socks and dishes just magically got washed. It was a lot of work. A few months into marriage I just stopped to see what he would do. It was almost like a science experiment...to see if men are capable of seeing laundry." ​ It took a lot of thinking and figuring as Momow used to say. We learned about the five love languages, our personality types, our communication styles, and little things we could do to make each other feel appreciated. We re-read our favorite books on marriage including,"Men are from Mars", "Laugh your way to a better marriage", and everything by John Gottman. We even wrote out a summary. But we kept having the same arguments and making the same mistakes. We knew the answers but sometimes had trouble putting it into practice. We also had trouble making time for fun and each other. We both always worked full time ... even when the kids were little. It was hard making the time to come up with fun date ideas, find thoughtful gifts, and do all those little things that make a relationship grow. While reading everything we could find about relationships we were also learning about advances in machine learning (ML) models, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI). We both studied economics but developed our careers as applied statisticians. We both build models for research and forecasting and had been using more advanced ML tools using Python both at work and for fun. Then one night our two passions collided in a single question: What if we could use AI to improve relationships? All the knowledge is out there. The technology to put it into action is out there. And that is how we came up with the idea for WeGrowMe. How it Works ​ WeGrowMe uses data gathered through the app to learn about your partner. Some of this data is provided up front, but most is gathered from simply using the app. Users create a profile for just one romantic relationship. Our machine learning algorithms then select a single Love Action to perform each day. Love Actions can be performed for free in less than 10 minutes. No boring recommendations to "buy flowers" ... we provide unique actions that you wouldn't think of yourself. The best part is that our Love Actions should get better over time as you indicate whether the action was successful in communicating your appreciation for your significant other. ​ Users also receive weekly Date Actions. We are partnering with many businesses in the Washington DC metro area to get discounts on underrated and creative dating experiences. These recommendations should improve as well, as you give feedback to the app. ​ Now...obviously the nature of relationships is personal. We will not require real names or sensitive information. Each account will be protected using tokenized encryption which is the same level of security available for other social platforms such as Facebook. Starting with Romance WeGrowMe is starting with romantic relationships because we believe this is where the power of AI can be leveraged to greatest effect. Romantic relationships hold the potential for the best of times, and the worst of times. All people are deeply flawed relative to potential, and so it should come as no surprise that living with someone, growing a family, and paying the bills brings challenges. But romantic relationships also bring unique opportunities for collaboration and growth. We learn through compromises to let go of what’s not important. We learn from mistakes faster because we can’t hide them. We learn patience from developing a deep understanding of someone else. We have the potential of developing a friendship with someone whose interests align completely with our own. It’s no wonder that in the long run...those who spend their lives dedicated to one romantic partner tend to live longer, experience lower levels of depression, and have fewer regrets. Why use AI? Our brains are amazing computational marvels that until recently were accepted as unmatched on earth. But advances in machine learning and the ability to automate are making traditional decision making obsolete. Brains can't perfectly store and compute all the data available to optimally express our love, avoid making the same mistakes, enhance our love life, and create great dating experiences. You may find this incredible, but we think it’s inevitable. Why would we not use artificial and crowd sourced intelligence to improve our relationships? We already do. We just do it manually, using our limited networks of friends and individual experiences. Maybe we read a good self-help book that seems to have all the right answers. Why limit ourselves to our own networks, experiences, and research? We have the technology to leverage the entire internet! WeGrowMe is our answer these questions. We ... crowd sourced intelligence Grow ... improve relationships through better decisions Me ... delivered to you through your smart phone

This post is about the common values we seem to share with the vast majority of Americans. We don't belong to a political party. We don't subscribe to a particular religion. But despite this we do believe deep down that thoughtful people share the same universal principles. We invite you to join us in building on this foundation so that we can grow from a place of shared understanding. Why people join tribes Something about joining a "tribe" makes humans feel better. They provide a sense of belonging and purpose. But tribes come with risks. One risk is "group think" and a lack of self discovery. Another is a desire to help one's team and fail to develop a sense of personal identity. Both of these risks create an adversarial relationship between tribes...a force that is all to obvious in the world of politics and religions today. The human desire for a Tribe is build into our DNA. Humans are not special in this way. Many social mammals feel pressured to seek social acceptance. We also like being told we are right, and tend to despise those that make us feel we are wrong or backward. But what is the cost of political tribalism? Many tribes have little consequence on important things like the health and security of our families. Sports provide a perfect example. Joseph spent much of his childhood near Chicago ... home of “Da Bears” 🐻. Why do they like Da Bears? Because they grew up near Chicago. That’s all fine and good when it comes to football 🏈 but it’s not a good way to run the country. Being an individual is hard in part because we are so small. There are 340,000,000 people in this country. So why do we vote? There are Billions of humans...so why would God listen to just one of us? Tribes help to satisfy the feeling of irrelevance. We may not matter that much but our team matters. There are practical risks to being an individual as well. You risk a lot by being different. If your parents, your friends, and your family are predominately a Democrat or Republican, then how you feel and how you vote is a BIG deal. If you make the “wrong” decision....you could ruin close relationships! Meanwhile your impact on the broader world is tiny by comparison. Why should we listen to those not in our Tribe when changing our minds can ruin our relationships? It's just not that practical for many of us to try and seek truth and understanding when our Tribe provides such valuable feelings of community, belonging, acceptance, righteousness and purpose. But if we let tribalism continue to dominate our political discourse, or allow extreme religious beliefs to threaten global stability...we run the risk of losing our Democracy...and more. Humanity needs an alternative approach to finding community and purpose. We need a new tribe that doesn't derive value from being exclusive. And that is why we belong to the tribe of universal principles. Universal Principles First Principles are the rules that govern a system. That system is our planet, and how we all work and live together to make the world a better place. So what are the first principles that make life better, and can we agree on them so they can be truly universal? We don't know for sure but we gave it a shot. There are as follows Opportunity to succeed Charitable Interpretation Progressive and Conservative Freedom and Liberty Growth Mindset We elaborate on each in turn... 1. Opportunity to succeed We all deserve a shot at success, but equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome. We should celebrates success and work hard to make sure all our boys and girls of every race and culture have the opportunity to make their dreams come true. No one achieves success on their own; which is why those of us that can afford to should give more and ensure that the opportunity for success is available to future generations. Americans can rally around this, but both parties fall short. Republicans who say the poor just need to work harder are blind and cruel. Over 1 in 5 children live in poverty. Many talented students cannot afford the education they need to reach their true potential. Parents making minimum wage often need to work 2 or 3 jobs just to survive… leaving no time to help their children find their way to a better life. We should all be outraged at the injustice of subsidizing sugar and endless wars while our schools and bridges crumble. Democrats who think the answer is big government and handouts fail to appreciate the free market and the cost of higher taxes on our economy. What is needed to ensure that all people have the opportunity to succeed? Far too often, Democrats prescribe solutions that go well beyond what is needed to ensure everyone an opportunity to succeed…removing incentives to earn our way at the expense of others. 2. Charitable Interpretation One definition of love is that we choose the best possible interpretation of the others words and actions. The book, “How to win friends and influence people” supports this value as a necessary first step to building relationships. A related concept is Hanlon's razor, an aphorism that means, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Earlier this week we were discussing racism with some friends...one of whom brought up Howard Schultz and how he had said, "I don't see color" in the context of discussing racism. Some might feel that his comment was stupid, but does that make Howard a racist? Obviously not, but that didn't stop many liberal commentators from implying as much. The default mode for party members and affiliates seems to be the opposite of this: Twist words to make whatever your “opponent” says sound as bad as possible. Make memes and write angry posts that demonize the other "team". This kind of "gotcha" behavior does not help Americans improve their understanding of the issues and reach commonsense solutions. Not in our party. Americans need to also rally around basic decency, mutual respect, and a willingness to acknowledge differences of opinion can exist without demonizing our neighbors. 3. Progressive and Conservative “A Progressive” should refer to anyone who believes that we still have much work to do to ensure that all people have the opportunity to succeed. Mahatma Ghandi said that, “A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”. Republicans that believe we are the greatest nation in the world need to wake up, and take a look around. We have much to learn from the rest of the world when it comes to taking care of the “weakest members” and preparing our children for the future. The term “progressive” means that we have a mutual goal of giving all people the opportunity to succeed. “A Conservative” should refer to anyone who seeks to “avoid waste” and is “marked by moderation or caution”. Elaborate government programs and handouts should be the last option considered after all free market options have been shown to fail. There are many areas where this is the case...especially defense, education, finance, and environmental protections. We need to be creative and scientific in how we use government to address problems not solved by free markets. 4. Freedom and Liberty We need to embrace a moral code of live and let live. If you enjoy smoking marijuana, hunting, or some other activity that is not hurting other people...you should be free ti do so. Republicans need to stop filling our jails with victimless criminals. Democrats need to acknowledge and protect the 2nd Amendment. Everyone also deserves the right to privacy. Both parties have failed to make this a priority. We need better protections from the state and foreign actors. 5. Growth mindset Our country will not remain a superpower for long if we, the electorate, continue to isolate ourselves from ideas different from our own. Do you tend to agree with you parents and friends on political issues? If you answered yes, you have an exciting journey ahead of you. We need a party that embraces challenging deeply held beliefs. We need to embrace a growth mindset...one that pushes us to think outside the boxes of political party and find creative solutions to our shared challenges. One big breakthrough in the McPhail household has been a real focus on what we call finding the "East West Equilibrium" (EWE). Basically, it means taking the time and energy to try to work on important issues together until we find solutions that take the best from both our cultures and experiences. EWE is a recipe for finding new possibilities that are outside the cliches and platitudes of political talking points we should all be tired of hearing. Conclusion Humans evolved to be tribal. Our tribes give us a sense of purpose and community. But they rob us of self-discovery and a deeper sense of our our identity. Political and religious tribes also threaten our Democracy and peace around the world. The instant gratification and companionship that comes from tribalism is powerful. Breaking our dependence on tribalism is made even harder by the recognition that we are all but tiny specks in the great universe and so standing apart from our tribe can bring an overwhelming sense of insignificance. But the reality is that tribes are not real. They are social constructs that serve some emotional needs but at great cost to the potential of humans to come together and grow. We can do much better when we are not caught up in petty arguments about whose tribe is better, and instead build from principles that we share. Our tribe is one of universal principles that we believe all humans can and should aspire to accept and proliferate. We hold these principles to be self evident...that all humans benefit when we live by these principles. Opportunity to succeed Charitable Interpretation Progressive and Conservative Freedom and Liberty Growth mindset Feel free to join our tribe. Let's show ourselves and our children that we are not afraid to be different...so long as we are pursuing a higher purpose. A purpose that lifts everyone UP. Sincerely, WEquil Family Learn more about UP at the link below. https://www.wequil.com/up

By Sumay and Aila Dale Carnegie wrote a masterpiece with, "How to Win Friends and Influence People", but many skip over it because of the bad title. The book should be called how to build lasting and fruitful relationships...or something to that effect. Sumay summarized the book into lists of rules. Aila demanded improvements until she could easily understand. What remains is a summary that is simple enough for a six year old. Enjoy! Part 1 - How to Get Along With Others If you want people to help you don't criticize, condemn or complain. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Find out what other people want and help them get it. Part 2 - How to be likable Be interested in other people. Smile. Remember a person's name and use it. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Focus on other people’s interests. Make the other person feel important. Part 3 - How to persuade Avoid arguments. Never tell someone they are wrong directly. Admit mistakes quickly. Always be friendly. Find common ground. Get them to say “yes” on areas of agreement before getting to the point. Encourage others to talk. Allow them to complain so they feel understood. Let them feel as though it’s their idea. Try to see things from their point of view. Seek out the ideas and wants of others Appeal to higher motives. Help them see how taking your side makes them a better person. Make your ideas sound exciting and interesting. When all else fails...throw out a challenge. Create a competition in order to motivate. Part 4 - How to help people grow Begin conversations with praise and honest appreciation. If you must point out someone’s mistakes … do so indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. No one likes being told what to do. Get buy-in from others by bringing them to the table, asking questions, listening, and accepting others' good ideas. Help people avoid looking bad in public. Motivate others by giving praise at every improvement. Build confidence in others by showing appreciation and respect. Assume the best of others. Give them a good reputation to live up to. Help others overcome shortcomings with encouragement. Make their shortcomings seem easy to correct. Make others glad to do what you want. Help them feel good about following your suggestions. Part 5 - Letters That Produced Miraculous Results Dale Carnegie provides some useful examples in this part of the book. Part 6 - How to get along with your spouse Don’t nag. Don’t try to change your partner. Don't criticize. Give honest appreciation. Do little things to show your love. Be courteous [Mom & Dad added that] … Dale Carnegie recommends that all married people actively work on improving the physical side of their relationship as well :) Favorite Quotes “It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” “Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.” “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” "J. Pierpont Morgan observed, in one of his analytical interludes that, 'a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one'. The person himself will think of the real reason. You don't need to emphasize that. But all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good. So, in order to change people, appeal to the nobler motives." "the principles taught in this book will work only when they come from the heart. I am not advocating a bag of tricks. I am talking about a new way of life."

Sumay published this article in February 2019. Four years ago I started meditating. When I had trouble sleeping I would sit up and focus on my breathing. Focusing on my breath helped me relax and fall asleep. Three months ago I started to understand the deeper value of meditating, and the effect it was having. Our family just started meditating first thing in the morning. My mind is so clear. I used to be my thoughts, but now I see them and can make them come and go. My mom and I have been using an app called "Headspace", which guides us through different meditation exercises such as, letting go of stress, neutral thinking, love and compassion. Guided meditation can be helpful when we have trouble understanding the goal of the particular exercise. I don’t believe you need an app to meditate, but it might help if you are unfamiliar with the concept of trying to be in complete control of your mind. For me, the goal of meditation is to address the issue of unhelpful thoughts. I only want to keep thoughts that make me feel good. Meditation helps me gain control of my thoughts. By learning to be consciously aware of normally unconscious actions, like breathing, I realize my thoughts are not hardwired into my brain. I meditate to keep me in the moment. I'm in the present. Not the last breath, or the one that comes next. I'm here...I'm now. Meditating keeps you aware and in control in each moment...so when the unexpected happens, you can have more control of your reactions. For example, last week my Mom asked me to do my laundry while I was playing. I became very upset and yelled. I didn't even have time to think...it just came out. This week, the same thing happened, but this time I saw the feeling rise up inside of me. I was apart from my thoughts. I gently said hello to my anger and then gently told it to relax. I realized I was running out of clothes and responded sweetly ... telling my Mom, "I would be glad to do my laundry!" In summary, meditation allows you to see your emotions and space to choose how to act on them. This is crucial...not just for getting your laundry done, but also for relationships...a crucial source of day to day happiness! I highly recommend even just five minutes of meditation each day! Sumay McPhail -- This post was originally written as a post-script to our review of the book, "Beginning Meditation"...a family favorite.