Kevin Kelly writes that enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points. I wholeheartedly agree.

Watch this video by Casey Neistat and tell me you can't feel the enthusiasm he has for his city, his work, and his craft. It's palpable. It's also what makes him who he is: all of his videos have this infectious energy.

I've been thinking a lot about interviewing, and have come to a simple conclusion: I would rather work with someone who is enthusiastic than with someone who is smart. So much so that I am willing to tolerate meaningfully worse intelligence if they bring overwhelming energy and enthusiasm.

Taking this to the margin, does it matter what your degree is? Where you went to school? Your resume? Where you did your last internship? Honestly, no. If you can show up and prove that you are bringing energy, enthusiasm, positivity, and a hunger to do better, I'm sold.

It's really not that complicated.

Of course, this is really a reflection on me: this is a way to tell myself to be more enthusiastic.

At the end of the day, I really like my job. I mean, I really like my job. So much so that I commit a ridiculous amount of time and effort towards it, and care deeply about the products we are building being successful.

But now and again, I get down, I get depressed, I feel frustrated, and (to my great shame) I sometimes give up.

That's not me at my best, but it is the truth.

Then I think about Casey. I think about Kevin Kelly. I think about myself 10 years ago, and how pumped I would be to know I've ended up where I am right now, and how badly I would want to keep that going.

So I pick myself up, dust myself off, apologize to myself and others for being a (temporary) quitter, and I get after it with a white-hot intensity and a positive attitude.

Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, enthusiasm, enthusiasm. Bring that energy, bring that hunger.

Nothing else comes close.

Fun Questions

• What makes you really angry?
• If I spoke to your best friend, what is one word they would use to describe you?
• If you had to ride an animal into the Battle of Helm's Deep, what animal would you ride and why?
• If you were an action figure, what two items would you come with?
• How much sawdust can you put into a rice krispy square before people start to notice? How would you figure this out?
• What are the top 5 websites you visit every day? What is your favourite way to gather information? What subreddits or blogs or instagram accounts or TikTok stars do you follow?
• Who is your professional role model, and what do you like about them?
• If you could choose one fictional character to be your mentor, who would it be and why?
• Why did you choose this university? Why did you choose this program?
• What is your secret to productivity?
• What advice would you give to yourself graduating high school?
• What was your first job, and what was the most important lesson you learned from it?
• You are unexpectedly gifted a day off in the middle of the week. What do you do with it?
• Your house is on fire (animals and people are safe) but you can grab 3 items. What do you grab?
• What is the best gift you've ever received?
• What is your favourite quote?
• What are the last 5 books you read?
• What are the open tabs on your computer right now?
  
• Describe your day up to this point.
• What's something weird or unusual you did early on in life?
• What important truth do very few people agree wtih you on?
• If you were a product, what would your value proposition be?
• How did you prepare for this interview?
• What's a conspiracy theory you believe? What makes it interesting?

Product Questions

• You've just been hired as the first PM at [well-known product, like Instagram]. There are no metrics of any kind yet. What sort of data would help you determine the health of this feature?
• Tell me about a time you advocated for somethign that others did not believe in. How did you develop convinction even when others didn't have it? How did you get enough organizational buy-in to allow you to move forward with the initiative?
• Why did you choose to work at the last company? Why did you choose to leave?
• Tell me about a time when you were certain about a product or feature and you turned out to be wrong.
• Tell me about a project you worked on in the last two years that you are most proud of. Provide the context, actions you took, results, and learnings.
• How would you explain product management to a stranger?
• A customer tells you they want a new feature. How do you decide whether it is worth building or not?
• What was your most successful product as a Product Manager?
• What makes a successful launch?
• What are the qualities that differentiate a good product manager from a great product manager?
• Do you have any technical skills that set you apart from other applicants?
• Is consensus always your goal? When should you strive for consensus and when should you not?
• How do you make decisions with data? How do you make decisions without data? In what contexts?
• Tell me about a product you used today. What did you like about using it? What would you change?
• Think of a product you hate to use. How would you improve it?
• What are the trends you're paying attention to? What excites you about them?
• Give me a prediction about this trend 10 years from now. What do you think will happen? Why?
• Tell me about a time you failed professionally. What happened, where did you go wrong, and what did you learn?
  
• Is Facebook succeeding? Why or why not?
• Our indoor camera is not selling very well. What is one change you would make to improve sales?
• Will OpenAI surpass Google in terms of daily searches? If so, when? 
• Pick a product you love and use often - what is their secret sauce? Why do you think they are so much more successful than competitive products?
• How do you gather and prioritize customer feedback?
• Can you describe a time when you had to pivot or change direction of a project?
• How do you stay updated on industry trends and emerging technologies relevant to product management?
• How do you practice your craft in a similar way to how a musician practices scales? What do you do regularly to get better?

Soft Skill Questions

• How do you communicate with executive leadership?
• Who do you respect most for their leadership ability and why?
  
• What do you look for in a manager?
• Should engineers speak with customers? Why or why not? In what circumstances?
• Why do you want this job? 
• Why should we hire you?
• What does success at the end of this co-op term look like for you?
• Tell me about a time you disagreed with a colleague. How did you resolve the conflict?
• Who is the best manager you've ever had? What made them successful?
• What's the most important factor for you in looking for a co-op?
• What's the question you wish I asked?
• What is your strategy to accomplish great things? Do you work every day? Extra hard during the week? What does your weekly cycle look like?
  
• How important is charisma for a product manager?
• If you were hired and then we get to the end of your co-op and it does not go well, why would that be?
• What are 3 words your best friend would use to describe you?
• How ambitious are you?
• Can you give me an instance where you perceived a team problem at work and stepped in to fix it? What exactly was your remedy?
  
• Would your previous boss say you were so good they would work for you?
• What is the most important trait of high performer?
• Out of what I see on your LinkedIn and your resume, what are the things you are trying to emphasize? What are the things you are trying to hide?

I run on average 3 times per week, and my typical run is either from my house to Point Pleasant Park and back - about 15 km - or to the Dingle and back - about 5 km. Which route I take is highly dependent on how much time I have in the day, how I'm feeling, and how much pain and suffering I hope to inflict on myself that day (just kidding, but not really).

On my run this morning, I felt groggy, my knees hurt, my calves were screaming, and I was struggling to keep up even a gentle pace. It was a beautiful sunny morning, the light through the trees was ethereal, and I was rocking out to some great tunes. So no excuses at all for being lazy.

Then I hit the big hill.

There's a hill from the Dingle, at the bottom near the ocean, up to the gate entrance to the park. I've had an internal duel with this hill since I moved to Nova Scotia, and it has become my nemesis. Chuck Klosterman has this amazing description of arch enemies vs. nemeses.

A nemesis is someone you battle but secretly like, someone you'd miss if they were gone, someone who ultimately makes you better: Batman and Joker, Roy Kent and Jamie Tart, Captain America and Ironman, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler who founded Adidas and Puma respectively. 

An archenemy is someone you hate deeply to your core, who you would piss on their grave, whose very existence riles you up: The Avengers and Thanos, The Jedi and Emperor Palpatine, Greta Thunberg and any oil company executive. 

This hill is my nemesis. It makes me better, but does it ever frustrate me.

On a good day, I can make it to the top over the course of about 1 song on my playlist, say 3:30. On a bad day it might take me two. But recently I've noticed I'm improving because I can make it up the hill without stopping, whether it is fast or slow.

I've also noticed a change in my posture and general feeling towards this hill. I take a loop that goes through the magical forest, down a beautiful tree-lined trail, along the seawall, to the beach at the bottom, and then this hill is the tax I have to pay at the end to get home. It's not pretty, it's not that fun, the pavement is cracked and the street is not wide enough for all the cars that go by. I've had this feeling of begrudging acceptance towards this part of the route since I moved here.

Until today.

Something changed where I hit the bottom of the hill and suddenly felt so alive, so ready to perform at my best, that is was almost intoxicating. I cranked Lose Yourself by Eminem, and absolutely demolished this hill, setting a new record for myself in the process. I reached the top and instead of gasping for air, felt like I could turn around and do it again. Something about the persistent challenge of striving to do better, and knowing this is the hardest part of the journey, forced me to bring out my best and push myself.

There's something beautiful about this metaphor: the struggle is what makes us our best. Going further, it's not the flat, easygoing part of the journey that we remember or ultimately demands the most of us, it's the big inclines, where things get really hard, that we shine the brightest.

The lesson here is to embrace, and attack, the big hills in our life.

I've been feeling frustrated with one particular recurring meeting I have with our exec team, which often feels like a chance for them to beat us up for an hour. It clicked for me today that it's just the work version of the Dingle hill. These meetings are often where I am at my best, where the best of my work comes through, and even though I don't always shine the brightest or leave feeling my best, it is the struggle that makes me better.

So I need to keep reminding myself: don't shy away from the big hills. Embrace them. Attack them. Show them what you're made of, even on your worst days.

Because one of these days you're going to totally crush it, and you'll make it to the top a champion.

I have a mental model on how to solve sticky problems that boils down to this hierarchy: start with the process, then lean on relationships, and then trust individuals to use their brains. Processes help to build frameworks and mental models for repeated problems to be solved in standardized ways. The value of building a process is often to improve repeatability and/or speed, while removing the “human element” from the problem. Things like Agile, Weekly Meetings, Product Requirements Documents, and Meeting Agendas are processes that outline ways of solving repeated problems regardless of who is involved. In areas where these fail, we need to lean on relationships. See my note below, but in many cases, we can overcome gaps in process by having strong relationships with our counterparts. Lastly, if both process and relationships fail, we trust each other to make thoughtful decisions on our own in our areas of expertise, giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

In this interview with Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin, Seth describes how there are three types of editing: copy editing, line editing, and developmental editing.

Copy editing is reviewing a document for grammar and accuracy. This is where spellcheck in Microsoft Word shines.

Line editing is reviewing sentence-by-sentence for precision to the larger context of the document. I think of this as "is this sentence written in the best possible way?" and ways to smooth out your voice for the reader.

Developmental editing is reviewing the holistic context of the document and whether it is making a compelling argument. This is answering the question "what is the change you seek to make?" and how well are you doing that? This is about moving paragraphs or chapters around and adding or removing context to make the story resonate more with the audience.

I've found distinguishing between these three types of feedback incredibly helpful, and further, that different people are better at providing different kinds of feedback.

First, spellcheck and Grammarly are excellent tools for copy editing, and with these tools so readily accessible, it's impossible to forgive poor copy editing. However, it's worth stating that no one reads a document and changes their behaviour because the copy editing was excellent. This is table stakes. In fact, Seth describes how he hires an editor to copyedit his work prior to sending it to his publisher for further edits. I think that's a great tip to reflect on: have a tool or someone you trust copyedit your work before sending it out for more serious revision.

Second, have someone you know is an excellent line editor review your work. I work with a particular executive who is relentless for line editing, which can be good and bad, but ultimately makes every sentence in the document as strong as it can be. Great line editing reviews every statement and asks "how could this line be stronger?" and line the beams in a bridge, improves the strength of the document as a whole. Two ways to do this: have a details-oriented colleague go through your document line by line and make edits. Alternately, the tip I prefer: give yourself 24 hours between writing and editing, because these are different functions in your brain and you need the space, and then review every single line in reverse, asking the question "could this be better?"

Third and most importantly, have a mentor, peer, or trusted friend read your document and reflect back on whether it resonates. This is by far the most difficult kind of editing but is priceless in the pursuit of excellence. Having someone who can see your work for what it is striving to be, internalize that goal, and then reflect back ways to reorient your structure to be more impactful can be the difference between good and great. I've read so many books that desperately needed developmental editing: the concept is excellent, the stories are mediocre, and it drags on too long. A developmental editor will help you transform not just the sentences on the page, but the whole way you're constructing your argument. 

Lastly, a few warnings. 

Asking for the wrong type of feedback from the wrong type of person can be painful. Despite our best efforts, some people genuinely think highlighting the spelling mistakes and nitpicking your data will help improve your writing. It might, but in my experience, that is not the most impactful area to focus on. It seems that some people never quite overcome this hang-up, as if it is deeply rooted in their personality, so don't fall down the rabbit hole of trying to get all the details right without first understanding the context.

Humans are storytellers. As compelling as a series of strong data points connected linearly in an argument is, you want your work to resonate on an emotional level because that is where change comes from. Very seldom does cold, hard data make the change we're looking for. We all believe the stories we tell ourselves, and without that connective tissue, your argument can't hold weight. 

In the words of Simon Sinek: Start with Why. In Seth Godin's words, what is the change you seek to make? In my words, what is the problem you're trying to solve? Begin there. Get the big picture right first, and then sweat the details. Don't lose the forest through the trees.

I listened to this interview between Tim Ferriss and Kevin Kelly and he described ChatGPT in a way I really resonated with: as the Universal Personal Intern. His analysis is that ChatGPT is effectively culminating the wisdom of the crowd into a series of tools that is capable of providing the same level of work you could expect from an intern: highly adept at producing a high volume of mediocre ideas that then need to be tuned and adjusted before they are ready for primetime. He then described it as "not bad", or the universal not bad personal intern (UNBPI). 

I really like this assessment and it aligns with my own (limited) experience with using ChatGPT. 

I've been astounded as the proficiency and usefulness of ChatGPT as a whole, and it really is a step-change in the level of functionality that is publicly available (for free!) to anyone who wants to use it, but I must agree with KK on this: the quality of output is just not that high.

There are countless stories of it "hallucinating" and confidently presenting false information, or writing complete essays that are built on false pretenses and misunderstood sources. This is dangerous for those who don't understand what they are doing, and expect the system to be more reliable than it is. It's like giving a power tool to a pre-teen: it's incredibly powerful, but only useful if used correctly.

However, the way I like to think about ChatGPT is as a first-year intern, or something that is fully capable of producing elementary analysis of complex topics and providing that information back to me to make a decision. I consider it an assistant who is able to quickly search the internet for what currently exists, and provide options for review. I would never allow this system to publish without review, hence my comments above, but it is incredibly effective as a generative tool.

So here are a few things I've used my UNBPI for in the last month:

• Creating recipes that align with my target diet
• Creating a workout plan based on my goal of running a marathon this year, taking into account my schedule
• Creating templates for standardized documents, like product requirements documents and executive proposals
• Researching competitive products and their positioning within the market
• Producing a list of blog post ideas related to various topics, and headlines on those topics
• Writing a SQL query to accomplish a specific task I couldn't figure out on my own (side note: ChatGPT as a paired coding tool is unbelievably powerful, this is worthy of its own blog post)
• Producing ice breaker questions for our team summit and fun interview questions for candidates
• Reviewing, editing, and summarizing blocks of text to condense them and make it easier to read

Going forward, I believe AIs (plural, because they are different kinds of machines) will influence our world in new and unexpected ways, but I tend to agree with KK that they are going to be incredibly adept at a limited range of things, requiring a more holistic review by humans.

Great as an intern, poor as an IC. 

I've had the privilege of hiring several co-op students in my career. I'm trying to be less biased on the co-op process in general, so here is what I look for when I hire a co-op, what I measure them against, and my best advice for co-op students in general. 

Hiring Co-op Students

I'm trying to be more specific and less biased here, so here's my shortlist of character traits I look for and ultimately evaluate against:

• Being a fully-formed human being: emotionally mature, independent, willing to grow 
• Quality and depth of thinking, bonus point for showing their process
• Disagreeableness, willingness to present unconventional perspectives and back them up
• Problem-solving, specifically around ambiguous or no-right-answer questions
• Communication skills: oral, written, graphic
• Resilience, can take tough feedback and improve accordingly
• Grit and resourcefulness
• Curiosity, humility, and willingness to learn
• Product intuition, or an intuitive sense for what works and what doesn't in the chosen field
• ENTHUSIASM - in the words of Kevin Kelly, worth 25 IQ points - would much rather have someone mediocre on paper who really wants to work here than a genius who doesn't

Green flags:

• Entrepreneurial or startup experience
• Experience working in a minimum-wage job
• Strong opinion on something unconventional or unpopular
• Having worked or lived abroad, speaking another language
• Proof of having taken the initiative towards personal growth (ie courses, YouTube tutorials, books, etc.)
• Learning in public: a portfolio, blog, social media account, or other public proof of learning or experience
• Past experience in the role, or something similar
  
• Asks great questions at the end of the interview

Things I don't care about:

• Brand names on your resume - I'd even go so far to say working at a brand name company (Apple, Google, Facebook) can be a net-negative in my experience, but I don't hold it against folks highly, especially this early in their career
• Grades / signs of intelligence - if you've made it this far, you're smart, moving on
• Discipline or Field of Study - PM is pretty discipline-agnostic and we'll teach them the Product side if we need to
• Extra-curriculars - unless it applies to the points above, not important for me
• Level of experience - I put some weight into what experience can build in terms of maturity and proof of capability, but a young superstar will outperform an older dud every day of the week

Red flags:

• Lack of humility or a know-it-all attitude
• Does not ask any questions at the end of the interview
• Clearly focused on the wrong things, like salary, prestige, or influence 
• Unclear on why they want the role or their career direction
• Poor quality of thinking
• Poor communicator
• Speaking poorly of a past manager, company, or colleague
• Lack of maturity
• Lying 
• Overexaggerating their impact 
• Boring

Process:

1. Submit a resume for review. I will often ask for examples of work to accompany, including a portfolio, website, social media account, or any other public proof that you are capable of doing what you said you could do.
2. Interview. I will often ask a series of questions to evaluate: communication skills, enthusiasm for the role, fit within our team, and (for lack of a better term) general vibe. This is often a test of whether I feel I would enjoy working with you for extended periods of time.
3. Project. Sometimes this happens before the interview, but I ask candidates to do a task for me to demonstrate their skills. This is not meant to be timed, or put them under tremendous pressure, but rather to evaluate them at their best. Best-case-scenario this is included in the job posting. I am ultimately evaluating their depth of thinking, technical ability, communication skills (written, graphic, etc.) and enthusiasm for the role (ie do they do the project or not?). This is the best way I've found to evaluate performance, and comes highly recommended from a mentor and friend (HT: Gilad).
4. If required, additional interview.

Evaluating During The Co-op Term

I do my best to present clear guidelines on how I evaluate all of my co-ops at the beginning of their term, so there is no ambiguity around what I expect. It is a failure on my part as a manager if we get to the end of the term and disagree on the evaluation. Having a template to work from gives clear guidance on what success looks like, how performance is evaluated, and ultimately how to achieve the target we are both aiming towards. To be clear, I want all of my co-ops to achieve an Outstanding (or at least Excellent), and setting clear targets on how to do that is helpful for both of us.

At ecobee, we have 6 company values that I use to measure against. The bullet points listed are my measure of the Outstanding level, but often I will look for the individual to find ways to not just meet the criteria below, but shine beyond what is written.

Cultivate Curiosity

• Student actively seeks opportunities to develop skills in specific areas of interest. For example, taking initiative on potential projects/tasks to work on or maximizing 1on1s with a diverse range of people 
  
• Courageous and humble in requesting and gathering feedback
• Receives feedback well and responds taking action

Aim for Impact

• Achieves meaningful outcomes for the business within their co-op term
  
• Proactively identifies areas of impact
• Prioritizes effectively and communicates this proactively to their manger

Think like an Owner

• Student is independent and has exceptional self-management skills 
  
• Able to solve difficult problems on their own
• Presents thoughtfully curated options and a recommendation when a decision requires additional feedback
• Adapts effortlessly to changing priorities

Give Respect and Build Trust

• Completes deliverables on time at an exceptional quality, and builds a reputation for being dependable
  
• Preemptively unblocks work items by asking for support and/or clarification, well ahead of deadlines
• Builds strong relationships with colleagues
• Student is an essential core member of the team and provides unique value through their role. Employer would be delighted to have the Co-op return for full-time. 

Work for the Planet

• Preemptively aligns work with core sustainability initiatives
  
• Proactively identifies areas for improvement in sustainability-focused initiatives

Start with the Customer

• Deeply internalizes product goals and initiatives
  
• Proactively identifies areas for improvement in customer journey and create a plan to resolve
• Begins with “what would be great?” and finds ways to achieve this goal without compromising on user value

Advice for Co-ops

• Have a long-term plan. Don't pick your next co-op based on what is shiny and new and pays the best, pick your next co-op based on how well it aligns with your long-term goals and intended career trajectory.
• Go through the side door. Some companies rely on the typical co-op system to vet candidates and find the best option, but in my experience, the best candidates are the ones who want to work with you so badly they are willing to bypass the whole system to make this happen. Huge bonus points for finding a way to circumvent the system and stack the deck in your favour.
• Big risks equal big rewards. I did a co-op term in Germany, and that was a step-change for me personally and professionally, and helped me to eventually work on a cool project with a friend, which led to starting a business, which led to Venture for Canada, which led to getting my first job at Mosaic, which led to my second job at Nymi, which led to where I am now. Taking the risk of doing a co-op overseas, getting paid effectively nothing, in a country I did not speak the language was a crazy thing to do in hindsight, but it set the stage for future success. Now is the time for you to take bigger risks.
• Learn in Public. This blog is my way of learning in public. I obviously don't have all the answers, but it is a chance for me to show my work and my process, and get something out into the world. Having a public portfolio, or something that demonstrates your ability, will take you much, much further than a line on a resume. If you can demonstrate your passion by putting your work out into public, risking criticism and ridicule, you will hit another gear of growth. I wish I did this earlier.
  
• Show your passion. I want to work with people who want to work with me, plain and simple. I wrote above that enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points, and I firmly believe that is true. By the time you get on the shortlist of people being considered, everyone is excellent, and the deciding factor is often determined by who wants it more. Show how passionate you are, over and over again, and good things will come to you.
  
• Gain life experience. My first criteria above is about being a fully-formed human being, and it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, because there's no way you're going to be fully-formed at this phase in your life. It would be somewhat disappointing if you were! However, the best way to grow quickly into a professional, or someone who is fully-formed in the workplace, is by (ironically) gaining life experience. There's lots of ways to do this, but here are some of my favourites: travel, take a class in something that scares you, do a project that feels way too difficult and publish about it, start a blog, meet new and interesting people, make great art. 
  
• Get good at communicating. Presenting information, either written, verbal, and in a presentation to a group, are vital life-long career-spanning skills. The sooner you can become excellent at all forms of sharing ideas, the more successful you will be. There are many amazing resources about this, including books, YouTube videos, and courses, but by far the best way to be a better communicator is to practice. Having a blog is (effectively) free and allows you get more reps in, but I would highly recommend building a feedback cycle. This could be hiring an editor, finding a mentor who will review your work, and/or having a friend or loved one provide feedback. Bonus points if you learn to use AI for this.
• Take great notes. The best lifehack I've found for career growth from co-op to fulltime is to be the person in every meeting who takes notes, captures ideas and action items, and shares them afterwards with the team. Make this a habit and build a reputation of doing this, and you will be invited to more important meetings. More important meetings = better projects = more responsibility = faster path to success.
• Ask more questions. One of my biggest criticisms of co-ops in general is they don't ask enough questions. No one expects you to know what you're doing. I would rather spend 5 minutes answering your questions (bonus points if I can do that async) than having you spend 5 hours heading in the wrong direction. Being explicit, specific, and thoughtful about what questions you ask and why will help fast-track you from flailing, unknowledgeable intern to confident, competent employee. Further, developing a set of default questions to ask of all projects (timeline? success criteria? priority?) will help you greatly. This is especially true in an interview. Don't ever leave an interview without asking at least 5 really good questions. Prepare these ahead of time.
• Leverage the hot new tools. When I graduated, social media was in its heyday, and many of my older colleagues were not yet on Facebook or understood the marketing power of tools like LinkedIn, YouTube, and Snapchat (is that still a thing?). Being a huge nerd, and a millennial, I was effectively an expert at all of these at an early age, but wasted my opportunity to make a meaningful gap for myself. The hot new thing right now is AI, and I can tell you with confidence it will change everything, so the sooner you get comfortable with it as a tool, the more useful you will be. Understanding its advantage and disadvantages, and when to leverage its capabilities, will put you a step ahead of colleagues who are older and more experienced in other ways, leveling the playing field. Double-down on your strengths.
  
• Above all else, find ways to be useful. Remember that this opportunity is not about you. You are gaining valuable experience and skills along the path of fulfilling your actual purpose: being useful to the company that hired you. No matter how much HR nonsense is spewed your way about how companies care about investing in their employees, don't forget that you are not the main character in this story. In the words of Zig Ziglar, you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want. Help your team first, and yourself second, and it'll all work out in the end.
  

This is a shortlist of my personal operating principles.

#1 Make a Proposal

I’m a firm believer in starting with a proposal rather than a blank page. As product managers, our responsibility is to guide the team towards experiences we believe to meet our customer’s needs, and this often starts with us making a proposal and revising as new information arises. We often juggle requirements and perspectives from different teams, all of which is important to factor into our decisions, but I have seen time and time again in my career that starting with a proposal (even if it is a SWAG) is the best way to align disparate groups together. It is my expectation that by default, any problem or decision is accompanied with a proposal, even if it is a draft. This is a great article expressing a similar mindset (Level 4). One of the side-effects of this principle is you must be willing to put yourself out there and get bruised along the way, which takes courage and discipline. I personally have never had a proposal document come back from management without dozens and dozens of comments, which is very much to be expected, but requires a thick skin. The trade-off of making a proposal is getting your ego bruised along the way, but the best leaders take this is in stride, putting the quality of the product higher than the optics of being right.

#2 Lead with Relationships

I’m a firm believer that great teams build great products, and I personally choose to lead with relationships in the way I interface with teams. My expectation is that we treat each other with respect and candor and hold each other to account, but also get to know each other as people. We’re not robots, and despite our best efforts everyone we work with is a human underneath (at least for now), which means we need to be mindful of personalities, emotions, ways of working, and context. This is sometimes referred as Nemawashi, which in my mind translates to “having the conversations before the meeting”. This is the art of being a strong product manager, and something I expect of the people I work with and manage. I’ve seen consistently in my career that leading with relationships will buffer other issues.

#3 Clear Thinking Starts with Clear Writing

I like to think I’m a decently intelligent human being, but I am very confident I am not nearly as smart off the top of my head as I can be when I write things down. The ability to edit our thoughts over time is one of the markers of the advancement of the human race, and something we should leverage extensively. By default, and in almost every case, the correct action is to write your thoughts down. I read much faster than I can listen, and editing is much easier than writing, so when in doubt put your thoughts into a document. Seth Godin also notes that written documents allow us to transcend and overcome the barrier of time, which is a cheap, effective, underrated superpower we should leverage more often. 

#4 Ownership and Responsibility

Product Managers often wear 3 hats: Product as owners of requirements and stewards of customer value; Product as leaders within the program; and Product as caretakers, who clean up at the end of the night and turn off the lights once everyone has left. My rule of thumb to act like an owner: if this needed to happen tomorrow, what could you do to make that happen?  Tactically, this means we should strive to do the following: set clear expectations on roles and responsibilities within the organization, and work with stakeholders to ensure this is upheld; delegate responsibility and hold others accountable to it; if something falls through, lead with a posture of picking it up for the time being with expectations to delegate in the future.

#5 Sense of Urgency

I stole this from Thomas Keller: everything that is worth doing, is worth doing with a sense of urgency. Deadlines are one of life's greatest tools, and highly underrated in my opinion. Acting like everything we are work on is due imminently is the best trick I've learned to ship work that matters. I demand of myself and those around me that we move quickly and with purpose on everything we do, whether it is due in minutes, hours, weeks, or years. The moment I stop acting in this way, the quality and quantity of my work falters, without exception. When in doubt, act like you're already late, work hard, and then ship.

#6 Decision = Argument + Evidence

I learned this during my time at Mosaic: every decision can be boiled down to an argument, which is a proposal on the way the world works or should work and how we plan to get there, and supporting evidence. Decisions without evidence are prone to failure, and show a lack of discipline in the decision-making process. When we push for decisions without backing them with evidence, we are believing that luck or fate or circumstance will bail us out. Decisions without strong arguments are often easy, low-hanging fruit, that is not worth the time we allocate to them. If a decision is so easy to make that you can do so without a strong argument, you should make it and move on. This shows a lack of courage within the organization to surface the contentious points and debate the stuff that matters. This simple formula has also been useful to indicate, with no feeling of personal attack, that a decision requires more work before it can be made. Saying "a decision = argument + evidence, and some of those pieces are missing here" is a criticism of the work, not of the person, and encouragement to regroup and try again. 

Apr 4 2021

What do you want?

Mar 27 2020

Thanks to Dylan Trebels and Emma Bartel for editing drafts of this essay.

Aug 11 2020

From Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.

The book is broken into 4 sections: Highlight, Laser, Reflect and Energize.

Screenshot of new browser using Mindful Chrome extension and implementing the Kitchen To-Do List.

Screenshot of new browser using Mindful Chrome extension and implementing the next part of the Kitchen To-Do List.

Screenshot of new browser using Mindful Chrome extension and implementing the final part of the To-Do List: Personal and Daily Routines.

And that’s it! This is the best To-Do System I’ve come up with so far

Here’s to having more Joes in the world.

Aug 4 2020

When both parties have cleared their heads, and let the dirty dishes work themselves loose, it becomes much easier to clean up.

July 29, 2020

Character is what you do when no one is looking.

Dear Siblings,

What a time to be alive.

So you lost your jobs, and the world has shut down with no real end in sight.

Universities are closing and moving to online learning. Public schools are shut down. Parents are freaking out. Hospitals are in panic mode. Testing stations are overwhelmed. Government subsidies are rushing in to lend support. And you’re sitting at home unsure of what to do.

Here’s how I would think about it.

The world is going to be shut down for the foreseeable future. This could be 2 months, it could be a year; we have no idea. More importantly, you can’t control that. What you can control is what you do with that time. Ryan Holiday calls this dead time or alive time.

Are you going to look back in 6 months and be proud of the work you did? Or are you going to think back that it was a huge waste of time?

The question I’ve been pondering is this: what values will this pandemic reveal? Who am I when the world is falling apart?

Will I choose to be generous, thoughtful, productive, gentle, and kind? Or selfish, reactive, lazy, aggressive, and frustrated?

I could use this time to catch up on movies I missed - I have yet to see all the Marvel movies - and TV shows that are popular - let’s watch the Office again! - but I know that won’t satisfy me or get me closer to my goals.

Or I could use this time to improve myself.

I could set a goal of reading 1 book per week.

I could set a goal of running a half marathon by the end of the year.

I could learn how to use a new software program, like Photoshop or Blender.

I could learn to program in Python, or design a website from scratch.

I could make a commitment to practice German every day.

I could cook amazing meals for my wife every night and show my appreciation for her through my efforts.

Whatever your goal might be, I would think about this situation this way: you’ve been giving a golden ticket where the government is literally paying you to stay home and do whatever you want. The rest of the world is going to waste this time watching TV and playing video games.

It’s the like the whole world is frozen in time for 6 months, and you get a head-start.

If you were given 6 months to get ahead (or catch up) to the rest of the world, what would you do with it?

I for one wouldn’t waste it.

When you look back years from now on this time, what are you going to tell your friends? That you sat around and watched Netflix? Or that it was the inflection point that set you on a new path and changed your life?

That’s up to you.

Alive time or dead time.

Good luck,

Your brother.

Thoughts on Skill Sets Outside of the Domain

June 25, 2020

I recently had a conversation with a VFC member has had completed Training Camp and is about to head into the job market. This is their first job out of school, and they are nervous about trying to jump into a startup in the midst of a pandemic.

This individual is truly exceptional across the board: top grades at university, internship work experience, real life experience in extra-curricular activities, and has even started their own side-project company using their skills in the midst of a difficult job market.

In any other condition, I would say this person was off to the races.

But we’re in a pandemic. Startup funding has dried up considerably. Companies are cutting back.

All that said, this isn’t why I’m worried about them. It’s that they have a tangential technical skill set, which makes decisions like this difficult.

I believe there is a spectrum of technical roles at companies, from deep and specific, to surface-level and generalized.

Trying to keep things anonymous, let’s say this person has a background in medicine. Let’s call them Jane.

In some organizations, and in some roles, that might be the exact skill set they are looking for. We are a medical device company looking to hire a medical expert in the field of cardiology, and that is what your background happens to be. It’s a match made in heaven, and you’re off to the races.

But what if you have a background in cardiology and you’re interested in working at Fitbit?

This has got me thinking about something I’ll call tangential technical skills.

To me, tangential technical skills are when you have a deep understanding and skill set of a discipline that is not directly related to your job, or a job you hope to have. Some examples might be: civil engineering and working for a construction software company; material science and working for a 3D printing company; cardiology and working for a wearable company, etc. etc.

My point here is that Jane clearly has a depth of understanding and know-how that is helpful to this organization, but not in ways they may directly appreciate.

I’m a mechanical engineer. I have built consumer hardware products. If I apply to a job at a consumer electronics hardware startup, my experience is pretty directly applicable. But what about if I apply to a robotics company that sells to large organizations on infrastructure projects? Clearly my experience is not directly related.

The challenge for any applicant, let alone Jane, is to convince the company to hire them by telling a story that links past experience, current skill sets, and a future between them and the organization.

I have told other VFC startup-hopefuls in the past: “no one cares about your experience, they care what you can do for them”. I don’t fully believe that, because ultimately I do care about your life experience and I want to work with people I enjoy getting to know and hanging out with (the Layover Test), but ultimately it is up to the applicant to express why their experience has value in this scenario.

This is where I get into deep versus surface-level technical roles.

I worked for a 3D printing startup for 3 years. Prior to joining, I had completed maybe 5 3D prints in my entire life through school and work projects. I understood the concept and how the machines worked, but I was far from an expert.

But I had nearly 2 years experience through my co-ops at 6 different organizations, and could bring a wealth of design intuition and organizational experience to the team. I had worked for 6 organizations, of various sizes, and saw how they structured processes, ran meetings, solved problems, and made a profit. That had tremendous value to a small team at the stage I was joining.

The role I was hired into was a surface-level technical role.

I’m confident anyone with some mechanical background and a lot of enthusiasm could have been a great fit for that job. Not that everyone would have been successful, but that the right person could have had a huge variety of backgrounds. I’m fortunate that person ended up being me.

But consider a much larger organization, say a company of 100+ people, hiring for a mechanical engineering role. They aren’t looking for someone to come in and be a generalist; they are looking for specific skill sets to fit within the larger machine. They are trying to find a specific puzzle piece, a right-sized gear, to help the organization grow through a very specific challenge.

This is what I would describe as a deep technical role.

If you’re a machine learning company, you probably want to hire people with deep technical knowledge of machine learning (at least for a machine learning computer scientist role).

Now take this one step further. Say you have a Ph. D. in Material Science, but you’re interested in a junior mechanical design role. I would say you have tangential technical skills to the role. Should you apply? Are you likely to get it?

This brings us to the heart of this problem.

If you believe you would be a good fit for the role, you should apply. That is a given regardless of the situation.

Does it interest you? Does it leverage your talents and skills? Can you provide value to the organization?

If you answered yes to all 3, you should apply regardless of your situation.

But are you likely to get it?

That depends a lot on you, and whether it is a deep or surface-level technical role.

But here’s how I would approach it.

If you can put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager: ask yourself ‘what are they looking for?’ They likely have a long list of requirements they would like to check off, such as experience designing electronics, understands their way around Solidworks, can code in Python, etc. etc. They also have a second checklist of things that would be nice to have, like experience working for a startup, a go-getter attitude, design sense, etc. etc.

In many cases, your goal in the interview is to check as many boxes off the first and second list as possible.

Then there is the third list, which I would describe as open-ended culture and team fit. Do they like you? Do you like them? Are you interesting to one another? Will you fit with the team? The Layover Test. These are the intangibles that many small companies care about.

Here’s what I would recommend.

With the first list, my best advice would be to show all the things you’ve done that would check the requirements boxes.

This can often be as simple as going through the job description before hand, and writing out examples of things you’ve done that met that particular requirement, and then doing some clean-up to package those stories nicely. A good friend who is willing to listen is helpful here.

Also don’t feel like you need to meet every requirement. No one does. If you do, you’re aiming too low, and the job won’t be an area of growth for you!

You are also likely to have much more success with surface-level technical roles, not deep technical roles.

If you’re a Material Scientist applying for a Junior Mechanical Design role, describe the projects where you had to build a jig, reset a machine, tinker with something, or otherwise use your mechanical knowledge to get the result you wanted. In this phase, a hiring manager wants to see that you can do the job required and have enough experience to get up-to-speed quickly. No one wants to babysit, but they don’t expect you to be an expert on day one either.

With the second list, delve into the way you solve problems.

Developing a technical skill set — any technical skill set — is primarily about problem solving in structured, repeatable, measured ways. The techniques may differ, and obviously the specific tasks will be different, but the methodologies, and most importantly the mindset, is (relatively) consistent across disciplines.

These are also sometimes called transferable skills, or soft skills. Seth Godin has an epic rant on them here called Let’s stop calling them ‘soft skills’.

My experience throughout my degree and now into the workforce has been that the technical details — solid mechanics, fluid dynamics, stress calculations — are significantly less important than the methods of problem solving I learned along the way. Knowing how to break a big problem down into its constituent parts, how to think from first principles, how to run an experiment, how to develop new insight, how to think probabilistically, how to make an argument and gather evidence to support it which could lead to a thoughtful decision; these are the real skill sets of value to an organization.

This is ultimately what tangentially technical applicants must convince potential employers: their experience and skill sets have merit beyond just the acute, domain-specific technical details.

The third list is really up to you. This part is about 2-way fit, and that’s the topic of another blog post.

So back to Jane: what is she to do? She has a skill set that is tangential to many of the roles she is applying for.

First, I would recommend she be open-minded about the roles she considers. Startups are ultimately looking for smart, ambitious, relentlessly resourceful people to help them on their journey. If she has skills and experience that aligns with that journey, that’s a bonus, but that shouldn’t preclude her from joining along if they can be useful.

Second, I would recommend she make an air-tight case for list number 1. How does one meet the job requirements? Be specific, practiced, and thoughtful in that response. Make it easy for the hiring manager to check all the boxes on their list here. In this case, it’s not about blowing their socks off, it’s about meeting the bar.

Third, and this is the most important part, show them how the tangential technical skills bring value to the organization as a whole. If she’s up against another candidate who meets all the requirements, but doesn’t have her depth of background, the choice should be easy. Would you rather hire the analyst in operations who has a business degree, or the equally qualified person who has a Ph.D. in an unrelated field? All things equal, I’m taking the Ph.D.

Fourth, consider what it really means to learn and adapt. If she could learn an entire range of tangential technical skills, what’s stopping you from learning a new set? In her case as a new grad, she’s only been learning about this tangential career for 4 years (maybe longer with grad and post-grad degrees) but there’s nothing to say she can’t learn a new set of skills. If she thinks back to herself entering university, I’m sure she could have gone in a huge number of directions. Now that she’s older and more experience, she is no less intelligent and just as capable of learning something new. She should make the case for herself that she can grow into the role as needed. She’s willing to learn and adaptable. It may not work on all recruiters, but those two sayings are music to my ears.

So that’s what I’d do: search broadly, check the boxes, show the value of existing experience and skill sets, and learn to adapt.

Best of luck.

Thoughts on Thoughts by Paul Graham

June 17, 2020

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Meditations on Seeing the World Around You

Jun 17, 2020

Seth Godin was on the Tim Ferriss Podcast, twice in fact, and has distilled years of hard-earned wisdom into easily-digestible nuggets.

Here are some of the highlights around making a blog.

"The daily blog...it's one of the top 5 career decisions I've ever made."

"I don't need anyone's permission. I don't need to go out and promote it. I don't use any analytics. I don't have comments. It's just: this is what I noticed today and I thought I'd share it with you."

"Everyone should blog, even if it's not under their own name, every single day. If you are in public, making predictions and noticing things, your life gets better, because you will find a discipline that can't help but benefit you. If you want to do it in a diary, that's fine, but the problem with diaries is because they're private you can start hiding. Are you able, every day, to say one thing that's new that you can stand behind?"

I love the idea of simply doing something, without anyone’s permission, because you want to, without pressure to please or entertain or enlighten.

It’s just here, this is something I noticed today.

I’ve made this commitment to blog every day for 30 days for at least 15 minutes. It is incredible what you can accomplish in 15 minutes.

But perhaps the more incredible thing is the effect it starts to have on your awareness of the world around you.

I’ve started noticing things. Little things. Sometimes they make it into a blog post, but often they don’t. They are little things in the world, but there is some wisdom there waiting to be had. Here are a few:

• I noticed the basil I planted in my garden has started growing new sprouts

• I noticed that in the evening, the sunset hits my bed at just the right angle to illuminate the whole thing, as if to say “Don’t worry, I’m preparing this for you.”

• I noticed the new bike lanes added to the road in front of my building. They are supposedly temporary, but within 2 days, the traffic congestion has diminished and people have learned to cope with reduced lanes.

• I noticed the shear volume of people playing outside, walking, and being present in the neighbourhood last night. It’s amazing what nice weather, 2 months of quarantine and social distancing, and a big open space to do to a community.

• I noticed that people in the park prefer to sit under the trees around the edges rather than in the middle of the field. I’m sure some park designer has thought long and hard about this, but why not put more trees in the middle? Would that make the center of the park more desirable? People playing ultimate or soccer prefer the open space, but it is not used nearly as widely as the slightly-inclined, shaded edges around the perimeter.

• I noticed that I have been identifying thoughts passing through my head that are “blog worthy”, as if they are pieces of sushi on a conveyor belt passing my table at an automated sushi bar in Tokyo. If I like the look of one, I grab it off the conveyor and put it on my table, saving it for posting to the blog later.

• I noticed how easily I can be distracted throughout the day. This is something I need to work on. It’s not just about laser focus - sometimes distractions are welcome! - but rather about what I am being distracted by. I would rather be disrupted by the urge to go for a run than by a cute cat video

Perhaps all this noticing will yield something more productive in the future.

HT: Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, CJ Chilvers

Thoughts on the Most Important Trait for New Hires

Nov 7, 2018

A Canadian Manifesto

Everything I ever needed to know about sports I learned from my grandfather.

Jan 25, 2016

When I was 12-years-old, my grandparents attended every hockey game that season. They lived more than half an hour away, and would drive to watch us practice. They loved the run-down old hockey rinks. They loved the smell of rusting shower drains, teenage angst and team spirit. They loved the camaraderie of the parents, and the union of families around a common goal. They loved that I loved it, and I really did.

I was never the best hockey player on the team - in fact, for a long time I might have been the worst - but my grandfather would watch me play and always give me tips. He taught me to shield the puck and drive to the net. He taught me how to take a proper slap-shot. He taught me when not to take a slap shot. He taught me the power and surprise that a good wrist shot can hold. He taught me how to stick handle, and always look for the open man.

But the most important lessons he taught me had nothing to do with hockey.

Always Shake Hands

Before every game we shook hands with the other team. He taught me to always look them straight in the eye, give a firm hand shake, wish them good luck, and mean it. As much as we brought emotion into the game, it was important to remember we were all just kids, and win or lose, we were still just a group of friends playing a game we loved.

After every game I shook the coaches’ hands. He taught me that the coaches never got paid for their time, and they were as invested in the games as we were. Saying thank you, and appreciating their time was all they ever wanted to receive from us players, and the least we could do was give it to them. I think every coach I ever had was shocked the first time I did it, but it was a tradition I continue to this day.

Most importantly, he taught me to always thank the referees. This was always the hardest for me. I never held it against my opponents for wanting to win, even if it meant a cheap shot from behind, or a slew-foot in front of the net. To be honest, I usually deserved those. The things that drove me crazy were the bad calls - or non-calls - that took a game from two teams playing their hearts out, to a referee wanting to flex their muscles. But they put up with more abuse than anyone, and are just trying to do their best. The least I could do was shake their hands and thank them at the end of the game.

I always tried to remember that my grandfather was a referee for years, and imagine him in their shoes. I’m sure he blew calls sometime too - nobody’s perfect.

You Can’t Win Them All, But You Can Be Kind

Scoring a goal is hard. That’s why, when you do, it’s such a big deal.

Scoring a goal in a 1–0 game is particularly hard. More so in the third period in a playoff final.

But for every time I have had a glorious, celebratory moment where everything went right, I’ve had at least two that went wrong.

And for every game that you walk all over the other team and beat them by 5, there’s half a dozen where you get schmucked.

And most importantly, for every game you felt the refs cheated you out, remembering that they weren’t the ones who put the puck in the back of your net. Just as much as a ref can make it an uphill battle, you can dig deep and beat them. For every game you feel the ref is against you, there are two where you get the benefit of the doubt.

It’s important to remember in those moments of highlights, that you too were on the other side.

I never got flack from my grandfather for any game that we lost, as long as I gave it 110%. The games I dogged it he would ride me, but justifiably so. But one game we blew out the other team, something unruly like 10–1. I had a hat trick, and surely let the other team know. I think I drew about 4 penalties for being a bit of a smart ass as well. He lit me up on the car ride home. I’ve never heard him so cross. I had played an excellent game and did all the little things right except one: be kind.

Jeff Bezos talked about how it is easier to talented than to be kind. In moments of glory, it is even harder, but no less important. You will go much further in life by being kind than you ever will being smart or talented. Best to remember that, no matter what the score is.

Be Gritty, Be Tough, Be Smart

When I was about 10 years old my grandfather taught me what I thought was the best move on the planet.

I happened to hit a growth spurt much sooner than the rest of the kids my age, and that gave me some ungodly long legs. Thankfully, I was playing pretty high-level soccer at the time, so my coordination never really diminished. This combined for a huge edge in speed for a few years. I used to out-skate people to the puck who had a 3 stride head-start. I beat out more icings that year than anyone else in the league. I also scored a ton of breakaway goals.

I was always strong at the open-ice game, but when I got into an opponents end, particularly one-on-one, I tended to falter. I had no stick-handling ability, and generally just chose the shot. Sometimes it worked, often it didn’t.

Then my grandfather told me to just go around the guy, and cut hard to the net. I had never really thought about it, but putting your body-weight into someone when you have the puck isn’t a penalty. Running them over surely is, but leaning on someone is totally fine. I learned to shield the puck with my body and blow by people, and scored about a dozen goals that year this way. No one really knew what to do. Eventually I would just get out-muscled, but for a few golden years this worked wonderfully.

My love of being physical, though not drawing penalties, eventually shaped the way I learned to play. I would out-skate opponents on open ice, and then out-muscle them in the corner. This generally made up for my lack of stick-handling ability, and got me far more used to holding onto the puck. Eventually, teams would double-team me, and I learned to pass with intention.

Very quickly my mantra became: Be Gritty, Be Tough, Be Smart.

Being gritty meant being willing to go into the tough areas of the ice - the corner, in front of the net, playing hard defense and forcing opponents to make decisions. I learned to play just as hard in the tough areas as in the open ice.

Being tough meant not quitting when someone pulled a cheap shot. I was bigger than most, so elbows, sticks, slashes, and my fair share of punches to the head were taken. If I retaliated, I surely got the door. Being tough meant not taking people’s crap, and hitting them back where it hurt most: in the back of the net. Nothing rattles a defenseman more than cutting hard to the net and scoring after taking 10 whacks to the ankles.

And most importantly, being smart, which meant knowing when to channel your emotions, and when to calm them down. Being a smart player meant learning to use your opponents faults against them. After about a dozen whacks to the legs, you have two options: hit the guy back, or change your strategy. Changing strategy just meant going after the other defenseman. Sometimes, you just have to change it up.

Win As A Team, Lose As A Team

I had a coach during one of the best years of my short hockey career who only ever had two rules:

1. No throwing ice - he had a kid miss out on an entire season because someone hit him in the eye and he couldn’t play.

2. No riding a teammate for anything - doesn’t matter if he puts one in your own net in OT of the tournament finals, he’s a teammate and a friend

It is hard to take the puck all the way up the ice, beat every player, and score on your own. Some players might be able to do it, some might even be able to do it with some regularity. But it is far harder to teach 15 kids to put their egos aside and play as a team. That’s the true challenge of any coach, parent, mentor or captain. When you’re 12 and have some decent skill, you think you can do it all on your own all the time. Sometimes you might even be right, but in the dying minutes of a tight game, that attitude isn’t going to save you.

My grandfather always taught me to look first before shooting - there might be someone in a better position than you. Sometimes you need to be mindful enough to make the pass. Sometimes you need to just let it fly on your own. But the trick to being a deadly player is to keep your opponent guessing.

You have to win as a team, and lose as a team. You can’t do this on your own. When you’re down one with 1:30 remaining in the last game of a tournament, it isn’t going to be your clutch goal-scorer that gets you through. When you’re up one and grinding it out in the corner with second remaining against the toughest team in the league, it isn’t a star goalie that will save you. And when you’re in the dressing room after a 12–1 embarrassment, and you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck, it isn’t a new pair of skates or a high-priced stick that is going to get you back on track.

It’s your team. Win as one, and lose as one.

Play Both Ends of the Ice

One season I made the top 10 goal-scorers list. I did all the little things right - back-checked hard, ground it out in the corners, set screens in front of the net, made smart passes, changed lines when the team needed it - whatever it took. Then suddenly I decided I wanted to be a top scorer. My game fell off the rails, and I started playing lousy. I made simply mistakes often, and my team suffered.

Trying to be one-man-show, hot-shot goal scorer didn’t really suit me.

In fact, I rarely ever got the puck.

Constantly looking for that breakaway pass where I could pull a sweet move that everyone would be talking about in the hallways at school on Monday led to barely ever seeing it.

It was my grandfather, from his watchful perch in the corner of the rink, who noticed first. He walked around to the bench and called me over. He told me to knock off the showboating, and go get the puck if I wanted to score.

That made some sense to me.

If no one is going to give me the puck, maybe I had best go get it for myself.

I scored a hat-trick in the third period of that game.

More impressive though, I stole the puck about 8 times.

Learning to back-check hard, clog up the middle of the ice, help the defense, and force the other team to make mistakes, wound up with me controlling the game rather than chasing it.

Being a two-way player means you do not just what is best for you, but what is best for the team. Sometimes, people just need some help, and that means you’ve gotta dig deep and push out that extra 10%.

You win when everyone commits and does their job. You win consistently when everyone does their job, and supports one another.

You win when you play both ends of the ice.

Dominate Humbly

In what was the pinnacle year of my hockey career, I was the captain of the top team in the league, we had won the regular season, and it was the winter holidays. Holidays meant tournaments, and tournaments meant a trip with your friends and family. We went to London, Ontario.

We had been accepted into the invitational tournament, and played off against some of the top teams in our age group from leagues around the GTA and surrounding area.

We had a pretty stacked team, and felt we could do pretty well in the tournament, but as it goes with these things, you never really know.

But more than I have ever felt in hockey, we were a team that was hungry for it. We wanted this one, and we came prepared. New skates, lucky skate laces, special hockey tape, team bracelets for luck, and a fighting spirit to protect one another.

The first game, my first shift, I absolutely leveled a kid. Kind of accidentally (he more ran into me than me into him), but I dropped my shoulder at the last minute. He flew, I skated to the penalty box, we scored 2 goals short-handed, I had one on a breakaway when I left the box, and we won the game easily.

The second game, we switched up some of the lines to try some new combinations, and won even bigger than our previous game. We never lost focus, but instead worked at perfecting our systems knowing that the hardest teams were yet to come.

The third game we played the home team, the favourite, and one that was undoubtedly skilled. There was not a single weak player in their entire line-up, and some guys more than twice my size. I was the biggest player on our team, and was dwarfed in comparison. We scored two quick goals, and they came roaring back. With a questionable hack at the goalie after the buzzer had gone, the ref ruled it a goal and the game ended 2–2.

In the quarter- and semi-finals, we played local teams and swept them without difficulty. We had the momentum, all pistons were going, and we were playing the best hockey of the year so far.

Up to this point, one might say we dominated the tournament. We had a goal difference of about 20 points in 5 games, had 3 players at the top of the scoring leader board, and were set to take center stage in the finals. We had momentum, we had the belief, and we could almost taste it.

The final game was against the team we tied in the round-robin, and they seemed to have brought some friends. We were out-worked, out-classed, and out-played the entire game. Our goalie stood on his head, stopped more than 40 shots, and we lost 5–0. I think maybe 3 guys on the team had shots the whole game, and we never really tested their goalie. We got smoked, and not gently.

It was a rough way to end the tournament, but a stark lesson.

Sometimes, you’re going to be the champions, and you get the spoils that come with that. Sometimes, you’re going to come in last.

Sometimes you are going to get so close to victory, and have it ripped from your hands.

When we shook the other team’s hands at the end of the game, we acknowledged that they bettered us that day. They dominated. And when they shook our hands back, the told us we were a worthy adversary, and they had just hit their stride at the right moment. We earned their respect, and they ours.

They dominated, humbly.

A hard lesson to learn is how to hold your head high when you lose. A far harder lesson is to learn to be humble when you win.

Doing a huge celebration might make the highlight reel for 2 days, but accepting that sometimes you just get lucky is what turns you into a legend.

That year, after the tournament, we went back to our own league and won the championship. I scored the game-winning goal, and won the player of the game. But throughout the entire season, the highlight for me was the day I was voted captain by my teammates. More than the shiny MVP trophy, more than my name on a cup, more than a team photo or the glory that came on Monday when I gloated to all my friends at school - being part of a team that respected, fought for, and worked for one another was the best prize of all.

So when you play, in hockey, business or life, always aim to dominate. And when you do, do so humbly.

So if I’ve learned anything from my grandfather, about sports and about life, it is:

Always shake hands; with opponents, with coaches, and with referees.
Always be kind no matter the outcome.
Be gritty, be tough, and be smart.
Win as a team, lose as a team
Always play both ends of the ice.
And Dominate, Humbly.

We are Canadian, after all.

“True love is waking up at 5am on a Sunday to watch a 6am hockey practice.”

Hat tip: Aliza Rana, Papa

Jan 21, 2016

I’ve set a goal this year of running a half marathon.

Really, running a half marathon is simple. In fact, running an ultra-marathon is simple.

Two steps:

1. Run.

2. When you hit your goal, stop.

But running an ultra-marathon, or any significant distance for that matter, is not easy.

I believe we fundamentally misunderstand the difference between complexity and difficulty. In many facets of the world, we perceive complexity and difficulty as the same thing, but really they are not.

Look at making a beautiful steak dinner. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, you want to make a 2-Michelin-star steak dinner. You’re thinking garlic mashed potatoes, carrots, asparagus, steak, red wine reduction, and creme brulee for dessert. You need some basic ingredients - steak, good red wine, potatoes, butter, garlic, carrots, asparagus, lemon, salt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and so on.

The point is that any one of the steps to making a 2-Michelin-Star dinner is actually quite simple:

Boil Potatoes. Nailed it.

Mash potatoes. Nailed it again. On a roll here.

Microwave garlic and butter together, add to potatoes. I’m a superstar. Call me Chef Ramsay from now on.

Each step is like this - none of them, on their own, are all that difficult. The reason we associate difficulty with completing this task is because we get overwhelmed with the complexity of the issue.

I found this everyday in my engineering degree. Solve for the total combined stress in the beam. Well, crap. That’s really hard, isn’t it?

When actually, it’s really not.

Draw a Force Body Diagram. Label the stuff you have, and the stuff you don’t. Figure out what equations apply to this scenario. Figure out if you can use one of those to find the stuff you don’t have. Plug in the stuff you have into the equations to find the stuff you don’t. Repeat as needed.

Overall, the algorithm is quite simple, but it is certainly complex.

My final exam in university was Robotic Manipulators. We had to calculate the forces required, output speeds, and fully design a control system to move a robotic arm from one position, to performing an action in another position - by hand. That’s not a simple task. But once you know the process, each step is rather trivial: multiply these things together, add these ones up, and solve for this variable.

Not a single operation in the entire class was harder than grade 11 math.

That’s beautiful, isn’t it?

But why do we think that robots are so difficult?

Because of the complexity.

I tend to think of complexity as “number of steps”.

Making a 2-Michelin-Star dinner is more complex than making PB&J or Tomato Soup, but fundamentally, none of the steps are any more challenging. It isn’t harder, just more complicated.

If you start to dissociate complexity with difficulty, you will start to realize that the vast majority of things we view as really challenging in the world are in fact quite straight-forward - there are just a lot of steps.

Here’s another way to think about it.

When I learned about Fatigue Life in Solid Mechanics (how long it takes something to fail over time and repetition) we used this thing called a “stress factor”. It was symbolized by the greek letter Psi. It was calculated by the affectionately named “k-factors”. They were labelled as follows:

Psi = ka*kb*kc*kd*ke*kf

Each k-factor represented its only area of significance - ka is temperature, kb is material, kc is the kind of notch in the system around where your stresses build up, and so on.

It’s simple to calculate each k-factor, and then you just multiply them all together. If something isn’t relevant to the calculation, it is gets a 1, so as not to change anything (ex. at room temperature).

Most people think of complexity like this:

Complexity = Multiplication of the difficulty of all of the steps

Say that 1 is the difficulty of something very simple, like putting on a pair of pants. No one bats an eyelash about how hard it is to put pants on - unless you’re a university student, but we’ll ignore that for now.

So if you’re making your bed:

Complexity = 1.00001*1.00001*1.00001*1.00001

There may only be 4 steps, and each one is easy.

But if you’re running a marathon:

Complexity = 1000

There’s only really 1 step — run — but it is far from easy.

But I fundamentally think this is the wrong way to approach this problem.

I refer to this as the “Dominoes” Fallacy - Dominoes, because there are many moving parts, but each individual step is quite simple. When you arrange an enormous array of Dominoes, setting up any individual Domino is not a hard task, but it certainly is a complex endeavor. These are fundamentally different things, however, and we cannot think of them as being the same.

I think about it like this:

Difficulty = How hard is each individual task on its own
Complexity = How many tasks are there

Under this framework, there are 4 possible scenarios, which I’ve given examples for below:

Simple and Easy: Making your bed
Simple and Hard: Running a marathon
Complex and Easy: Making a perfect steak dinner
Complex and Hard: Designing a space shuttle

Most people believe that you tackle difficult and complex problems the same way, but you really can’t treat them as the same entity at all - you must deal with them differently.

Running a marathon is a hard task, but it isn’t complex. There really isn’t any strategy or planning required - it is all about execution in the moment.

To tackle hard problems, we must dip into the part of our brain that deals with mental grit, creativity, and innovation.

Making a 2-Michelin-star dinner isn’t hard, but it is complex. There requires a great deal of strategy and planning, and execution in the moment is less important. If you can plan out your steps methodically, and continually perform them correctly, accomplishing a complex task is no sweat at all. It is really just accomplishing a long series of simple tasks.

Peter Thiel in Zero to One talks about the importance of both humans and computers, and how we are fundamentally different systems. Humans are amazing at solving hard problems - we can think abstractly, be innovative, and make connections where there were previously none. Computers are amazing at solving complex problems - they can do routine, simple steps, in remarkably high volumes, with amazing accuracy and precision.

When you face a problem in life, business, relationships or otherwise - ask yourself - is this hard, or complex?

Complex tends to lend itself to automation, where hard lends itself to ingenuity. Complex problems can be solved if they can be ordered (Computer Science problem) but hard problems can be solved if they can be untangled (Mathematics problem).

It is at the intersection of these two concepts - the hard complex problems - that the true magic happens. We call this innovation. Peter Thiel founded Palantir which specializes in large-scale data analytics based on this principle - using computers for complex challenges, and humans for hard ones. They just raised $800 million.

The next time you run into a problem, ask yourself these questions:

Is this hard, or complex?

If it is hard, what about it makes it hard? If it is complex, what about it makes it complex?

Can I find a solution to the difficulty? Can I automate the complexity?

Do I need both?

This is a good framework and baseline to start with. I’ve used this exact technique to automate a huge majority of things in my life, such as setting up systems to take vitamins, dealing with fitness and dietary goals, dealing with exam questions at school, and designing complex interacting systems in my career.

I even aced my Robotics course.

As for the ultra-marathon? Well I’m working on it.

Hat tip: Peter Thiel (Zero to One), Derek Sivers (Tim Ferriss Podcast)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned From Ryan Holmes

Notes from a Venture for Canada Talk, Jan 13, 2016

I am part of an organization called Venture for Canada which you should most definitely check out. It’s over-arching goal is to improve the Canadian Start-up Ecosystem, and as part of that, brings in recent grads, pairs them with start-ups, and helps them to become the best entrepreneurs they can be.

As part of the program, we sometimes get guest speakers.

Last night we had two particularly high-profile speakers: John Ruffolo, CEO of OMERS Ventures, and Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite.

Together, they are some of the most influential people in the start-up space in Canada, and surely make waves into the States as well.

They told us a few stories about their companies, and about their lives, and then opened up the conversation to questions.

One of the questions was regarding finding your passion, and how to know when to pursue it.

Ryan Holmes said something really insightful, and I am paraphrasing here, but it went something like this:

Building a company is a lot like surfing. You can be a professional surfer, but if there are no waves around you, you are just paddling in the water. It goes the same if you’re an amateur surfer. But if there are big waves, you can be a mediocre surfer and still ride it. The point is that being a mediocre surfer on a big wave is still better than paddling in the water professionally.

The point he is trying to make is that in business, finding a thriving and growing market is often more important than being a great business(wo)man. A world-class CEO at a crappy company may not be able to produce world-class results, but an average CEO at a rocket-ship company might turn out okay.

But the really amazing insight is what it takes to become a world-class professional surfer.

I would say it takes two things:

• A big wave

• Experience in riding big waves

Catching a big wave is usually a function of luck: being in the right place at the right time. But any Joe Schmoe can be in the right place at the right time.

What makes you a professional is doing it consistently. In order to become experienced at riding big waves, you need to learn how to search them out, find them, and catch them consistently. It likely takes a lot of practice, quite a bit of falling, and a whole lot of courage.

The best surfers are the ones who know when to pass on the small waves so they can be in the right position to catch the big ones. They learn to read the water, and how to properly maneuver when things get rough.

So if you want to be a world-class at anything, that’s the secret recipe: big waves, and knowing how to surf.

The next time you want to start a company, ask yourself these:

Am I catching the big wave? Is there another one coming along that I should be focusing on inside?

Am I prepared to ride this out? Or is it going to be more of a yard sale?

Do you even want to surf big waves? Or would you prefer the manageable ones?

Often in tech, particularly with start-ups, people get lucky and happen on good fortune - they catch a big wave and are mediocre surfers - but more often even, people are amazing surfers and there are no waves to be found.

Want to be a world-class company?

Well then you’d best learn to surf.

Hat tip: Ryan Holmes.

June 16, 2014

I love going into thrift shops.

You can find some of the most amazing things there!

Books, cutlery, clothes and decor — there really isn’t anything you can’t find in a thrift store.

For a tenth the price of anywhere else, there really is gold to be found in these hills. Some of the best things you have to dig for, and sometimes they aren’t even there when you need them to be.

But if you go into the shop with open arms, sometimes you find exactly the kind of thing you need.

I went with my amazing girlfriend to 50 Kent — the MCC thrift store in Kitchener that is known in the area for having some pretty great stuff. MCC in itself is an amazing organization, and I would strongly recommend everyone give them a look when they have the chance.

But I went in with the right mindset: I don’t actually need anything.

I have been making a promise to myself this holiday season not simply to look for things to buy because it is that time of year, but rather to find the things people would actually want to pay for themselves.

In a material, commercially-driven world, I strongly think we need to change from acquiring MORE stuff, to acquiring THE RIGHT stuff.

Focus on quality over quantity.

And the beauty of quality, is that it is really subjective.

Why should quality mean expensive? Is Gucci any better quality than hand-sewn? Would you rather have a $5000 Chanel, gold leaf scarf, or one lovingly knit by your own grandmother?

I would much rather the second one.

Buy good stuff is nice, but the best stuff you can’t buy.

The best stuff, as Tom Kelley, cofounder of IDEO says in the documentary Objectified (which I have personally watched probably 15 times), the best things are those that get better with time.

What is something that you own that gets better with time?

My computer doesn’t get better with time. In fact it gets much worse.

My bed surely doesn’t get better with time. My back is killing me.

My toothbrush, my shoes, even that expensive suit I bought doesn’t get better with time.

But my notepad does. Every time I use it, I semi-permanently ingrain the time and place and thoughts of a day-gone-by into my external memory source. That, and every time it crinkles a little more, it becomes used, tattered, and uniquely my own. No other notebook in the world will get used or damaged or bent the way mine does. And that’s pretty neat!

The desk I am currently writing on gets better with time. In fact, it isn’t even my desk! My roommate and I were walking home late one night and spotted it out on a curb, and I liked it so much, I carried it to our house and have had it ever since.

We may have been a little bit inebriated when this happened, but it is excellent nonetheless.

The desk is tattered and scratched and beaten up and cracked, but it is mine. It has a million stories engraved into its face, and continues to age gracefully. One day I might just pitch it, or cut it up and make something uniquely new with it, but until then, I am happy with it. It is big and beautiful and does everything I need a desk to do.

The frying pan I own is one of my favourite gifts like this. Every time I make an egg in this particular pan, which I use almost exclusively for making eggs, I feel a slightly closer connection to the pan. Is that weird? Probably.

But this pan is as much growing and changing as I am. In my own kitchen, I want the kind of equipment I trust to do the job I need them to do. I want a knife that fits my hand and is uniquely mine (like the chef’s knife I currently use and is chipped just where I want it to be) and I want pans that heat the way I know they will.

They aren’t perfect by any stretch, but they are mine. And that’s good enough for me.

But one of the most important pieces of my kitchen is my cookbook collection.

Yes, you read that right, it’s a collection.

And the beautiful thing about this collection, is nearly all of these books are bought second-hand.

Why buy a new cookbook? Is it to say that the food someone conceived 5 years ago will be less delicious than the food you can find in a bookstore cookbook today? Unlikely.

I don’t care much for trendy cuisine anyways. Mostly because I am not nearly the chef that food demands.

But when it comes to making delicious food, there are books I trust.

And all of them are second-hand.

They aren’t cheap or tattered though.

I have a Jamie Oliver cookbook called COOK which I bought for $4.

Wait, hold-up.

$4!?

$4!!!!!??????? FOUR DOLLARS!????

Yup. Four bucks.

It is a $50 cookbook which I bought from 50 Kent for $4. And it is a thing of beauty.

Not only is it Jamie Oliver, who is personally a hero of mine, but it is previously used loved, and left in that twilight zone between perfectly cared for and loved fully. You can tell someone has flipped through these pages, but was careful not to rip them.

This is the best condition you can find a cookbook in.

Other than having bits of food splattered in it. That’s my favourite.

But when I think of thrift stores, I think of the stories behind these things.

Did people intentionally throw these out? Did they not have a use for them anymore? Or were they just trying to pass along all the joy and love these things brought to them previously?

I like to think the second one.

So this holiday season, I encourage you to pass on the love. Take something you own that you care about, and donate it to a thrift store. Let someone else get the joys of using it, loving it, and becoming one with it, just as you have.

The holidays are a time of giving. And that doesn’t mean doing something new. It means doing something thoughtful.

So skip the mall. Pass up on the gift cards. Give something pre-loved, re-loved, and to-be-loved, because that is the greatest gift of all.

There is a cookbook next to me called Muffin Mania, bought for $2, that has message in the front:

Dear Mum,

Welcome home
Happy Thanksgiving

Love Barb

October 1982

Thank you Barb, thank you Barb’s Mum, for this beautiful gift. I promise to love it the way I know the both of you did.

And adequately stuff my face with baked goods for the holidays.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The unpaid internship model has been a controversial topic in the past few years, and as a student at the largest cooperative university in the world — just north of 20,000 coop students apparently — I felt as though I should weigh in on the topic.

In my mind, there are many reasons out there why someone would take an unpaid internship. If you can’t find a paid internship, and you need the experience to stay competitive with the growing experience market, then that seems like a good justification for doing so. At the University of Waterloo, students often struggle to find their first coop job. This often due to a lack of experience, a small number of available openings for first year students, and a genuine lack of need for (relatively) under-skilled employees. But if one student gets a coop job in their first term, and no one else does, economics tells us that they have a competitive advantage.

If one student gets a job, the rest must as well to stay competitive.

And herein lies the predicament.

If I get an internship, paid, full employee benefits, whatever — and you also get an internship, unpaid, no benefits, nadda — then by our credentials, on paper, we are probably comparable. But there are some serious discrepancies here.

The three reasons a company won’t want to pay their interns, from a business perspective:

1. They cannot afford to pay another employee, especially a student.

2. They do not value the work that the student will be doing high enough to pay them at all.

3. They do not want to commit to the requirements of legally having an employee, especially an untrained student.

There is some hidden meaning under each of these.

Number 1: if a company is not able to pay an employee, do you really want to work for that company? The primary focus and purpose of a company, despite what anyone tells you, is to make money. If a company makes money, they can pay employees, who in turn work for the company in exchange for money. This is how the cycle works. If a company is not making money, it is not a successful company. Period. This excludes not-for-profits and charity organizations, for which I think this definition still applies, but there is more room for exceptions.

From the business standpoint, getting free work is another way for SOME people at the company to make money without giving the intern their share. If the company cannot pay you because they do not have the money to do so, then having another employee does NOT help that. If the intern coming in is the magical trigger that turns things around and causes the company to be profitable again, then the company is lying to itself. Not only do they have unpaid employees, but now they admit to making profit as a company and NOT sharing it with all of the workers.

I’m not saying that a company must share everything evenly, or even in some distributed manner, with all its employees. If you own the company and want to take a 50% share, then heck, you can do that — so long as you can still pay your employees with the other part.

Before you work at an unpaid internship, ask anyone if they feel like hiring 5 people and only paying 4 of them seems fair. There are lots of ways companies justify this, but then again, fairness really isn’t fair anymore, is it?

Number 2: If a company refuses to pay an intern for their work, there is a good chance that the work the intern is completing is not deemed as valuable enough as to be worth adequate payment.

Hiring someone to do your bitch work is never a good thing. I won’t get into why I think this is ethically, professionally, and morally wrong, but I am going to hope that you can guess I don’t like it. But more so, if, as an intern, someone is willing to hire you but not pay you for your work, there is a good chance it is because you are filing papers, photocopying something, or drafting documents that take a lot of time but little effort. Ask yourself: could a 10th-grade student do this? Could a 9th-grade student? Could someone with no education whatsoever do this?

That isn’t to say that any job is above you, but it is to say that the point of an internship is to gain valuable experience towards a certain career or field. Doctors have to do years of residence — essentially, a very long internship — before they are certified as doctors. This is invaluable experience, and really breaks them into the position of being a medical professional. This is where doctors take the academic training and combine it with real-world scenarios. If I had the choice, I would take a doctor with real-world training over academic training in almost any situation.

However, this is to say that if your goals are to be an engineer, or a designer, or a scientist, or a health profession, or whatever you dream to be, if your internship isn’t going to pay you, do you think they are going to fully embrace you as an employee and trust you with responsibility? Probably not. Do you think you are going to get challenging projects and mission critical assignments? Nope, definitely not.

Number 3: This is where things get gruesome.

One doesn’t have to go very far down the internet rabbit hole to find examples of interns being taken advantage of.

Try this, this, this, this or this.

Some choice quotes in here:

Young German worked until 6am for three consecutive days before collapse at home in east London

Adam’s death marks the third death of a student engaged in work-integrated learning in the last 10 months in Ontario

Currently, students engaged in unpaid work-integrated learning programs are not covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) or the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA)

So there you go.

It breaks my heart to see things like this. Youth inexplicably manipulated in order to achieve further profit. Disgusting.

But the technical details are perhaps more terrifying.

In Ontario, where I live and study, you are only recognized as an employee under the Occupational Health and Safety Act or the Employment Standards Act, 2000, if you are paid, or under certain conditions, most often of which are not covered with unpaid internships.

This means that an employer does not legally have to follow health and safety guidelines unless they are paying you.

So not only are you working for free, but you are also putting your life at risk.

And with the number of students who have been killed in the workplace rising every year, there is no reason for anyone to put themselves at that kind of risk. You’re better to be without an internship experience, than to have that experience be your last.

I must admit that my school, the University of Waterloo, has released a statement, found here, about unpaid internships. To summarize, they are approved on a case-by-case basis, and are usually in volunteer, not-for-profit, charity, or humanitarian sectors, only because they ACTUALLY do not have the money to pay people. And they need the help. And I think that is wrong, but that’s another discussion all together.

So I’m going to make a short list of internships I feel are acceptable to work in unpaid:

1. Charitable organizations for whom paying you would result in not being able to carry out their mission to a significant extent. For example, the American Cancer Society doesn’t count — they have LOTS of money — but The Working Center in Kitchener, ON might.

2. Not-for-profits where the ability of the organization to provide aid is dependent on both their current income and having additional staff. This would justify not paying people, because otherwise, the entire project fails.

3. Some (not all) international internships where transportation, room and board, food, and some external expenses are covered in exchange for work. This is the same as them paying you and you paying your bills.

4. Start-up work where payment is in the form of equity. This is another form of payment.

5. Small academic projects for companies, such as sponsored Master’s work or research in a particular area. If a research wishes to develop a topic for a specific segment of research, and requires company

And that’s about it.

So now that I have quite extensively laid this out, maybe the better question is: why do we have unpaid internships at all?

Competition. Lowering employment rates for students. Increasing constraints on companies forcing tighter margins.

Lots of reasons.

But I think the real problem breaks down to 3 subgroups of people:

1. Employers

2. Students

3. Mediators

Employers must take responsibility for this trend as they are the ones doing the hiring. If you can’t afford to pay a student what they are worth, then don’t hire a student. Plain and simple. If your business cannot operate without them being there to supplement your workload, then you run a crappy business. End of discussion.

Employers, inevitably, are responsible for the safety and well-being of all their employees. Part of that “well-being” clause means being able to pay them. And care for their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. If we know anything from the Social Determinants of Health (more on that later), it is that having enough money to pay for the basic amenities drastically improves people’s health. And as an employer, I feel that is their responsibility when it comes to their employees.

More importantly, perhaps, is that legally we have minimum wage restrictions for this very reason, and in many parts of the world, unpaid internships are illegal.

Students must also take responsibility for this trend as they are the ones agreeing to work. If one student agrees to an unpaid internship, then it becomes acceptable. We, as student, as employees, as human beings in a first-world country (or otherwise), should set a precedence and agree that this is not acceptable. France has banned unpaid internships. The UK views it as illegal. Why should it be different here?

As a student, you have rights, and one of them is refusing unsafe work. Not being paid often means not being covered by any health and safety body, and that falls within the range of unsafe work, which you are legally allowed to refuse. If an employer offers to pay you less than minimum wage, that is also illegal (under most situations). Reporting these to proper authorities is performing due dilligence and ensuring that everyone has a safe internship experience.

Most importantly, as students, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Higher education should mean higher expectations, and higher expectations should mean higher responsibilities, and subsequently higher wages. That isn’t to say we should be nit-picky on how much we get paid, but we should drawn the line at being paid. After that, you’re on your own — but there are standards set for a very good reason.

Lastly, the mediators are also responsible. Mediators are the group of people or organizations that act between employers and employees, between companies and interns. If you get your internship through a university program, they are the mediators. By being a student in that program, you are putting your trust in the mediator to find, criticize, evaluate, and (hopefully) secure employment with a company. Mediators can be job search organizations, online groups, universities, specific programs, or something entirely different. Mediators must act as a buffer for those who can’t speak for themselves. Often, students have the last say in whether or not they will take a job. However, sometimes, they don’t.

At Waterloo if you get matched with a job and then don’t take it, it is viewed as an academic offense, comparable to cheating or stealing from a fellow student. For those students aiming higher than simply achieving a degree (by the very nature of being in a coop program I think this is safe to say this counts as all of them), this can be devastating. Failing a work term, getting an academic offense, or being forced into a job that you hate, is a difficult decision for any student. A wrong choice could ruin your academic, and in all likelihood, professional career. That is, indeed, a tough choice to make.

It is up to the mediators to do exactly that: mediate. As students, when we enroll in a program that involves a mediator like a university, we give them the power to represent our voices. That individual power, multiplied by a lot of students, equals significant leverage. Leverage to enforce policies facing employers, as well as policies facing students. The mediator has the power to ensure that employers and students do not take advantage of one another. If an employer hires a student and drops out of the search for an intern as they feel they have secured a capable candidate, and then the intern decides they do not want the job, that is a problem. If an employer hires a student and does not pay them adequately, or forces them to do work that is below their skill level, that is a problem.

This is where mediators are important. They create and enforce the rules to keep both sides honest. They are the referees. They are the ones responsible for overall well-being of both sides, and they have a large responsibility.

If either side does not like the way the mediators are mediating, it is ultimately their choice to leave, but as part of backing a mediator involves playing by their rules.

But it is up to us (us being all three groups) to ensure their rules are well-placed.

So the three pieces of action to take away from this:

1. As a student, don’t support unpaid internships. Whether it is for you, your friends, your enemies, or someone you don’t even know, unpaid internships hurts everyone. It goes against the reason we have minimum wages, and only truly benefits employers, particularly those who do not deserve to be benefited. Exceptions are listed above, otherwise, get paid for what you do. It’s that simple.
   Refuse unpaid work. That is your right. It is unfair, unjust, likely illegal, and most importantly, unsafe.
   Please protect yourself.

2. As an employer, don’t request unpaid internships. Everyone benefits from being paid, and if you can’t afford to hire a student for a decent wage, then don’t hire a student. Plain and simple. Students are people too, and in most cases, you were a student once too. Remember how hard it is? Don’t make it any more difficult. Be fair, and pay people what they are worth. I’m certain they will reward you for it.

3. As a mediator, use your power to enforce the rules that benefit both sides. Studies show that when people are paid properly, they are happier, healthier, and better workers. Ensuring students get paid, employers reap the proper benefits of interns, and everyone wins, is truly your job. Take responsibility with this, as you have an important position, and are empowered by both sides. Be kind, but be firm. Take care in what you do.

Overall, the internship system has been around for thousands of years, tracing back to ancient labours and Medieval apprenticeships, and is as relevant today as it was then. It is one of the best ways to gain experience in the “real world”, and is something I swear by.

But we must be careful that, like all great things, it is not abused.