Next time you are in a social situation, ask yourself these three questions:
- What is my default frame for this interaction?
- What are my core beliefs around abundance and scarcity that inform my default frame? Are they correct? If not, how do I recalibrate?
- How can I control and hold my recalibrated frame so I can level the playing field.
You can also apply this to any internal struggles and stresses you might be going through. Everyday there are frame battles in our own minds. Often, the key to overcoming anxiety and depression is to reframe your situation.
- What is my default frame for this interaction?
- What are my core beliefs around abundance and scarcity that inform my default frame? Are they correct? If not, how do I recalibrate?
- How can I control and hold my recalibrated frame so I can level the playing field.
You can also apply this to any internal struggles and stresses you might be going through. Everyday there are frame battles in our own minds. Often, the key to overcoming anxiety and depression is to reframe your situation.
Remember: Unless there is an obvious reason to do otherwise most of us passively accept the frames that we are given.
❤1
One of the best way to demonstrate interplay of Frames is: "respect one another's delusions" is such good advice because it recognizes that everyone has their own delusions.
1) Never put your family, friends, or significant other low on your priority list. Prefer a handful of truly close friends to a hundred acquaintances. Don’t lose touch with old friends. Occasionally stay up until the sun rises talking to people. Have parties.
2) Life is not a dress rehearsal—this is probably it. Make it count. Time is extremely limited and goes by fast. Do what makes you happy and fulfilled—few people get remembered hundreds of years after they die anyway. Don’t do stuff that doesn’t make you happy (this happens most often when other people want you to do something). Don’t spend time trying to maintain relationships with people you don’t like, and cut negative people out of your life. Negativity is really bad. Don’t let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do.
3) How to succeed: pick the right thing to do (this is critical and usually ignored), focus, believe in yourself (especially when others tell you it’s not going to work), develop personal connections with people that will help you, learn to identify talented people, and work hard. It’s hard to identify what to work on because original thought is hard.
4) On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work. Work very hard—a surprising number of people will be offended that you choose to work hard—but not so hard that the rest of your life passes you by. Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you’ll probably end up in a pretty good place. Figure out your own productivity system—don’t waste time being unorganized, working at suboptimal times, etc. Don’t be afraid to take some career risks, especially early on. Most people pick their career fairly randomly—really think hard about what you like, what fields are going to be successful, and try to talk to people in those fields.
5) On money: Whether or not money can buy happiness, it can buy freedom, and that’s a big deal. Also, lack of money is very stressful. In almost all ways, having enough money so that you don’t stress about paying rent does more to change your wellbeing than having enough money to buy your own jet. Making money is often more fun than spending it, though I personally have never regretted money I’ve spent on friends, new experiences, saving time, travel, and causes I believe in.
6) Talk to people more. Read more long content and less tweets. Watch less TV. Spend less time on the Internet.
7) Don’t waste time. Most people waste most of their time, especially in business.
8) Don’t let yourself get pushed around. As Paul Graham once said to me, “People can become formidable, but it’s hard to predict who”. (There is a big difference between confident and arrogant. Aim for the former, obviously.)
9) Have clear goals for yourself every day, every year, and every decade.
10) However, as valuable as planning is, if a great opportunity comes along you should take it. Don’t be afraid to do something slightly reckless. One of the benefits of working hard is that good opportunities will come along, but it’s still up to you to jump on them when they do.
11) Go out of your way to be around smart, interesting, ambitious people. Work for them and hire them (in fact, one of the most satisfying parts of work is forging deep relationships with really good people). Try to spend time with people who are either among the best in the world at what they do or extremely promising but totally unknown. It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
12) Minimize your own cognitive load from distracting things that don’t really matter. It’s hard to overstate how important this is, and how bad most people are at it. Get rid of distractions in your life. Develop very strong ways to avoid letting crap you don’t like doing pile up and take your mental cycles, especially in your work life.
2) Life is not a dress rehearsal—this is probably it. Make it count. Time is extremely limited and goes by fast. Do what makes you happy and fulfilled—few people get remembered hundreds of years after they die anyway. Don’t do stuff that doesn’t make you happy (this happens most often when other people want you to do something). Don’t spend time trying to maintain relationships with people you don’t like, and cut negative people out of your life. Negativity is really bad. Don’t let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do.
3) How to succeed: pick the right thing to do (this is critical and usually ignored), focus, believe in yourself (especially when others tell you it’s not going to work), develop personal connections with people that will help you, learn to identify talented people, and work hard. It’s hard to identify what to work on because original thought is hard.
4) On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work. Work very hard—a surprising number of people will be offended that you choose to work hard—but not so hard that the rest of your life passes you by. Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you’ll probably end up in a pretty good place. Figure out your own productivity system—don’t waste time being unorganized, working at suboptimal times, etc. Don’t be afraid to take some career risks, especially early on. Most people pick their career fairly randomly—really think hard about what you like, what fields are going to be successful, and try to talk to people in those fields.
5) On money: Whether or not money can buy happiness, it can buy freedom, and that’s a big deal. Also, lack of money is very stressful. In almost all ways, having enough money so that you don’t stress about paying rent does more to change your wellbeing than having enough money to buy your own jet. Making money is often more fun than spending it, though I personally have never regretted money I’ve spent on friends, new experiences, saving time, travel, and causes I believe in.
6) Talk to people more. Read more long content and less tweets. Watch less TV. Spend less time on the Internet.
7) Don’t waste time. Most people waste most of their time, especially in business.
8) Don’t let yourself get pushed around. As Paul Graham once said to me, “People can become formidable, but it’s hard to predict who”. (There is a big difference between confident and arrogant. Aim for the former, obviously.)
9) Have clear goals for yourself every day, every year, and every decade.
10) However, as valuable as planning is, if a great opportunity comes along you should take it. Don’t be afraid to do something slightly reckless. One of the benefits of working hard is that good opportunities will come along, but it’s still up to you to jump on them when they do.
11) Go out of your way to be around smart, interesting, ambitious people. Work for them and hire them (in fact, one of the most satisfying parts of work is forging deep relationships with really good people). Try to spend time with people who are either among the best in the world at what they do or extremely promising but totally unknown. It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.
12) Minimize your own cognitive load from distracting things that don’t really matter. It’s hard to overstate how important this is, and how bad most people are at it. Get rid of distractions in your life. Develop very strong ways to avoid letting crap you don’t like doing pile up and take your mental cycles, especially in your work life.
❤1
13) Keep your personal burn rate low. This alone will give you a lot of opportunities in life.
14) Summers are the best.
15) Don’t worry so much. Things in life are rarely as risky as they seem. Most people are too risk-averse, and so most advice is biased too much towards conservative paths.
16) Ask for what you want.
17) If you think you’re going to regret not doing something, you should probably do it. Regret is the worst, and most people regret far more things they didn’t do than things they did do. When in doubt, kiss the boy/girl.
18) Exercise. Eat well. Sleep. Get out into nature with some regularity.
19) Go out of your way to help people. Few things in life are as satisfying. Be nice to strangers. Be nice even when it doesn’t matter.
20) Youth is a really great thing. Don’t waste it. In fact, in your 20s, I think it’s ok to take a “Give me financial discipline, but not just yet” attitude. All the money in the world will never get back time that passed you by.
21) Tell your parents you love them more often. Go home and visit as often as you can.
22) This too shall pass.
23) Learn voraciously.
24) Do new things often. This seems to be really important. Not only does doing new things seem to slow down the perception of time, increase happiness, and keep life interesting, but it seems to prevent people from calcifying in the ways that they think. Aim to do something big, new, and risky every year in your personal and professional life.
25) Remember how intensely you loved your boyfriend/girlfriend when you were a teenager? Love him/her that intensely now. Remember how excited and happy you got about stuff as a kid? Get that excited and happy now.
26) Don’t screw people and don’t burn bridges. Pick your battles carefully.
27) Forgive people.
28) Don’t chase status. Status without substance doesn’t work for long and is unfulfilling.
29) Most things are ok in moderation. Almost nothing is ok in extreme amounts.
30) Existential angst is part of life. It is particularly noticeable around major life events or just after major career milestones. It seems to particularly affect smart, ambitious people. I think one of the reasons some people work so hard is so they don’t have to spend too much time thinking about this. Nothing is wrong with you for feeling this way; you are not alone.
31) Be grateful and keep problems in perspective. Don’t complain too much. Don’t hate other people’s success (but remember that some people will hate your success, and you have to learn to ignore it).
32) Be a doer, not a talker.
33) Given enough time, it is possible to adjust to almost anything, good or bad. Humans are remarkable at this.
34) Think for a few seconds before you act. Think for a few minutes if you’re angry.
35) Don’t judge other people too quickly. You never know their whole story and why they did or didn’t do something. Be empathetic.
36) The days are long but the decades are short. (source: Sam Altman)
14) Summers are the best.
15) Don’t worry so much. Things in life are rarely as risky as they seem. Most people are too risk-averse, and so most advice is biased too much towards conservative paths.
16) Ask for what you want.
17) If you think you’re going to regret not doing something, you should probably do it. Regret is the worst, and most people regret far more things they didn’t do than things they did do. When in doubt, kiss the boy/girl.
18) Exercise. Eat well. Sleep. Get out into nature with some regularity.
19) Go out of your way to help people. Few things in life are as satisfying. Be nice to strangers. Be nice even when it doesn’t matter.
20) Youth is a really great thing. Don’t waste it. In fact, in your 20s, I think it’s ok to take a “Give me financial discipline, but not just yet” attitude. All the money in the world will never get back time that passed you by.
21) Tell your parents you love them more often. Go home and visit as often as you can.
22) This too shall pass.
23) Learn voraciously.
24) Do new things often. This seems to be really important. Not only does doing new things seem to slow down the perception of time, increase happiness, and keep life interesting, but it seems to prevent people from calcifying in the ways that they think. Aim to do something big, new, and risky every year in your personal and professional life.
25) Remember how intensely you loved your boyfriend/girlfriend when you were a teenager? Love him/her that intensely now. Remember how excited and happy you got about stuff as a kid? Get that excited and happy now.
26) Don’t screw people and don’t burn bridges. Pick your battles carefully.
27) Forgive people.
28) Don’t chase status. Status without substance doesn’t work for long and is unfulfilling.
29) Most things are ok in moderation. Almost nothing is ok in extreme amounts.
30) Existential angst is part of life. It is particularly noticeable around major life events or just after major career milestones. It seems to particularly affect smart, ambitious people. I think one of the reasons some people work so hard is so they don’t have to spend too much time thinking about this. Nothing is wrong with you for feeling this way; you are not alone.
31) Be grateful and keep problems in perspective. Don’t complain too much. Don’t hate other people’s success (but remember that some people will hate your success, and you have to learn to ignore it).
32) Be a doer, not a talker.
33) Given enough time, it is possible to adjust to almost anything, good or bad. Humans are remarkable at this.
34) Think for a few seconds before you act. Think for a few minutes if you’re angry.
35) Don’t judge other people too quickly. You never know their whole story and why they did or didn’t do something. Be empathetic.
36) The days are long but the decades are short. (source: Sam Altman)
In social theory, framing is a schema of interpretation that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. It suggests that how something is presented to the audience (called “the frame”) influences the choices people make about how to process it. Framing has emerged over the last half century from linguistics, political science, sociology, and psychology.
Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner.
Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner.
Question what you frame, Question how you frame it, but importantly, Question what isn’t being framed.
In 1997, at the age of 27, Matt Damon won his first Academy Award for Best Screenplay ("Good Will Hunting").
After Damon won the Oscar, he went home, sat down on his sofa, & looked at the award.
As he looked at it, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a heartbreaking thought.
"Imagine chasing that, and not getting it, and getting it finally in your 80s or your 90s with all of life behind you and realizing what an unbelievable waste of your life...It can't fill you up. If that's a hole that you have, that won't fill it."
"My heart broke," Damon said. "I imagined another one of me [not getting that award until I was] an old man, and going like, 'oh my god. where did my life go? What have I done?' And then it's over."
Takeaway 1:
Many successful, rich, famous, etc. people talk about chasing success, money, fame, etc., getting it, and realizing that it didn't feel like they thought it would. That it didn't, as Damon said, fill the hole they had.
One of my favorite analogies for this pattern comes from Sam Hinkie.
Hinkie was asked about what he's learned from reading Robert Caro's books—about some very successful, rich, famous, etc. people.
"I think of it like the Pacific Salmon," Hinkie said. "They spend their whole life making this journey upstream to spawn in this one spot. And as soon as they do, they die. That's largely what Caro shows you."
Takeaway 2:
Before he was a big-time comedian, Hasan Minhaj was asked if he thought he was going to become a big-time comedian.
“I don’t like that question,” he said. “I fundamentally don’t like that question.”
Because that question implies that he is only doing comedy as a means to some end (success, money, fame, etc.).
“No, no, no,” he said, “The set I get to do tonight at 7:20 PM is the win. I get to do comedy—I won. It being predicated on doing X or being bigger than Y—no, no, no. To me, it’s always just been about the work."
"The work is the win," as Ryan Holiday once told me.
- - -
"It's such a gift to be able to [do] something and to love it for the sake of it...I see people with talent, with all those things. But the one thing they don't have is just that love for doing it for the sake of it...So if there's anything, just find joy in what you do for the sake of it." — Rodney Mullen / via Billy Oppenheimer
After Damon won the Oscar, he went home, sat down on his sofa, & looked at the award.
As he looked at it, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a heartbreaking thought.
"Imagine chasing that, and not getting it, and getting it finally in your 80s or your 90s with all of life behind you and realizing what an unbelievable waste of your life...It can't fill you up. If that's a hole that you have, that won't fill it."
"My heart broke," Damon said. "I imagined another one of me [not getting that award until I was] an old man, and going like, 'oh my god. where did my life go? What have I done?' And then it's over."
Takeaway 1:
Many successful, rich, famous, etc. people talk about chasing success, money, fame, etc., getting it, and realizing that it didn't feel like they thought it would. That it didn't, as Damon said, fill the hole they had.
One of my favorite analogies for this pattern comes from Sam Hinkie.
Hinkie was asked about what he's learned from reading Robert Caro's books—about some very successful, rich, famous, etc. people.
"I think of it like the Pacific Salmon," Hinkie said. "They spend their whole life making this journey upstream to spawn in this one spot. And as soon as they do, they die. That's largely what Caro shows you."
Takeaway 2:
Before he was a big-time comedian, Hasan Minhaj was asked if he thought he was going to become a big-time comedian.
“I don’t like that question,” he said. “I fundamentally don’t like that question.”
Because that question implies that he is only doing comedy as a means to some end (success, money, fame, etc.).
“No, no, no,” he said, “The set I get to do tonight at 7:20 PM is the win. I get to do comedy—I won. It being predicated on doing X or being bigger than Y—no, no, no. To me, it’s always just been about the work."
"The work is the win," as Ryan Holiday once told me.
- - -
"It's such a gift to be able to [do] something and to love it for the sake of it...I see people with talent, with all those things. But the one thing they don't have is just that love for doing it for the sake of it...So if there's anything, just find joy in what you do for the sake of it." — Rodney Mullen / via Billy Oppenheimer
How Erik helped Gokul in Framing:
How to present
In 2006, I helped Eric Schmidt create a deck outlining Google’s strategy, for a presentation Eric was delivering to the company. It taught me a profound lesson on how to present.
When I showed up to my first meeting with Eric, he asked me to visit with every product team at Google, chat with them to figure out what they were working on, and then summarize it on one slide (for each team).
Easy enough, I thought. I would use 3-5 bullet points per slide. Piece of cake. I started mentally mapping things out and got ready to leave.
“But”, Eric said, “I want no words on any slide”.
My well-laid plans disintegrated in an instant. How was I supposed to convey the key messages from each team, without WORDS?
Eric must have seen the panic on my face, and kindly gave me a hint. “Put the text in speaker notes”.
“But what goes on the slides, Eric?” I continued panicking.
That classic, gentle “Eric smile” fluttered on his face. “Why, images, of course!”
“You mean, you want each slide to just be comprised of images?”
“You got it. And use the title wisely. 7-8 words max. Let’s meet in a week to review progress.”
As I left the meeting, little was I to know that this conversation would fundamentally change my view on how to deliver effective presentations.
17 years later, I still cling tightly to the following principles:
1. The larger the audience, the fewer the words on the slide. In Eric’s case, the audience was thousands of employees, so we had 0 words per slide.
2. The title does most of the heavy lifting, which means it cannot be passive. It must be action oriented. Eg: not “Subscriber retention” but “Subscribers continue to be retained strongly” or even better “Net revenue retention continues to be > 100%”.
3. Use memorable images that substantiate and give credence to the words of the title. This image is what will occupy most of the slide area, so you need to spend much of your time thinking about what picture will best get the point (made by the title) across. In some cases, it might be a customer image or logo. in other cases, a graph. In yet other cases, it could be something else entirely. For the Google presentation, one of the images that gave me the most trouble was a slide on Google Search Appliance and other Enterprise products. The title stated that these products were increasingly being used by larger customers. The team didn’t want to share customer logos broadly since some were confidential, so logos were not an option. I decided to go with a trend line on the % of searches from enterprise customers, but the person who was supposed to pull this data for me, flaked at the last minute and I had to scramble. I ended up scrambling to create a mosaic of a bunch of consumer product logos with some kind of icon that denoted large enterprises. Not my finest moment but it got the point across.
4. Use speaker notes. Like Eric said, speaker notes should contain most of the details. It puts a lot of burden on the speaker since they cannot just read off the slides. But this doesn’t deter good speakers, since they prepare dozens of times, and then again.
So there you have it: my 4 principles for delivering compelling presentations to live audiences.
(CAVEAT: If the presentation has to be emailed to an audience who will consume it asynchronously, that’s completely different and has different rules).
How did the 2006 Google strategy presentation turn out, you ask? It went quite well, and later I got a nice thank you note from Eric. I didn’t realize at the time that I should have been the one thanking him for the once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity.
How to present
In 2006, I helped Eric Schmidt create a deck outlining Google’s strategy, for a presentation Eric was delivering to the company. It taught me a profound lesson on how to present.
When I showed up to my first meeting with Eric, he asked me to visit with every product team at Google, chat with them to figure out what they were working on, and then summarize it on one slide (for each team).
Easy enough, I thought. I would use 3-5 bullet points per slide. Piece of cake. I started mentally mapping things out and got ready to leave.
“But”, Eric said, “I want no words on any slide”.
My well-laid plans disintegrated in an instant. How was I supposed to convey the key messages from each team, without WORDS?
Eric must have seen the panic on my face, and kindly gave me a hint. “Put the text in speaker notes”.
“But what goes on the slides, Eric?” I continued panicking.
That classic, gentle “Eric smile” fluttered on his face. “Why, images, of course!”
“You mean, you want each slide to just be comprised of images?”
“You got it. And use the title wisely. 7-8 words max. Let’s meet in a week to review progress.”
As I left the meeting, little was I to know that this conversation would fundamentally change my view on how to deliver effective presentations.
17 years later, I still cling tightly to the following principles:
1. The larger the audience, the fewer the words on the slide. In Eric’s case, the audience was thousands of employees, so we had 0 words per slide.
2. The title does most of the heavy lifting, which means it cannot be passive. It must be action oriented. Eg: not “Subscriber retention” but “Subscribers continue to be retained strongly” or even better “Net revenue retention continues to be > 100%”.
3. Use memorable images that substantiate and give credence to the words of the title. This image is what will occupy most of the slide area, so you need to spend much of your time thinking about what picture will best get the point (made by the title) across. In some cases, it might be a customer image or logo. in other cases, a graph. In yet other cases, it could be something else entirely. For the Google presentation, one of the images that gave me the most trouble was a slide on Google Search Appliance and other Enterprise products. The title stated that these products were increasingly being used by larger customers. The team didn’t want to share customer logos broadly since some were confidential, so logos were not an option. I decided to go with a trend line on the % of searches from enterprise customers, but the person who was supposed to pull this data for me, flaked at the last minute and I had to scramble. I ended up scrambling to create a mosaic of a bunch of consumer product logos with some kind of icon that denoted large enterprises. Not my finest moment but it got the point across.
4. Use speaker notes. Like Eric said, speaker notes should contain most of the details. It puts a lot of burden on the speaker since they cannot just read off the slides. But this doesn’t deter good speakers, since they prepare dozens of times, and then again.
So there you have it: my 4 principles for delivering compelling presentations to live audiences.
(CAVEAT: If the presentation has to be emailed to an audience who will consume it asynchronously, that’s completely different and has different rules).
How did the 2006 Google strategy presentation turn out, you ask? It went quite well, and later I got a nice thank you note from Eric. I didn’t realize at the time that I should have been the one thanking him for the once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity.