Two playdates in a row this week.

A progress from a few months. 

I asked if she had friends in school.

"I don't have any."

"Why?" 

"Because they don't want to play with me."

"How long is this going on?"

"Couple of days now after the spring break."

"Why do you think is happening?"

"I don't know. They want to play with other kids not, with me."

A wants to play with E. 

Al wants to play with Av.

"E, Av, and A are all nice to me but sometimes, they play with each other."

"So what do you do when you're not playing with anyone during recess."

"I just walk around." 


There must be one, or two, or three.

Sometimes, no takers but in generally, there must be one. 

If you want a playmate, play with older kids, younger kids, play with boys, play with a teacher, a class monitor or an intern, play with a board game or a toy that you can play alone.

Find something that will keep you occupied and interested. 

I didn't grow up with a lot of friends in school and in the neighborhood, but I tried to busy myself with play stuff I can do around the house and in our yard. Plus I have a sister and a younger brother just in case I find playing alone boring. 

I caught butterflies and dragonflies, severed their wings and release them with glee. I  destroyed  little plants that fold when touched and caught  insects and kept them inside a matchsticks box or hid them in a small empty bottle. I painted my nails purple from the nectar of the purple plants and I tried to climb an aratiles tree and take the biggest, juiciest red fruit as snack. The rest was sold by my grandfather in the market for 10 pesos. 

I shoot birds with a make-shift sling from a skinned shortened bark of a tree with a big rubber-band tied to each side and a small pebble as an ammo. I saw this from my older brother and his friends with big wooden slings shooting birds all over the place. And I thought, "why do they get to do all the fun stuff?"

Who needs a playmate if you can conjure some adventures without rules? 

You can quit anytime you want and there'll be no disputes for sure.

You get bruises and wounds and nobody to blame for.

Two playdates in a row this week but in no-friends-day, find your thing.

I learned a few good things from my MBA.

Being critical is not criticality.

I checked Google immediately because my papers were being judged on criticality, not that they're critical or not.

Criticality is having an identified science behind any assertions, assumptions, and contentions. 

This means that you have to be reading tons of papers and academic articles to bolster your evidence-based analysis, create comparisons based on a wide-ranging studies previously upheld, and triangulate findings. 

One Substack writer has gotten more critical with his posts lately. He was funny as I read him but after 5-6 anti-Trump posts on anything he'd said/done/supported or whispered in his dreams, it's getting to be boring.

Critical yes, criticality no.

It's easy to be critical, but what we need more in this world and in our work, is more criticality.

Do you have doubts about the decision you just made? 

You can use a pre-mortem to surface hidden assumptions, concerns, and objections to the any decision-making.

Imagine the project failed. Discuss this with your group: What led to the failure? Specify the factors and bring out the hidden assumptions behind the decision. 

Try to be as exact in identifying the root cause.

Misalignment.
Lack of resources.
Overconfidence in the projections re: market response.
Product weaknesses
Lack of proper marketing.

This will eliminate groupthink, reliance on one paradigm, confirmation bias, and even the halo effect. 

People in the room will become more open to other perspectives and will try to rethink the decision based on these "reasons for failing."

They will also be open to diverse voices, review the figures they've based previously, and call on other external experts to help them out. 

With the help of a skilled facilitator, it can open up a can of worms or take hold of missed opportunities in the decision-making. 

Either a pre-mortem analysis will avoid some of these mistakes in business, finance, and life decisions.

The post-mortem is after-the-fact, which is hindsight working for you.

The pre-mortem is before-the-fact, which for me is the first step to risk mitigation and avoiding massive losses that's preventable.

Choose pre-mortem so your post-mortem is not that bad.