Just Thoughts #5: Gratitude
This week is short and sweet.
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I didn’t realize until this week that the Microsoft AI tool was named Co-pilot. I haven’t been using the term because of it, though. Again,
wrote about how much happened in a week. I barely had time to skim this week’s Not Boring content. I will wake up one day and realize AI is here when the FedEx delivery person is an OpenAI-operated Tesla robot called “DeliverMee”.This week’s Highlights:
Teamspective, I’ve talked about raising a 900k pre-seed round after fully bootstrapping. An engagement survey combined with passive and active network analysis and accounting for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging is a killer. Add a non-violent communication analysis on your public channel, and you finally have a ridiculously effective tool. It is so effective that the ones that need it the most will likely fear using it. I’ll refrain from diving into the tool use as you will want the entire toolbox when I get to this topic.
Gratitude
It was a hectic week. I had no time to write, but this week was very reflective. I’ve publicly discussed my hardships in life, giving an interview to the Human Aspect Linked in Just Thoughts #1. When I got divorced, there was a time shortly after my father gave me some advice. He took a winding bundle through it on the table and pulled the ends. While doing it, he said, “Niki, this is your life; sort it out”. That is pretty humbling advice.
To get a sense of the man he is and the quality of his advice, he loved walking around with a t-shirt, “F*ck Google Ask Me”. Always have a better opinion than any opinion you’d find online. Ironically, I haven’t seen him wear it since Google acquired the company he works for, essentially becoming a Google employee.
There have been times when I’ve wanted to light that pile of serpentine to remove the problem, and other times, I’ve approached it by painstakingly trying to untangle it without breaking a thread. This week, I looked at a pile of serpentine on the table left after my daughter's 4th birthday celebration in a week (as you divorced, you celebrate with each unit separately; the kid has their friend’s party, and kinder garden in Finland usually celebrate each kid) and thought “That is one beautiful pile, it never needed any sorting.”
Yeah, Gratitude is one of the most powerful human emotions. This reminded me that sometimes, doing nothing is exactly what you’re supposed to do.
Less is More
The Playlist Habit
I’m an avid Spotify user. ← Here's my profile link. On average, I likely listen to more music than most. I’m not a very good thinker in silence. There is one habit I picked up from Jenny Gyllander, founder and CEO of Thingtesting and also Slush’s first CMO. I have no clue if she still has this habit, but I make a playlist for every season of the year, adding the most played tracks for those three months.
When I pick up a list and listen to the songs, I can go back in time, remembering moments when I played any song. For me, words have meaning. However, I must remind myself that every song has a relatable truth but is never the truth of your reality.
That’s all I have to say this week. This week, less is more.
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